BIG SKY COUNTRY IS ALSO BIG BEAR COUNTRY. Most estimates suggest that Montana has between 13,000 and 17,000 black bears (Ursus americanus) and roughly 800 grizzly bears (Ursus arctos ssp.). Most of the grizzlies in the contiguous U.S. live in and around Glacier and Yellowstone...
IN CLASSIC FASHION FOR a college student in upstate New York, Sam Hoffmann first started brewing beer in his dorm room. But it was a childhood spent traveling around the rural byways of Europe that sparked his interest in beer, cider, local foods, vineyards, and...
FOR A FEW DAYS IN EARLY JUNE, Bozeman positively brimmed with activity and emotion: Cubans moved furniture out of the way and danced for pleasure; Afghan women biked across a beige desert; a Kiwi fire chief strove to save a cardboard city from burning; Pakistani...
PLENTY OF WESTERN ARTISTS AND THEIR CRITICS LIKE TO TALK ABOUT "PLACE" as a primary inspiration for their work, but when artist Ted Waddell speaks of the landscape, he refers to the actual ground itself. His use of the word “ground” when one expects to...
THERE IS A SAYING ABOUT LIVING IN THE WEST, that it’s like one big Main Street, where the connection to just about everyone you meet is whittled down from 6 degrees to more like 2 or 3. So I was not completely surprised to learn...
WHEN YOU FIRST ENCOUNTER SUE TIRRELL'S CERAMICS, you might feel a hint of nostalgia or a nagging sense that you have seen something vaguely similar somewhere before. But where? Perhaps in one of the fairytale books you read as a child — Aesop’s Fables or...
STEPHANIE QUAYLE SINGS ACAPPELLA: Run like a wild horse, chasing that sun even if you’re all out of breath. Aiming your arrow straight for the stars even if you can’t see ‘em yet. The rising star of country music is sitting with me on a leather couch in her Montana...
IN A WELL-APPOINTED GALLERY IN NORTHWEST WYOMING, the landscapes painted by Montana artist Greg Scheibel refuse to go unnoticed. It’s not that the paintings act as come-hither sirens; instead, they are muses who weave quiet but insistent spells of light, shadow, and subtle color upon...
A GRIZZLY STRIDES ACROSS A STREAM WHILE THE SUN SPARKLES on the tawny highlights in its chocolate-brown fur. Against a background of craggy peaks, a pack of gray wolves stands on alert, ears perked. Hindquarters stretched in full spring, front paws bent, eyes scanning the ground...
Backcountry excursions in Yellowstone National Park From our perch on a hillside overlooking the upper Lamar River Valley, my friend Mariann and I watched the sun set behind Parker Peak. The sky burned in reds and oranges, made more beautiful by the wildfire smoke in the...