For the past eight years, I’ve followed a passion for photographing Native American tribes throughout Montana. Initially captivated by Montana itself — its majestic landscapes, stunning scenery, rural communities, and, of course, expansive Big Sky — my photographic intentions shifted after a conversation with my...
I’ve killed many deer, and I’ve eaten them all, including one I accidentally killed with my car. It was February 2018, nearly midnight in Montana, a few miles west of the Continental Divide. The muley appeared as I curled around a bend where U.S. Highway...
Ringed by majestic mountain ranges and located at more than 6,200 feet in elevation, Jackson Hole is the perfect place for restaurant Coelette to showcase its snow-line cuisine. Focusing on techniques and flavors from mountain communities and cultures around the globe, Coelette merges its alpine-inspired...
To call Sun House (Little, Brown, and Company, $35), by David James Duncan, a novel is akin to calling the sun a decent-sized campfire. This book, coming in at nearly 800 pages, commands attention. But the caliber of writing, at any length, would cause the...
Montana’s Lones Wigger was, unquestionably, among the finest competitive shooters in American history. While his fame exists mostly in the marksmanship niche, Wigger’s name belongs alongside the legends of the Old West when it comes to rifle skills. Wigger — who died in 2017 at age...
When Dugan Coburn recognized an opportunity to enrich the lives of Indigenous kids in his community, it jolted him as electrifyingly as a lightning bolt. At the time, he was working with the public school system in Great Falls, Montana as a talent search coordinator...
I write this coming off a weekend spent in Jackson, Wyoming, having driven through Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming to get there. The fir and spruce forests extending from Big Sky to Island Park open up into rolling cropland near Ashton, which meets the expansive Grand...
The air is cool and a breeze pushes from the north, the depth of blue clouds pierces my attention between flashes of light. Moisture lingers heavy and refreshing as the storm drags across bare mountain peaks just beyond our reach. One can almost hear the grass calling for rain, a song carried quietly...
It was mass confusion in earth tones and brightly colored tails as the Bohemian waxwings lifted off. My brain was in slow motion, along with my slow shutter speed. Aargh, I missed the shot, I thought. Upon viewing the camera’s screen, flashes and splashes of...
Christine Byl’s Lookout (Deep Vellum, $25.95) offers a stunning portrait of a family firmly rooted to the land in northwest Montana. Told through numerous points of view, in authentic voices, and with a poetic ear for language, this is the kind of novel one becomes...