While it is okay to leave respectful memorials to loved ones, or even toys and trinkets on a long-passed child’s grave, it is never okay to leave refuse, graffiti, or other ill-intentioned items. Please join me as we respectfully wander a few of our beautiful state’s memorial gardens.
Their most important quality might just be their abiding love for the Treasure State. Hughes says that she is grateful to raise her son, Sawyer, amongst like-minded, salt of the earth people in Montana.
Historically, agriculture has always been Montana's foremost economic engine from jobs to exports. Because of the Great Depression and World War II, only 30% of working farms used gas-powered equipment into the 1940s, while the rest still relied on horses to work in the fields.
Gold attracted people to the region, and Helena’s “main street” is a memorial to the early prospectors. Much of Last Chance Gulch is a pedestrian mall, and the turn-of-the-century architecture lining the sidewalks attracts the eye, just as the various window displays attract shoppers.
The thing most people don’t know about the Montana Department of Livestock is the DOL is a very diverse organization. Many are familiar with our law enforcement function dating back to the days of the territorial government, but we also are engaged in protecting animal and human health.
The great American writer Herman Melville, author of Moby Dick, proved he knew horses nearly as well as whales when he said, "No philosophers so thoroughly comprehend us as dogs and horses." That comprehension shows itself in remarkable ways—horses will sidle up close, nuzzle you, even lovingly nip at you.
As the Kootenai River cut its canyon between the Percell Mountains (shown as Purcell on Canadian maps) to the north and the Cabinet Mountains to the south, the view is almost disorienting; it is hard to feature being at Montana’s lowest point when you’re surrounded by mountains rising 5,000 to 6,000 feet above you.
But while the Cold War never escalated beyond proxy wars and nuclear proliferation, it did change Montana, and the landscape of the West, forever. As author Ian Frazier writes, the nuclear missile silo has become "one of the quintessential Great Plains objects," along with the American bison, the prairie dog, and the outhouse.
Woosh! Doug executed a perfect parallel stop as he reached to wipe his goggles, which again were beginning to cake with the heavy snowfall. He peered into the white, attempting to see if he could spot his ski buddies who had taken the blue run when he charged off the black diamond ridge tagged as Dead Drop.
The name Montana conjures up cowboys herding cattle on the open prairie, and gunfighters hiding out in canyons to hide from rope-swinging vigilantes. But does Montana summon images of the lone sheepherder tending his flock and enduring days of solitude, bitter cold and the intense summer heat?
Depression can creep in this time of year and steal your joy. The pandemic has rocked our world and caused so much stress and anxiety. Add a life crisis, divorce, or loss of a loved one to that, and you may not want to get out of bed in the mornings. I was there and can relate. The simplest actions helped transform my life.
Roughly halfway between Lame Deer and Colstrip, the Deer Medicine Rocks are a National Historic Landmark, located on private property with no public access. The landmark memorializes the site where Lakota Chief Sitting Bull had a vision foretelling his success over the U.S. 7th Cavalry led by General George Armstrong Custer.
The NIWRC mission, in their own words, is to “to provide national leadership to end violence against American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian women by supporting culturally grounded, grassroots advocacy.”
These so-called "patent medicines" thrived during the frontier era. Part of the reason is that the tent shows, presided over by colorful and theatric charlatans, were as much entertainment as medicine.
If you are like me, interested in history and the past, Virginia City is quite fascinating and I always enjoy the chance to stop for awhile on my travels through the area.
While some of Montana’s Indian veterans have been individually honored, the contributions of many others remain unrecognized. The Warrior Spirit Project Consortium, created in 2019, aims to change that.
A popular theory is it’s the measurements of a grave,” Evalyn Johnson, author and archivist at the Thompson-Hickman County Library in Virginia City, said. “But no one knows for sure,” local writer Angela Mueller added.
One of Montana’s nine original counties, Beaverhead is the state’s largest county in area. Excepting minor boundary changes with neighboring Madison County, Beaverhead is the same size and shape as when it was first created.
