An essay on returning home to the West, after years abroad.
Scott Mcmillion
Posted inJanuary 19, 2004: Two decades of hard work, plowed under
Yellowstone snowmobilers suffer whiplash
Judge says Interior Department is to blame for last-minute reinstatement of snowmobile ban
Posted inAugust 14, 2000: Meth invasion
Reform school for wolves
MONTANA Things are shocking for three wolves on Ted Turner’s ranch near Bozeman, Mont. For the past several weeks they have been serving time in what one wolf biologist calls “reform school,” an experiment that managers hope will stop wolves from killing cattle. In a few weeks, when a beef calf is added to the […]
Posted inMarch 13, 2000: Libby's dark secret
EPA sets sights on snowmobiles
WYOMING, MONTANA Banning snowmobiles is the only way to clean up the winter air in Yellowstone National Park, says the federal Environmental Protection Agency, at least until the industry comes up with cleaner machines. The Park Service disagrees. Its preferred alternative in a new winter-use plan would plow the road between West Yellowstone and Old […]
Posted inOctober 11, 1999: A home-grown Water War
Another wilderness developer pops up
PARADISE VALLEY, Mont. – Chain saws are running in the middle of the Absaroka Beartooth Wilderness. There’s a miniature backhoe there, too, along with a regular series of noisy helicopters, hauling in work crews. The man responsible is having a blast, like a kid with a new toy. All this would be illegal on public […]
Posted inMarch 15, 1999: Selling off the Promised Land
Selling off the Promised Land
CORWIN SPRINGS, Mont. – The big trouble started 10 years ago, when federal agents arrested Vernon Hamilton for possession of illegally purchased sniper rifles in Spokane, Wash. There was more. Hamilton was carrying $130,000 worth of gold, cash and crates of ammunition, along with an elaborate false identity he had stolen from a California man […]
Posted inMarch 15, 1999: Selling off the Promised Land
A biography of Prophet’s most recent life
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Guru Ma’s got troubles. Lots of them. At the age of 59, she has both a preschool child and Alzheimer’s disease. All four of her adult children have turned their back on the Church Universal and Triumphant, the institution she spent almost 40 years […]
Posted inMarch 15, 1999: Selling off the Promised Land
Church picks and chooses to create a belief system
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. The theology of the Church Universal and Triumphant is a mixed bag of Christianity, Buddhism, New Age mysticism and astrology. Add in beings called Ascended Masters, who speak through Elizabeth Clare Prophet, angels and “elementals,” who embody earth, fire, water and wind. Then there […]
Posted inMarch 15, 1999: Selling off the Promised Land
Church lands will help bail out bison
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. If someone tells you they have a simple solution to the bitter controversy over Yellowstone National Park’s wandering bison, turn around and walk away. The Church Universal and Triumphant’s offer concerning its Royal Teton Ranch illustrates the complexity of the problem. What could have […]
Posted inMarch 15, 1999: Selling off the Promised Land
Bison may get ground to stand on
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. The Church Universal and Triumphant remains willing to remove all cattle from its Royal Teton Ranch and to allow bison to roam there once state and federal government make some commitments of their own. Here are the highlights of the church’s proposal, some of […]
Posted inMarch 15, 1999: Selling off the Promised Land
On the Web, church chats up a storm
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. If you want a good look at the internal debate over the Church Universal and Triumphant’s new direction, go to cyberspace, where a pair of Web sites are dedicated to airing viewpoints pro and con. People speculate about the sex life of CUT guru […]
Posted inMay 11, 1998: The working West: grassroots groups and their newsletters
Bison sleek, but suspect
MONTANA Bison sleek, but suspect West Yellowstone, Mont. – It’s been an easy winter for Yellowstone National Park’s bison. Only 11 of the shaggy giants have been killed, a fraction of the nearly 1,100 that were shot or shipped to slaughter in the brutal winter of 1996-97. Protruding ribs and jutting hip bones were bison […]
Posted inOctober 27, 1997: Deconstructing the age of dams
Snowmobiles remain an issue
Yellowstone is one of the few national parks in the world where snowmobiling is allowed, and about 100,000 people a year take advantage of that fact. But there has never been a formal study of how the noisy, smelly machines affect the park and its wildlife. That could change next year. The Fund for Animals, […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 1997: No home on the range
For bison, it’s deja vu all over again
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. – For the bison here in the world’s oldest national park, roundups and slaughterhouses are nothing new. At times, park managers tried to foster the bison herds. At other times, they killed them by the hundreds. Until the early 1950s, […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 1997: No home on the range
When it’s 25 below and dropping
I was playing poker the other day with a bunch of guys, mostly middle-aged and older, mostly native Montanans like myself. Every so often somebody would put on an extra coat, go outside and start the car, come back to play a few hands, then bundle up and turn the engine off. Nobody found this […]
Posted inJanuary 20, 1997: Bees under siege
Bison deaths spur lawsuit
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Mont. – As temperatures dip to 30 below, park rangers are rounding up and shipping to slaughter all bison that approach private land on the park’s northern border. It’s the start of a new management plan that has generated controversy and a lawsuit. “It’s a sad day when it comes to this […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
An ‘unfair, inflexible’ bid to clean Montana’s water
Francis Bardanouve is not the man you might expect to see leading one of the year’s most contested environmental initiatives. A rancher from Harlem, Mont., he spent nearly 30 years in the state Legislature, where he was known as a conservative Democrat. But along with a businessman, a retired rancher and a Republican legislator, Bardanouve […]
Posted inOctober 14, 1996: Greens prune their message to win the West's voters
Elk target tourists
It’s time to watch your step in Yellowstone National Park. Aggressive herds of rutting elk have taken over park headquarters at Mammoth Hot Springs, as they do every year at this time, and two women tourists narrowly escaped injury at the hands – make that horns – of sexually aroused bulls. The first incident occurred […]
Posted inOctober 14, 1996: Greens prune their message to win the West's voters
Montana: A scrappy Republican tries to cut down a green Democrat
Rick Hill was so far behind in the polls last winter that his two Republican primary opponents said Hill wasn’t even a contender for Montana’s one seat in the House of Representatives. So Hill tried something. He went negative. He attacked his Republican opponents, who both complained he was being nasty and unfair when he […]
Posted inOctober 14, 1996: Greens prune their message to win the West's voters
Montana: For veteran Baucus, it seems to be in the bag
In polling, a lot depends on how you ask the questions. And on how you read the answers. Max Baucus, a Democrat running for his fourth term in the U.S. Senate, points to polls that have consistently put him 10 or more points above Republican challenger Dennis Rehberg, Montana’s current lieutenant governor. But Rehberg sees […]