Beyond the End of the Line: Compensating
Helena, Montana, is a very lovely, very small capital city. More a town in many ways. Our official population stands at 33,000, though surrounding suburbs now account for another 20,000 or so. We began life…
Category: Montana Assays
End of the Line
In 1980, two months after I moved to Montana, I had to return, briefly and quickly, to Washington D. C. for a hearing. Except I couldn’t. I got there and back, but not quickly. Or…
Bad Behavior Under the Big Sky
In the autumn of 2022, Montanans—who, I swear, didn’t quite realize what they were doing—managed to cherry pick the worst of our citizens for almost every political position available. There are, of course, some notable…
Views: From Here To . . . .
This afternoon, I’m looking out to the east, watching the Big Belts. The 75 mile-long Rocky Mountain island chain stretches in an arc—a belt. Not quite 10,000 feet at its highest point. The Missouri River…
Hibernation
That’s where the words have gone. Some special “extended state of torpor.” Some deep drop in the metabolism of language and memory. Shocked into an energy-saving indolence. A lethargy designed to evade these dark days….
Safely Gathered In
Two posts ago, I jumped the gun with my essay on fighting to accept winter. Since then, the universe has served up an uncommonly lovely fall. We have had flickers of frost some mornings. We…
Acceptance
This is an old song—for a new but disappearing summer. The berries, on Mary’s mountain ash, have begun their transubstantiation. From green to gold to orange. The mystery, the sacrament will end in scarlet. The…
A Tribute Especially for Tony
Never underestimate the universe’s brilliant, complex, and astonishing perversity. Salish Elder Tony Incashola and long-ago friend and historian Bob Utley both died on June 7. Their deaths–and their lives– shadowed June. I knew each in…
The Sly Season
May first in Montana; May Day. Spring, or so the calendar has said since late March. But we know better here. Now is not the time to hang the snow shovel in the garage Or…
The Montana Heritage Project
The Meagher County Poor Farm sits on the western edge of White Sulphur Springs, Montana. You turn off beside the once-grand old Ringling house and follow a winding gravel road until you come to what,…