This Aug. 7, 2011 photo shows old tools and antlers on display at Polebridge Mercantile, the general store in Polebridge, Mont., a mile from the northwestern entrance to Glacier National Park. The Polebridge Mercantile, known for its bakery goods made daily, is where park visitors go to pick up food and other supplies for their trips into the parks North Fork. (AP Photo/Ron Zellar) (Ron Zellar)

POLEBRIDGE, Mont. - The Blackfeet Tribe named the greater Glacier National Park ecosystem "the backbone of the world." Use the park's remote northwestern entrance and the bumpy access road will have you feeling like you drove over each vertebra.

But you'll be grateful you made the trip.

For an out-of-the-mainstream take on the country's 10th national park, go to its northwestern expanse, the North Fork. It invites "a more self-reliant visitor," the National Park Service says in its Glacier literature.

The North Fork doesn't have the grand old lodges like those near Glacier's principal gateways, but this piece of paradise isn't without comforts.

Rustic, tasty and memorable, they are in Polebridge, a mile from the park's northwestern entrance. This off-the-grid community increasingly reliant on solar power is the hub for an area where the summer population numbers maybe a few hundred, up from five to 10 in the winter.

Get a cabin, stay in a hostel or overnight in a teepee. At the Northern Lights Saloon, bite into burgers - choose beef or elk - or try specials such as trout with dill sauce. Next door at the Polebridge Mercantile, bakers daily turn out bread, cookies, brownies and cinnamon rolls that would draw customers anywhere, but seem doubly delicious in an outpost like this.

People find their way to the North Fork for hikes in the spectacular wilds of the Northern Rockies, to recreate on water and to camp.

"Glacier park is world- renowned as a wilderness park, and the wildest part of Glacier is the North Fork," says Will Hammerquist, Glacier program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association. "You can feel the wilderness around you. That's a big part of why people go there."

Camping in the backcountry requires permits from the National Park Service. The places for car camping are next to alpine lakes. Guides take rafters through the relatively mild rapids of the North Fork of the Flathead River, and the hiking trails cross miles of rugged land. Like trails elsewhere in Glacier, they are in grizzly bear habitat. The Park Service's recommended precautions include not hiking alone.

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Travel: North Fork offers wilder side of Glacier Park