An old compact may not be enough to keep the Tongue River from running dry
Montana
Posted inAugust 20, 2010: A Hell of an Anniversary
‘Clean and healthful environment’
Montana’s constitution could stop a huge mine
Posted inWotr
Wolves: The debate is seldom rational
The wolf pot continues to boil in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. Now, another state has been added to the stew. In Oregon, environmentalists are protesting the piecemeal removal of wolves from the Endangered Species list, hunters want less competition from wolves, and ranchers complain that wolves are killing their livestock. In eastern Oregon, where there […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2009: The Half-life of Memory
No backup on the Northern border
A rural county is saddled with international responsibility.
Posted inArticles
Clean coal is an oxymoron
After Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer made a fiery speech at the Democratic Convention, some people suggested that he’d make a fine secretary of Energy, no matter who wins the election. But although Schweitzer, a Democrat, may give a good speech, his near-fanatic promotion of coal should give one pause. The West has long suffered the […]
Posted inWotr
Nailing down the heart of Montana
Everyone in Lewistown, Mont., used to know that the heart of the state was under Mrs. Dockery’s kitchen sink. The prairie town’s claim to host Montana’s geographic center has been unabashedly celebrated, debated and defended since 1912. That was the year the Akins family moved into their stately home, newly built atop a hill on […]
Posted inJuly 21, 2008: A fractured party
Bears saved from the ‘burbs
Grizzly bears often wander through Montana’s Swan River Valley, as is shown in this satellite map tracking 10 grizzlies’ movements from 2000 to 2004. The bruins, increasingly threatened by development, are expected to benefit from “The Montana Legacy Project” — billed as the biggest private land-conservation deal ever put together. The Nature Conservancy and the […]
Posted inArticles
Regulating the river
Jim Hagenbarth has spent his life ranching along the banks of the Big Hole River in southwestern Montana, on land his family has worked for more than a century. The area remains sparsely populated and mostly agricultural, much as it was when Hagenbarth used to get in trouble as a kid for riding calves behind […]
Posted inApril 14, 2008: Taking to the Trees
A Montana rancher stands his ground against subdivision
Name Vernon Gliko Age 86 Hometown Belt, Montana Occupation Farmer/rancher He Says “They were friendly people back then. Everybody was trying to help everybody because they were in the same situation. Well, now, you know, you may not even know your neighbor.” Biggest change in his lifetime Transition from using horses to tractors Known for […]
Posted inFebruary 4, 2008: Unnatural Preservation
Heard around the West
UTAH Jim Stiles, publisher of the Canyon Country Zephyr in Moab, has been called cynical, chronically ticked off, dour and – more kindly perhaps – curmudgeonly. He is greatly annoyed by the Lycra-clad bicyclists that invade his part of the world, and he’d like the rip-’em-up crowd of ATV and four-wheel-drivers to take a hike. […]
Posted inDecember 10, 2007: Rebels with a Lost Cause
In Montana, a festival of light
Turn off all the other lights!” my almost-3-year-old son, Andrew, hollered, once we had kindled the candles in our Hanukah menorahs. It was the last night of the eight-day holiday, so we had eight candles, plus the shamash, or helper candle, in three menorahs. This made for 27 candles glowing in our otherwise pitch-dark living […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2007: Which Way West
Mystery in Montana
Red Rover, Deirdre McNamer’s fourth novel, begins with a gunshot. Maybe it’s an accident, or maybe it’s a suicide. Then again, perhaps it’s something more. The setting is Missoula, Mont., 1946, and the deceased is Aiden Tierney, a former FBI agent who’d been fighting a disease caught while chasing Nazis in Argentina. “Someone said the […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2007: A Climate Change Solution?
Are tomorrow’s ghost towns sprouting today?
IT’S HARD TO BELIEVE that in the late 1880s, Bannock, Mont., was one of the fastest-growing, most wildly energetic communities in the West. The mining town was even proposed as the territorial capital. Today, it is a ramshackle collection of abandoned buildings surrounded by mine tailings and open only as a quiet tourist attraction. It […]
Posted inWotr
Tomorrow’s ghost towns are sprouting today
It’s hard to believe that in the late 1880s, Bannock, Mont., not far from present-day Dillon, was one of the fastest-growing, most wildly energetic communities in the West. The mining town was even proposed as the territorial capital. Today, it is a ramshackle collection of abandoned buildings surrounded by mine tailings, and open only as […]
Posted inJune 25, 2007: Predator hunters for the environment
Lost in the Land of the Ugly Stepsister
Here is a name for it: the Ugly Stepsister Syndrome. In a state known for its beauty and grandeur, its last best place-ness, its Big Sky Country appeal, there exists a place where the citizens feel shortchanged, second-best, S.O.L. in the great economic scheme of things that is the New West. And they want to […]
Posted inArticles
Battle line on the northern border
In Montana’s Flathead Basin, another industry–versus-environment conflict is brewing. But this time, the battle lines follow the U.S. – Canada border. Montana senators, federal agencies, and even Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are trying to stop a planned mine just north of the border. Cline Mining Corporation is seeking British Columbia’s approval for a mountaintop […]
Posted inApril 30, 2007: Rural Education 2.0
Tripping over T-Rex
Name: Bob Harmon Hometown: Bozeman, Montana Vocation: Chief preparator of paleontology at the Museum of the Rockies and crew chief Known For: Finding the first dinosaur bones with soft tissue Bob Harmon is not an excitable man. His face isn’t animated as he points out the sauropod leg he is building out of fossils and […]
Posted inWotr
Water is definitely for fighting in Montana
One constant in the fierce debate over the public’s access to Mitchell Slough in Montana’s Bitterroot Valley has been the complaint that generous landowners are being vilified despite their considerable efforts to restore the waterway. It’s instructive that one of the arguments used by supporters of the landowners is this “heroic restoration” tack. It’s instructive […]
Posted inWotr
Down but not out in Missoula, Montana
The American dream is alive and well in Missoula, Mont., sort of. Not long after arriving here in the late 1990s, I found myself in the same conversation about real estate, hearing the same words and sharing the same sentiment. “You can’t eat the landscape,” someone would say, and everyone within earshot would laugh at […]