I have been in Montana for the last week, going from almost 80 degrees to seeing wet snow falling yesterday. It is a land of contrasts, like many places, only this place is blessed with some of the most stunning scenery in the world.
Some of my family live out here, in Great Falls and Missoula. And my grandmother was born in a log cabin out in Lothrop back in 1902. Growing up, we often would make the trek to visit her brother Frank and his wife Margaret, who had moved back to Missoula after years in Chicago. Montana is a place that stays with you because nothing here is small. The mountains rear up in Glacier Park and for the last few days have been smothered in thick white snow clouds. Turn and look the opposite way and there are the plains, stretching as far wide and open all the way to halfway across North Dakota before the Midwestern farms start creeping in. It’s Big Sky Country or as some folks here call it, the “Last Best Place.”
Of course, television series like “Yellowstone” have capitalized on those ideas, and with that comes those who want to wear a cowboy hat, drive a pickup and be a good old boy. Others come out here to work for the tourist industry and end up living here, in love with the land and its people.
Still others, like Wyatt, who drove us up to Logan Pass, are native Blackfeet and have been here since time immemorial. They walk in several worlds at once, it seems. Their own culture and having to live with and work with the local residents, while catering to the thousands of tourists who take advantage of the sixty odd days of summer that will bring them here to this last best place. Wyatt was frank about the Blackfeet being exploited in the past. Yet, here they are, still. Their reservation borders and encompasses at the same time Glacier National Park. It is good to see that the tribe has a say and also charges for some of the trails that go from the lodge into the parkland around it. Fair is fair, I say.
My brother Colin and his wife Joanne came to see me play with Switchback and were kind enough to drive to Browning, Montana. It had been about 30 years since I last was in Browning, which is a real reservation town. Like other reservation towns, there are the dogs that lounge in the streets, cared for by no one and everyone at the same time. Browning now has a roundabout and a small, but active casino. Unfortunately, one of my most favorite places, the Museum of the Plains Indian, was closed, almost inexplicably on a Saturday, to boot. It was fenced off and the tired old brick building is going to be replaced with a new structure. In spite of such changes, much of Browning looked the same, half-frozen in time like some mastodon in a Siberian riverbank. We stopped at the local trading post, and I was able to pick up some of the beautiful bead work that the Blackfeet are renowned for. They are able to create belt buckles, bolo ties, hair clasps with tightly bound, colorful beads. And I realized that for me, Browning is sort of a pilgrimage site. At various times in my life, I have been to this town and have picked up beadwork. It is all back in Chicago, in a display case on top of my desk. I will now add some more to it after the latest visit.
I know folks who have left Montana for places like Ohio and New York. When visiting these people, I always love that they too, have paintings, beadwork or ledger art from this last best place on earth. It is that need for connection to a place that moves one’s soul. Sort of akin to having prayers cards or statuary in one’s home.
One can leave Montana, but Montana won’t leave you. Only Wyoming, her sister state and Ireland, who gave Montana her first governor, have such a special pull for me personally. These places are alike in that they have been blessed with great beauty. They also share similar sorrows of exploitation of their native populations for their land. They also have to learn how to cope with those who still wish to exploit them still. It’s a time-old tale. And each of these places have the remains of my own ancestors, including my parents, resting beneath their soil. It is a complex and emotional connection.
I will be back in Chicago, far from Browning in a matter of days. I will have to look at the beadwork made by the Blackfeet and sigh. Even with all its problems bubbling beneath the surface, it is still the last best place.
READ MARTIN’S OTHER BLOG HERE.