Howlers Inn Proprietors Describe Initial Encounters BY DAVID S. LEWIS She was the first family member to set foot in the wolf enclosure, Aurelie Burns told the Pioneer. The outgoing owner of the sanctuary, Mary Martha Bahn, told Aurelie to remove her dangling earrings before getting close to the wolves—because they could catch their paws on them. Did that worry you, I … [Read more...]
The Pursuit of Happiness in Ennis, Montana
BY DAVID S. LEWIS The Fourth of July should be reaffirmed as our nation’s quintessential holiday. The date itself has a ring to it. Few others resonate with such meaning. Saying it aloud—the intonation brings a tide of images, writings, battles, heroes and acts of courage. Men of insight, men in granite, as Van Morrison put it. Swells of the tide rolling from our first … [Read more...]
Antique Roadshow Star Appraises Montana
Celebrity Appraiser Tim Gordon Values Big Sky Artifacts BY MARIA WYLLIE 06/09/17 An old hat, a piece of broken stained glass, a wobbly chair. Upon first glance, all these items appear worn and useless. One might even mistake them for junk. After all, these are all just things—and things that may not provide much practical use in today's world. Your kids wonder why … [Read more...]
The Road to Koko Bongo’s
The Ghost of Old Mexico Haunts the Modern World BY DAVID S. LEWIS On a park bench in San Pancho, Mexico, a beach town one hour north of Puerto Vallarta, an old woman sat stoically in a square she had probably visited all her life. We’ve seen this, an elderly person sitting quietly in a park, at peace in the autumn of life. But this woman, seemingly at peace, with poise and … [Read more...]
Optimism About Yellowstone River Fly Fishing
River Closure Messaging Masked Reality: Trout Are Many and Healthy BY JOSHUA ROBERSON 04/09/17 Last August 19, Governor Steve Bullock closed 183 miles of the Yellowstone River—from Yellowstone National Park's northern boundary at Gardiner to the Highway 212 bridge in Laurel. The reason for this emergency action: an invasive fish-killing parasite called PKX … [Read more...]
It’s Long Past Time to Delist Yellowstone’s Grizzlies
Wildlife Officials Say the Time Is Overdue to Remove Yellowstone Area Grizzlies From the Threatened Species List BY TOM DICKSON 03/06/17 During a late August morning last summer, Kevin Frey drives up Paradise Valley on U.S. Highway 89 toward Yellowstone National Park. Pointing toward mountains surrounding the valley's fields of grazing cattle, irrigated alfalfa, and … [Read more...]
Weather Marches Onward in This Land of Extremes
RICK & SUSIE GRAETZ While the month of March figures officially as winter in Montana, even as hints of spring linger in the air, the coldest weather of the season has come and gone. And it's worth pointing out that the national record for cold in the lower 48 states—70 degrees below zero—was documented right here in Montana at 2:00 a.m., Jan. 20, 1954, on the west side … [Read more...]
Aerial Cameramen Capture Yellowstone, Montana, Wyoming and Idaho
Capturing the Big Sky From High Above BY MARIA WYLLIE Imagine hovering above Yellowstone National Park, and the world's natural treasures in the most remote areas, where humans rarely travel. Like a bird of prey circling its quarry, you look down upon the landscape, see how it all fits together—from on high, yet close enough to the ground to take in the … [Read more...]
Yellowstone Trout Are Thriving
News Reports Terribly Misleading BY DAVID S. LEWIS 09/09/16 News about the Yellowstone River recently has been bad, and terribly misleading, after Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks closed an unusually long stretch to fishing and recreation on August 19. The Associated Press has led stories with phrasings leading readers to believe that trout in the river have been … [Read more...]
The Honor of a Cheyenne Chief
“After I Got to Montana, My Sympathies Was With the Indians” BY TEDDY BLUE ABBOTT It was just about the time of the big chinook that came in March 1884, and a few snowdrifts still showed up, when a Cheyenne named Black Wolf and his immediate family of seven lodges came over from Tongue River to the Rosebud on a visit to the other Indians. They camped at the mouth of lame … [Read more...]
The Smith Brothers Film in Livingston
Filmmaking Twins Strive to Capture Authentic Montana BY BRIAN D’AMBROSIO 02/06/16 Grandiose mountains, rolling plains covered with fields of wheat and barley, the romantic mystique of the West—these images are what people envision when thinking of Montana. Few people immediately think of the hardship of winter, isolation, or cold variables understood only through the … [Read more...]
Charlie Russell and the Heroic Cheyenne
Also, Granville Stuart’s Desirable Daughters, and Teddy’s Infatuation With a Dusky Maiden BY TEDDY BLUE ABBOTT When I was with the N Bar there was a fellow working for their Powder River outfit by the name of John Green. He was from Texas like the rest of them, but he had been everywhere and seen everything, to hear him tell it. One morning at the ranch house they brought … [Read more...]
The Other Yellowstone
Up in the Missouri River Territory, This Is How She Rolls BY RICK & SUSIE GRAETZ Rolling along for nearly 335 miles in Montana's Missouri River Country, the Missouri River takes top billing, but the Yellowstone River is far more than a bit player. The 670-mile long waterway's claim to fame is that it remains the nation's longest undammed river. While it only logs 50 … [Read more...]
Missing in the Crazies
The Mysterious Disappearance of Aaron Hedges BY PETER J. RYAN 10/03/15 The rugged and unforgiving Crazy Mountains have always held their share of secrets. Take the name, for instance. According to the most popular legend - and the one that is perhaps least politically correct—the mountains were anointed in memory of a woman whose family of homesteaders were … [Read more...]
Looting at Fort Ellis
Who’s Accountable for Protecting Historic Artifacts? BY PAT HILL 01/08/16 Livingston, Montana-based archaeologist Larry Lahren first heard about the looting at Fort Ellis in December, during morning coffee with some of his colleagues. The activity reportedly came to a head in October, and Lahren wondered what had been done in the wake of the illegal digging on this state … [Read more...]
Gold Mining Proposed Near Yellowstone
BY PAT HILL 01/08/16 Another proposal to explore for gold in Park County has surfaced, this time near Jardine, Montana, not far from Gardiner. It’s even closer to Yellowstone Park than the proposed Emigrant Peak gold exploration that was scaled back by Lucky Minerals late last year after widespread public comment against the plan. The Crevice Mining Group, headed up by … [Read more...]
Governor Bullock OK With Montana Taking Syrian Refugees
But a Governor Can’t Make That Call BY BOB BROWN 12/15/15 Governor Steve Bullock says he will look favorably on Middle Eastern refugees settling in Montana unless there are concerns about them posing a threat to our safety. Other Governors have also made their opinions known regarding Middle Eastern refugees in their states. The reality, though, is that state Governors … [Read more...]
Indians, Vigilantes, and Buffalo Women
Recollections of a Cowboy BY TEDDY BLUE ABBOTT (From We Pointed Them North, Oklahoma University Press, originally published in 1939) A night or two before we left town that fall (in 1884), we were all together with the girls, drinking and having a good time, and I got dressed up. Cowboy Annie put her gold chain around my neck, and wound her scarf around the crown of my … [Read more...]
Jeff Daniels, Movie Star Makes Music
Has Second Career, Keeps the Day Job BY BRIAN D’AMBROSIO 11/10/15 He‘s perhaps best known for playing opposite Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber, and has scored major credits in recently released major motion pictures—playing Apple CEO John Sculley in Steve Jobs, and a NASA honcho in Ridley Scott’s blockbuster The Martian. It may seem odd then that a star of Jeff … [Read more...]
Real Men Don’t Flock Shoot
It’s a Question of Character BY DAVID S. LEWIS 11/05/15 If you own a dog, imagine this nightmare. He somehow gets shot while on the run in a field. And the sudden impact is so painful and intense that he literally does not know what hit him, only that it’s excruciating and horrible, the worst pain that’s ever come upon him. Spooked and terrified he runs fast and far … [Read more...]