The story of dude ranching in the Rocky Mountain West is, in a way, the history of the contemporary West itself. Through the lens of ranching and recreation, you can see, in microcosm, aspects of what’s made the West such an iconic part of the...
When Alan Kallio was in high school, he was transfixed by an image of an ice boat he saw in National Geographic. Not long after, he was working in a lumber yard and able to gather enough pieces to build his own craft, basing it...
If you don’t believe Montana was once a land of skyscrapers, ask the wind. Decades ago, the infinite huff of the mountains and the high plains was raked by more skyscrapers than soar today in any major city. Everywhere across Montana they stood: tall, slope-shouldered, wooden...
Usually it goes like this. I’m skiing in the backcountry, up Bear Canyon east of Bozeman or along one of the Yellowstone Park trails off U.S. Route 191 south of Big Sky. Much of the time I have the trail to myself, but occasionally I’ll run...
The images float before the viewer’s eyes, strange and otherworldly — like photos of the Crab Nebula from Hubble, or mixings from a hippie light show. They might be satellite shots of the Mojave, cell-section studies from an electron microscope, or hallucinatory paintings from a...
Mind you, dying in an attempt to hike a 2,500-mile circumnavigation of the state of Idaho wouldn’t be the worst outcome, according to Jim Fulmis, who prefers to be known as Yeti. “It’s my intent to die on the trail, doing what I love,” Yeti proclaims....
The partially frozen grizzly bear has been laid across the concrete floor. Dried mud is caked on its pelt and the bullet hole behind its front shoulder is hardly visible in the thick, dark chocolate-colored fur. How it died is no mystery. The bullet clearly was...
AS SOON AS SHE'S OFF HER LEASH, Milly Bird the dog darts into the tall grass prairie, a white and black streak against the muted umbers of Montana’s late-August grasses. A blur, until she stops and stands still but for a slight quivering. Her tail...
PHOTOGRAPHY, INCREASINGLY, IS AN ACCESSIBLE ART FORM. Anyone with an iPhone can take some kind of photo, and often a pretty good one. At a glance, the distance between a passable amateur shot and a drop-dead professional image isn’t huge. But then you look closer. Anyone can...
When artist Carol Spielman paints, it’s as if she’s entered another world. Moving excitedly around a piece that’s spread flat on the floor, she mixes colors right on the canvas to see how the layers will unfold. Sometimes she dims the lights and lets the...