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VOLUME TWELVE NUMBER ONE, TWO THOUSAND SIXTEEN | SPRING

GOING UNDERGROUND
The shifting minescapes Deep, deeper, deepest:
of Butte, America Caving in the Bob Marshall

Colstrip, dead center Getting a healthy glow:

in the debate over coal In a mine, sucking up radon

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Fit for a (prom) queen in Conrad Fiction by Dillon Tabish
Glacier Fed Oil on linen, 24 x 26 inches

Clyde Aspevig
This painting will be included in Clydes show
opening June 2016 at the Brinton Museum
in Big Horn, Wyoming.

Clyde Aspevigs Studio

PO Box 1886
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 VO L U M E X I I , N U M B E R 1 | S P R I N G 2 0 16

SCOTT M c MILLION
editor in chief
JEFF WELSCH
ALAN KESSELHEIM
senior editors
SABRINA CREWE
associate editor
BOB BULLOCK
sales manager
ROBIN OGATA
business manager
THOMAS LEE
senior photographer
MEGAN AULT REGNERUS
editor emeritus
CRAIG LANCASTER
design director

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4
LET TER FROM THE EDITOR
Snow Story
Real winter got here in November, about the time we learned that a new wolf pack
in the neighborhood had pushed the elk out of our honey hole. But we kept trying,
my grandson and I. One more day of frozen eyeglasses and icicles in my beard, we
decided, and wed try someplace else.
The next morning we spotted two sets of elk tracks, hot ones, the first wed seen
in a while. We crept up the ridge, where I really thought wed find elk grazing in the
meadow. But all we got was track soup. And a story. Smooth and fresh as a clean
sheet, the snow told a tale. The elk had come through before dawn, walking north in
no particular hurry. Then they bolted south, fast. The snow told us why.
The elk had stumbled into five wolves, sleeping in the sparse sage. We saw their
icy beds, places where they had dug at the frozen ground, tussled and played, peed on
the shrubbery. The wolves hadnt chased the elk but turned east instead. Maybe theyd
been caught napping and saw the futility of pursuit or maybe they just werent hungry
but the elk werent sticking around to find out. As a hunt, it was frustrating, but it was
a damned interesting morning. My grandson is a good hunter and I expect hell kill
a lot more elk as the years unfold. Hell make memories that will or wont fade, but I
think that mornings story will stick. I know it will for me.
The next day we tried a different spot, not far as the bird flies but with a lot
of human boundaries in between, roads and fences and such. We found a couple
hundred elk, but they were on the wrong side of the barbed wire so we started hiking
away from them. We found fresh tracks and beds, which was exciting, then a scrape
tree, where a buck or bull had displayed his lusty intentions, mangling a scruffy
lodgepole with his antlers, leaving his scent in the bark and probably getting some
pine sap between his ears. And there, just above the scrape, we saw bear scratches,
claw marks ripping the wood. Predator and prey marking the same spot.
Twenty-first century Montana is a predator-dense environment. Black bears and
grizzlies, wolves and coyotes, lions and bobcats, all of them trying to make a living.
And human hunters outnumber everything else. All these species want wild meat but
ours is not a physical need. Its important, but we wont starve without it.
And despite all the teeth and bullets, prey abounds in Montana. Its now possible
to hunt elk someplace in Montana from August through February. Twenty years after
reintroduction, lots of people still resent and fear wolves while others have grown to
accept them as part of the modern landscape. Thats where I find myself. They have as
much right to elk meat as I do.
Plus, they wrote out that story in the snow. They gave it to my grandson. And
they gave it to me. It will last a lot longer than an elk steak and if we hadnt all been
hunting the same ground that day, how could we have learned to read it?
Scott McMillion
Editor in Chief
 FEATURES
8 Lost Landscape
A century of mining, then decades of cleanup, reshaped the texture of Butte.
by EDWIN DOBB and DAVID T. HANSON

16 The Montana Face of Climate Change

Colstrip waits and frets as international politics and distant economics decide its fate.
by MARSHALL SWEARINGEN

24 The Radon Cure

Stop us if youve heard this one: a guy with health problems walks into a mine ...
by THOMAS GOLTZ

32 Plumbing the Depths

Explorers endure cold, muck and darkness in Montanas caves.
by PHIL KNIGHT

IN THIS ISSUE

Bob Marshall Havre p. 60

Wilderness p. 32 Conrad p. 46

Missoula p. 74

Boulder p. 24
Butte p. 8
Greycliff p. 60
Livingston p. 40 Colstrip p. 16

Cultivated fields follow the contour of the land on a farm near Geraldine. Photograph by Todd Klassy
 DEPART MENTS
40 A R T
The new hospital in Livingston is
investing in the idea that artwork can aid
healing. Scott McMillion brushes up.
66 O D D C O R N ER S
Every day on Interstate 90, thousands of
drivers pass a Bozeman Trail grave.
Scott McMillion uncovers the details.

46 RU R A L R O U T E
Women and girls drive all day long to
little Conrad just to get a dress from
Bonnie Poser. Alan Kesselheim sews it up.
54 S C I EN C E
Montanas hibernators are a varied
bunch facing an array of challenges. Lisa
Densmore Ballard enters the den.
68 B O O KS
InterviewRobert Staffanson has been
called the most interesting man in
Montana. Kris King looks into his many
incarnations.
ReviewsElise Atchison extols the short
story in collections by Callan Wink, Glen
Chamberlain and Rick Bass.

60 H I S TO RY 74 F I C T I O N
Mill Town
In Prohibition Days, folks in Havre By Dillon Tabish
would go to great lengths for a drink. Illustrated by Connie Dillon
Michael J. Ober tips a glass.

We subordinate entire mountains of rock

to human intention, converting them into
buildings, bridges, and railroads, along
with all manner of vehicles and machines,
appliances and gadgets ...
From Lost Landscape, by Edwin Dobb, page 8
 Yankee Doodle Tailings Pond in Butte, Montana, 1986.

8
 Decades of
mining and
a billion dollars
worth of cleanup
have created
massive ground
shifts in Butte

Lost
BY EDWIN DOBB

PHOTOGRAPHY 2016
BY DAVID T. HANSON

Landscapes
M O N TA N A Q U A R T E R LY 9
 Kelley Mine and the pre-reclamation remains of the Irish neighborhood of Dublin Gulch, photographed in 1987.

M
asters of fire.
Thats how shamans were regarded in prehistoric times. But so were
smiths, the largely forgotten but similarly ordained individuals who, employing heat in
a novel way, converted rock into metal and metal into objects both useful and decora-
tive. According to the Yakut, a once-nomadic people who have lived for thousands of
years in the region now known as Siberia, Smiths and shamans come from the same
nest. Both have been initiated into the occult arts. Both travel through the spirit world. Both possess
magical powers. Behold and beware, from raw stone comes a bowl, a mask, a blade. Incredible as it may
seem today, there was a time when such transformations were as miraculous as turning water into wine.

10
The shift to open-pit mining, which started in the mid-1950s, altered the
currency Butte was forced to pay to stay in business and keep the U.S.
supplied with base metals. No longer was the cost measured chiefly in terms
of harm to human beings but instead in terms of damage to land and water.

All photographs in this

article are from the series
The Richest Hill on Earth
(1985-1987) in Wilderness to
Wasteland by David T. Hanson
(Taverner Press, 2016).

Jump to the 21st century, well into the age of disenchant-

ment. What was once extraordinary has become routine. The
new masters of fire are international mining companies hell-bent
on extracting and smelting mineral ore on a scale and at a rate
sufficient to satisfy the ever-growing appetites of a global urban-
industrial civilization. We subordinate entire mountains of rock
to human intention, converting them into buildings, bridges, and
railroads, along with all manner of vehicles and machines, appli-
ances and gadgets, including our so-called smart devices, made
possible by a newly exploited class of minerals called rare earths.
Every year we go to greater extremes, both technologically and
geographically, to acquire tin, lead, iron, and nickel; copper,
silver, and molybdenum. Earth first, as a provocative pro-extrac-
tion bumper sticker says, well mine the other planets later.
But simply because an activity is commonplace doesnt mean
it is wholly or even mostly under our control. Nor does it mean
the consequences are always and everywhere beneficial. As
the smiths knew well, wresting ores from the earth and subject-
ing them to fire is a risky endeavor, and very likely an affront
to the gods. Consider whats at stake. What took nature millions
of years to forge we would dare re-forge in a matter of days.
Creation, the world as it is, doesnt suit us. We can do better.
And we can do it faster.
The proper term for this attitude is hubris. And one of its
contemporary signatures is the sacrifice zone, a speculative term
first used to designate areas permanently devastated by nuclear
attack, but which seems like a good match for altered landscapes
where the damage caused by large-scale industrysteel mills,
chemical plants, oil refineries, minesis grave and enduring.
One of Americas premier sacrifice zones is located in
A waste pile on the edge of Corktown, another Irish enclave, pictured in
1985. The waste has since been removed, and the land has been covered
in new soil and seeded.
Buttethe island of industrial frenzy that journalist Joseph
Kinsey Howard called the black heart of Montana. And it was
Buttes fallen status that brought landscape photographer David
T. Hanson to town in the mid-1980s. The heroic period of copper
miningwhen Butte contributed mightily to the electrification
of the country, which benefitted everyonehad recently ended.
Underground mining: Gone. The Anaconda Copper Mining
Company, one of the most powerful corporations in the world:
Gone. The once-formidable and often radical Western Federation
of Miners, which was founded in Butte: Gone. Also missing was
much of the original part of town, including several ethnic neigh-
borhoods, plus Columbia Gardens, an immense amusement park
and playground, all of which had been destroyed to make way for
the Berkeley and East Continental pits.
Apart from their considerable aesthetic quality, the photos
Hanson took 30 years ago are fascinating because they reveal

M O N TA N A Q U A R T E R LY 11
 what Butte looked liked during the early years of the environ-
mental era, a major turning point in the towns evolution. Much
has changed since then. Mounds of mine waste have been
hauled away. Contaminated areas have been capped with clean
soil and re-vegetated. Former railroad beds have been converted
into public trails. Even long-idled mine yards have been refur-
bished and put to civic useone as a senior citizen center,
another as an outdoor concert site, yet another as a cathedral-
like museum of extractive industry.
Taken together, then, Hansons images document the land-
scape that predated remediation and reclamationin other
words, the most recent stage of disruption, of human interven-
tion, in a place that for a hundred years underwent continual
disruption, much of it devastating. For isnt this more of the
same? In the eyes of the gods, is trying to restore Eden any less
arrogant than destroying it? Our purposes may change but not
our perennial discontent, nor the cultural crucible in which we
try to remake the world in our image, no matter how fractured or
contradictory or provisional it may be.

O
f all the ways we disrupt natural environments,
one of the most aggressive is mining, an activity
that entails not only disfiguring the land but plun-
dering its mineral-laced depths. Underlying the
Butte mining district is a now-flooded network of
staggering scope and complexitysome 10,000 miles of shafts
and tunnels. Miners at the Mountain Con, on North Main Street,
drilled and blasted to a mile beneath the surface, the same level
as the Pacific Ocean but 700 miles inland, in the middle of the
Rocky Mountains. They were among the thousands of men who
labored around the clock in the mines, constituting an eccen-
tric brotherhood, in exile from the sun, from women, from the
coming and going of seasons; a brotherhood that existed for
only one purposeto remove as much ore as possible as fast
as possible. And that enterprise was as dangerous as it was
destructive. From the late 1800s through the mid-1900s, an
average of one man died underground every week. Thousands
more were injured, permanently maimed, or sent to early graves
by silicosis. Improve upon things as they are? Maybe. But not
without paying a price.
The shift to open-pit mining, which started in the mid-1950s,
altered the currency Butte was forced to pay to stay in business
and keep the U.S. supplied with base metals. No longer was the
cost measured chiefly in terms of harm to human beings but
instead in terms of damage to land and water. The ore contained
less copper, so more of itmuch more of ithad to be extracted
and milled. Instead of penetrating the earth, the Anaconda
Company now turned the earth inside out, exposing the violent
processes that had been hidden from view. And the additional

12
Mountain Con Mine,
Centerville, 1985. This
area has been restored.
The mine yard is now a
park, with grass and picnic
tables, and is part of a
trail network that
spans the Hill.

M O N TA N A Q U A R T E R LY 13
 rock those processes produced had to go somewhere.
Because the original town and business district were located
atop the ore bodyon the northern slope of Summit Valley,
an area locals call The Hillmine yards and mine waste had
always intermingled with neighborhoods. Like smelling the odor
of sulfur and hearing the blast of shift whistles, a classic experi-
ence on The Hill was looking out a kitchen window and seeing
head framesthe black, derrick-like structures that lowered men
into the mines and lifted ore out of themtowering over nearby
houses. Where one worked was inseparable from where one lived,
a fact that was once a defining feature of vernacular architecture
in most American industrial towns. But the amount of material
that came out of the Berkeley Pit was so great (about 700 million
tons over the life of the mine) that a new kind of wastescape
was createdplains and plateaus of lifeless yellow overburden
and, to accommodate the water-and-rock-dust slurry flowing day
and night from a nearby mill, an immense impoundment called
the Yankee Doodle Tailings Pond. The most distinctiveas
well as most fatefulcharacteristic of this ravaged area, which
The EPA rescued Butte, an irony that a surprising number
of Butticians have yet to realize or acknowledge. Established in
1980, the Superfund program provided mechanisms for clean-
ing up the countrys most dangerous industrial landscapes,
places that had been abandoned by their original corporate
owners, many of which no longer existed. The great American
vanishing act. In the case of Butte, however, the owner, ARCO,
was very much present and flourishing. Whats more, under
the Superfund law, the company was responsible for redressing
the whole environmental shittaree, including the Butte mining
district, the degraded stream banks and contaminated water of
the upper Clark Fork River, the metals-laden sediment behind
Milltown Dam, and much else, almost all of which was caused
by the previous owner, Anaconda. ARCO did everything it could
to avoid its inherited liability, including enlisting high-octane
lobbyists to persuade Congress to change the law, but to no avail.
So far, ARCO has spent about a billion dollars on remediation
and reclamation in the upper watershed, and more work remains.

also includes the Berkeley and East Continental pits, is that it
embraces the old part of the town along its eastern and northern
borders. The industrial shadow of black-hearted Butte.
Hubristic as it may have been, addressing the highly toxic
and visually distressing legacy of mining became necessary
to Buttes survival after the Berkeley Pit closed in 1982 and
Anacondas successor, the oil giant ARCO, shut down all opera-
tions. A few years later, the smaller, younger East Continental
Pit reopened, but the mine, along with the mill, employs only
about 320 non-union workers. The Mining City could no longer
rely on its namesake industry to drive the economy. But it would
be difficult to attract new businesses and young professionals
with families to the weary, wrecked place depicted in many of
Hansons photos. Was it possible to overcome that handicap, to
escape the grip of the past?
At a time when Butte had every reason to despair, it came up
with a gesture that was extravagant, to say the least, as well as a
wee bit crazy. On the East Ridge, the section of the Continental
Divide forming the eastern boundary of Summit Valley, a group
of unemployed but highly skilled men who had spent most of
their adult lives working for Anaconda erected a nine-story-
high Madonna-like statue. Gazing down at the town and mining
district from 3,500 feet up, Our Lady of the Rockies held her
arms outstretched, palms open and turned upward. She seemed
to be both blessing Butte and imploring the heavens for mercy.
She looked around, as former ironworker John T. Shea puts
it, and said, This town needs help. And, incredibly, help
arrived, though in a form that at first looked more like a curse
than a cure. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency desig-
nated Butte a Superfund sitethe equivalent, in bureaucratic
terms, of a national sacrifice zone.
T
he results have been dramatic. Besides the fields
of bunchgrass, walking paths and picnic areas, and
spruced-up mine yards, Silver Bow Creek, once an
industrial sewer, now so closely resembles a healthy,
free-flowing stream that cutthroat trout have made it
their home. All manner of debris, from dilapidated buildings to
abandoned equipment to slag piles, have been removed.
In the eyes of some natives, however, the transformation,
while necessary, is as much an occasion for grief as it is conso-
lation. That may strike the River-Runs-Through-It enthusiast as
madness but its an attitude borne of a singularly Montanan way
of life; indeed, from an economic standpoint, a way of life that
until the late 20th century was more representative of the state
than any other. What the last best place did best was exploit
its abundant natural resources, of which mining was the most
extreme and lucrative form.
We forget this at our peril, just as forgetting any formative
stage of development is perilous. And reclamation can be a
kind of forgetfulness, of self-induced amnesia. In other words,
well-intentioned environmental remedies can also exact a toll.
Against this backdrop, Hansons photos assume a mourn-
ful cast. As forbidding as some of the subject matter may be,
the images nonetheless depict yet another of Buttes many lost
landscapes. Almost as bad as erasing remnants of the past are
attempts to prettify them. A contentious examplefriends and
former neighbors in Butte will disagree with thisare the red
lights that now adorn several of the surviving head frames. The
impulse is understandable, even laudable, but those iconic
structures are the industrial equivalent of grave markers.
Turning them into gaudy all-season Christmas trees violates

14

the distinctive character of one of the most distinctive places in
the world.
But thats not the only way in which, borrowing from
Faulkner, the past isnt past. While Butte continues to evolve
through not only reclamation but historic preservation and,
most important, economic development, especially such vision-
ary efforts as the three splendid festivals the community hosts
every yeara large portion of the physical legacy of indus-
trialized mining will never be erased: the Berkeley and East
Continental pits, along with much of the intervening and
surrounding expanses of sterile waste rock. (In principle, the
tailings pond can be capped and planted. It remains to be seen
whether that will happen.) This is partly because mammoth pit
mines are permanent disfigurements; the cost of restoring them
to their original condition would dwarf the value of the metals
they yield.
But its also because the community considers much of the
desolate region on its border sacred ground. This is especially
true of the Granite Mountain Speculator Mine Memorial, on
Buttes northeastern edge, and which overlooks a wastescape
that, to the discerning eye, reveals the dilemma of large-scale,
industrialized copper miningon the one hand, the ambi-
tion and, yes, even nobility of the work, as well as the contribu-
tion it made to the country; on the other, the hellish social and
Lexington Mine, in Walkerville,
a Cornish neighborhood, 1987.
The surviving head frames
memorialize the work miners
did underground.
environmental consequences. Hanson echoes that sentiment in
eloquent terms. The Butte mining district and other disturbed
sites he has photographed across the country are, as he writes,
both arena and metaphor for the most constructive and most
destructive aspects of the American spirit.
Butte is unusual in that, for all the qualities the arena
and metaphor share with a historical battlefieldthink of
Gettysburgit is still alive. Mining continues. The East Pit
grows larger every day and the earthen berm of the Yankee
Doodle Tailings Pond rises ever higher. From much of the valley
floor, where the newer part of town is located, the ridge behind
the tailings pond is no longer visible. The dominant feature of
the landscape is the industrial shadow.
That shadow is Buttes burden. But it may also be the towns
salvation, protecting it from those long on wealth and privilege
but short on imagination, the seasonal second-homers and itin-
erant recreationalists who owe allegiance to no particular place
or time. For Butte is a town where one cannot escape the conse-
quences of our urban-industrial way of life, where the sacrificial
nature of civilization is laid bare, memory manifest as geogra-
phy, for all time. Behold and beware. No matter how economi-
cally and culturally robust the community becomesand do not
underestimate its capacity for reinventionButte will never be a
place for the faint of heart.
M O N TA N A Q U A R T E R LY 15
 The Montana Face
of Climate Change
O
n a blustery December evening, Gene and his grown son Bryan are wrenching on hand-built hot rods in their
machine shop on the edge of Colstrip. Theres bright light, good grease smells, a football game on the TV. They tell
me to come on in.
When Gene ran for town council a few years back, he recalls, he was asked to sum up what makes this town of
2,300 residents unique. His answer cut to the basics: We have a coal plant in our front yard, and a coal mine in our back yard.
And like most people around here, he likes it that way.
For 30 years, Gene wrenched on miles of pipe and hundreds of valves as a mechanic in the power plant. With his
paychecks, he built this machine shop and his log home across the street, socked away money for retirement and for his
hot rod hobby. Colstrip was a good town for raising his two boys. Bryan got a job at the mine soon after high school,
and now he, too, is a plant mechanic.
All this is on shaky ground, Gene tells me. Colstrip may have survived past layoffs and lawsuits, but now theres
a bigger threat. In bumper-stickerese, its the War on Coal. It kicked into gear a couple years before his
retirement in 2013, he says, And its escalated since.
Seen another way, its the first real stab at halting runaway climate change. Colstrip is home to
the second-largest coal-fired power plant west of the Mississippi, by far the biggest source of
climate-altering carbon dioxide in Montana. Policies to ratchet back carbon emissions
are putting Colstrip in the crosshairs.
So theres uncertaintyabout whether well dodge the worst of global
warming, about Colstrips future. The two are entwined.
For Gene and others here, it boils down to a basic concern. If
the plant closes, he says, This place would dry up faster
than a dandelion sprayed with Roundup.

16
International politics and distant
economics will determine
the fate of one of the states
wealthiest communities.
In Colstrip, they wait.

BY MARSHALL SWEARINGEN

PHOTOGRAPHY BY THOMAS LEE

Many in Colstrip are sensitive

to the perception people may
have from the towns strip mine
and power plant. Theyre afraid
visitors on a cold day will see
plumes of steam over the power
plant and think it is all pollution.

M O N TA N A Q U A R T E R LY 17
 L
ike any Montana town, Colstrip has seen its ups and
downs. In 1924 it was not much more than a mining
camp, established to provide coal for the Northern Pacific
Railway. By the 1950s it had become a solid little town.
Then the locomotives switched to diesel, and the bottom fell out.
Montana Power Company, the states monopoly utility, bought the
whole outfit in 1959, seeing potential for coal-fired electricity. Then, in
the early 70s, the company unveiled plans for the huge Colstrip plant.
Bob Whitehead came here from Miami, one of hundreds of work-
ers who flocked to Colstrip to construct the plants first two units.
(Each unit has its own smokestack and other components.) He met his
future wife, Mary Ann, amid the hundreds of trailers crammed onto a
flat near the construction site. Shed come from Washington with her
parents to work the boom.
As all booms do, this one ended. Construction of the much
larger units 3 and 4 was stalled amid lawsuits: the nearby Northern
Cheyenne tribe had secured the strictest air quality standards in the
country, while others fought the giant power lines needed to bring the
power to West Coast markets. The Whiteheads left.
By the early 1980s Montana Power prevailed, and the Whiteheads
returned for the second construction boom. Colstrips population
swelled to three times what it is today.
Another boom came and went. But Bob landed a job as a plant
mechanic in 1985, Mary Ann as a plant laborer two years later. They
stuck around for the good jobs, Bob says, but also because Colstrip
was able to offer things that other small towns cant.
Like other company towns, Montana Power lured workers to this
remote corner of southeast Montana by offering amenities. They
chocked the neighborhoods with parks and playgrounds, pitched in
for a recreation center. They were trying to build a model commu-
nity, says Rick Harbin, who oversees Colstrips parks and recreation
program.
Colstrip hit another bump after Montanas legislature deregulated
electric utilities in 1997. Montana Power sold Colstrip and most of its
other power plants to Pennsylvania Power and Light and the power line
infrastructure to NorthWestern Energy, then collapsed. In the shuffle,
Bob and dozens of other workers were laid off, although most got their
jobs back.
Montana Powers unraveling pushed Colstrip to incorporate as a
town. Because of the power plant, it inherited a property tax base
comparable to Montanas largest cities. (In 2014 it ranked fifth in the
state, ahead of Helena.) The new city government also plowed money
into amenities.
Today, Harbin manages 32 parks and other facilities, includ-
ing the improved, 32,000-square-foot recreation center, which has
a weight room and water slide. Bike paths zip through tunnels under

Ninety tons at a time, one of the draglines at Colstrips Rosebud Mine removes
overburden dirt to uncover a coal seam. Coal is the main economic force
behind Colstrip.

18
M O N TA N A Q U A R T E R LY 19
 the highway. Hiking trails ring a reservoir that has produced
state-record catfish. The Whiteheads are fond of the commu-
nity shooting range and the golf course, one of the nicest and
most challenging in Montana, Bob says. Its all basically free
for Colstrip residents, because the plant owners pay around 90
percent of the property taxes.
Add in the small-town feel and low crime, plus the upscale
high school, built with $1.7 million in state coal severance tax
money, and you can see why the Whiteheads like it here.
Bob retired in 2013, part of a major turnover of the plants
aging workforce. Some of them are leaving, says Jim Atchison,
who heads the nonprofit Southeastern Montana Development
Corporation. But its amazing how many of them are staying here,
because of the quality of life.
But the quality of life is tied to the property taxes, which are
tied to the plant. Thats one of the main reasons the Whiteheads,
like Gene Wier, are worried. Theyve ridden the ups and downs.
But this time, Bob says, Its more serious.

T
o understand Colstrips vulnerability, follow the
coal and the electricity. Start just west of town at the
Rosebud Mine, 39 square miles of mostly private
land where a 23-foot coal seam is being rooted from
beneath 180-odd feet of prairie.
Pull in behind one of the 240-ton coal trucks, its tires taller
than you are, as it rumbles down a 100-foot-wide gravel road.
See the workers dropping explosives down hundreds of precisely
drilled holes, preparing a blast that will crumble another strip of
earth and rattle houses in town.
Climb aboard one of the house-sized draglines, the cranes
that do the heaviest of the earthmoving. Feel it pivot and drop its
truck-sized bucket into the seam, grabbing tons of earth to pile
aside.
The 240-ton truck heads down onto the coal, is filled by big
yellow loaders, rumbles back up the hill to a conveyor belt, dumps
its load. The conveyor speeds the coal the four miles to the power
plant, towering over Colstrips far edge.
Follow the coal up more conveyors into the plant, watch it be
ground to fine powder and shot with 700-degree air into the giant
boilers. Peer inside at the roaring fireball, each instant vaporizing
nearly 200 gallons of Yellowstone River water coursing through
the boilers tubes, a closed-loop system that reuses the water. Feel
the thrum of the pressurized steam spinning RV-sized turbines
that turn the generators at 60 revolutions per second.
The power3 million horsepower at full bore, enough to do
the bidding of about 1.5 million homesis in the wires now,
draped on the metal scaffolding marching west out of town. Follow
the wires branching into MontanaNorthWestern Energy sources
about a quarter of its electricity from here. Or follow the big wires,
In addition to having free membership at a local nine-hole golf course and
a park for every 100 people in Colstrip, residents can freely use the well-
equipped recreation center, where Tammy Robinson teaches a fitness
class. Im nervous about where Colstrip is headed, Robinson says.
strung all the way to Puget Sound and beyond.
Many would add: follow the carbon dioxide out of the stacks
unlike other pollutants such as mercury or sulfur dioxide, which
are at least partially scrubbed from the boilers exhaust, it flows
freely. Or follow the slurried coal ash to settling ponds that have
been contaminating groundwater for years.
The money flows in reverse. The six utilities who own shares
in the plant (see sidebar) paid the City of Colstrip and Rosebud
County more than $13 million in 2014 just to be here, in the form
of property taxes. The mine paid nearly $9 million in county
taxes. Thats the money for the parks, the schools and other
services.
The utilities also pay 360-odd workersmechanics, elec-
tricians, office workers, laborers, and operators, many working
12-hour shifts, day and nightsalaries in the range of $60,000 to
$80,000 to run the plant. The plant burns about 10 million tons
of coal per year, sourced entirely from the Rosebud Mine, which
generates tens of millions of dollars in state taxes and federal
royalties and pays its 380 workers an average $81,000.
Thats why Colstrips median household income is close to
double the state average of $46,800; its poverty level is half of
the states 15.3 percent. The town has its rougher edges, and the
houses are modest, but there are shiny trucks and campers in the
driveways.
The money ripples across the region and beyond, explains

20
Atchison. When the plant is overhauled during a couple of months
each spring, hundreds of boilermakers and pipefitters overload
Colstrip and fill up motels in Forsyth and Miles City. The need for
parts and contractors fuels business in Billings. Spending cash
ends up in Billings, Miles City or Sheridan, Wyoming, because
Colstrip has only one grocery store, one hardware store and a
handful of other small shops, restaurants and bars.
The power lines pull dollars from utility customers across the
Northwest and funnel the cash to this corner of eastern Montana.
But the prosperity is easily cut off.
Were a one-horse town, says Atchison. Thats one of our
weaknesses.

W
hen I meet Rex Rogers at the union hall behind
the Town Pump, he tells me how he followed
his brother-in-law to Colstrip in 1980, after big
automotive layoffs struck his native Michigan.
He landed a job as a security guard, then as a plant laborer, then
doing a variety of operations and maintenance work. Now hes
the manager of the local International Brotherhood of Electrical
Workers, the union that represents most of the plant workers.
Colstrip is a big union town. Between the mine and the plant,
most of the workers are represented by two major unions. With
those jobs now on the line, the unions are major players in nego-
tiations, and Rogers is in the middle of it all.
Hes cautious about explaining the threats to the plant,
because, as he puts it, There are a lot of moving pieces. One
gets the sense that there are unseen layers of politics. But he
sketches out the basic pieces on the union hall whiteboard.
In the long run, the biggest threat is the Clean Power Plan,
the Obama administrations chief domestic policy on climate
change. Enacted in August 2015, the plan requires each state to
reduce carbon emissions from fossil-fueled power plants by 2030.
Montana must cut its emissions by 47 percent.
Montana has joined other states in suing to overturn the plan,
which has been temporarily halted by the U.S. Supreme Court,
though the long-term outcome remains in doubt. Theres some
flexibilityMontana can purchase emissions credits from other
states, for instance. But if the plan stands, few are arguing that
compliance wont cut into Colstrip.
NorthWestern Energy commissioned a report that paints a
gloomy picture of the plans impacts: shuttering of the Colstrip
plant, more than 7,000 jobs gone within the decade, more than
$500 million in lost personal income. Aspiring governor Greg
Gianforte has drummed up bigger fears, saying total costs might
exceed $1 billion. Rogers thinks these are exaggerations. But
some of his optimism is shaky too, like his confidence in carbon
sequestration, the concept of capturing carbon dioxide and storing
it underground. Its an expensive technology still in its infancy.
Rex Rogers manages the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
in Colstrip. Colstrip is a company town, one that mines coal and then
burns it to make electricity. Efforts to curb the production of fossil-fueled
electricity threaten the livelihoods of Rogers and his fellow workers.
In the near term, the bigger threat is from Washington state,
which uses the greatest share of Colstrips electricity. Thats where
the pieces are in particular motion.
In 2014, Washingtons governor, Jay Inslee, issued an execu-
tive order on climate change. The order includes a goal to reduce
and eliminate over time the use of coal-fired electricity in
Washington, including from plants located outside that state.
Meanwhile, Talen Energy, a spin-off that Pennsylvania Power
and Light created in part to handle its Colstrip assets after it failed
to sell them along with its Montana dams in 2014, has shown
numerous signs of wanting out. Its complicated, but Talen isnt
like the other, publicly regulated Colstrip utilities. Talen is a free-
market seller of electricity, and the business of selling coal-gener-
ated electrons has been undercut by new power plants tapping the
glut of natural gas unleashed by fracking technologythe kind of
power plants that, along with renewable energy and energy effi-
ciency, are filling the shoes of many coal plants that have recently
shut down around the country.
Finally, in January, Puget Sound Energy, likely seeing Colstrip
as a long-term liability and also seeing an opening created by
Inslees order and Talens wavering, backed legislation that maps
out the decommissioning of units 1 and 2. (As of press time,
that bill was on track to pass, as was another, Oregon bill that
would require that states utilities to divest from coal by 2030 and
increase their share of renewable energy to 50 percent by 2040

M O N TA N A Q U A R T E R LY 21
 The Murray Hotel a move that would put heavy pressure on Portland General
Electric and PacifiCorp to also get out of Colstrip.)
Even Cowboys Like The upshot: those in the know wouldnt be surprised if those
Big, Fluffy Pillows units were shut down in five years. And while that would go
a ways toward satisfying the Clean Power Plan, it wouldnt be
enough.
All this comes back to Gene Wier, who knows what a layoff
feels like. In 1982 he lost his job at a California steel mill to
tougher clean air regulations, the Reagan recession and a
wave of cheap Japanese steel. He found his Colstrip job through
a federal program, set up in 1962 and still active today, that
assists workers impacted by foreign imports. The program even
paid for his moving expenses.
Now his son Bryan, with kids of his own, is facing the same
thing I did, Gene says. But the issue here isnt foreign imports,
and theres no similar program to help laid-off power plant
workers or coal miners. He doesnt have a safety net.

HUNTER DANTUONO/LIVINGSTON ENTERPRISE
I wake up in a lot of hotels,
so Im fiercely loyal
to the ones I love.
ANTHONY BOURDAIN, CHEF AND BEST-SELLING AUTHOR,
WHO LISTS THE MURRAY AMONG HIS 10 FAVORITES
201 West Park Street, Downtown Livingston
(406) 222-1350 | MURRAYHOTEL.COM
M
ontana history sets a calloused precedent
on such matters. You dont have to look far to
find the busted mining town, the busted timber
town, the busted ag town. Colstrip has boomed
and busted, multiple times. Life goes on, you could say. And if
you view climate change as the calamity that it is, the fate of a
small town thats had a good ride on the company dime might
seem small by comparison.
But try telling that to the Wiers or the Whiteheads. You
cant help but root for a 21st-century ending in which they dont
get the door closed on them.
Heres one possible ending, the dream of the Montana
Environmental Information Centers Anne Hedges and
others: the Colstrip plant is phased out over time, but that
opens up capacity on the transmission lines for scores of wind
turbines and solar farms, tended by retrained workers. But,
It takes the community being interested in doing that for
it to happen, Hedges says. And thats frustrating, because
Rogers and others are skeptical, at the least. Its hard for any
proposal to compare to the plant/mine moneymaker. But the
ideas are there. And as the pressure notches up, they may
spring to life.
My final day in Colstrip, I meet old-timer Bill MacFarlane,
who worked 30 years at the mine, helping to build two of the
massive draglines. It wasnt for the money, he says. My
family loved it here.
He takes me down to the old building that served as Colstrips
schoolhouse in the railroad days. Now its a community space,
art gallery and museum, with photos of the old town and the
construction booms. It will soon have another chapter to record.
MacFarlane seems to view Colstrips future with the

22
 Where the Power Goes
A look at how much coal-fired electricity is produced in Colstrip and the companies that
consume it:
Unit 1 Unit 2 Unit 3 Unit 4
Total output (in megawatts) 307 307 740 740

Companies Total share

Puget Sound Energy 50% 50% 25% 25% 677 (32%)
Talen Energy 50% 50% 30% 529 (25%)
Portland General Electric 20% 20% 296 (14%)
NorthWestern Energy 30% 222 (11%)
Avista 15% 15% 222 (11%)
PacifiCorp 10% 10% 148 (7%)

SOURCE: Puget Sound Energy

practicality of an engineer, the way one might approach the chal- If he were 30 years younger, he says, hed take this challenge
lenge of getting coal out of the ground. Hes no greenie, but he on. We need to be thinking about alternatives, and working
wonders why all the big solar arrays are being built in western with other people on that, he says.
Montana, instead of out here, where its sunnier. The future is staring at us.

THE PROVING GROUND FOR

BRONCS, BULLS, COWBOYS
AND COWGIRLS

SoutheastMontana.com

EXPERIENCE A WHOLE NEW LEVEL OF RODEO

MILES CIT Y BUCKING HORSE SALE MAY 19-22

M O N TA N A Q U A R T E R LY 23
 This guy,
losing weight
and suffering
from a range
of debilitating
symptoms,
walks into a few
abandoned mines
and breathes
deeply of a
radioactive gas,
all in the name
of health. Could
it actually help?

24
 THE RADON
CURE
Do you glow? asked a friend from Washington D.C.
Why not shamanism? suggested another academic pal. Or you could try snake-handling ...
Sezar is now totally convinced youre a troll, said a third wag, referring to his 5-year-old
sons response to seeing his Uncle Tommy seated in a graffiti-covered cave.
These were just a fraction of the teasing and concerned comments made after I told people I
had spent a weekend in Montanas Elkhorn Mountains, sucking in radon gas in some old mines
for neurological relief.
But most expressed shock and dismay.
We had a radon detector installed in our basement and there was a reason why was a
common response.
Madam Curie discovered radium and she died of a combination of cancers and radiation
poisoning, in spite of her TWO Nobel Prizes.
But it was too late.
While I had not taken the full, recommended treatment of 30-odd hours of radon exposure
over a 10-day period in the mines, I had already willingly subjected myself to some eight hours
of inhalation, and planned on going back for more.
Just curiosity? Or desperation?

STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY THOMAS GOLTZ

M O N TA N A Q U A R T E R LY 25
 The theory behind the Montana Radon Health Mines is that
a little poison is good for yousort of like jumpstarting a
dysfunctional immune system with a cattle prod.

Montanas radon mines are clustered in the Elkhorn

Mountains near the town of Boulder.

I
first heard of the mines through purest fluke. The
daughter of a friend of a friendlets call her Sally in this instance I was no longer a mere voyeur, but an interested
has been a neurological mess ever since an 18-wheeler
crushed her car some years ago. Conventional treatment
didnt help much.
Then she started going to one of the radon mines in the
general area around Boulder, Montanaa little town of some
1,200 citizens shouldering a nifty river of the same name.
According to her father, she found such renewed stamina
and dexterity that she began painting detailed drawings at the
bottom of her mineshaft, and swore that it was due to inhaling
the curative radon gas.
I was highly intrigued, both as your Johnny-Come-Usual-
Journalist-Always-Looking-For-A-Good Story, and also because
seeker of neurological therapy of any kind: Once-Immortal-Me
also had nerve-related ailments, and those problems were having
a profound impact on my mobility and thus on my outlook on life.
Medically speaking, they call it neuropathy, a big word that I
prefer to define as frozen feet, with a good amount of vertigo-
wobble whenever I close my eyes. Others call it drop-foot.
Whatever you want to call it, it is not a lot of fun walking around
looking like you are drunk when you are not.
My low point came in early 2015. Promising friends and
family to have the chronic dizziness checked out by profession-
als, I subjected myself to a battery of tests in Istanbul, when

26
and where I was diagnosed not only with Parkinsons Disease
(preliminary) but also with suspected permanent nerve damage
due to a lifetime of heavy drinking. The doctors put me on a diet
of what I called Devil Pills that provided no apparent improve-
ment in my neurological condition, but certainly wreaked havoc
with my innards. In three months, I dropped from a very fit 180
pounds to a scrawny 150 pounds.
Quite frankly, I thought I was dying.
Returning to Montana in May, and looking for an alternative
diagnosis, I subjected myself to yet another round of radiological
zappings that led to a finding of sublucated vertebrae in my
spine and a recommendation for invasive surgery. Then I under-
went yet another round of radiological blastings to triple-check
everything, and on the eighth day of tests, my doctors suddenly
declared me clean of everything aside from a Vitamin-B
deficiency.
What?
This was good news, I guess: at least I could rid myself of all
the expensive, anti-Parkinsons dopes that warned of side effects
such as binge-shopping, frantic sex-seeking, chronic gambling
and an urge to suicide.
But my feet were still frozen and the close-your-eyes-to-
wash-your-face vertigo didnt go awayand thats when I started
to clutch at unorthodox medical straws, like slurping down a
little radon.
T
he theory behind the Montana Radon Health Mines
is that a little poison is good for yousort of like
jumpstarting a dysfunctional immune system with a
cattle prod.
The study of this concept is called hormesis, a
term only coined about 70 years ago, although the idea has been
the often-controversial focus of scientists and physicians for
centuries. The dose makes the poison, said the 16th-century
Swiss physician Paracelsus, the so-called grandfather of
modern pharmacology.
Today, the exploration of hormesis in all its multiple forms
is the mission of the Massachusetts-based International Dose-
Response Society.
Founded in 2005, it has its own peer-reviewed journal, Dose-
Response, dedicated to the publication of original findings
on the occurrence of dose-response relationships, especially
biphasic (e.g., hormetic) dose responses across a broad range of
biological disciplines. ...
The society has focused on highly technical research in the
past, but its 2016 conferences call for papers seems to focus on
real-world alternative medicine, and thus less on experiments on
mice and more about the use of stressors (exercise, intermit-
tent fasting, heat and cold, etc.) that trigger adaptive responses
A sign points the way to Earth Angel mine, just outside Basin, a town that
started as a mining camp in the 19th century.
in human conditions. These range from Alzheimers, Parkinsons
and diabetes to depression, PTSD and wound-healing accelera-
tionthe last three suggesting that the Dose-Response Society
is honing in on groups such as military veterans returning from
Afghanistan and Iraq.
But previous issues of Dose-Response have featured other
active and passive stress-triggers, including the Boulder
River radon spas. In a very elaborate paper published in 2007,
Dr. Barbara Erikson of California State University/Fullerton
detailed her four years of anthropological research in the
Montana mines. While Dr. Erikson was clearly concerned about
the medical viability of doing a little poison, her main focus
was asking her multiple interlocutors why they were going down
into irradiated mines to seek cures for all manner of maladies.
By tracking repeat customers and then comparing the
passive self-therapy in the Boulder/Basin area (where most
clients appear to be elderly folks who camp in their RVs) with
much wider research in decidedly upscale radon spas in Europe
(where radon treatment has been normal for centuries), Dr.
Erikson was able to establish that there was a vast, word-of-
mouth community of believers who swore by radon mines as the
cure they had long sought but never received from mainstream
medicine.
It prompted the question: could so many people be so wrong?
M
y first radon health mine was Earth Angel,
just outside the small, one-bar burg of Basin,
a former mining town where most buildings on
Main Street have been boarded up, and which
appears to boast more rusting cars and trucks
than the official population of 250 souls.
M O N TA N A Q U A R T E R LY 27
 I settled into the damp, chilly rock cellar for my next hour
of radon inhalation with my sense of claustrophobia and
nuclear trepidation gone, or rapidly receding.

Setting up my rough camp at a bucolic, water-babbling bend
along Basin Creek above the town, I sallied forth to the trailer-
office of Earth Angel. A woman there identified herself as owner
Tina Steele. When I explained the reason for my pilgrimage and
asked whether a little radon might not be just the thing for my
frozen feet and vertigo, she could only chuckle.
My dad used to have a three-legged dog that went in the
mine, looking for a cure and to regrow the fourth, she said with
a laugh. It didnt workbut it seems to be good for everything
else!
I was to hear a lot of cured-my-dog stories over the next 72
hours in three different mines, inhaling radon.
and by the third day the damn mutt was as frisky as a puppy,
and jumping in and out of my friends RV on its own.
The friend started taking the cure the next year, and soon
swore by it.
He called to tell me he could drive five or six hours at a
stretch without having to stop and limber up due to back pain,
said Bill, shaking his head. What the heck! I said, and started
coming myself every year. That was 14 years ago.
Might there just be something to this, for me? I wondered.
Well, said Bill glancing at a convenient wall clock clamped
to the rough-rock walls. My hour is upand so is yours!
While it is not a strict policy, the Earth Angel Radon Mine
management suggests that medicinal pilgrims only do an hour of
radon therapy at a time.

T
he dank, narrow, rough-rock main tunnel filled me
with trepidation that might be better expressed as
claustrophobia until I came across a second shaft
off to the left, where I saw a slightly broader opening
offering lawn chairs. There sat a couple who seemed
to be in their late 70s, bundled up against the damp and chill
(the average temperature in all the mines hovers around 60
degrees) and quietly reading magazines.
They were nearly done with their session and had no time
(or interest) to chat. But I was soon joined by Bill, a garrulous
An hour or three later, I was back at Earth Angelbut this
time dressed in fleece and with a cap and with a book I actu-
ally wanted to read: a biography of Sir Richard Francis Burton
entitled The Devil Drives.
I settled into the damp, chilly rock cellar for my next hour of
radon inhalation with my sense of claustrophobia and nuclear
trepidation gone, or rapidly receding.
And if this radon-inhalation stuff actually works?

80-year-old gentleman from Florida. He said that he had no
health complaints to cure but was at the Earth Angel for his
annual tune-up before drifting around the American West to
visit various girlfriends, most of them considerably younger than
he was.
Maybe thats because Ive been coming here for 14 years,
said Bill with a lascivious wink, and then explained how he had
stumbled into his annual inoculation-against-everything radon
bath program.
It was (of course) all the result of a dog.
In 2000 or 2001, Bill found himself at a gathering of RV
enthusiasts in the Merry Widow Health Mine campground
near Basin. There, he met an old friend who was in such pain
from arthritis that he had to dismount from his RV for a stretch
every two hours or so. The friend had an old dog that seemed to
suffer from arthritis, too, and had to be carried in and out of the
camper.
I had no interest in going in the mine for any damn radon
gas therapy, Bill explained. But then someone took the dog in
T
he next morning, I pushed on to explore another mine
I had heard about. This one required a little more
effort to find.
The brochure of the Sunshine Health Mine warns
would-be drop-by visitors NOT to use a GPS system
to try and find the spa while traveling on Highway 69 to Boulder
because it will mislead you.
Indeed, Sunshines relative obscurity is one of its primary
charms: you really have to know what you are looking for, then
follow signs to get there.
Set up almost like a radon-based dude ranch, Sunshine is
a series of bucolic yet modern cabins nestled along an alpine
meadow framed by forest, and just far enough above and beyond
the I-15 Butte-Helena highway that there is no road noise at all.
Inside the mineshaft, I found a triad of Canadians playing domi-
noes; some type of dog occasionally changed laps. Checked into
the Sunshine for their annual radon fix, the Canadian clients
could only cough at detractors of Sunshines medicinal charms.
Animals are not subject to a placebo effect, said Diane

28
Etchings and graffiti from past visitors are common sights at the radon
mines. Some of the leavings are testimonials to the mines curative
powers, while others just record the comings and goings.

Summers, aged 62, an office manager from Alberta, Canada,

who had been coming to Sunshine for the past five years to
address her burning-foot syndrome.
Her husband still scoffs and stays at home, but her younger
sister Eileen Johnston does not. Declaring herself to be in the
Sunshine Mine for reasons of solidarity with her older sister,
Eileen related the real miracle concerning her arthritic chow
dog, Memphis.
He is a different animal after hanging out with us sisters in
the mines, said Eileen, patting the dogs head.
What about me? asked her spouse, Pete Johnston, aged 76.
A life-long construction worker, he suffers from rheumatoid
arthritis, or in his case, what he describes as crooked-finger
disease.
Ive cut my pill intake in half, said Pete, slapping down
another domino in the Sunshine Mine tunnel with straight-digit
authority.
Sunshine Mine owner Dennis Lee then showed up to regale
us with his own stories and testimonies of happy radon clients,
ranging from the Boulder Woman who was blind in one eye
due to multiple sclerosis but who got her sight back (As close
to a miracle as anything I have ever seen, said Dennis) to the
Arizona Woman who arrived with arthritic claw-hands but
left with deft fingers (She comes back every year) and then the
guy who came because arthritis had reduced him to a veritable
cripplebut who now climbs mountains.

M O N TA N A Q U A R T E R LY 29
 Well, I said at last. I guess my hour is upgotta get outta here!
The three Canadians and Dennis Lee looked at each other for a moment, and
then back at me.
Youve been to Earth Angel, havent you? said Pete.
They probably told you to stick your feet in that frigid mine water, now didnt
they? asked Eileen.
Didnt do a damn thing for my fire-feet, exclaimed older sister Diane.
It is the gas, not the water, Dennis declared for all present. We do two-hour
terms of inhalation here at Sunshine, because it has always been like thatbut for
more real information, you have to go and see Pat.

H
i, I am a mine inspector, looking for Pat, I said, strutting into
the Free Enterprise Health Mine administration office up above
Boulder, Montana.
Im Pat, said the graying, crop-cut, handsome lady sitting
behind the desk, looking at me with a cool-to-cold eye. As for
mine inspectors, weve never had one of them in here before.
I quickly recalibrated and told Patricia Lewis, granddaughter of mine engineer
Wade Lewis, who had opened the Free Enterprise Mine to dig for uranium in 1949,
that I was not a mine inspector in any other sense than that I was touring the
regions radon mines for my own health reasons, and this claim was not a joke.
Come on down, said Pat, leading me into the elevator that would lower me
some 85 feet deeper into the hard-rock uranium mineshaft. You got a problem with
claustrophobia?
Not any longer, I said. Not after Earth Angel and Sunshine.
So said Pat. You may have been to the others, but I have to tell you that
in addition our being the first radon mine in these parts, not only do we have Wi-Fi
down here, but we also have surveillance cameras watching your every move.
Cameras? To prevent people from scrawling graffiti? Just like the rough-hewn
rock walls and the supporting beams of all the other radon shafts I had sat in, down
here in the Free Enterprise Mine gallery every possible vertical and horizontal space
was crammed with margins-of-modern-medicine testimony, carved or crayoned with
the names and memories of radon health mine believers from Canada to Norway to
Korea, often with multiple claims of cure: arthritis was big, but so were eczema and
other skin diseases. And everyone whose signature was recorded or stained on the
walls of the mine was absolute in their devotion: You Have Saved Me .
Pat Lewis was already back in the elevator, and I was down in the uranium
mineshaft carved out of living rock for my last blast of radon therapy. Now inured to
the casual a-little-poison-might-cure-you process, I sat back in the radon-permeated
glow: hour number seven or eight of what should have been 30 or even 60 over a
10-day stay.
I knew the numbers, and knew that I was not going to make them. I was the guy
falling somewhere between a voyeur taking a journalistic squint and giggle at the
absurdities of human health-hope endeavors and a pilgrim looking for a miraculous,
last-minute, Lazarus-like cure to my very real-world frozen feet.
At a certain point during my meditations, I got to my feet and moved around the
underground chamber, noting the names of visitors before mefolks from Montana;
lots of Canadians; a few from Korea, Norway, Germany, and maybe even a Serb.
Then, with a jolt, I found her:

30

There, among the magic-marker scrawls was an unsigned,
multi-color, entwined double-snake apothecary symbol drawn
not on the raw rock face like most, but on the supporting
beams of the shaft.
It was Sallys workthe gal whose car had been crushed
by a truck and had suffered much more severe neurological
stuff than over-drinking me could ever imagine.
I sat and stared at her hand-drawn, double-snake image for
maybe an hour, reflecting on my lifes multiple good fortunes
and young Sallys very bad luck. I had survived a lot of self-
imposed weird stuff in strange places, while she had just been
driving down a Montana highway when she got smashed by an
out-of-control truck that left her an invalid.
Finally, I got in the elevator and raised myself from the
radon-soaked mineshaft to the earths surface, 85 feet above
and about 30 degrees warmer than down below.
Hi, Pat Lewis said, a smirk cool as coal. I had you on
video, and you did not seem to misbehave.
Tell me about the snake pictures, I asked, referring to
Sallys weirdly beautiful drawings way downstairs.
Oh, her, said Pat, and explained what I already knew.
I
drove away from the Free Enterprise Mine and the
Boulder River radon mine country, deeply confused.
Had I found a miraculous cure to my neuropathic
frozen feet, or merely a feel-good psycho/physiological
placebo, based on the determined dreams of a young
woman named Sally who was using the idea of the radon
mines to heal herself?
Beyond passively sucking in radon in the Elk River/
Boulder Basin area mines, I have subsequently learned that
there are other, active things that all of us neurologically-
plagued folks must do: Think It Through. That concept is
called neuroplasticity, or training the brain to fix neurons
that have gone awry.
And doing so in a radon mine in western Montana is not a
bad place to force the mind into hard overdrive.
It seemed to work for me, anyway.
Now eight months later, in early 2016, I am back up to a
reasonable fighting weight of 170 pounds or so. I am no longer
a skeleton of myself and do (almost) daily vigor walks on
broken ground at 15 minutes a mile or faster, and I am semi-
religious about my (minimum) 40 push-ups a day.
What did any of this have to with getting zapped by radon
at the Boulder mines?
I dunno.
But I am feeling a lot better today than I was in May.
Thanks, Pat, Dennis and Tina.
Ill be back.
* FAVORITE HIKES *
Yellowstone river Trail
Trip distance: 12 MILES DURATION: 6-9 HOURS
MAP: trails illustrated - mammoth
Distance from Livingston: 66 miles
This Yellowstone National Park hike makes for a great early or late season venture. Having
two vehicles is ideal as the start of this hike is at the Blacktail Deer Creek trailhead and the fin-
ish is at the trailhead parking area adjacent to the Eagle Creek Campground along the Jardine
Road, making a shuttle necessary.
From the trailhead, the hike gradually descends alongside Blacktail Deer Creek for 3.5 miles
into the Black Canyon of the Yellowstone. Upon reaching the Yellowstone River, a suspension
foot-bridge spans the river giving you passage to the
Yellowstone River Trail. From here, the trail parallels
the Yellowstone. Knowles Falls, and the canyon that
funnels the river below Knowles, are particularly
impressive. Unlike the river, the trail follows a more
pleasant and gentle course through the canyon. To-
ward the end of the canyon, watch for bighorn sheep
as they frequent this area. After crossing Bear Creek,
the trail ascends up to the Jardine road and trailhead.
The flora and landscape of this hike vary so dramati-
cally from start to finish, the excitement of whats next
will keep you going for the entire distance. Remem-
ber to tread lightly and leave no trace.
Please stop in for great gear
or further suggestions on
other hiking destinations.
309 W. Park Phone
Livingston, MT 222-9550
Armstrong
Spring Creek
The OHair Ranch
a world class spring creek located
just 50 miles north of yellowstone Park
in Paradise valley.
Join us for some of the best fly fishing
Montana has to offer!
reservations required
8 Miles south of livingston, Montana
Call Judy at (406) 222-2979
eMail: Judy@huntChiMneyroCk.CoM
M O N TA N A Q U A R T E R LY 31
32
Plumbing
Montanas cavers
(dont call them
spelunkers) endure
cold, muck and

the Depths
darkness as they
explore the wonder
of our hidden places

BY PHIL KNIGHT

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ELLIOT STAHL

The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.
Joseph Campbell

M
ontanas soaring mountains, sparkling rivers,
clear skies and vast valleys make the state a
beacon for those who seek vistas and vastness.
But James Cummins knows Montana has a
deeper, darker side. He plumbs it.
Sometimes caving is cold, muddy and exhausting, Cummins
said. And, Sometimes its like walking around in a museum of
natural wonders.
But he never knows until he gets there, so, for him, the thrill
comes in seeing whats around the next bend. To satisfy that
curiosity, he spends hours and days delving into the underpin-
nings of Montanas rumpled landscape. Above: The view from the mouth of Tears the Turtle Cave, at 1,629 feet
With more than 50 caves over 200 feet deep, Montana is a the deepest limestone cave in the United States. Just getting to the cave
mecca for cavers like Cummins, a member of the Northern Rocky requires a 22-mile hike in to the heart of the Bob Marshall Wilderness
Mountain Grotto of the National Speleological Society. And the Area. Then the hard work begins.

states caves run the gamut. Lewis and Clark Caverns, a Montana
State Park, is well lit and accessible to anyone who can walk,
while Lost Creek Siphon near Big Timber requires rappelling
down vertical pits through underground cascades with names
such as Hurricane Falls. Bighorn Cave (at 16 miles, Montanas
longest) and the ice caves in the Pryor Mountains have gates
built over the entrance, requiring cavers to contact the US Forest
Service or the Bureau of Land Management to obtain a key,
which limits use by those without experience and proper gear.
But with at least 350 caves in Montana, theres plenty of explor-
ing for adventurous cavers.
Opposite page: Jason Ballensky squeezes through a tight, muddy passage
in the Tickle Me Turtle Cave in the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area.
The greatest concentration of Montana caves is in the states
remotest regionthe rugged limestone mountains of the Bob
Marshall Wilderness Area. There, Cummins, Hans Bodenhamer,
Jason Ballensky, Ian Chechet and other members of the Grotto
have been pushing the limits of cave exploration and have
recently found the deepest known limestone cave in the country.
Cavingonly greenhorns call it spelunkingis a strange

M O N TA N A Q U A R T E R LY 33
 sport with highly dedicated participants.
As Chechet told me, As cavers, were not
going to be Red Bull-sponsored, but we
still get a huge thrill from being on the
edge of new exploration. Caving is often
difficult, dark, and dirty, and it involves a
certain amount of suffering. Cavers speak
of keyhole passages, pits, sinks, rope
drops, bridging sequences and squeezes.
Vertical passages require rappelling down
a static (non-stretch) rope followed by
strenuous climbs back up the same ropes
using clamps known as jumars. Caving
is not a spectator sport, except maybe on
YouTube, and can be dangerous.
Its certainly not hard to get in trouble
in a cave. Two men had to be rescued from
Montanas Ophir Cave in August 2014
when they couldnt ascend their ropes
from the bottom of the cave. In June 2009
a man died when he fell 50 feet into the
same cave while taking photographs.
But once you get a taste of it, caving
will haunt you: the roar of underground
rivers; the impenetrable blackness if you
dare to turn off your lights; the struggle
against mounting panic as you squeeze
through a tight passage; the camaraderie
of teamwork in an unforgiving environ-
ment; the vast relief when you emerge
from the cave mouth, squinting and grin-
ning in the sunlight.
For the truly hardcore, caving means
treading where no human has gone before.
New discovery is the holy grail of caving,
and Montana, with its immense reefs of
ancient limestone, is a hotbed of it.

M
ost caves form in
limestone, sedimentary
rock composed of the
compressed shells of
ancient marine life. The
thick limestone reefs in the Bob Marshall
Wilderness and in Glacier Park were
formed during the Cambrian era more
than three hundred million years ago and
are riddled with caves. The Silvertip cave
system alone extends for fifteen miles

34
Above: Some of Montanas big caves require multiple rappels. Hans Bodenhamer tackles one of
them in the Tickle Me Turtle cave.
Left: Jason Ballensky installs climbing bolts, critical safety devices, in Double Date Cave.
beneath the Continental Divide, and it
includes Blood Cave, named for its iron-
tinted flowstone.
Colliding continents and massive
mountain-building events formed the
bizarre Lewis Overthrust, an immense
slab of limestone that slid over the top of
younger rock layers, putting older rock
above younger rock.
Limestone is readily dissolved by
water, and that process forms carbonic
acid, which then dissolves more stone.
This produces calcium bicarbonate, which
decorates caves with iconic features such
as stalactites, stalagmites, columns and
flowstone, known collectively as speleo-
thems. Gypsum can also produce delicate,
beautiful crystals in caves.
Hans Bodenhamer started explor-
ing the limestone labyrinth of the Bob
Marshall Wilderness decades ago. Hes
been in at least 1,500 caves around the
country, a quarter of them unknown
before his visit. Nowadays Bodenhamer
is an Earth Science teacher at Bigfork
High School and leader of the Bigfork
High School Cave Club. He introduces
students to the mysteries of the under-
ground and involves them directly in
mapping and conserving Montana caves.
Most recently, the club made a mapping
trip to the Little Ice Cave in the Pryor
Mountains in south-central Montana.
My own introduction to caving was
in the Mill Creek Crystal Cave in the
Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness back in
the 1980s. Its a fantastic cave with a very
friendly, wide-open passage at the cave
mouth, but it quickly gets real.
Neophyte cavers all, the five of us
had no safety gear and some had only
one source of light. From the airy cave
mouth wed walked, crawled, shimmied,
and groveled into ever-tighter passages,
including one we dubbed the Hell Hole,
unsure if we could even find our way out.
To our amazement we spotted daylight
after a couple of hours underground and
M O N TA N A Q U A R T E R LY 35
 Cavers are protective about cave locations, and for good reason. Many
caves, including Lewis and Clark Caverns, have been vandalized by
people breaking off mineral formations, lighting fires in the caves,
dumping trash, stealing fossils and artifacts, and leaving graffiti.
emerged through a waterfall into the entrance sinkhole, having
unwittingly completed a loop.
Cummins and Bodenhamer have spent seven years mapping
Crystal Cave to a length of nearly 2 miles, and there is more yet to
map and explore. Mapping a cave like this is best done in winter
when less water runs through it. This requires a 6-mile approach
on skis or snowshoes just to reach the entrance. My summer trips
into the cave sound like picnics in comparison.
According to Cummins, to reach the most inaccessible part of
Crystal Cave requires a 300-foot crawl. This may be the most
remote place Ive been, because a rescue from beyond the crawl
would be almost impossible, he said.
Jason Ballensky has been caving for 17 years in the Bob
Marshall, discovering and mapping miles of new cave passages.
Caving often requires you to keep pushing even in the worst of
One of Montanas most remote, wild
and surprising new places to experience
BUFFALO CAMP
Campground
l $10 per night l Trailer and tent sites
($15 with electricity) l Interpretive trail
l Open year-round l Geocaching activities
l Toilets, water, fire rings, picnic l Exceptional birding and 600-plus
tables, shade pavilions
bison roaming area
Map, directions and full list of amenities at americanprairie.org
36
situations, Ballensky says. There are no emergency exits. Caving
continually requires you to keep calm and make smart choices.
Some of my scariest memories of caving were the times I was
unable to keep fear and exhaustion from affecting my decisions.
Ballensky names Lick Creek Cave in the Little Belt Mountains
as a great place for beginning cavers. You have to negotiate some
down climbs using a rope on wet, slick surfaces. Youll need a
helmet and three sources of light. The cave is 38 degrees, so you
will also need some warm clothes that you dont mind getting
muddy. Lick Creek Cave holds Montanas largest cave room, big
enough to park a 747.
Caves in Montana are often colder than caves elsewhere,
which usually maintain a steady temperature in the 50s. Like
Lick Creek, most caves in the Bob Marshall are in the upper 30s,
with plenty of mud and water. Tears of the Turtle, the Cave that
Summer Forgot and others hold permanent
ice at their entrances.
Colder caves of course require thicker
clothing and take more of a toll on cavers,
who struggle to stay warm. Essential
equipment and clothing includes climbing
harnesses, helmets, headlamps and extra
light sources, expedition-weight, single-
piece long underwear, neoprene and rubber
gloves, neoprene socks, insulated rubber
boots, a heavy-duty fleece top, fleece bala-
clava and an oversuit of the material that
is used to make body bags. Some cavers
even wear wet or dry suits under coveralls.
All this gear is heavy, so cavers in the Bob
Marshall hire horse packers to haul their
loads to base camp.
But the lure of the depths is worth the
work and suffering. For Ballensky and
Cummins, Tears of the Turtle is the deep-
est cave they have explored. We found the
cave in 2006, but it took us eight years to
find the current bottom, says Ballensky.
There were numerous hidden passages,
tricky route finding, sticky mud and very
tight keyholes. And Ballensky thinks the
cave might be even deeper yet. This summer

Shawn Thomas and James Hunter
navigate a passage in Double Date Cave,
one of the many wet, muddy caverns in
the limestone reefs of the Bob Marshall
Wilderness.
the explorers plan to pack in inflatable
snowshoes to navigate the quicksand that
has blocked further descent in the cave.
Difficult as it is, getting to the bottom
is only half the job.
When you are at the bottom of the
cave, you know that a great deal of effort
is required to exit, said Ballensky. Itll
take at least five hours squeezing uphill
through tight, muddy passages that are
continually sucking the warmth out of
you. Youll also have to climb ropes using
gear that is slimed with mud. After you
exit, youve got the 2-mile hike to return to
camp, during which you traverse a steep,
loose, ankle-twisting slope in the dark.
Camp itself is 22 miles from the trail-
head. Even once back at the trailhead,
you still have 70 miles of gravel road to
bounce along before reaching civilization.
Climbing in and out of a cave such as
Tears of the Turtle takes about 16 hours.
Most cavers try to avoid sleeping under-
ground because of all the extra gear they
would need and the additional impact they
would have on the cave.
In 2014 a team including Ballensky
and Cummins pushed Tears of the Turtle
Cave to 1,629 feet deep, surpassing the
nearby Virgil the Turtles Greathouse Cave
(1,586 feet), making Tears the deepest
limestone cave in the United States (a lava
tube in Hawaii is deeper). Both are part
of the Swiss-cheese limestone constituting
Turtlehead Mountain in the remote back-
country of the Bob Marshall.
Tears of the Turtle requires 44 rope
drops (rappels) after the 22-mile hike to
the entrance. Much more difficult to navi-
gate than Virgils, Tears requires cavers
to push through tight keyhole passages
and bridge above quicksand, applying
pressure from hands, feet and back to two
cave walls at the same time.
Cummins, the Bigfork High School
Cave Club, and other cavers seek not
only to explore Montana caves and
push beyond known depths, but also to
map the complex underground. Using
compasses, measuring tapes and GIS
M O N TA N A Q U A R T E R LY 37
 More on Caving
Caves of Montana: www.cavesofmontana.org
Northern Rocky Mountain Grotto: www.nrmg.org
Bigfork High School Cave Club:
www.bigforkhighschoolcaveclub.weebly.com
technology, these deep-earth cartographers create detailed
maps in 3D, showing the twists and turns of the labyrinths they
explore.
In the summer of 2015, a team of 14 cavers re-mapped parts
of the remote Silvertip Cave system in the Bob Marshall, chart-
ing 3.8 miles of cave. A rigging crew went first, replacing bolts
and hanging ropes for the mapping crew that followed.
The maps are made partly to satisfy the curiosity of cavers,
and also to share with the U.S. Forest Service via a cooperative-
use agreement with the statewide Grotto. However, these maps
are rarely made public to prevent overuse and vandalism of
caves and to avoid accidents involving inexperienced cavers.
D
espite the harsh conditions and lack of light, life
exists in caves. Amphipods (small crustaceans such
as sand fleas) and isopods (think wood lice) have
evolved in the cold and darkness. Wood rats build
huge middens in caves, some of them thousands
of years old; and bears, mountain lions, and wolverinespicture
meeting Gulo gulo in a tight cave passageall make use of caves.
Montana caves host hibernating and roosting colonies of little
brown bats, big brown bats, long-eared myotis, and Townsends
big-eared bats.
Bats across North America are in extreme danger from
White-Nose Syndrome (WNS), a fungal infection that kills
entire colonies of hibernating bats. As of 2012, WNS had killed
at least 5.7 million North American bats since the disease was
discovered in 2006. Three species of bats found in Montana are
currently affected in other places by WNS, and the disease is
slowly spreading toward the state. Its been found in Wisconsin
and Iowa and has no known cure.
In the eastern and central US, most wild caves are closed
to the public, because cavers are suspected of spreading WNS
through their visits. If and when it takes hold in Montana, WNS
may end recreational caving in the state.
Concerned both with the fate of bats and the future of their
sport, cavers are trying to get ahead of the curve and do their
part to protect Montana bat populations. James Cummins helps
survey bat populations, in part by capturing bats and swabbing
38
Caving is not without its perils for both enthusiasts and their equipment.
Tears of the Turtle Cave took its toll on this caving suit.
their noses to look for evidence of the deadly fungus.
If WNS reaches the Northern Rockies or the Black Hills of
South Dakota, it is likely that all wild caves on federal and state
land in Montana will be declared closed, Cummins told me.
This would spell trouble for cavers and probably for the caves
themselves. Caves on public land in the eastern U.S. have been
declared closed, and entering them is illegal. This has kept law-
abiding, responsible cavers from visiting them. The trouble is
that the agencies arent patrolling the entrances and vandalism
and illegal entry goes unreported.
Cavers are protective about cave locations, and for good
reason. Many caves, including Lewis and Clark Caverns, have
been vandalized by people breaking off mineral formations,
lighting fires in the caves, dumping trash, stealing fossils and
artifacts, and leaving graffiti. Caves are extremely fragile envi-
ronments that form over millions of years. Only in recent years
has the outside world intruded. The mineral formations in caves
are particularly sensitive to disturbance.
Still, caving opens up new worlds and wonders. As you
ramble about Montana, think of what may lie beneath your feet.
And if you do go caving, try to leave little trace of your pres-
ence. As with any outdoor experience, tell someone where you
are going and when you will be back. And start out with experi-
enced cavers before venturing in on your own.
One thing is certain. Montanas cave systems still hold many
secrets. Under the Big Sky, new frontiers await, but to find them,
you may have look deeper than ever.
 A RT

Visitors to Livingston HealthCares new facility

enjoy some treats while surrounded by Russell
Chatham oil paintings during the hospitals
grand opening last October.

40
The
Healing
Arts
Is there a link between beauty
on the canvas and well-being?
Livingstons new hospital is
investing heavily in that idea
BY SCOT T McMILLION

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOHN ZUMPANO

M
usic has charms to soothe
a savage breast, William
Congreve wrote more than
300 years ago.
Though many twist the quote and say savage
beast, his point remains. Music can do a lot more
than make your feet move. It can calm. Maybe
even heal.
But what about the visual arts?
While nobody is claiming that an oil painting
can fix a hernia or that photography can install a
heart stent, a growing body of science shows that
art can help the healing process. It makes people
feel better. Thats one reason why the new hospi-
tal in Livingston has made a major investment in
impressive artwork.
It was an early priority for us to create an
environment that offers a healing place for patients
and visitors, Bren Lowe, Livingston HealthCares

M O N TA N A Q U A R T E R LY 41
 Chief Executive Officer Bren
Lowe leads an art tour of the
new hospital, pausing here
at a four-panel painting by
Derek DeYoung.

Opposite page: Landscape

artist Russell Chatham
attended the public
unveiling of 11 of his
paintings during the grand
opening of Livingstons
new hospital.

chief executive officer, said of the decision to go big on artwork.

The decision came really early on, before we had even figured
out where all the walls would go.
The 125,000-square-foot building opened its doors in
October, replacing a 1950s-era structure the community had
long since outgrown.
From the outside, the place looks like a ski lodge. The inside
DESIGN and ART for DAILY LIVING lacks the bland sterility of most medical facilities and you could
easily fool yourself that youre in a gallery or museum. The
Gallery art is everywhere and theres more in the wings, waiting to be
l artistic gifts hung. And its almost all local, which isnt surprising, given that
Livingston has become a mecca for the arts in recent decades.
l modern art
There are plenty of big names in the building, artists with
l unique jewelry
national reputations. Clyde Aspevig. Parks Reece. Lyn St Clair.
l fine fiber clothing Edd Enders. Janie Camp. Its a long list.
and accessories
But front and center in the hospital hangs the work of Russell
Design Services Chatham, the landscape painter who probably did more than
l home
anybody to put Livingstons artistic community on the national
map during his decades in Park County. Enter the spacious and
l interiors
airy lobby and four huge Chatham landscapes dominate the
l furniture room. Step into the dining areawhere the food is surprisingly
tasty and good coffee is freeand you find yourself surrounded
exquisite quality of handcrafted items by another seven oversized Chathams, all bathed in natural light
streaming through giant windows.
406.522.9999 Corner of Tracy and Main Its the most beautiful hospital Ive ever seen, Chatham
www.cellobozeman.com Downtown Bozeman

42
said from his current home in California. And its the
only one Ive seen that has that much artwork.
Its also the only public space in the world where people
can see a large collection of Chatham originals. While his
lithographs adorn many walls in the region, most of his
paintings hang in private collections, so if you wanted to
see them you had to go knock on somebodys door.
Thats not true anymore.
Chatham created the paintings in the 1990s for
permanent display in a hall at Bozemans Museum of the
Rockies. But that plan fell apart after a couple years (yes,
there were some hard feelings) and the work has been in
storage ever since. Now theyre on long-term loan from
the museum to the hospital, and Chatham says hes happy
theyre back in the light of day.
This is the first time Montanans have been able to see
them in 20 years, he said.
And they can see a lot more as well. responded to a call to artists organized by locals.
Every hallway bears paintings, lithography and fine While art is a common fixture in most hospitals, enough
art photography. One of the most striking pieces is a so that medical art consultants advertise on the inter-
five-panel mixed-media wall sculpture that portrays a net, Livingston HealthCare didnt hire one. Planners
birds-eye view of the nearby Yellowstone
River, which defines Livingston as much
as anything, with the life and succor it
provides. Made of sculpted glass and
numerous hardwoods, the sculpture is
the creation of Livingston artists Ona
Recently Uncorked In
Magaro and Bob Newhall. Magaro carved Downtown Livingston
the layered glass and Newhall worked the
wood.
They started with an aerial photo of
that stretch of river and then applied some
artistic interpretation, Magaro explained.
It worked. They managed to capture the
rivers flow and power, its timelessness. Its
a piece of considerable weight, both physi-
cally and metaphorically, and measures 4
feet high by 10 feet wide.
Weve had great responses from visi-
tors and patients and staff, Magaro said,
adding that another hospital already is
asking about commissioning another piece.
Hospital employees have said theyre
thankful that they get to walk by it every Visit the
newly expanded
day, see how it changes in changing light. 4:309 TUESSAT Gourmet Cellar
We wanted to make a site-specific, custom- next door.
made piece for the Livingston hospital.
Like many artists, Magaro and Newhall
212 W. Park St. | Depot Center | Livingston, MT | 406.222.5418

M O N TA N A Q U A R T E R LY 43
 It comes from the emotional relationship we have with the landscape.
This multimedia piece by Ona Nagaro and Bob Newhall depicts a nearby stretch of the Yellowstone River, which flows just a quick stroll
from Livingston HealthCares new facility.
didnt want to wind up with artwork that looks good but
isnt locally forged, Lowe said. For it to be part of the
community it had to represent the talent that is here. It
was an intuitive decision to go local.
So a committee was formed, comprising hospital board
members, artists and people who run local galleries.
According to Robin Hoggan, a member of that commit-
tee and a board member at the downtown Livingston
Center for Art and Culture, the call went out to scores of
artists, who were asked to spread the word. There were
bumps in the road but now 450 pieces have been collected
and most have been hung. Theyre in public spaces, hall-
ways, patient rooms, offices, examination rooms and even
the rehabilitation rooms.
The committee did heed some advice. A philosophy
called Evidence Based Design recommends that hospi-
tals avoid intense abstractions as well as jarring or violent
44
images, a position that seems obvious for a hospital, and
focus on natural scenes and wildlife. But that wasnt a
problem when it came to selecting art created by people
who live surrounded by vast vistas and wild animals. Its a
Montana hospital filled with Montana art.
Hoggan said the committee tended toward local, recog-
nizable scenes. We didnt want scenes of the Tetons. Its
obviously not here.
Familiar scenes, done welllike the Chatham land-
scapesjust help people feel better, said Clyde Aspevig,
another internationally renowned landscape painter. It
comes from the emotional relationship we have with the
landscape, or a particular scene. It gets the endorphins
flowing, and the dopamine levels rise.
And that helps with the healing process. Making a
hospital aesthetically pleasing is important, especially
since its a place few people look forward to visiting: most
 Heat from the Earth
Livingstons new hospital is tapping groundwater as a way
to defray its heating and cooling expenses.
Though the system is new, it already seems to be
paying off, according to Bren Lowe, chief executive officer
of Livingston HealthCare.
Power bills for the 125,000-square-foot building are
roughly equivalent to those for the set of buildings it
replaced, structures that were 40,000 square feet smaller,
Lowe said.
Groundwater in this area measures a consistent 53
degrees year round. Massive pumps pull it to the surface
at the rate of 18 gallons per second and force it to the
hospitals third floor where it enters heat exchanges for
heating or cooling.
There, instead of pulling in outside air that could be
90 degrees or way below freezing, the heaters or cool-
ers work from an ambient temperature of 53 degrees, the
same as the groundwater temperature. So the equip-
ment has an easier job of shipping 72 degree air to patient
rooms, labs and offices.
But it takes a lot of groundwater to do the job. The
hospitals permit allows up to 1,774 acre-feet of water
to be removed every year. Thats equivalent to about 15
percent of the water used annually by the entire city of
Bozeman.
However, all of this water goes right back into the
ground. After it travels through a complicated snarl of
pipes, it flows back into the ground through an infiltration
of the time, if theyre in there, theyre sick, or somebody
they care about is sick.
Lowe said the hospital spent $160,000 to obtain and
display the artwork. That works out to 1.6 percent of
the $10 million raised in Park County to help build the
structure. (The entire structure cost $43.5 million to
build and equip.) But the work is worth many times that
much. Aspevig, whose large pieces fetch tens of thou-
sands, donated a compelling painting, as did many others,
entirely or in part. Chatham said the collection now in the
hospital is valued at $1 million and he wasnt paid for its
placement there.
And the paintings are now in the hospitals public
spaces, for the public to enjoy.
All water pulled by the hospitalits permitted for 1,774 acre-
feetflows back into the ground after warming the facility.
trench, basically a length of perforated pipe buried about
700 downgradient feet from the wells.
The temperature of the water will change during
this process, but not enough to affect the nearby
Yellowstone River or the trees on its floodplain, accord-
ing to the Montana Department of Natural Resources and
Conservation, which wrote an environmental assessment
of the project.
Water will not be consumed during the heating/cool-
ing process, DNRC says. Water returning to the aquifer
may differ in temperature than the water extracted from
the aquifer, but, because the aquifer contains so much
more water than will be pumped, The temperature differ-
ence in the return water is unlikely to cause any significant
effect.
There also is a revolving gallery for smaller pieces.
Currently, that space is occupied by large black-and-
white photographs of sheep operations on the historic
Harvat Ranch, which once owned the land where the
hospital now stands. Hoggan said the next show will be
historic railroading photographs and a new show will
appear every six months, adding to the already flowing
display in downtown Livingston, home to roughly a dozen
galleries.
In cooperation with local schools, theres even a space
for the art of kindergarten students. That one will change
every year.
If you go to kindergarten in Livingston, Hoggan said,
Youll have artwork in the hospital.
M O N TA N A Q U A R T E R LY 45
 RU R A L ROU T E

Small
Town
Beauties
People drive all day
to tiny Conrad to buy a
dress from Bonnie Poser

BY AL AN KESSELHEIM

PHOTOGRAPHY BY
THOMAS LEE

E
nter The N Thing, smack
in the middle of down-
town Conrad, nestled up
against City Hall, and you
start playing by the rules, or you
dont play. Owner Bonnie Posers
rules, that is, developed over 40
years in business.
First, lose the shoes by the front
door. Second, no boyfriends, fathers,
grandfathers or random males
allowed past the counter, beyond
which hundreds of glittering formal
dresses hang on racks.
Ill work around anything,
Poser claims, Except a boyfriend.
This is a training ground for
boyfriends!
Posers no-nonsense approach
to business blooms out of her

Dresses take on a personality,

Bonnie Poser says. Poser, 70, opened
The N Thing, a dress shop in Conrad
specializing in prom wear, in 1975.

46
M O N TA N A Q U A R T E R LY 47
 background, growing up on a ranch outside of Power,
and living in this hardworking agricultural community of
2,500. Conrad is the kind of town you only stop in if you
need gas or get a flat tire. Well out onto the high plains,
the Rocky Mountain Front is a distant view, and there
are no Freezout Lakes or Great Falls of the Missouri or
legendary historical trails winding through town. It earns
two exits on the interstate and stands as the unassuming
epitome of a service towna place locals come to for the
things they need, mostly agricultural in nature: tractors,
farm implements, seed plants, grain elevators, the Co-op.
If youre looking for bragging rights in Conrad, its likely
to come down to heirloom lentils or an unmatched work
ethic that grows money out of the soil, not blue-ribbon trout
streams or outfitted adventures.
That context makes Posers store and her business style
all the more startling, because she leavens her practicality,
born of place and parochial history, with the savvy eye of a
fashionista firmly grounded in her market, which extends
far beyond the edge of town.
I may have the largest selection of prom and formal
dresses anywhere in the state, Poser guesses. There are
1,000 dresses in the store and out back in the warehouse,
from size OO to 32W. Anymore, there is hardly a down
time of year. We sell dresses for cruises, for military balls,
for snowball dances, graduations, proms, weddings. You
name it and I probably have it: semi-ball, fit-and-flare,
sequins, chiffon. And if I dont, I can order it. We get more
in every week.
Shes a wizard when it comes to ordering, says Denise
Pourroy, who has worked at The N Thing for years. She
has the eye.
All of this handled without the aid of computers or
Internet, which Poser has no time for or interest in. She

48
keeps track of each girl, every dance, and every dress; and
meticulous track at that, on handwritten lists taped to the
wall near the five dressing rooms, and the master list on
her clipboard.
We will never sell the same dress to two girls going to
the same dance, she says. We wont even sell the same
dress in a different color.
People come from as far away as Calgary, Medicine
Hat, eastern Montana, the Dakotas, and Wyoming to find
the right dress for the right occasion. Poser has served
clients from as far away as the Netherlands and has
handled three generations of young women in the same
family.
Alex Kraft, now a freshman at MSU in Bozeman, has
continued a yearly family tradition that has been going
for nearly a decade from her home in Cutbank. Between
my sister and me, weve been making yearly trips for eight
years or more, Kraft says. We make a day of it. Growing
up in northern Montana, everyone knows that The N
Thing is where you go for a dress.
Often that dress, which, on average, runs about $500,
is worn once, so that one time better be memorable.
Memorable enough that the dress often hangs in a closet
for decades afterward as a reminder. Poser and her five
employees, most of whom have been with her for years, and
some for decades, are absolutely committed to their part in
assuring success, at least as far as looking beautiful goes.
Poser, now an energetic and stylish 70-year-old, started
her clothing business in Conrad in 1975. She and her

At left: Dress styles come and go and Poser must choose

age-appropriate attire that will appeal to her customers and their
parents and chaperones. Below: Sixty miles north of Great Falls,
the ribbon of Interstate 15 passes by Conrad.

M O N TA N A Q U A R T E R LY 49
 An extensive supply of
spare jewels is on hand so
that in the event a dress
loses a sparkle or two, an
exact match can be found
and sewn into place.
husband had moved to town after college to run a farm
implement store. Poser knew a man who had developed a
very successful shoe-sales business in the state, and asked
his advice about starting a shoe store in Conrad.
He told me, you need to open a clothing boutique,
she remembers. He took me under his wing, introduced
me to contacts in the clothing business. I went with him to
a sales event in Billings. I trusted his business sense and
just started filling out orders. I had no money, no store, no
collateral, but there I was ordering like mad.
Poser approached the bank her family had used for
farm loans. I needed $15,000. The banker looked at me
and asked if I was going to pay them back. You know I
will, I said to him. He handed me that promissory note
and I havent owed a dime since.
The first incarnation of The N Thing was housed in a
remodeled dime store Poser rented. She put in a false wall
to corral the cavernous space, brought in old wagon wheels
for clothes racks, and started selling.
For years people would come in to the store just to see
those wagon wheel racks, she says.
Back then all I handled was gauze tops and hash
jeans for juniors. Everyone just had to have hash jeans.
My supplier was in India. It was all about the pockets with
those pants. They were $50 a pair. Back then that was
real money.
Two years later the current space on Main Street,
formerly a doctors office, opened up and Poser bought it.
We moved in the dead of night, she says. Never missed
a day of work.
A large measure of Posers success is her ability to
sense and adapt to her market, and to do it from a nuts-
and-bolts place like Conrad. Missoula, sure. Bozeman.
50
Billings. Ranch families think nothing of driving 200
miles to shop at a box store in a city, but who would ever
pick Conrad for the Mecca of formal wear? Somewhere
around the turn of this century, she shifted out of junior
styles and toward what she calls updated career fashion,
along with the fancy dresses.
I realized that the moms needed better clothes, she
remembers. It seemed like so much of what was available
for middle-aged women made them look like grandmas.
These are women in careers and professions where they
need to look good. I sell to women 20 and up who want to
look chic, not like Aunt Bee from Mayberry.
When I first started with prom dresses, the only thing
going was Jessicas Gunny, Poser says of a bygone brand.
They were the dominant dress for decades. When they
finally went out of business, thats when things really
started to open up and we could branch out.
At this point the front third of the store is devoted to
updated career inventoryscarves, jackets, fashion-
able tops, skirts and pants, shoes. Once past the coun-
ter though, into the no-male zone, its all about sparkling,
formal dresses. Rack after rack of them filling the space.
Id say now its about 70 percent dresses and 30
percent career wear, Poser guesses, which is about how
the store space seems split. Its like farming. When the
grain prices are down, beef is up. When beef is good, grain
is down. Same here, when one is going strong, the other
one lags. Its my way of being diversified.
Most of Posers employees are farm and ranch wives.
Their schedules have to be flexible to accommodate the
demands at home. When its harvest season, its mostly
me in the store, shrugs Poser. Thats just the way it is
around here.
 Its clear that the main focus, these days, is on the
formal dresses. And the end goal is unwavering. My job is
to make every girl who walks in as beautiful as she can be,
Poser stresses. That sharp mission requires a surprising
combination of strength, vision, sensitivity, and diplomacy.
Its a process, Poser admits.
For Alex Kraft, part of the process was that it got in the
way of her basketball season. We had to call ahead and
make a special appointment on a Sunday, because every
other day we were either practicing or playing a game.
Poser would open the store for them and Kraft would bring
half the girls on the basketball team to make it worthwhile.
We went every year, Kraft says. Wed take turns
trying on the dresses and come out for everyone on the
team to rate the dress. My grandma usually treated, so she
came too.
Over the years, Poser and her crew have honed their
assessments of their clients, perceptive as social workers,
which, for all practical purposes, they often are. Turns out
you can tell a lot as soon as a girl walks through the door.
The teenager whose grandpa is treating. The shy, awkward
girls. The kids uncomfortable with their bodies. The ones
who come in with a boyfriend who cant keep his hands off
of her. The kid who drags along the entourage of girlfriends
who are as likely to sabotage the process as they are to
support it. The family strapped for money.
Once we get things settled out, shoes off, men up front,
girls in back, then we can get started, Poser says.
Usually they have some idea. They have a ballpark for
size. Theyll have pictures on their phones, they might have
a color they want, short or long length.
Then the team starts pulling dresses. On average a
girl will be in and out of the dressing room for about two
hours. It can be exhausting. When it gets busy in here it
seems like you have 40 people in this little back room. All
five dressing rooms are going full blast, and were pulling
those heavy dresses on and off girls for 10 hours a day.
Some girls are 6 feet tall, says Pourroy. I have had to
ask them to kneel or Id have to get a step ladder!
All the while they are gathering information, keep-
ing it straight. What school dance it is. Have they had
a dress before? Is that same dress on the list already?
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M O N TA N A Q U A R T E R LY 51
 What colors actually match a girls skin tone.
In the first stage they go for fit, finding that size that seems
natural and complementary. Then they hone in on style, length,
color, all the rest.
Weve gotten pretty good at guiding a girl respectfully,
keeping appropriate for her age and working with her personal-
ity, says Poser. I dont carry provocative gowns unless that is
specifically what a girl wants, and I make damn sure to check
with the parents. Then I can order it for her. Ive only had one
or two times when a parent has come back saying a dress is too
risqu, and Im proud of that record.
It also speaks to Posers awareness of her community, where
she is certain to meet those parents and grandparents in the
grocery aisle or at the feed store or on a ranch road.
Sometimes they have to go home to think on it, Poser
says. They could come back three or four times. Its a really
big deal, especially for the young girls.
Dresses have personalities, Poser asserts. That quality
either shines or falls flat depending on the girl its on. Poser
remembers one of her career styles she sold to a woman who
looked fabulous wearing it. I tried on that same outfit and it
was just terrible!
In some cases the right choice gets complicated. Thats
where Posers diplomacy and social perception come in to play.
Ive been in the dressing room with a girl who has a whole
gaggle of girlfriends out there making comments, and I know
damn well those girls dont want their friend to look better than
they do at the dance. Ill whisper in her ear to pick the dress
that she likes, and not listen to her friends.
Poser remembers a family who all came in together with
their young daughter. They had a big whispered powwow up
front and I knew money was an issue.
They said they couldnt spend more than $200. First I sent
them across the street to the consignment store, but they didnt
find anything there, so they came back. I knew they would.
We worked with them, picked out four or five dresses,
tried to keep the price down. Finally that girl came out of the
dressing room with a $298 dress on and you could just see
her dad melt, Poser remembers. He just flat melted. The girl
reminded him that it was still too much money, but suddenly he
was insisting that she needed shoes to go with, some jewelry,
and there was no more talk about budget.
Through all of this process, the boyfriends and fathers
and grandfathers fidget out front, find perches on the window
display, or put their shoes back on and go down to the Co-op to
pass the time until the girl is ready to walk out with the dress
shes picked.
We are very careful, Poser stresses. This is such a

52
 Ive only had one or two times when a parent has come back
saying a dress is too risqu, and Im proud of that record.
delicate thing, especially with girls who arent comfortable when it becomes a chore, maybe Ill take stock, but I dont
in their skin. You can offend someone without even open- see that happening any time soon.
ing your mouth. The key, says Poser, is to keep adapting. New styles,
Pourroy recalls one time when she misread a label on new trends, retro, keeping track of the fashion pulse from
a dress and had a size 14 girl try on a size 4. Wow, that Calgary to Bismarck. If you dont evolve with the times,
was awkward, she says. I couldnt apologize enough to youre through.
that kid. Recently, that philosophy was tested when the first
And then theres the mamas, Poser sighs. Sometimes transgender client walked in to The N Thing. A mascu-
they have such a strong image for their daughter, and line-looking woman came in, waited discreetly until the
it just doesnt work. Mamas can be even tougher than store was empty, and approached the counter about getting
boyfriends! a formal dress for a dance. It was a moment when the
I figure Im halfway there, Poser says, optimistically, larger world confronted Poser in her small, careful farm-
of her career. Ive seen fashions come and go. Those two- town realitya moment to adapt, to move forward.
piece, I-Dream-of-Jeannie dresses have cycled around In her unflappable style, Poser paused a beat to take
twice while Ive been in business. stock, breathed deep, and started in.
I enjoy coming to work every day. When that changes, Okay, she said. What size are you?

Its more than just the

same old song. Its a relationship built on trust, understanding,
and miles of history. Its confidence in someone that
moves with you, in a direction that makes sense,
year, after year, after year. And with decades of
banking experience its you and together.

firstinterstate.com

M O N TA N A Q U A R T E R LY 53
 SCIENCE

DEEP
54
SLEEPERS

A grizzly bear hunts for food in a river.
Unlike smaller hibernators, bears body
temperatures dont dip dramatically
during the winter months.
Why animals hibernate and
what it means for humans
BY LISA DENSMORE BALL ARD
PHOTOGRAPHY BY JACK BALL ARD
AND LISA DENSMORE BALL ARD
Y
ou can tell when spring finally
arrives. You can sense it, the
longer days and a mildness in the
air even though the ground may
be covered with snow. Animals
can, too, which is why there are a lot more of them
around in the spring.
About a third of all mammal species in
Montana hibernate during the winter, along with
all cold-blooded land-based creatures such as
reptiles, amphibians and certain insects. In addi-
tion, some animals disappear during the winter
by entering a state of torpor, though they make an
appearance now and again.
Whether hibernating or in a state of torpor,
when spring arrives, these animals reactivate.
Understanding not only why certain animals hole
up in the winter, but what happens to them physi-
ologically, is a threshhold that may have impor-
tant ramifications for humans as well, in terms of
both medical science and space travel.
Why They Do It
With the exception of bears, hibernators are
small animals, usually under 10 pounds. The
most common in Montana are several species of
bats, ground squirrels, mice and marmots.
Its a solution for getting around food short-
ages and colder temperatures during the winter,
says Kerry Foresman, professor emeritus of biol-
ogy at the University of Montana and the author
of Mammals of Montana. When the snow flies,
larger herbivores like elk, deer and bighorn
sheep can migrate to lower elevations, but smaller
species, like ground squirrels, dont have the
capability to move 200 miles.
In the case of bears, which are omnivores,
M O N TA N A Q U A R T E R LY 55
 hibernation is still an adaptation to a lack of food. Bears
have a digestive system similar to humans, explains
The warming trend is causing
Chris Servheen, adjunct research associate professor of hibernators like the hoary
wildlife conservation at the University of Montana and the marmot to emerge from their
grizzly bear recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and naps earlier.

Wildlife Service. When it turns to winter, there are no

green plants or insects. Bears would need to be carni-
vores, but they are ineffective predators. Hibernation is an
elegant way to solve the problem.

Hibernation vs. Torpor

There are two ways animals sleep through the winter,
hibernating or entering a state of torpor. In both cases,
body temperature and metabolic rate drop. The difference
is based on how much and for how long.
Any lowering of body temperature is considered torpor.
When people get hypothermic, they technically enter
a state a state of torpor, which can be life threatening
because we are not genetically programmed for it. However,
certain animals purposely enter a state of torpor to
conserve energy. For their condition to be considered torpor
rather than hibernation, they dont stay there very long.
An animal in torpor lowers its body temperature mini-
mally, only about 5 to 15 degrees, says Foresman. A deer Hiberators in a Changing World
mouse will go into torpor at night for six to seven hours if The long-term effects of climate change on
its cold and if they dont find seeds under the snow. Its a hibernators are currently unclear. The best data
periodic response and not every night. Rather than burn up comes from the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory
reserves, their temperature drops. If they find seeds, theyll in Crested Butte, Colorado, where scientists have
run around. Their brain monitors their body temperature. recorded the hibernation habits of yellow-bellied
Its genetic, like why you wake up in the morning. marmots since the mid-1970s. Though daylight
True hibernators, except for bears, are genetically patterns havent changed, spring now comes about a
programmed to turn their internal thermostats way down, to month earlier and fall about a month later. As a result,
a minimum of 33 degrees Fahrenheit. (At 32 degrees, their marmots take longer to reduce their body temperature
cells, which are mostly water, would freeze and explode, to a state of deep hibernation and are emerging from
and they would die.) As the days shorten, temperatures hibernation about 38 days earlier. Can these rodents
decrease and food sources disappear, and hibernators go sustain themselves under warming conditions? No one
underground; but entering a state of hibernation is not a knows for sure, as researchers require even longer data
matter of simply falling asleep. Its a step-by-step process. sets to form valid conclusions.
Its not a light switch, says Foresman. It takes
several weeks for the animal to turn down its metabolism
and turn off its digestive tract. It takes energy for diges-
tive motility and acid production. The proteins in certain ambient temperature of its nest or den. For example, when
synapses in the brain disassociate, so those nerve connec- a Columbian ground squirrel heads into its hole in August
tions dont work anymore. Thought processes take energy. to begin hibernating, the air temperature might be 100
Hibernation is a way to conserve energy. degrees, but three feet underground, the soil is around
It also takes time for an animals body temperature to 70 degrees, so the squirrels body temperature drops to
drop. Body temperature during hibernation is tied to the 70 degrees. As the soil cools off, so does the squirrel. Its

56
 Cold-blooded animals become more lethargic
as the weather turns colder. Rattlesnakes,
like these near Grass Range, amass in large
numbers before heading underground.
Cold-Blooded Creatures in the Cold
Brumation is the term used to describe hibernation
among cold-blooded animals such as reptiles, amphibians
and insects. Cold-blooded animals are ectothermic, which
means they cannot control their internal body temperature.
They get warmer or colder based on the environment in
which they live and the season of the year. The process is
similar to hibernation among warm-blooded mammals, but
the activity of the animal is more directly tied to air temper-
ature than daylight.
Take the common rattlesnake. As the weather cools
off, snakes become more lethargic. They seek a den, called
a hibernaculum, which they often share with many other
body functions slow down as its temperature drops, and
it sleeps for longer and longer periods of time. When its
temperature reaches 33 degrees, it might stay asleep for
three to four weeks at a time, but it still awakens occa-
sionally and briefly to clear body waste.
During hibernation, most animals are not asleep the
whole time, says Foresman. They still metabolize fat
which produces urea, an ammonia, as a by-product. If
PHOTO BY MICHAEL DELANEY
snakes. Hibernaculi may be holes in the ground, crevices
among rock piles, a hollow log or a pile of heavy duff and
leaves on the forest floor which offers both insulation and
protection from predators.
Brumation is a survival tactic, hard-wired into ectother-
mic creatures. The bodily functions of brumators slow to a
crawl. They do not eat. Their digestive systems shut down,
and their heart and respiratory functions drop.
Not all brumators survive the winter. If their choice
of hibernaculum is poor or they enter brumation with an
injury or illness which needs warmth and nutrition to heal,
the chance of survival is low. That said, all cold-blooded
creatures require a period of brumation to get through a
Montana winter.
the kidneys arent functioning it would permeate the cells
and poison the animal, so the animals temperature rises
briefly to 98 degrees to get the kidneys functioning. It
clears the waste, then drops back into a deep sleep.
In the case of bears, their body temperature declines
but not as drastically. Whereas a ground squirrel cools off
to just above freezing, the body temperature of a hibernat-
ing bear hovers around 88 degrees, only 12 degrees below
M O N TA N A Q U A R T E R LY 57
 A black bear makes its way through
bushes. When bears are roused from
their dens early, their lives, and the
lives of their cubs, are endangered.
their non-hibernating temperature, which allows it to rouse
quickly in the winter if disturbed. For this reason, some
scientists argue that bears are not true hibernators even
though they are dormant for a number of months.
Its a silly argument, says Servheen, During hiber- mortality rates among hibernators, for example 50 percent
nation, ground squirrels may have lower heart rates and
breathing rates while hibernating but they need to wake
up to urinate periodically. Bears dont eat, drink, urinate,
or defecate for months. Both are uniquely adapted to
survive the winter.
There may be additional reasons, besides clearing
nitrogenous wastes, why all hibernators except bears
must wake up periodically. Another theory is the need
to repair and maintain organs, tissues, and cells, says
Foresman. Significant protein synthesis occurs during
these periods of arousal. Its very possible that this is a
needed requirement.
Bears do not need intermittent wake-ups while hiber-
nating. In addition, they are able to maintain muscle mass
and strength, and their bones do not lose density despite
months of inactivity. Female bears also give birth and
nurse their cubs while hibernating.
Bruin or rodent, once asleep, most of its body func-
tions all but cease. A ground squirrel might breathe once
or twice per minute, and its heart slows to five to 10 beats
per minute.
58
Beware of
Sleeping Bears
If you find the den of a
hibernating bear, leave it alone.
A bear may rouse from hiberna-
tion if disturbed and could hurt
you, but more likely it would
endanger itself. If a bear aban-
dons its den during the winter,
it dips into its energy stores.
While it may find another den,
the fuel it burns in the process
may leave it energy-deficient
later in the winter. And if a sow
abandons her cubs, the cubs
will die without her body heat
and milk.
Its metabolism is incredibly reduced, says Foresman.
Its not dead, but its functioning at a minimal level,
living off its body fats from which it also gets water.
Hopefully it has enough fat stored up. There are high
among ground squirrels, due to late spring snowstorms.
Waking Up
According to Foresman, some of the best research on
what prompts animals to wake up from hibernation has
been done on the western jumping mouse in Montana. The
main trigger appears to be increase in soil temperature
around the nest.
When the soil reaches about 45 degrees, it indicates
new growth of grasses, he explains. The animals wake
up, and pretty quickly, not in steps over several months.
That said, the process of waking up is not instanta-
neous. To make the point in classrooms, Foresman hands
a student a hibernating ground squirrel, curled in a ball
with a body temperature of 33 degrees. The student holds
the ground squirrel for a minute, then passes it to the next
student. An hour later, at the end of the session, the squir-
rel has revived enough to roll over but it remains very
lethargic as its body functions begin to restart. It would
take another hour or two to fully awaken.
 Bears take much longer to get going after hiberna-
tion. Theyre not really hungry at first, says Servheen.
It takes 5 to 14 days to get their systems fully restarted.
Rousing from hibernation is not a trivial physiological
change. They come out when it gets wet in the den, but
they might still hang out by the den.
For this reason, a bears weight is not at its lowest imme-
diately after hibernation. If a bear emerges in May, it might
continue to lose weight for another six to eight weeks. Its
no coincidence that early summer is when a bears physi-
cal condition is at its worst. Then, as its system restarts, it
gets hungry. By fall, it enters a period of hyperphagia and
gorges in preparation for hibernating again.
Hibernation and Humans
In the Academy Award-winning film Avatar, the main
characters began their travel to a planet in a far-off galaxy
by falling asleep in a laboratory that induced a type
of suspended animation. Hibernation is the real-world
version of suspended animation with potential implica-
tion for real space travel. Its a big reason why millions of
dollars have been dedicated to studying hibernators.
If were going to get serious about space travel, says
Foresman, We need to figure out how these animals pull
it off.
Imagine how much food and water youd save! adds
Servheen.
Inducing hibernation in humans is not as far-fetched
as you might think. We already induce torpor during
heart surgery, dropping the bodys temperature to 80
degrees. And research is being done to understand how
bears convert urea into proteins in the blood during
hibernation, in hopes of resolving dialysis problems in
humans.
In Star Trek, a television series about space explo-
ration in the 23rd century, the narrator always opened
the show by describing space as the final frontier.
Understanding hibernation is perhaps the most important
next step to getting there.
M O N TA N A Q U A R T E R LY 59
 H I S T ORY

Drinking
Downstairs
BY MICHAEL J. OBER

PHOTO ILLUSTRATIONS BY THOMAS LEE

J
umbo was a rum runner, a German immigrant
swept into Montana on the heels of the homestead
movement early in the 20th century. In the
basement of his Oxford Bar on Havres Main Street
was a speakeasy: lemonade, grilled cheese sandwiches
and milkshakes on the main floor; booze (if you knew the
proper code) through the backdoor to the basement. The
Oxford even sported a one-lane bowling alley.
Shorty Young, infamous for his widespread dealings in
Prohibition-era lawlessness and the focus of Gary Wilsons
excellent book Honky-Tonk Town, operated a similar
establishment on the towns west side, a true honky-tonk
complete with prostitutes, cribs and gambling rooms.

60
Prohibition sent Hi-Line tipplers
into barroom basements for their booze,
even as a steady stream of it flowed
across the Canadian border

M O N TA N A Q U A R T E R LY 61

There were others, of course, large and small, all up
and down the Hi-Line. They and all the others who oper-
ated illicit businesses in Montana during Prohibition
tended to view the federal legislation as little more than a
needling annoyance.
When Montana went dry, officials in Helena sent
agents and prosecuting attorneys to north-central Montana
seeking convictions. Havre, being the largest of the
Hi-Line towns and the one oh-so-close to the border and
easy Canadian liquor, quickly absorbed many of them into
the wink-and-walk subculture of the day. According to
the stories set forth in Wilsons book, everyone was on the
take. To nobodys surprise, evidence seized by agents
never seemed to make its way into court. Witnesses never
appeared. Cases were dismissed by local judges. Jumbo,
Shorty, other Havre businessmen and their attorneys had
case after case thrown out. They even brought charges
of their own against state and federal lawmen, assert-
ing that warrants were unsupported by probable cause
and alleging trespass and even criminal mischief after
their warehouses and barns were broken into in search of
contraband. Time and again, agents were transferred or
demoted because they could not get convictions or over-
come the irrepressible urge to succumb to Havres bawdy
houses. It was tough being a cop on the Hi-Line.
Ever since its early days, the town bucked conven-
tion and obedience to the law. One cold January night
in 1904, the Havre Hotel caught fire. Maybe it was two
brothers, drunkards both, who sought retribution when
they were thrown out of their room and set fire to the trash
pile in the alley. Or was it the three cowhands from the
north side seeking to settle a long-standing feud with the
owner? Nobody could be sure, but the fire changed things
in Havre. Fueled by the relentless Hi-Line winds, the fire
howled through the night and consumed three blocks of
wooden storefront businesses, the towns entire commer-
cial neighborhood.
Undaunted, hardy Havre merchants went subterranean
and reopened their businesses: a meat market, drugstore,
brothel, saloons, a dry goods store, and a Chinese laundry.
Even the post office reopened in its basement. The Havre
Daily News ran ads attesting to the solvency of the vari-
ous businesses and directing customers to the beneath
the streets temporary locations. Awaiting spring, when
the local brickyard could rebuild, the business owners
expanded their operations underground, tunneling,
connecting adjacent stores and utilizing interconnecting
steam conduits to ward off the Hi-Line chill. The Great
62
Prohibition, then, was the
last straw for those hard
bitten by the collapse of
the homesteading boom.
Hoping for relief from
the federal government,
Montanans only received
visits from revenue agents
bent on making life even
more unendurable.
Northern Railway helped, extending its below-grade steam
lines from the rail yards on the north side to the strug-
gling entrepreneurs on First Street. With time, the citizens
created their own underground mall.
It was only temporary though. Eventually, Havre
rebuilt, emerging from the tunneled taverns and makeshift
markets. But two decades later, when Prohibition pressed
harshly on thirsty Montanans, some of the long-empty
basements became speakeasy outlets and headquarters for
the Havre Bunch. Truth is, even though Shorty Young
and others maintained some basement offices there, illicit
liquor lords saw little need to hide beneath the ground.
Havre was open for businessif you knew the right code.
Prohibition, then, was the last straw for those hard
bitten by the collapse of the homesteading boom. Hoping
for relief from the federal government, Montanans only
received visits from revenue agents bent on making life
even more unendurable.
While America basked in the Roaring Twenties,
Montana was already well into a depression that began
after World War I. Homesteads had gone bankrupt; farms
were abandoned overnight, two-thirds of the banks closed.
Folks left. Montana is the only state that lost population
during the 1920s.
Seeking to find a way through those hard times, Jumbo
went entrepreneurial by opening his bar and bootleg-
ging operation with other business partners. He played
 trombone in the community band, gave to charities,
supported local sports teams, even bought war bonds to
help fight the Hun in the Great War.
The infamously flawed Montana Sedition Act had some-
thing to do with this. Zealous patriots formed into compli-
ance corps that roamed the town and countryside, coercing
neighbors to buy war bonds while keeping keen notes as to
who had a German last name and who spoke with an accent
and who owned a German shepherd dog. Some of the corps
members were using the legislation to make a name for
themselves in local politics. When local compliance corps
officials came visiting the Oxford Bar, Jumbo did what
many good businessmen did: he bought them off with liquor
and went on eating sauerkraut.
Runners, like Jumbo, would operate hopped-up
Oldsmobiles or Buicks with powerful flathead V-8
engines. Some ran on ethanol and kerosene blends with
air cleaners and mufflers removed to increase speed. The
license plates were left at home. They carried chains to
cope with the temperamental two-track dirt roads that ran
north from Havre like tendrils attached to the Canadian
border. Most ran at night, headlights off. Lots of the driv-
ers were teenagers like the kid named Luke, who had
been expelled from Havre High School for smoking cigars.
He delivered the Havre Daily News in the morning, then
ran liquor at night. One time, his driving partner, a much
older man, hit a snowdrift while running, lights out, on
the Saint Joe Road. He broke his arm and spent a chilly
night underneath the overturned Packard. The next day,
they hitched a ride back to town and got the bone set at
the Deaconess Hospital. The man told everyone he had
slipped on the frozen Milk River while cutting blocks of
ice for local merchants. Nobody believed him.
The runners knew all the backroads, coulees and
draws. They knew where all the gates were. And when
those were not convenient, they kept wire cutters in the
roadster in case they had to cut their way from one field
to another, but they were careful to repair the fence after
they went through. The farmers, after all, were their
friends, often providing shelter for them on the dicey
journeys to Canada and back. Hollowed-out haystacks
provided concealment for roadsters. Most runners knew
the land by heart; some kept secret maps of routes.
Somewhere between Medicine Hat and Havre was
Peter Skronyaks farmstead.
It and many others like it were nondescript,

MONTANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY RESEARCH CENTER PHOTOGRAPH ARCHIVES C.W. Shorty Young, a prominent bootlegger in Havre, and his wife.

M O N TA N A Q U A R T E R LY 63

Main Street in Havre, circa 1931.
LOOK FOR THE HORSE ON THE ROOF! hardscrabble frame houses. This one
was a former claimers shack added to
Bozemans Premier over the years. Skronyak was an invet-
Boutique & erate bachelor. He emigrated from the
old country to escape conscription into
Tack Store the Prussian army. In his youth, he was
a roguish man, tall and flinty-eyed.
Where Equine Gear Meets Fashion After booking passage to New York, he
rented a Great Northern boxcar for $35,
l 10 Minutes West of Bozeman on the loaded it with goods purchased with
Way to Big Sky
an inheritance from his fathers forest
estate in the Alpokalja Mountains of
l Full-Service Boutique & Tack Store for
Cowboys, Cowgirls & Equestrians Hungary, and went west to plant flax in
Montana.
Peter liked rye whiskey. Jumbo
GET OUTFITTED FOR SPRING always made certain that, when he
holed up at Peters place on his trips to
l Dubarry of Ireland l Horsewear Ireland Canada, he always left him with a bottle
l Back on Track l Goode Rider
of Sazerac. Together the men would stay
l Barn Fly Trading l Rebecca Ray
l Miller Ranch l Boulet Boots up late, playing cards and drinking,
l Johnny Was l Kerrits while Jumbo filled him in on the doings
l Ryan Michael l MT-Made Gifts in town: news about people, prices, poli-
tics, business matters, gossip.
English, Western & Out on the Town Skronyaks place abutted the border,
30 miles north of Havre, though it was
difficult to know just where the border
was, ill-defined and crudely surveyed
as it often was in remote regions. Most
wheat farmers on the northern plains,
whether their survey legally supported
it or not, plowed right up to the
Medicine Line, their stubble fields just
kissing the edge. And wet Alberta
was right there in the next field.
Such farms and ranches provided an
underground-railway-style network of
FOUR CORNERS SADDLERY
halfway houses. Peter Skronyaks was
& BOUTIQUE
one of them. He lived on potatoes and
81770 GALLATIN ROAD
BOZEMAN, MT 59718
venisonlots of it. Any good plains
(406) 587-7503 farmer also had a small vegetable plot.
MON.-SAT. 10 TO 6; SUN. 11 TO 4
64
MONTANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY RESEARCH CENTER PHOTOGRAPH ARCHIVES
His rivaled his neighbors in size and
production. Revenuers would sometimes
visit his farmstead just to make sure that
he was not using his huge crop of pota-
toes in a small-scale still operation.
In the end, Franklin Roosevelt
concluded, like most sensible
Americans, that Prohibition could not
reasonably outlaw the sale, transport,
and possession of liquor. Accordingly,
he appeared before a joint session
of Congress in 1933 and, his New
York accent in full flair, triumphantly
declared: I favor the repeal of the
Volstead Act just as fast as the law
will allow it. And he pounded his fist
on the podium. Uproarious applause
erupted across the chamber and the
nation. Prohibition ended and so did
the speakeasy era. Americans went
back to what they do, only more openly.
Much later, when his neighbors
located Peter Skronyak one spring in
the 1930s, he was still frozen solid in
his root cellar. He had likely taken
shelter there during a prolonged bliz-
zard, the last place of warmth on his
forlorn farmstead. Inside his small
frame house, his stove wood and coal
all used up, patches of frost still clung
to the tattered wallpaper. When they
took stock of his belongings, they found
hidden bottles of ryedozens upon
dozensall unopened, wrapped in
flour sacks and shoved deep into oat
bins, the compost pit and hayloft.
Putting things by was a mantra for
folks who didnt have much. Skronyak
was good at it. Prohibition was over, but
if it returned, hed be ready.
 BOZEMANS PREMIER CUSTOM JEWELRY STORE

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402 EAST MAIN - DOWNTOWN - BOZEMAN, MT

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 ODD COR NERS

Road Watchers
STORY AND PHOTO BY SCOT T McMILLION

I
ts a lonely grave for such a busy place. Millions of
people scurry by every year. Hardly anybody stops.
William Thomas lies here, his bones along-
side those of his 7-year-old son Charlie and Joseph
Shultz, the hired man who was murdered with them.
Somebody built a cairn of smooth river stones to mark the
spot, wedged between Interstate 90 and its frontage road
a couple miles west of tiny Greycliff. Just over a fence,
the traffic keeps cruising. Which is what the Thomases
and Schultz were trying to do on what was then the
Bozeman Trail.
But they got in a hurry and thats how they ended up in
the ground, scalped and pierced with arrows. Three more
casualties in an era that Blackfeet historian Darrell Kipp
compared to whats happened in Mogadishu in recent
years, a time when eager settlers invaded the homeland
of resentful Plains Indians, when there was plenty of
murderous behavior to go around.
The Thomas party had traveled from a prosperous
Illinois farm, mostly accompanying large trains of wagons
and sometimes soldiers. William Thomas, bereft from the
recent loss of his wife and twin daughters to pneumonia,
was aiming to start over with a brother in the Gallatin
Valley. Along the way, theyd seen the shallow graves of
other pilgrims killed by Indians, some of them excavated
by wolves that devoured the faces of the dead.
It rattled William.
Summing up the danger, he wrote in his diary on
July 31, 1866, while still in Wyoming in the heart of
Sioux and Cheyenne country, cold chills run through
my blood.
He spent the next day in camp, reading his Bible.
But after the wagon train crossed the Bighorn River,
guide Jim Bridger told the travelers they were in Crow
Country, the home of friendly Indians, so a few wagons
pushed ahead of the main group. Then one of them broke
down and William decided to press onward, his little
group alone and unarmed.
I determined trusting in the Lord to go ahead, the
man his friends called Reverend wrote on August 17.
Seven days later, his companions caught up. William
Interstate 90 carries millions of travelers past a historic Bozeman
Trail grave near Greycliff.
had 13 arrows in his body. Charlie had three and lay near
his father, alongside the wagon. Schultzs body was found
in the nearby Yellowstone River, his fishing gear and a
couple of trout nearby.
Nobody knows who killed them. Maybe raiding
Blackfeet, maybe Sioux, probably not Crow. They stole
the $500 team of mules and most everything else of
value. But they didnt take Williams diary, which is in the
Montana Historical Society today.
That was August 24, 1866, a year when settlers were
outnumbered by freight wagons bringing goods to western
Montana gold camps. The state was taking bloody baby
steps into the modern age.
All but military travel on the Bozeman Trail ended after
that deadly summer, but within a dozen years the Indian
Wars were finished in Montana. Roads got better and
safer. Trains rolled through by 1883. Towns prospered and
faded, irrigation projects arrived, pavement was laid, the
interstate highway system came, with this segment overlay-
ing John Bozemans route to the gold fields.
So many changes. Yet the grave with three bodies
remains, silent, rarely visited. Earthbound eyes closed
as the world passes by at speeds they could never have
imagined.

66
Theres still time, young writers.
The Montana Quarterly wants your best work!
The third annual Big Snowy Prize will award two prizes, one for short fiction and one for essay/
nonfiction, to Montanans 30 or younger.

Whos eligible? Anyone 30 or younger as of April 15, 2016, and a current or former Montana resident.

What are the rules? Send unpublished entries up to 3,500 words in a Word document to
editor@themontanaquarterly.com. Show that you live or have lived in Montana.
Previous winners are ineligible.

Whats the deadline? April 15, 2016.

How many entries? One per person, please.

Winners in each category will get a check for $500, a handsome

trophy, and publication in the Summer 2016 Montana Quarterly.

More information at www.themontanaquarterly.com/big-snowy-prize/

 BOOKS

The Varied Lives

of Robert Staffanson
AN INTERVIEW BY KRIS KING

M
any lives have a second act, some a third, WITNESS TO SPIRIT:
but few can claim a successful fourth act.
Yet 94-year-old Robert Staffanson is doing My Life with Cowboys,
exactly that with his first book, Witness to Mozart & Indians
Spirit. Called the most interesting man By Robert Staffanson | Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing Inc.,
in Montana by Ed Kemmick of Last Best News, Staffanson $42 hardcover, $24 paperback, 260 pages
spent his formative years on no-frills Montana ranches,
excelling in horsemanship and connecting to a nature- writer Todd Wilkinson to
based Western spirit that has never left him. edit his autobiography.
Staffanson, who says he could sing before I could While the first two acts
walk, played a range of instruments and earned a music of the book are matter-of-
degree from the University of Montana. His leadership fact, the third is poetic
skills, musical gifts, and raw pluck led to his second act: a and inspirational. The
meteoric rise in the world of classical music. In his twen- format is vintage family
ties, Staffanson founded the Billings Symphony and music album and includes
education programs still active today. By his early thir- more than fifty photos.
ties he was the conductor of the prestigious Springfield, While Staffansons spirit,
Massachusetts Symphony. Music in its highest forms opens scope of impact and
spiritual windows like no other art, Staffanson writes. four acts would be hard
In the same era, Staffanson and his wife spent summers to match, his life and
rejuvenating in Montana and he had a life-changing expe- choices can inspire read-
rience at a Blackfeet Medicine Camp. He felt the pull to ers of all ages to take
abandon a profession in which I was successful for an risks and maybe even change the world.
idea of addressing Americas oldest moral problem: its Robert Staffanson is the President Emeritus of the
indefensible treatment of Native Americans. And that laid American Indian Institute. He lives in Bozeman with his
the foundation for his third act. Despite medical trauma wife Ann, next door to their daughter Kristin Campbell
and acute hearing loss, he worked for years with tradi- and her family.
tional native leaders to develop the role and goals of the
American Indian Institute. For four decades, the organi- Montana Quarterly: What do you want readers to know
zation he founded has facilitated unprecedented Native- going into Witness to Spirit?
driven traditional circle gatherings and programs Robert Staffanson: That this is a very honest book
advocating Native wisdom and perspective. reflecting spiritual qualities in three very disparate areas
Fourth act, ninth decade: Staffanson tapped Bozeman of life.

68
 The word
spirit has
lost its
meaning. It is
generally tied
to dogma or
relegated to
kooks who
are looking
for some
magic to fix
the hole in
their psyche.

ROBERT STAFFANS ON
PHOTO COUR TESY OF

Left: Robert Staffanson in

Bozeman. Above: Staffanson
prepares to conduct a
symphony in Springfield,
Massachusetts.
PHOTO BY KRISTIN CAMPBELL

M O N TA N A Q U A R T E R LY 69
 MQ: Why did you choose a title with the words witness
and spirit, common in Christendom and proselytizing,
while not addressing your religious beliefs in the book?
RS: The term spirit is a defining one for the book,
which is concerned with spirituality. Spirituality is not
limited to any one religion. I am a Christian but I did not
want to impose my religious affiliation in a book dedicated
to spirituality, which is pertinent to all religions. The term
witness is used to signify my own spiritual experiences in
the three areas of life dealt with in the book.
MQ: What did you learn about fundraising as a
symphony conductor that helped you fund the American
Indian Institute?
RS: Passion. Neither symphony orchestras nor work
with Indians have popular appeal. One has to make an
emotional case as well as a pragmatic case.
MQ: What were your favorite parts, and what do you
miss, about the classical music world?
RS: My favorite part was bringing the work of great
composers to audiences both adult and children. Because
of hearing loss I miss that. I will never again hear that
music. It would have been unbearable had I not had an
urgent cause to which I could apply myself completely and
be fulfilled.
MQ: How did you come to settle in Bozeman?
RS: Chet Huntley, former NBC announcer, was one of
the American Indian Institutes founding trustees. I moved
to Bozeman to be near him and because of the facilities in
Bozeman and its location in an awesome natural setting.
MQ: How are traditional indigenous people differ-
ent from the rest of the vastly diverse contemporary native
populations?
RS: The Native American community is split in many
ways, perhaps even more than the dominant society. In
simplistic terms the greatest split is between politi-
cal Indians, those who have adopted our life-ways and
our essentially materialistic approach to life, and tradi-
tional Indians who have kept the life-ways and the value
systems of their heritage in spite of being told by our soci-
ety over centuries that it is both wrong and evil; church
and state combined to destroy the only wisdom indigenous
to this hemisphere. In some Indian nations the tradi-
tional side is strong, in others it is weak. Some Indian
people have come over to the non-Indian world and have
70
been successful. Some are not, or are torn between the
two. Alcohol and drugs are used as sedatives. Traditional
Native Americans have kept the morals and values of
their heritage with little compromise and have adapted
outwardly to the conditions of modern life while inwardly
retaining the spirit and essence of who they are in their
own communities and in their own ceremonies. They are
the people with a finger in the dike of disappearance and
with whom we work to help them sustain their heritage
under overwhelming pressure.
MQ: To what do you attribute resistance to the
American Indian Institutes mission by your non-native
friends and peers?
RS: No other minority group can match the discrimina-
tion and hate directed at Native Americans. Non-Indian
association with them, particularly with traditional Indians,
attracts some of the same negative emotion applied to
Indians. In that view the non-native is a traitor to their race
and community. An element of guilt over its abominable
treatment of the (native) people is likely a factor. The trag-
edy is, that if there had been any effort to understand the
true nature of the Indian heritage, there are many elements
that could have helped the larger society address environ-
mental and human problems that overwhelm us. A great
human family, traditional Indians, has been bulldozed
under with no idea of the value lost in that carnage.
MQ: Why do you think so few people are dedicated to
spiritual growth like yourself?
RS: Spiritual growth, like growth in any discipline,
takes interest, time and commitment. Our society is not
set up to promote spiritual growth. We are pragmatic and
promote practical disciplines. The word spirit has
lost its meaning. It is generally tied to dogma or relegated
to kooks who are looking for some magic to fix the hole
in their psyche. One of the elements that attracted me to
traditional Indians is that spirit dominates their lives. Any
traditional Indian is brought up with spiritual insights and
examples. We do not have that except in churches where
spirituality is circumspect and tied to dogma. Traditional
Indians say, We dont see any spirituality in your world.
They have a point.
MQ: Do you have any parting advice to readers?
RS: Open your minds and your hearts to people society
has marginalized and denigrated. Both you and they will
benefit.
 BOOK R EV I EWS B Y E L I S E AT C H I S O N
The Power of Short Stories
S
hort stories are the perfect literary form
for the 21st century. They can be read on our
lunch break or during our morning commute.
They fit neatly between the covers of a magazine or on
our diminutive glowing screens. The short-story writer
Lorrie Moore has said, Short stories are about trouble
in mind. A bit of the blues. Songs and cries that reveal
the range and ways of human character. Three new
story collections by Callan Wink, Glen Chamberlain
and Rick Bass (all of whom have been featured in the
Montana Quarterly) offer a tasty mix of troubled minds.
These stories allow us to step into the messy lives of
others and, as Neil Gaiman says, still be back in time
for dinner. Whether you are already a connoisseur of
short stories or new to the form, these three collections
are well worth your time.
DOG RUN MOON
By Callan Wink | The Dial Press, hardcover,
256 pages, $26
Callan Winks long-awaited first book, Dog Run Moon,
cements his growing reputation as a fresh and highly
original voice in contemporary literature.
He published his first story in The New Yorker while
he was still in college, and he has continued to publish
in top-tier venues ever since. Its not hard to understand
why. Wink has a combination of raw talent, deft techni-
cal ability, and keen insight into human nature that is
rare in a writer of his young ageor a writer of any age.
I can say without reservation that hes one of the best
young writers coming out of the West.
Many of Winks stories explore the pressures on
young men to conform to the impossible myth of mascu-
linity revered in the West. These men flounder as they
try to carve their own path in the world, unsure of what
they want and how to get it. Through trial and error,
they slowly grope their way toward adulthood.
In Runoff, a 25-year-old man living in his fathers
basement overhears his father call him a beta dog who
is willing to be led. He stumbles into love with a much
older woman and finds himself playing alpha dog to her
two young sons. In one hilari-
ous scene, he teaches the
boys how to be manly men
by making strong coffee and
then sitting around talking
about the weather, something
his own father does with his
buddies down at Albertsons.
When his girlfriend says that
the coffee is horrible, her
young sons reply, Its good ...
because were men.
In Breatharians, a
father gives his 12-year-old son the job of killing
surplus barn cats using whatever tool suits you. ...
Small tails worth as much as large tails. As the boy
embraces this ghastly job, he witnesses his father
having sex with his teenage girlfriend over a hay bale,
her underwears brilliant lacy pinkness ... a glar-
ing insult to the honest, flyspecked, manure brown of
the barn. The next morning when the girlfriend asks
him if he wants his coffee black, like his dads, the boy
says, Sure, and he tries not to grimace as he sips the
strong brew. Then he grabs his wrench and heads to
the barn, trying to find his place within the adult world
of work and sex.
In the title story, Dog Run Moon, a young man
runs barefoot through the desert at night with a stolen
dog while two angry men chase him on an ATV. This
story primes us for a violent climax, but the subtext of
longing and pain is more complex and interior than that.
Just when we think we have this author comfortably
pigeonholed as a writer writing about disaffected young
men, Wink blows those expectations to smithereens with
In Hindsight, a long and intricately woven story about
a working-class bisexual woman. We follow the woman
through half a century as she cobbles a makeshift
family out of her ruined relationships and squeezes life
out of her disappointments.
Winks beautifully strange stories are bewitching.
They have a fiery passion and authenticity that make
them infinitely pleasurable to read. If you havent read
Callan Wink yet, its time to take the plunge. Hes the
real deal.
M O N TA N A Q U A R T E R LY 71
 ALL I WANT IS WHAT In one of my favorite
stories, Evas Task, Eva
YOUVE GOT moves to rural Idaho with
By Glen Chamberlain | Dock Street Press, softcover, her husband. As she stalks a
273 pages, $16.99 mysterious cowboy, she falls
in love with the land, hungry
Glen Chamberlains second short story collection, to learn everything about
All I Want Is What Youve Got, includes 12 finely the wild rye, the sego lilies,
wrought stories that take us down the long dirt roads the golden eagles diving
and into the homes and lives of small-town Montana. for ground squirrels, and
Many of these stories take place in rural Buckle especially the swallows. In
Valley, but they are in no way limited by what the her vast Idaho solitude, she
publishing industry likes to call regionalism. James admires the communities of
Joyce has said, In the particular is contained the mudjug houses they build in cliffs ... the creaking notes
universal. By focusing on specific people in a specific and guttural gratings of many conversations. ... Often
place, whether its a Chinese-American woman trying she sits and studies them ... pleased at how much there
to untangle the myth of her ancestry, or the ways is to learn about something so familiar. She is trans-
fate can turn mean in the hands of a lying, conniv- formed by the rural landscape, but when she witnesses
ing 12-year-old girl, or the everyday oscillations of the violent reality of her mysterious cowboy, her
marriage, Chamberlain drills deep into our collective
humanity.
In Big Their Secret, Crystal, a nurses aide,
takes care of Fergus, a paralyzed man whose
only physical capability is blinking his eye once
for yes, twice for no. Fergus, with his thick
brown curls, was once the handsomest boy in
all Buckle Valley. That kind of hair wasnt
supposed to be in nursing homes. ... The hair
Fergus had should have been out walking about,
getting tousled by the breeze and warmed by the
sun, and the fingers of a woman should be comb-
ing it in the dark of night. Crystal talks to him
constantly, giving him time to blink out his yes
and no answers. Its quite a feat that, through
these interactions, Chamberlain brings the silent
man to life as a multi-dimensional character. The
last line of this story is perfect.
In Her Funny Valentine, a lonely elderly
man falls in love with an unconventional woman
who is visiting the local artists refuge. A
Montana truth emerges when he says: People
from all over the world came to have their art fed
by the landscape that hed never figured out how
to eat and digest. It wasnt that he didnt appreci-
ate its beauty; its just that hed spent his whole
life trying to balance living in Pocket against
making a living in Pocket. ... The scale always
tipped toward poverty.

72
 In Basss stories, spouses and children leave, mountain
lions threaten to rip apart a mans happiness, and rivers
change direction, taking entire towns with them.
disillusionment is a catalyst for another type of change.
These stories show great versatility in style and
structure. Some contain the wit, ingenuity and intellec-
tual play of Nabokov, others include vivid descriptions
of the western landscape that draw us into the beauty
and power of place. The idea for this eclectic collection
arose after Chamberlain attended an Ahn Trio concert.
That night, I decided Id make the Ahn Trio into a
quartet: Id try to write stories that in mood corre-
sponded to the cuts from their CD titled Lullaby for My
Favorite Insomniac. Through this creative collabo-
ration between the arts, Chamberlain has produced
a highly entertaining and thought-provoking story
collection.
FOR A LITTLE WHILE
By Rick Bass | Little, Brown and Company, hardcover,
480 pages, $28
For a Little While by Rick Bass collects the best of
almost 30 years worth of Basss short stories, a delec-
table mix that includes old favorites as well as many
new gems.
Bass, whose stories have appeared in nearly every
major short story venue and have won numerous prizes,
is a storyteller extraordinaire. His tightly woven tales
seem to grow organically from sentence to sentence,
like leaves unfurling in the sun. These stories are
deeply rooted in place, revealing a strange and beguil-
ing beauty among the gas flares of Texas, the alligator-
infested swamps of the southern bayou, and the isolated
cabins and snowclad forests of Montana.
Bass immerses us in the sometimes odd but always
fascinating lives of his characters: cyclists and runners,
loggers and hunters, adolescents on the verge of
sexual awakening and adults wading into the quag-
mire of dementia. One thing these characters have in
common is that they are all searching for something
solid to hang on to in a fluid and ever-changing world.
Sometimes they find this
elusive stability for a little
while in love and family, in
work and place, in the mad
obsessions that drive them
onward through the confu-
sion and chaos of life.
In Coach, a mans
incandescent fury for girls
basketball, with its mix of
high passion and deep irrel-
evance, is a form of ther-
apy he uses to heal from
a lifetime of setbacks and pain. In The Legend of
Pig-Eye, a young fighter tries to gain acceptance from
his sadistic trainer. I did not know what my parents
wanted from me, but I did know what Don wanted. ... I
wondered if I fought so wildly and viciously ... to keep
things from changing.
In these stories, love is the strongest bulwark against
the impermanence of life. In How She Remembers It,
a young girl traveling with her father glimpses the thin
line between her privileged life and the hopelessness
and despair of a woman with brittle orange hair sitting
beside her broken-down Cadillac with a half-empty
bottle of vodka. She seemed resigned, so accustomed
to this type of situation ... as she confirmed once again
that she understood how the world was ... no mercy in
it for her. The girl imagines herself in such a predica-
ment and realizes: Only her own victory of being
loved deeply allowed her the luxury of such indulgent
imaginings.
In Basss stories, spouses and children leave, moun-
tain lions threaten to rip apart a mans happiness, and
rivers change direction, taking entire towns with them.
It can go just like that, one character says, snapping
her fingers. It can go that fast. Yet in the midst of
such uncertainty, Bass has an uncanny ability to find
beauty and passion. In an unstable world, this collec-
tion gives us something solid to hold on to for a little
while.
M O N TA N A Q U A R T E R LY 73
 FICTION

Mill Town

BY DILLON TABISH

ILLUSTRATIONS BY CONNIE DILLON

74
L et me tell you what its like to run away.
In the early autumn of that year the
river was clear and slowed to a trickle
and the wildfires were finally dead. Our
place sat hidden down a washboard road
that hugged the calm stream until it
veered off to an open pasture near the base
of the mountains. In the open pasture we had
a small house and a barn, both faded from
the sun and years of neglect. It was only 10
minutes from Milltown, the town where I
grew up and the town I never left until I was
17.
From my bedroom, I heard his truck
rattle into the driveway. He slammed the
door and made more noise when he came
inside. I usually knew my father was home
by the noise he made and the smell that he
carried with him. I never met anyone else
who smelled like him. It was a sharp metal-
lic scent and I used to worry I would some-
day share that trait.
Russell, get out here and help me
unload, he said.
Without looking at him, I headed straight
to the old Chevy. The back of the pickup
was filled with grocery bags stuffed with the
usual suppliesa dozen packets of Sudafed,
jugs of iodine, brake fluid and Drano, two
cases of Rainier.
I remember the first time I asked about
his shopping.
Whatya need all this for? I said, look-
ing into the shopping cart at Albertsons. He
stopped and stared down at me. His eyes
were almost hidden by his battered Stetson
tucked over his forehead, but I could see their
sharpness. His dark reaction startled me.
Now, looking back on it, I think he wanted
to say something, something another father
might say. Instead he said nothing. And thats
when we made a silent agreement. It was the
first time I really knew he was my father and I
was his son.

M O N TA N A Q U A R T E R LY 75
 I carried the bags inside and placed them on the kitchen
table while two more trucks rambled up the driveway kick-
ing up dust. Swede and Pervert climbed out of one truck, a
shiny new Ford I hadnt seen before, and Tina stepped out of
her same old one.
God damn hotter than hell out here, Pervert said,
walking up the front porch holding an open can of Steel
Reserve.
The three of them broke the silence in the kitchen.
How ya doin Russell? Tina said, smiling softly at me. while my father shook his head and took a long pull from
You look good.
Im fine, I said.
Anybody want a beer? my father asked, opening the
refrigerator.
I got something better, Tina said, a rowdy twang in her
voice.
She pulled out a handle of McCormicks vodka and
waved it in the air. She already seemed drunk, teetering on
those skinny legs that carried her bony frame. Through it
all, she was still pretty, even after the beatings from a car
wreck and more than a few boyfriends.
My father pinched a black chunk of snuff and buried it
in a new part of his lip that still had nerves before wiping
his hand on those torn jeans he wore day after day. Pervert
leaned back in his chair and let his ponytail hang low
toward the ground as he poured a long drink into his mouth.
He was a motorcycle mechanic from Texas. He had an
accent that stumbled out of his bulbous lips. He always wore
a black vest and oil stained white T-shirt that barely hid the
faded tattoos of naked women crawling around the leather
of his arms. The only tidy thing about him was his ponytail,
which was wrapped tight with a rubber band.
In some ways, Swede still resembled the young man in
the photos that still littered our house. He had wrinkled,
soft skin now, but still a burly frame with thick arms, simi-
lar to the picture of him and my dad standing together in
high school football jerseys. Or the photo of them smiling
unfamiliar smiles with their shirts off near the river, stand-
ing on either side of my young mom.
Everyone settled in and Swede launched into the big
news at the lumber mill.
Shit, Swede began, So while Gene was drinking after under the high blue sky. I watched the current sweep over
shift at the V, Trevor Williams swung over to Genes house,
parked two blocks down the road and came through the
back gate where Sheryl was waiting for him like usual, prob-
ably not wearing nothing but some silky little outfit like the
ones Tina loves.
You can dream, Swede, Tina said as she poured
76
vodka into a glass of ice.
So Gene comes home piss-drunk while Trevor and
Sheryl are naked in bed. But Gene makes so much damned
noise and can hardly untie his shoes, it gives Trevor enough
time to pull himself out of there and run out the back door.
When Gene finally stumbled into bed, he mustve been
pleasantly surprised to find his wife lying there looking all
ready to greet him properly.
Tina and Pervert broke out in high-pitched laughter
his beer.
Well, Swede continued, laughing real loud, The only
problem is that Trevor forgot to grab his undergarments,
and the next morning Gene almost put on those same
dirty leftovers. A little upset, to say the least, Gene yanked
Sheryl out of bed by her hair and threw her in the shower
and decided to give her an ice-cold bath. Sounds like he
held her in there for about five minutes before she finally
muttered Trevors name.
The room grew quiet. Gene Donaldson was unpredict-
able and neurotic, which makes you wonder why anyone
would sneak into his house and screw his wife.
Trevor showed up to work at the mill that next day,
thinking nothing of it, Swede said. But then when he
came out to his car for lunch, Gene snuck up behind with a
2-by-4 and cracked it over Trevors skull. Couple other guys
came out just in time to stop Gene from beating Trevor into
sawdust. Last I heard, Trevors still out cold in the hospital
in Missoula. Genes sitting in his cell where it sounds like
hell be spending some time.
Sounds like Sheryls going to be having some lonely
nights for a while, my father said.
Dont get any ideas, Pervert said, sneaking a grin.
My father looked up at the clock on the wall, almost
3 oclock. It was time. Without saying a word, he stood up
and led the procession out the back door toward the barn.
They each picked up grocery bags and silently walked
outside, not saying goodbye or anything else as they left me
in the empty house.
Left to my solitude, as I often was in those days, I walked
a few minutes down the windy road and sat by the river
the pebbles that radiated through the clear water. Yellow
leaves floated downstream.
I caught a glimpse of a trout waving through the shallows.
It looked like a young rainbow. I gazed down at it swimming
in place, and I remember wondering what would happen to
that fish once it followed its natural path downstream, past
I gazed down at it swimming in place, and I remember wondering what
would happen to that fish once it followed its natural path downstream,
past the mountains and forest and into the large reservoir behind
the Milltown Dam, where the river stops and becomes a pool of toxic
sediment from years of abuse and neglect.

M O N TA N A Q U A R T E R LY 77
 the mountains and forest and into the large reservoir behind
the Milltown Dam, where the river stops and becomes a pool
of toxic sediment from years of abuse and neglect. What
would happen if it knew its fate? It could fight upstream
for as long as its strength and will and desire allowed it,
but eventually the weight of the water, the strength of river,
would prevail. Always does. So what is one to do?
M
y father bent over his plate eating a chunk
of chicken with his sloppy hands. His cup sat
on the table and he smelled like vodka and cat
piss. It was dark outside and I could hear the
crickets.
He looked up from his plate toward the clock. He
swiped his hand across his brow, almost like he was trying
to erase something from his forehead.
Clean up, would ya? I gotta run an errand, he said,
clambering to his feet.
His shoulders sagged and his skinny arms dangled like
noodles.
The dishwashers still broken, so rinse em off and let
em dry. All right?
Where you going? I asked.
I gotta drop some stuff off in Missoula, he said.
He stumbled over to the door and sat down on the bench
to put on his old round-toed cowboy boots, the ones hed had
since I was a child. He tried standing up to stomp his foot
into one boot but staggered. He saved himself by grabbing
the wall. His legs shuddered and his hat fell to the ground.
He muttered a curse word and pretended like I wasnt
watching. I looked at his half-empty cup of booze.
Why dont you let me drive, I said.
Im fine, he said.
We had broken into arguments about this before and
often I would wish hed just crash into a ditch and never get
out. But then I would think about it some more and my heart
would thump and the air would thin out around me.
No, I want to go, I said.
He froze in his seat. We stared at each other. I dont
know why, but I wasnt afraid of him at that moment. I held
his gaze until finally he broke the silence.
All right, God dammit, he yelled. Get in the truck.
At night, Milltown is almost pitch black except for the
streetlights and two bars. That night the parking lot at
Harolds Club was crowded and the butter-yellow sign flick-
ered Dine Drink Dance. I remember wondering what went
on inside those wooden walls, although Id heard plenty of
78
stories from Tina, stories that scared and tantalized me.
I barely ever went to Missoula even though the drive
was short, only 15 minutes on the Interstate. It occupied
the horizon like a pulsating fire. My father and his friends
always took the back roads into the city.
That night the moon shined through a silver blan-
ket of clouds and the outline of the mountains was well
defined. For the short time when Milltown is behind you and
Missoula is just ahead, the stars can suddenly appear and
everything seems wild and unknown.
Hellgate Canyon grew closer until it opened into an
entire valley of lights and cars and buildings. We veered
through downtown, past loud groups of young men and
women carelessly walking the streets, smiling and acting
carefree. I tried to stay focused on the driving, but couldnt
help but stare out at them. We came to the stoplight on
Higgins Avenue. A group of young women crossed in front
of us, laughing, and the women looked in and caught us
both staring out at them.
They were still in the street when the light turned green
and a car behind us honked. My fathers head jerked back.
The women hurried out of the road and one of them waved
apologetically. I hurried through the light and turned at the
first street. The streets grew darker the farther we distanced
ourselves from downtown. My father held a piece of paper
close to the window for light and read directions.
Stop, this is it, he said. It was a residential neighbor-
hood and there were cars parked all along the street and a
few people stood in the front yard of a large brick house that
had lights on and loud music spilling outside.
This one? I asked.
Yeah, this is it, he said. Wait here.
No, I said. Im coming with you.
I lurched into a parking spot and flipped the key, turning
the truck off.
God dammit, Russell, youre staying right here, he
screamed.
Im either going in with you or Im driving away the
second you step out, I yelled back.
He seemed startled. I thought he was going to hit me so I
raised my chin, giving him a target. He fired his fist toward
my face but stopped barely an inch away. The smell of his
steely hand drifted between us.
Dont you ever act like you can take it, he yelled.
I heard my heart knocking inside my chest. He clenched
his fist in front of my face for a second more and then
dropped it. He opened the door and slammed it behind him.
I looked out at his shadowy figure walking down the street
and jumped out and ran after him.
I joined him at the front door of the house where two men
were standing and smoking.
You can just go in, if you want, one of them said.
All right, my father replied. Then he turned and
looked at me, as if giving me one last chance. I stuck my
hand out and opened the door, letting him lead the way.
Flashing lights and music filled the living room. People
were dancing everywhere, at least 50 of them. The air was
thick and musty and stuck to my face. My father stood
frozen in the doorway looking out into the ocean of people.
I nudged his back and he shot a look back at me. He took a
step forward and froze again. His hands stuck tightly to his
sides. People caught sight of him and slowed down to see
whose father had come to grab somebody.
After a few more seconds, he approached someone and
said, Im looking for Checkers.
Checkers, oh yeah, she said. Hes back there.
She pointed toward the back of the party where a closed
door hid another room. The smell of alcohol and sweat
flooded the room. I watched as he split the crowd with his
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cowboy hat and boots. I hurried behind him, budging into
a girl holding a beer. She turned and looked at me. Her soft
skin glowed from the sweat and lights.
Im really sorry, I said. She smiled and put her hand
out and touched me on the arm. I felt every hair sharpen as
her sweaty hand soothed my skin.
Its cool, she smiled.
I hurried after my father who was rushing through the
crowd. I wanted a mask. I wanted to scream. I wanted him
to tell me who we were.
My father opened the door. Three young men were sitting
on an old black couch. They all looked up at us. I remem-
ber thinking my fathers jeans and Carhartt coat seemed
suddenly out of place, among other things.
Checkers? he said, agitation filling his voice. One of
them stood up, paused, and then smiled.
Are you ?
Yeah, he said.
Oh shit, man, cool. Sorry I didnt think, you know, youd
be, uh, well, you know. Take a seat.
Checkers walked to the door and closed it and looked
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M O N TA N A Q U A R T E R LY 79
 directly at me.
Who are you? he asked me.
A friend, my father said. Here it is.
He pulled a Ziploc bag from his pocket and held it up.
Everyone stared at it, including me. Id never seen it before,
but I immediately recognized what it was. It was who my
father had become.
Money, my father said.
Checkers smirked.
Right, right, sorry, man.
One of the young men on the couch stood up and said he
had to go to the bathroom.
OK, but hurry back. You gotta help rookie here with
his first time, Checkers said, pointing to the kid now sitting
alone.
We got us a first-timer here tonight, Checkers said,
talking to my father now. Birthday present for my little
cousin here.
He nudged the kids shoulder with his fist and the kid
half smiled.
Nineteen years old. What a useless accomplishment,
Checkers said, laughing. My father looked at the birthday
boy sitting alone on the couch. He was pale.
Money, my father said, repeating himself with more
force in his voice.
OK. OK. Jesus Christ. Ill be right back.
Checkers walked out the door and quickly shut it behind
him, leaving the three of us together, silent.
After a silent moment that seemed to last a minute, the
kid piped up.
You go to school here? he asked, looking at me.
No, I said.
Silence, and then the kid said, I do. Im a freshman.
He was wearing a bright collared shirt and had spiky
hair just like Checkers.
Im from Idaho, he continued. I never been to
Montana until I came here for college. My mom told me to
explore somewhere new after high school, but I was nervous
to leave home and all my friends. But my cousin was going
to school here and they said he would look after me.
My father was staring down at the kid.
The door opened and Checkers barged in. Out of his

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80
pocket he pulled a needle. Then he pulled out a wad of
cash. He counted it on the table in front of us, placing each
bill an inch away from the other. When he was finished he
looked up at my father with a straight face. Thanks, man, Checkers said.
There it is, now lets have it.
My father set the bag on the table and Checkers opened
it and lifted the powder to his nose, smelling the milky-
white chunks.
Sweet, Checkers said, nodding with a grin. Perfect.
The music pumped through the floorboards and made
the house creak. The flashing lights leaked through the
bottom of the closed door. The kid sat on the couch and I
saw his hands shivering and sweat began to form across his
forehead. My father squinted and he shuffled his boots on
the carpet and I could almost hear the static build. I saw his
tongue come out of his mouth and wet his dry, cracked lips
and his eyes peered at me out of their wrinkled corners.
Checkers sat down and pulled out a lighter and a dark
spoon. His younger cousin gazed loosely at the floor, some-
thing crossing his mind that seemed to trap him. I wondered
if he were to see me on the street, if hed say hello, or if he
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would pass by and pretend like we were total strangers.
Although each of us, side by side, would seem like total
opposites, we werent so unalike.
He went to shake my fathers hand but suddenly my
father grabbed the bag off the table. Everyone in the room
froze. My heart began to beat loud again, almost in unison
with the music that shook the house.
What the fuck, Checkers yelled.
Its off.
Wait, why? The moneys right there, just take it and
leave, man!
My father turned and grabbed the doorknob. An arm
grabbed him from behind. Swiveling in an instant, my father
grabbed Checkers by the throat and threw him against
the wall before punching him squarely in the jaw. The kid
on the couch stood up. I waited, hoping he wouldnt try
anything, but instead he dashed out the door and disap-
peared into the loud flashing lights.
My father turned to me, and without saying anything we
rushed away, out of the musty house and into the night.
I
heard someone once say that God stores up a
mans punishment for his sons, when instead He
should repay the man himself; let his own eyes
see his destruction; let him drink the wrath of
the Almighty.
I still think of my father often, and when I do, I
think of that night. A few weeks later, when I found
him slouched over dead in his chair looking out the
window at the empty pasture and red barn, I sold the
place to Swede and I ran away.
I ran away and I started something new, found
a new river and a new current to maneuver. But no
matter where I go and how much I try to change, that
night with my father always sticks in my mind.
We ran outside and slammed the doors of the
truck and everything but our hearts stopped and it
was quiet again. He turned and looked at me as if he
had a speech or confession he was finally ready to
give. I waited.
I remember seeing the wrinkles that carved his
face. The once dark hair turned gray. The dry lips
and black teeth. The granite hands. The tired look
in his eyes. The small house and red barn. The lost
young wife. Milltown.
The blanched face of Grant Wiplinger.
M O N TA N A Q U A R T E R LY 81
 CONTRIBUTORS

Elise Atchison lives in David T. Hanson was born Scott McMillion is the editor
a cabin on the edge of and raised in Montana. His of the Montana Quarterly.
the Absaroka-Beartooth photographs investigating His journalism and essays
wilderness. Her work has the contemporary American appear in magazines around
appeared in South Dakota landscape have been widely the country and an updated
Review, Jackson Hole exhibited and collected in edition of his award-winning
Review, Cutthroat Journal, museums throughout the book, Mark of the Grizzly
on Reflections West Radio and elsewhere. Her world. He has been awarded a Guggenheim and (Lyons Press), came out in 2011. He lives in
website is at www.eliseatchison.com. two NEA fellowships. Livingston with his wife Jennifer and a cat
named Norman.
Lisa Densmore Ballard is Alan Kesselheim has
an award-winning writer written for Montana Michael J. Ober is four
and photographer based Quarterly from its start and generations deep into
in Red Lodge, Montana. counts it among the most Montanas history and lore.
She spends nearly valuable outlets in his 30- He recently retired as library
every waking moment year freelance career. He director and faculty
exploring, writing about has written 11 books, most member at Flathead Valley
and photographing the backcountry. Visit her at recently Montana: Real Place, Real People, with Community College, where
www.LisaDensmore.com. photographer Thomas Lee. he taught Montana history. He also worked 44
seasons in Glacier National Park as a backcountry
Tony Bynum is a Kris King grew up in and law enforcement ranger.
professional conservation, Montana and loves it anew
wildlife and outdoor with every season change. Elliot Stahl has been
adventure photographer Shes been writing articles exploring and photographing
from East Glacier, for a quarter century and caves across the U.S
Montana. See more of his has interviewed authors for and Mexico for 10 years,
work at www.tonybynum. Montana Quarterly since its including four expeditions to
com or www.glacierparkphotographer.com. inception. Its her favorite writing gig ever. explore and map the remote
caves of the Bob Marshall
Connie Dillon is a full-time Todd Klassy is a commercial Wilderness Area. He lives in Georgia.
artist and photographer, part photographer from Havre.
time writer and the owner His photos have been Marshall Swearingen is
of Gallery Nine in Billings. published by Popular a freelance writer and
Her work has been juried Photography, National regular contributor to High
into several shows as well Geographic, Newsweek, Country News. Now living in
as the auctions People and Sports Livingston, he has hunted,
at the Yellowstone Art Museum and Illustrated. See more at www.toddklassy.com. fished and skied all over
Paris Gibson Square. Montana.
Phil Knight came west
Butte native Edwin Dobb in 1982 and has never Dillon Tabish was born and
teaches narrative writing been the same since. raised in Missoula, the
and literary journalism at He is a student of nature oldest son of a printer and
the UC Berkeley Graduate and is fascinated by all librarian. He graduated from
School of Journalism. undeveloped spaces and the University of Montana
Among some members the ways of untamed School of Journalism in
of the Poplar River First creatures. He has written two books and 2008 and lives in Kalispell,
Nation, in Manitoba, he is known as Man Who countless magazine articles. where he is a staff writer for the Flathead
Swims Home. Beacon newspaper and a freelance magazine
Montana Quarterly Senior writer.
Thomas Goltz splits Photographer Thomas Lees
his time between his latest book is Montana: John Zumpano is a
Livingston home and Real Place, Real People, freelance event, portrait
extended journeys to Turkey with Al Kesselheim. He and fine art photographer
and the Caucasus region of accepts commissions for in Livingston. His work
the former USSR, on which speaking engagements includes parades, rodeos,
he has written four well- and commercial, editorial and fine art imagery powwows and landscapes
received books and too many articles to count. at www.ThomasLeePhoto.com and www. of the Northern Rockies.
He once taught at Montana State University. ThomasLeeTrueWest.com. See more of his work at JZphotoArt.com.

82
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