See If You Qualify BY PAT HILL Last month while planning a road trip with a friend I commented that the weather forecast looked good for the voyage. She looked at me and scoffed. “I don't believe a word the weatherman says around here,” said my friend, who moved to Big Sky Country about a year ago. I looked at her and smiled. “I think you're becoming a Montanan,” I … [Read more...]
Shooting Wolves
The Inevitable Result of Reintroduction BY JOHN BADEN The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently delisted the grey wolf from the Endangered Species Act. This generated outcries from many directions and it's no wonder; few western issues are as emotionally charged as wolf reintroduction, recovery, or regression (to the 1800s). One's choice of words speaks to his position on … [Read more...]
Born to Run
It’s What Sled Dogs Do Best By David S. Lewis What makes sled dogs run—tearing off from a dead start with so much vigor and enthusiasm that the g-force can knock a musher back on his heels? And what makes them keep running, up to one hundred and fifty miles a day, and for 10 days straight when racing? Whatever the reason, it’s undeniable that sled dogs are possessed of an … [Read more...]
Buffalo Bill Cody’s Cinnabar Cowboys
Cinnabar’s Hugo J. Hoppe Recruited for Cody’s Wild West Show By Bob Moore My wife Darnell's family has been in Montana since 1863 when her great great-grand-father, Hugo Hoppe, a German immi-grant, had just been discharged from the Second California Cavalry. He had journeyed to the gold fields in 1851 where he learned it was not easy digging, panning and sluicing for gold, … [Read more...]
The Healthcare Scam
It Thrives Because the Masses Abdicate Personal Responsibility By David S. Lewis Healthcare has been advanced lately as a human right, something to which all are entitled— like freedom of speech and freedom of assembly—both by Hillary Clinton and the Montana Human Rights Network. Sorry, and don’t get all holier than thou, but healthcare is not a right. Such a thing is not … [Read more...]
My Cousin Evel Knievel
In Remembrance of an Old Friend BY PAT WILLIAMS It was a late night in the mid-1960s. I walked into my cousin Nick’s bar out at the nine-mile on Butte’s Harrison Avenue. The joint had a larger crowd than usual and I quickly knew why. Bobby Knievel was there. By then he was becoming Evel Knievel, had performed a half dozen motorcycle jumps and was negotiating for permission … [Read more...]
How Do You Say Absaroka?
Pronunciations Vary By David S.Lewis Absaroka is absolutely the most confusing of all regional words. How is it pronounced? That depends on who you are and where you live. People new to the area and from elsewhere pronounce the word Ab-suh-ROKE-uh (the last two syllables rhyme with polka), but a dictionary’s pronunciation key does not agree. Formally, Absaroka, as in the … [Read more...]
Mountain Men Still Live in Montana
The Tradition of John Colter and Jim Bridger Survives By Molly Brown Ever wonder what black powder smells like, what life would have been for men like Jim Bridger, John Colter, or Liver Eating Johnson? Plenty of people have and make it their life’s passion to reenact and re-create the time period of what is the most widely known and romanticized icon of the Rocky Mountain … [Read more...]
Shooting a Dog
What Does the Law Say? By David S. Lewis A dog shot dead early this year in Park County caused controversy that raged through April. In newspaper articles, on radio, in letters to the editor, and even on billboards positioned on Interstate 90 by the dog’s owners, people weighed in, often with heated emotion. In that a Bozeman Daily Chronicle article quoted Elizabeth Gee, … [Read more...]
Return of the Yellowstone Grizzly
Officially Back from the Brink—Critics Not Satisfied By Pat Hill Grizzly bears in the Yellowstone area have now officially joined the American alligator, grey whale, and peregrine falcon as a “recovered species” according to the par-ameters of the Endangered Species Act (legislation meant to ensure viability of the nation’s wild plants and animals). “The grizzly's … [Read more...]
Montana Woman Snares al-Qa’eda
Municipal Judge and Mother-of-Three Shannen Rossmiller Takes on the Bad Guys By David S. Lewis By day, Shannen Rossmiller serves as a municipal judge in Conrad, Montana. By night this mother of three and former cheerleader tracks down al-Qa'eda members as a self taught undercover operative. On June 26, Francis Harris with the U.K's online Daily Telegraph reported that … [Read more...]
Wild Mustangs Find Asylum
NBC CEO and Others Fail to Prevent Their Arrival BY QUINCY ORHAI After a long legal battle of over 3 years, pitting New West neighbors against the government (and Karen and Greg Rice of the Spanish Q Ranch) 700 BLM surplus wild horses have found a new home under the big skies of Montana. The gelded, vaccinated and freeze-marked mustangs will be perpetually boarded at the … [Read more...]
Taken by the Sioux A Buffalo Hunt, the Vast Sioux Village, and the Dog Feast
BY FANNY KELLY On the 20th of July [1864] we had nearly reached the Indian village [after our wagon train had been massacred by the Oglala on July 15, with I and 5-year old Mary taken prisoner on a forced ride deep into Indian country] when we camped for the night, as usual, when such a locality could be gained, on the bank of a stream of good water. Here was a stream of … [Read more...]
Gold, and a Crow War Party
Gold at Alder Gulch, 150 Years Ago This Month BY GARY FORNEY Prospectors swarmed the banks of Grasshopper Creek in the bustling new camp of Bannack (18 miles West of present-day Dillon) during the winter of 1862-63, along with persons typical of mining camps in those days—gamblers, saloon keepers, merchants, and men of infamous repute. One of Bannack's earliest arrivals, … [Read more...]
Taken by the Sioux – The Ordeal Continues…
A Vision of Little Mary’s Fate BY FANNY KELLY First published in 1872 Abducted by the Sioux and taken to their village of thousands, Fanny Kelly becomes the object of the Indian’s revenge after General Sully pursued and killed many Sioux warriors in battle. The next morning I could see that something unusual was about to happen. Notwithstanding the early hour, the … [Read more...]
The Last Crow War Chief
Joseph Medicine Crow Remembering a life and death encounter during WWII, when he served as a scout in the U.S. Army’s 103rd Infantry Division, Crow tribal historian and anthropologist Joseph Medicine Crow, who turns 100 this year (the oldest living man of the Crow tribe), tells the story of how he was assigned to surprise German soldiers from the rear in a German town, by … [Read more...]
500 lbs of USFS Explosives Stolen near Red Lodge
Forest Service Failed to Keep Watch on Facility BY PAT HILL 06/07/13 The theft of over 500 pounds of explosives from a U.S. Forest Service facility near Red Lodge, Montana, sometime in April remains under investigation by law enforcement officials. Agencies including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the United States Forest Service, and … [Read more...]
Wife Steals Wooden Leg – Hasn’t Gained Weight Since
BY CLEM BROULET I‘ve always thought of myself as having a good appetite, yet I’ve always been thin. I put on years, but not weight. In fact, for most of my life, my practice was to eat a little extra everyday to keep from wasting away (an advantage for a food critic). I would eat two sandwiches at lunch, an extra dessert, and four eggs at breakfast with toast, jam and … [Read more...]
Taken by the Sioux – The Sun Dance, a Puzzle of Human Bones, Poisoned Indians
(Originally published in 1872) BY FANNY KELLY About the 1st of October the Indians were on the move as usual [after my abduction in July, 1864, and the massacre of our wagon train in the Powder River area, as we were headed for Montana], and by some means I became separated from the family I was with, and was lost. I looked around for them, but their familiar faces were … [Read more...]
Diary of a Gold Miner
Riches Gained and Love Lost at Alder Gulch BY GARY R. FORNEY When considering the stories of the incredible wealth produced from the Alder Gulch by the thousands of miners who swarmed through the area—and later the enormous dredges that ate the landscape by gigantic mouthfuls—it’s easy to lose sight of the individuals who labored in these hills and gulches. One of those who … [Read more...]