Editor’s Note: Outdoorsman E. Donnall Thomas Jr. has spent a lifetime in the field, forging a close connection with his working dogs. Today, he lives with his wife, Lori Thomas, in central Montana. This piece is adapted from their latest book collaboration, A Dog for...
Next to the iconic Missouri River, in the small city of Great Falls, Montana, I’m crouched with a camera near a mannequin wearing a repurposed prom dress in a room overflowing with fabrics, threads, and sequins. At center is a Singer sewing machine and at the...
The first songbird to arrive on the thawing Northern Plains each spring isn’t the meadowlark. It’s the northern pintail, a graceful duck that whistles like your favorite uncle. That is, badly. Still, it’s the sound of spring across Montana’s Hi-Line and Canada’s prairie provinces. This high-pitched,...
I just baked some snickerdoodles. Eat ’em while they’re hot!” It was an unsuspecting proclamation while camping on southwest Wyoming’s Green River. And yet, to my astonishment, my friendly campground neighbor strolled over from her site and presented a plate full of delicious cookies as I...
Let us begin with a flight of imagination purely of my own making. Around the time of first European contact, a band of Indigenous hunters has camped out of the wind in a sheltered canyon in what is now southern Montana. Perhaps they are Crow...
Sweat dripped from my brow as I bent over the grass, trying to figure out what I was looking at. “You need to find the shiny green ones,” Melinda Bullshoe Kipp called to me. “Is this one?” I asked, holding up a blade of grass. “No,” she said,...
Charles Punchard arrived at the headquarters of Yellowstone National Park on July 19, 1918, with a letter in his hand. Signed by Stephen T. Mather, director of the newly formed National Park Service, the letter declared that Punchard had been hired as the agency’s first-ever...
Nestled in the green grass and tucked against the tall mountains of Montana’s Paradise Valley is Skattum Dairy Farm. There, owner and operator Lily Andersen manages a herd of roughly 55 cows while overseeing how tradition and change can exist side by side. The dairy...
In every corner of Montana, ranching and farming families are caring for their land in ways that improve yields and quality while also benefiting the larger ecosystem. In many ways, conservation isn’t an act for these people. It’s a way of life, which, in some...
In its ever-expanding engagement with art in the American West, Tinworks Art is opening another pathway for artists in Bozeman. This fall, the nonprofit adds to its Ida Street property by opening the Mill Building, a historic granary that’s been renovated to add 4,200 square...