Christmas is a time for spending with family and friends, but lots of people in Montana in the 1800s ended up spending Christmas away from their families. Miners, and lumberjacks, and railroad workers all ended up spending many Christmases in camps scattered across the unpopulated plains and mountains of Montana. It may seem bleak but, … Read more
This week I was scheduled to write about Ponderosa pines, (aka Pinus ponderosa, aka Montana’s state tree, aka not the best choice in Christmas tree). But something important has come up. This blogger has an exclusive scoop. By exclusive, I mean that I saw this on the SouthWest Montana upcoming events page. Jan Brett is … Read more
Thanksgiving, at least in my mind, has a close connection with hunting. I think it is a common tradition to take advantage of the long weekend and gathered family to go hunting. Also, the general hunting season ends on November 29, and much Thanksgiving hunting has the air of desperation (in fairness, the holiday in … Read more
Why is there not a book of Minnie Two Shoes columns? That question might make a bit more sense if you had some context. Minnie Two Shoes was born in Poplar, Montana, in 1950 as Minnie Eder. She worked as a publicist for the American Indian Movement, an advocacy group for Native Americans founded in … Read more
You know what’s the worst? Having an idea for a book, and finding out that it has already been written. This happens to me all the time. For example, I have been working on this brilliant metaphorical novel about a ship’s captain who goes mad in pursuit of a white whale, only to find out … Read more
One of the first tourists to Montana was a man named Maximillian of Wied. Or, if you want to be more specific, Prince Maximillian Alexander Phillip of Wied-Neuwied. Unlike the Lewis and Clark Expedition or the fur trappers that followed, Maximillian did not come to explore or make money, he came simply to look around. … Read more
Frank Linderman came to Montana 60 years too late. Linderman moved to Montana in 1885, at the age of 16. He came to escape the confines of civilization, looking for adventure and wilderness. Unfortunately, as we all know, Montana was a completely tame and civilized place by 1885. Ok, so that’s not entirely true. After … Read more
I’m not going to lie, I spent a good deal of my morning reading other people’s tourism blogs. There are lots of really good reasons for reading the work of other people in your same line of business, but saying that I got sucked into a spiral of Facebook and Twitter links is the most … Read more
Not long before Christmas, I needed a new notebook. On a whim, I bought one without lines. I’ve started drafting my blog posts using unnecessary squiggly arrows and doodles. In reality, this is just an ingenious procrastination method, but it also makes me feel like an old fashioned natural philosopher. I like to think that … Read more
In Christmastime in Montana, David Walter has compiled hundreds of stories and descriptions of Christmas celebrations from the archives of Montana history, and I was perusing it earlier this week. Wait, peruse means to “examine carefully and at length?” Never mind, I wasn’t perusing anything. I speed-skimmed Christmastime in Montana, on the search for blog-postable … Read more
