MONTANA IN MY MIND
Another guy who just moved to Missoula from Florida claims he came because of better weather. He is lying, misinformed, or possibly a spy. In the middle of the night he asked on Twitter for book recommendations to get acquainted with Montana. A dozen non-sleepers responded. The books they recommended were as interesting as the Tweeters, ranging from the classic K. Ross Toole histories to books I never heard of before, recent and centered on young people.
But here’s what I can tell you about Montana, beginning with the most basic pattern: ecosystems produced by geology. First, if you drive east-to-west across the state, it will take you a long day. If you drive north to south, it will take a shorter day.
The state as was politically determined bisects a system of valleys, then a cordillera of mountains marking a fractal collision under the continent, then a flat but tilted land from the mountains descending toward the midwest. This was once an inland sea and preserves the chemistry and the bones. The nature of the early people in each place was according to what there was to eat. Without food, there is no life.
The valley systems were fertile and varied. The mountains had little food and it was hard to get except by skillful hunting. The prairie was sustained as grassland, because the mountains blocked air-carried wet currents from the Pacific Ocean, but the grass fed African-sized herds of bison. The people there ate well and thrived until the invading Euros killed all the herds — on purpose. Those Blackfeet who had not died of disease by then barely survived starvation. 600 people died because they were trapped on the rez so could not leave to hunt the last of the buffalo.
Before the railroads major transportation was based on the drainage rivers in a “tree” that reached from the northern Rockies (Marias River) to the Missouri and then the Mississippi and to New Orleans, where ocean-going vessels connected to Europe. The division between Canada and the US is marked by the hills or small mountains along the divide between the two drainages: Sweetgrass Hills, Cypress Hills, etc. Northern waters flow to the Saskatchewan River and then to Hudson’s Bay. Triple Divide Mountain, pyramidal, sends water to three watersheds: north, east, and west to the Columbia, entering the Pacific which also is access by ships. There are more divides than the simple continental high point along the cordillera.
The 49th parallel is an artificial surveyor line and boundary with Canada but it is paralleled on both sides by developments. Two railroads, one on each side, competed to carry goods and people and raced to finish. This was supported by the Industrial Revolution which both needed and enabled trans-continental rail access. As the infrastructure of trains and their feeder settlements grew, they were accompanied by a double stream of criminals on both sides: liquor, gambling, shake-downs, blackmail, prostitutes and the like — all the usual hustles — are still there though better disguised. In the early days Trump’s father was involved.
North/south travel was begun by cattle being walked north, then by highways and airlines. Cattle were taking advantage of the grass, which is a natural resource to be developed. Indigenous people had lived off the grass through the bison, but now cattle displaced them and the cattle were not eaten locally, esp. after refrigeration on rail cars was invented. Then the grass was displaced by wheat.
Mineral resources drove development which happened in clusters of related higher population towns. Butte became legendary as a complex of Euro mining culture. Anaconda and Red Lodge existed similarly. Once the mines were exhausted, the towns collapsed — Butte becoming a toxic lake. The management and wealth of the resources was through Helena reaching back to Boston where the financiers lived.
Great Falls/Fort Benton was another early cluster based on the Missouri River that at first supported the fur trade including the bison robes with industrial uses. Fort Benton was as far north as sizable boats could come and the Great Falls that blocked the way were powerful sources of energy for refining. Fort Benton was the earliest location of managing the indigenous population and a kindling point for violence that ended in massacre of Blackfeet.
Five universities manage the culture of the state. Bozeman — in the scheme that developed a binary of learning between agriculture and humanities — took the cows and Missoula took the books. Billings stood apart. Havre has concentrated on trades and Dillon concentrated on teachers.
Bozeman and Missoula each accrued societies of writers who created reputations, almost opposed to each other, often unknown to each other. Missoula is a valley place that tends to seal in smoke and paper mill emissions until the rain clouds that fail to cross the Rockies falls to lighten its load. In winter this means ice and snow. In summer it is fertility. Bozeman is a mountain town, athletic and technical. Free lance writers and artists cluster a bit more to the east in Livingston. Movie stars are more likely to buy ranches there.
Kalispell is a money town and with its partner, Whitefish, it is a resort town, mostly skiing in winter. The place has always had a reputation for shady dealings and had a refuge for mafia assassins on Wild Horse Lake. Now its just a retreat center, I think. The Flathead Valley leads into a dark piece of Alberta.
Montana can be understood as a quadrant with the Rockies on one side and the Canadian border at right angles. The Blackfeet people lived on both sides and reconstitute that relationship though their fates have been slightly different. Currently the state is confronting the aging of a water diversion from Canada to the High LIne of the US in order for small towns to exist alongside the railroad taking goods back and forth for profit. With this system of canals, flumes and dams aging out at the same time as drought persists, these towns are endangered. The situation emphasizes that Montana as a state is dependent on occasional subsidy and intervention by the federal government. This creates tension and gives power to political representatives.
Social shifts, away from the gender-structured agricultural families to free-form gig relationships based on age and interests, bring in ideas and drugs, export fantasies of freedom and innocence. People come, drop their grubstake, and leave. Fifty years ago a woman on the rez said to me, “There’s no use making friends with white people because pretty soon they leave again.”
Distribution routes that use trucks come from St.Paul/Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, and Seattle. The brands of sundries are shaped by their origins. Where I am at the top of the state not far from the Rockies, the farthest fingers of reach can mean a mix of brands on the shelves. Independent stores are controlled by the distribution wholesalers who balance availability against demand. Since the pandemic began, this has become unreliable. Montana relies on forces outside the state.
Something like that also applies to the culture, which is why Missoula is like Portland but Billings is like Denver. Books and magazines come out of all the region-within-regions, according to the density of the populations and what they eat, wear or drive. I’m neglecting wind farms, pipelines, and disease patterns. The books? Later. Blogs. Yes, blogs — where are the lists of Montana blogs? And religious systems.
