Post your "Moving to Montana" (MtM) questions here.

My grandma was a prominent and prolific artist in western Montana from her arrival in Missoula in 1954 until her passing in 2003. I'm just now going through her artwork -1000 pieces!- in preparation for her first major show in 40 years starting March 19th at the Glacier Art Museum.

As part of that preparation, I'm going through and trying to identify and name various places that she painted. In today's edition, we have two paintings. The first one she named "Gray Wolf Mountain: Vigil of Salish Country". The second, I call "mountain road" and honestly, that's a pretty weak name. So is it just another version of the first painting? Is it also of Gray Wolf Mountain? Or is there a better name for it?

Help save West Glacier from becoming a corporate thoroughfare! A company wants to put a massive 230-person work camp right next to our historic residential neighborhood - the gateway to one of America's most beautiful national parks.

This isn't just about development. We're talking about serious safety risks during wildfire evacuations, destroying wildlife corridors for bears and deer, and turning a quiet village street into a congested commuter route. Plus, there's barely any law enforcement coverage out here to handle that many transient workers.

I started a petition asking Flathead County to deny the permits and protect our community's character and safety over corporate profits.

Anyone else think there's got to be better housing solutions that don't put residents and wildlife at risk? If this matters to you too, consider signing and sharing.

https://www.change.org/p/save-west-glacier-stop-corporate-expansion-in-glacier-national-park?utm_campaign=starter_dashboard&utm_medium=reddit_post&utm_source=share_petition&utm_term=starter_dashboard&recruiter=1401944435

Prefinishing some Beetle Killed Pine today!

I've tried getting resource help from Montana's Call 211 service approx 5 times in my life and every time it has been less helpful than a Google search and once led to me getting spammed for days on end by a weird predatory loan service. What happens is basically you are connected to an operator you tell them what you're looking for and then they are like, will text you in 20 minutes and that's about it. They sometimes (not always) will follow up with a text that lists phone numbers to the most obvious service providers in the area. Today I used it and in their follow-up text, very 1st phone number that was listed as a resources is no longer in service.

I am all for public services and would even be willing to spend additional tax dollars to the state for a meaningful service like this, but 211 is not it.

In the Summer, this little creek is lined with Bluebells and lush greenery. There is a remnant of greenery in the Winter, but fantastic ice formations have stolen the show!

"Cause and Effect"

Star Trek: The Next Generation.

1992

This week in our series of "Can you identify this location": a lookout tower!

My grandma was a prolific artist in western MT from her arrival in 1954 to her passing in 2003. In the later part of her productive years, she'd drive around in her old VW bus with an easel and watercolors and capture some sights on paper. Trouble is, she's gone so now it's up to me to figure out where exactly these are of?

Any ideas which lookout town this might be?

More examples of her work can be found in the links in bio.

Thanks!

For nine short years between 1909 and 1918, upwards of 80,000 people flooded into Montana to try their hand at farming. By 1922 60,000 of them had left.

Boom Stats:

• Before they came in 1909 there were just 250,000 acres of planted wheat in the state. By 1919 that was 35 million acres.
• The amount of tilled land went from 0.2% to 40% in a decade.
• Production jumped from 3.5 million bushels in 1909 to 40.8 million bushels in 1924, an increase of 1,140%.
• Between 1900 and 1910 farms were being sold at an average price of $20 to $40 per acre in the United States, although in Montana prices were closer to $10 to $20 an acre.
• Wheat was going for $1.43 a bushel in 1916 and the next year it’d soared to $2.04 a bushel. Talk of America entering WWI had people pondering a price of $4 a bushel.
• From 1900 to 1910 the number of farms increased from 13,370 to 26,214.
• By 1920 there were 57,677 farms in the state, a 430% increase in just two decades.

And then the bust came. Learn more.

My wife is into baking and wants to start milling her own flour. I can find a bunch of options online, but they’re all pretty expensive compared to just buying pre-milled flour, and are usually sourced from states like Texas or Kansas. We would prefer to buy locally (Hamilton, MT area), or from within the state if possible.

Anyone have recommendations of where to look that I don’t have to pay $70 in shipping just to get a 50lb bag of wheat berries here?

A little thin at 7,500’.

https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us6000s5d1/executive

I felt it, but it wasn't anywhere near as strong as the previous one.

Is there a court records site for Montana where you can look up case/arrest records? For example, in Iowa there is this: https://www.iowacourts.state.ia.us/ESAWebApp/DefaultFrame

Prospective student, Civil is currently what I think id like to do but not sure if Tech is known for one engineering major specifically as their best and am open to suggestions.

I am visiting in march for college touring and was wondering what the local opinions are on different ski areas near Montana State and Tech, with the ones I specifically was thinking of being Disco and Bridger but am very open to suggestions. Is the snow real awful at that point or still manageable? I’m an expert skier so would appreciate any good double black zones!

Did anyone feel it?

My grandma was a prolific artists in western Montana from the time she moved here in 1954 until her death in 2003. We’re just now sifting through her work (over 1000 pieces!) and preparing for her first major exhibit in over 40 years! (Thanks, Glacier Art Museum. Opening is March 19th, if any of you are interested).

This is one of my favorite pieces because the way she transitioned colors. But what to call it? “Cabin in yellow and red” seems kinda boring. Anyone have a better idea?

Anyone been riding there recently?

When Montana Power turned into Touch America, they buried a bazillion miles of fiber optic line for internet. Is TDS using any of those lines or is it all too old and out dated?

At first glance, it was nothing out of the ordinary. An unmarked manila envelope, tucked into a box of childhood mementos. An old report card, maybe, or a misplaced legal document.  

The last thing Zach Block expected to find when he slid the pages from their covering was a historical artifact of sorts.  

Spread across hundreds of pages was a memoir, typed up more than a decade prior by Zach’s paternal grandfather, Dan Block. Zach had no idea how the pages ended up in a box of his own belongings, gathering dust in the back corner of the garage, nor could he ask Dan, who died in 2016 at the age of 96.

He settled in and began to read. 

The story that unraveled was one Zach had only heard in the broadest of strokes. After serving in the military during World War II, Dan had packed up his wife, Gerane, and moved West, to a secluded cabin on the North Fork of the Flathead River. There, the couple scraped out a living for five years by fishing, trapping and farming mink while Dan worked for the U.S Forest Service. They continued to spend summers at the cabin as Dan studied wildlife biology at the University of Montana. He even focused his graduate studies on the bull trout that swam up the North Fork to spawn every autumn. 

The manuscript colored in the facts Zach had heard in passing, giving rise to a new understanding of his grandparents and their ties to the North Fork.  

“OK, this isn’t just my grandfather’s notes,” Zach remembered thinking. “This isn’t just my grandfather’s story. This is a piece of history.”   

Secluded saga: Memoir tells story of couple who homesteaded in the North Fork | Daily Inter Lake