America’s entry to the Rocky Mountain fur trade closely followed a rapid succession of events: President Thomas Jefferson’s fervent advocacy for territorial expansion, the Louisiana Purchase (1803), and the Lewis and Clark expedition (1804–6), the latter of which reported extraordinary populations of beaver, buffalo, and...
Growing up in Bozeman, Montana, cross-country skier Logan Diekmann learned to slide on snow at an early age. By the time he turned 8, he was racing with the Bridger Ski Foundation’s (BSF) Youth Ski League, having started with the program at the ripe age...
Montana had no official eastern boundary in 1805, because the state as we know it did not exist. The confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers served the purpose well enough then, as it nearly does today. The Lewis and Clark expedition reached that landmark...
On a downtown street outside the O’Haire Motor Inn in Great Falls, Montana, it smells like french fries. The sidewalks are empty except for one older gentleman polishing the chrome door handles of the motel. When he finishes with the handles, he wipes the glass...
Ghost Town Guitars might be the most aptly named guitar shop in Montana. To get there, you have to drive about 30 minutes west of Helena to the little town of Rimini, at the base of Red Mountain. It’s a charming collection of old log...
Heavy wet snowflakes drop from the sky, making their wayward descent to the ground. Some catch on the needles of the ocher larch and evergreen spruce and pines. They accumulate where they land, fluffy blankets cloaking all that lies beneath — all season long if...
Architecture Locati Architects Interior Design Locati Interiors Construction Schlauch Bottcher Construction For a longtime Big Sky family, a new build from the ground up wasn’t so much about having a fresh experience as it was about preserving and expanding on what they loved about their old home. The East Coast-based family...
The possessive apostrophe in Parks’ Fly Shop is intentional, differentiating the Yellowstone gateway business from the national park that’s a long cast to the south. But the punctuation also serves to express ownership, of both the idea of fly fishing as a necessary human experience...
I grew up watching my mother in the kitchen. She was a passionate cook who innovated beyond recipes, filling our table with all kinds of original dishes. She left behind some of her recipes, but not all. And one that I have been curious about...
At 2 a.m. on June 7, 1896, a Great Northern train pulled into the station at Blackfoot, Montana, bringing three Yale graduates to some of the last great stretches of the fabled American West. The privileged leader of the group was Gifford Pinchot, age 31....