A Journey That Began in a One Room Schoolhouse BY BRIAN D’AMBROSIO 09/10/15 Saco, Montana—the kind of place where you step off into eternity and wonder if you will ever make it back. Situated along the Hi-Line, the land lays flat and scrubby, never a look to be confused with natural beauty. A roughneck town of only a few hundred, Saco is also home to the Chet Huntley … [Read more...]
Secret Service on the Yellowstone
They Stand Out Like, Well, the Secret Service 09/01/15 BY DAVID S. LEWIS So I’m driving down Hwy 89 in Paradise Valley near Point of Rocks. It’s August, but freakishly cold and wet. I see a small fleet of identical silver SUVs parked at the fishing access. At 80 mph, I fly by, then turn around, drive back to the entrance, and roll down the gravel road to the … [Read more...]
Virginia City, Montana’s First Incorporated Town, Born in Gold
BY RICK AND SUSIE GRAETZ Returning home to Bannack from a gold-searching trip in the Yellowstone Valley, six tired prospectors were captured by the Crow Indians. Had it not been for the quick thinking of one of them, their consequent good luck wouldn't have come about. Showing no fear and trying to prove to the captors he had special powers, Bill Fairweather placed a … [Read more...]
Doing Nothing, Again
It's Something to Do BY DAVID S. LEWIS 8-15-15 Last spring, if you recall, we landed in Pescadero, Mexico, and did absolutely nothing for a week while living in a casita on the beach, sleeping under a palapa roof, the senses pounded into gelatinous submission by a thundering Pacific surf. Had in mind doing something like that again in April, on the Gulf side, then … [Read more...]
All Horses and Men, We Pointed Them North
Recollections of a Cowboy (Continued) BY TEDDY BLUE ABBOTT From 1874 to 1877 I was taking care of my father's cattle, and after a while the neighbors began putting cattle with me, paying me a $1.50 a head for 6 months. I herded them in the daytime and penned them at night, and for the first time in my life I could rustle a little cash. In 1875 I made $29 that way, and my … [Read more...]
Snakebite! —Now what?
BY WALT TIMMERMAN Of the ten snake species that live in Montana, only the prairie rattlesnake is venomous. Also known as the western rattlesnake, the prairie rattler is found in open, arid country and ponderosa pine savannahs. It often dens on south-facing slopes in areas with rock outcrops. Rattlesnake bites are extremely rare. Of the hundreds of thousands of hunters, … [Read more...]
Harry Rutter Was a Cowboy
He Drove Cattle to Montana, Put Away Outlaws, and Got the Girl BY PAT HILL Though his 2009 induction into the Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame simply states Harry Rutter was a cowboy, long-deceased friends and surviving family members agree that Rutter was quite a man out of the saddle as well. JoAnn Russell of Bozeman is Rutter's granddaughter. She has assembled a collection … [Read more...]
Krakauer Defends Controversial New Book
A Book About Campus Rape, Named After a Montana College Town—All Are Not Pleased BY BRIAN D’AMBROSIO 06/10/15 Jon Krakauer, author of such famous non-fiction titles as Into the Wild and Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman, finds himself, with his most recent book, at the center of a Montana-based controversy, one that some wish he had chosen to … [Read more...]
We Pointed Them North
Recollections of a Cowpuncher—How I Came to Montana BY TEDDY BLUE ABBOTT People who know me often talk as though I was from Texas. That is not correct. I was born in Granwich Hall, Granwich County of Norfolk, England, December 17, 1860. But I came to Montana with a herd of Texas cattle in 1883. This is where they get the idea that I am a Texan. All this part of Montana … [Read more...]
Montana’s Greatest Unsolved Mystery
A Former Teton County Sheriff’s Investigation of the Unexplained 05/12/15 BY PAT HILL Retired Sheriff John “Pete” Howard of Choteau. Mont., served as Teton County’s chief law enforcement officer in the 1970s. He now serves as Justice of the Peace in that small town northwest of Great Falls on the Rocky Mountain Front. His unusual story, an account of bizarre events that … [Read more...]
Living in Gardiner, Montana
BY LISA BARIL 05/12/15 The small mountain town of Gardiner, Montana, lies nestled in the shadows of the Absaroka Mountains to the east and the Gallatin Range to the west. Its southern edge meets Yellowstone National Park at the confluence of the Yellowstone and Gardner Rivers, and then stretches three miles northwest along a narrow swath of dry sagebrush scrublands. If … [Read more...]
Net Metering Expansion Shot Down
Bi-Partisan Effort for Alternative Energy Killed, Lawmakers Cave to NorthWestern Energy BY PAT HILL 04/11/15 In what many people view as a blow to the emerging alternative energy movement in Montana, efforts to expand current net metering opportunities failed in the 64th Montana Legislative Session. Net metering is a method by which solar and other alternative energy … [Read more...]
Tracking Wildlife with Jim Halfpenny
Veteran Tracker Reads the Signs Nature Leaves Behind 02/10/15 BY LISA BARIL A writer friend once told me stories are everywhere if you know how to look for them. He was referring to the human story, but as a biologist I am pulled toward the stories nature writes. A dozen ravens swirling above the remains of a cow elk killed by wolves the day before. A pair of bald eagles … [Read more...]
Helena, Montana in the Old Days
Ellen Baumler Takes Us There BY BRIAN D'AMBROSIO Self-disciplined. Self-directed. Curious. These three words perhaps best describe Ellen Baumler, the Interpretive Historian at the Montana Historical Society in Helena. Since 1992, Baumler has made a career out of creating interpretive signs for historical sites in Montana, developing and writing walking tours of historic … [Read more...]
The Risk to Hunters in Grizzly Bear Country
It Does Not Always End Well 01-09-15 BY LISA BARIL Thirty years ago, so few grizzly bears roamed southwestern Montana that their image barely registered in the minds of hunters during their annual autumn quest to fill their freezers or tag the bull of a lifetime. They didn't worry much about surprising a sow with cubs or accidentally luring a bruin with elk bugles or cow … [Read more...]
More Fangs in the Forest
Montana’s Big Carnivores Match 1800s Levels BY TOM DICKSON 11-05-14 If Montanans ever decide on a new motto, they might consider something like Terra Multi Fera (Land of Abundant Wild Animals). Owing to Montana’s intact, healthy habitats and science-based conservation practices, the state has long been known as a place teeming with wildlife such as elk, bighorn … [Read more...]