Light on a hill

Mike Richeson/Bigfork Eagle Cars hurry over the Flathead River on Highway 82 late at night. Above stands the 112-foot cross that Eddy Otteson built nearly 35 years ago. Although the monument has been burned to the ground and vandalized in the past, Otteson's work has long stood for thousands to see every day.

High above the fairways and extravagance of Eagle Bend, above the rushing cars on Highway 83, stands a monument of one man's faith.

For 35 years, a 112-foot high cross has stood as a west-facing sentinel, in what its builder, Eddy (or Eddie or Ed) Ottosen, hopes to be a reminder of "the most essential and important thing about life."

"People forget. They need reminders every now and then," Ottosen said, harkening back to the Old Testament practice of placing constant reminders of God's provision. "Seems more and more that man has so many diversions and distractions that he doesn't even think about it."

The giant cross has become a familiar landmark within the Flathead Valley, as it is visible for many miles. Pilots of small aircraft use it as a point of reference at night, when two spotlights illuminate the symbol.

Flight attendants in passenger jets will often point it out to travelers making their descent or liftoff from Glacier International Airport.

As for Ottosen, he's received letters from people around Montana and around the United States about the cross. One woman sent him a letter and addressed it "to the person who lives under the big cross, Bigfork, MT."

Needless to say, the post office knew where to send the mail.

Ottosen said he has heard other stories about the effects of his work. A woman across the lake had began drinking heavily after her husband died, but night after night of staring at the bright cross during the dark hours caused her to turn her life around.

"I'm not really out among people much," Ottosen said. "I don't really know of all the effects."

Having just turned 60, Ottosen is a self-described recluse in his cabin just a stone's through from the base of the cross. In typical fashion - for him, anyway - he built his home on the four-acre plot that runs up and down rocky, wooded land on the hillside.

Well, he actually rebuilt the cabin in a way.

The cabin was first built as a homestead around 1915 and was located in the Swan Range. The cabin had stood empty for years, and he won it through a government bid. He took the cabin apart, piece by piece, and numbered the logs. He then transported it to its current site and put it all back together.

The wood on the inside has been refinished and has a rich, well-worn look. Pictures and rustic tools that perfectly fit the cabin hang on the walls. Next to a small chair is a stack of Astronomy magazines and an entire wall dedicated to his large collection of books.

From Luther's writings on the book of Romans to the philosophies of Plato, the wall resembles a Ph.D's library in religious studies.

When Ottosen isn't working outside - splitting wood, taking care of his property or enjoying the wildlife - he spends a lot of time inside reading. He has no phone or television, just his rows of books and Sabrina, a 9-year-old Welsh Corgi his family gave him for his birthday last year.

For a man who loves birds and critters, Ottosen isn't short of company. Birdhouses dot the trees surrounding his home, but they are built to blend in with the forest, and you have to look for them to really see them. Squirrels frequent his back deck where he has a feeder set up.

Of course, squirrels aren't the only animals that like a free meal.

This spring, a black bear and her cub discovered the feed, and Ottosen got to watch as the little cub would tip over the feeder and take his breakfast on his porch.

"He sure was a cute little guy," Ottosen said.

The adult bear also gave him a scare or two as she tried to make a den out of his crawl space.

Although Ottosen only travels into town once every few weeks for groceries, he is forever tied to his famous landmark in his backyard - the kind, mysterious face behind something thousands of people see every day.

Ottosen's first attempt at building a cross was much more modest. Around 1963, when he was 17, his family lived along the Flathead River, just below his current home, and he found a large railroad tie floating in the water. He took his find and built a cross about 10 feet tall and placed it on the hill farther up from where the current cross sits.

"We were always raised to be God-loving," Ottosen said. "I was wanting some way to share it for people to think about and remember. I got to thinking after I built the small one if I could build a larger one."

And build he did. This time, the cross would stand 56 feet tall with a 32-foot cross beam. Ottosen built the cross by facing the front of a large tree and then laying plywood up its length. He had to build the cross beam on his father's roof because it was the only flat surface big enough. He completed the second cross in 1967.

But his work was short-lived. Just a year and a half later, on the Fourth of July, vandals climbed up the hill, poured gasoline around the cross and burned it to the ground. They also smashed the spotlight. Ottosen had been in Columbia Falls, but when he arrived home, the cross was still burning. He grabbed a fire extinguisher from his parent's house and ran up the hill.

Through the heat and burning embers falling on him, he tried in vain to save his work. The fire department had arrived earlier, but there was no way for them to get a fire truck up the rocky hill. Instead, the fireman monitored the area to make sure nothing else caught fire.

Eventually, Ottosen found out who perpetrated the crime, but he never tried to press charges. Rather, he wrote to one of the young men imploring him to change his life and turn to God.

"I used to give rides to hitchhikers, and one of them told me that he knew the guys that did it," Ottosen said.

The fire destroyed his cross, but not his desire to have his symbol standing on the hillside for all to see. Again he raised a cross, this one 112 feet tall with a 68-foot cross beam.

For three years, he and his brothers, along with a few sporadic volunteers, welded 700-pound sections of 8-inch pipe together. Using just a hand winch and engineering brilliance by his brother, Don, they managed to build the enormous structure.

The pipes were then covered with sections of plywood facing west with the words, "Christ died for you, will you live for him?" painted in red.

With the new cross, the vandalism didn't stop. Ottosen's work used to shine much brighter at night because he lined the cross with fluorescent light bulbs. But weather and people with guns made the upkeep expensive. One day, he and his young nephew had to dodge bullets from someone shooting from the highway.

Standing at its base, the cross seems to rise out of view into the sky. Now encased in metal - the woodpeckers were destroying the wood - the base is four feet wide and two feet deep and is embedded in seven feet of bedrock and concrete.

Wrapping the wood and pipe in metal was an often dangerous task, especially without the necessary equipment. The wind would blow the sheets of metal around, threatening anyone nearby. One afternoon, a storm blew in so hard that it ripped his glasses off his face.

"The last I saw them, they were blowing away over the trees," he said.

Ottosen often used a rigged system of ladders and planks to work on the cross, and had more than one close call while on the job. While trying to paint the oversized letters while hanging from a rope, he lost his grip and quickly began a 100-foot slide. A construction accident when he was 16 left him missing his pinky and ring fingers on his left hand, and he couldn't keep an adequate grip on the rope.

"I ended up landing on the word "Him" near the bottom," Ottosen said.

But the next day, he was back up there, painting the cross. Only this time, he had his sister cranking the trusty hand winch to lower him.

And now, with the cross protected from the elements and the mischief of most vandals, he may not have to build another. He just has to perform some minor maintenance. The concrete slab at the base is crumbling a bit. The words "He is risen," which are carved into the concrete are worn and weather-stained. A few of the half-inch steel cables that help support the structure will need to be replaced some day, and he still has to pay the electric bill, but every Easter churches around the valley take up a collection to help Ottosen pay for his beacon in the night.

"It's just a symbol that we need to look past the distractions and see the true cross," he said. "I guess there's always the kind of danger because it's easy for people to start venerating the thing instead of seeing beyond it.

"Still, we need the reminders."