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Oct.5-18,2012Volume 3 // Issue No. 20
PEarl Jamrocks for tEstEr
lPHs homecoming
candidate Q+a:Madison County Commission
Big sky fire asks for community support
BusinEss ProfilE: rivers, lakes, oceans
montana-canada tourism-trade mission
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2 Oct. 5-18, 2012
Big Sky Weekly
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Oct. 5-18, 2012VOlume 3, Issue nO. 20
PUBLISHEREric Ladd
COO & SENIOR EDITORMegan Paulson
CREATIVE DIRECTORMike Martins
VIDEO DIRECTORBrian Niles
MANAGING EDITOREmily Stifler
EDITORJoseph T. O'Connor
GRAPHIC DESIGNERKelsey Dzintars
VIDEOGRAPHERChris Davis
OPERATIONS DIRECTORKatie Morrison
WEB DEVELOPER/DESIGNERSean Weas
DISTRIBUTION DIRECTOR/STAff WRITERTyler Allen
cOntRIButORsJamie Balke, Buscrat, Mike Coil, Renae Counter, Maren Dunn, Matty McCain, Jess McGlothlin, Anna Middleton, Brandon Niles, Jason Thompson, David Tucker
edItORIal POlIcyOutlaw Partners LLC is the sole owner of the Big Sky Weekly. No part of this publication may be reprinted without written permission from the publisher. The Big Sky Weekly reserves the right to edit all submitted material for content, corrections or length. Printed material reflects the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the opinion of Outlaw Partners or the editors of this publication. No advertisements, columns, letters to the editor or other information will be published that contain discrimination based on sex, age, race, religion, creed, nationality, sexual preference, or are in bad taste.
letteR tO the edItOR PaRameteRsThe Weekly accepts letters to the editor to give readers a plat-form to express their views and share ways they would like to effect change. These should not be Thank You notes. Letters should be 250 words or less, respectful, ethical, state accurate facts and figures, and proofread for grammar and content. We reserve the right to edit letters. Include: first and last name, address, phone number and title. Submit to: [email protected]
adVeRtIsInG deadlIne FOR next Issue: Oct. 12, 2012
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It’s been quite a commute.
The morning sun flickered through Gallatin Canyon, casting long shadows on the gneiss walls and shimmer-ing on the river's surface. I was driving the Subaru, a dump truck in front and one behind, on Highway 191, the last leg of our 2,500-mile drive from Boston to Big Sky.
I was excited. Ever since my wife Emily and I left Lake Tahoe for Boston two years ago, I’ve missed the mountains. I missed the snow and the fishing and the quiet. We both missed the people. Boston is a fantastic city, and I will never forget the friends we made and the skills I honed in my journalism classes there. But, I told myself, if ever a job came along, one that offered me a chance to write and one that let us live back in the mountains, I would take it.
And then came September. Emily and I got married, I accepted Outlaw’s offer for the editor position, and we packed our things and drove to Montana.
In August, Big Sky Weekly managing editor Emily Stifler called to interview me as an introduction to the paper’s readers. It was the first time I’d been on the other side of an interview. I told her I wanted to be a player who can help strengthen the community, and that I wanted to hit the ground running.
My first day on the job was Monday Oct. 1. I write these words on Wednesday, and we’re going to press. I’m sprinting. And I’m loving it. It’s been quite a com-mute.
– Joseph T. O’Connor
2,500 miles
Sunset in downtown Bozeman on Oct. 1. Main Street, Bozeman has been named one of "10 great Streets for 2012" under the great Places in america program. PHOTO By JaSON THOMPSON
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Ramshorn View Estates 165 Sawthooth $348,000 0.306 2 3 1458 Great Value
Meadow Village 2595 Little Coyote Road $375,000 0.28 2 3 1548 Least Expensive in HOA
Ramshorn View Estates 13 Beartooth Road $439,000 0.508 4 4 2782 Short Sale, Bring Offer
South Fork 144 Rainbow Trout $449,000 0.25 3 3 2000 Energy Star/New Build
South Fork 326 Spruce Cone - - - - - SOLD
North Fork 35 North Fork Road $699,000 10.894 3 3 2164 Trails Galore/No Covenants
Canyon - South 46045 Knight Court $875,000 4.98 4 4 3472 Horse Property
Meadow Village 3025 Half Moon Court $1,850,000 2.34 4 4 3396 Waterfront/Privacy
Ennis 84 Gravelly Range Road $2,995,000 27 7 6 5370 UNDER CONTRACT
The Club at Spanish Peaks 896 Elk Meadow Trail $3,975,000 1.39 6 5 6565 UNDER CONTRACT
Firelight Meadows Condo 50 Firelight Drive Unit 14D $75,000 2 2 1092 UNDER CONTRACT
Glacier Condos 2575 Curley Bear, Unit 144 $105,000 1 1 734 SOLD
Firelight Meadows Condo 50 Candlelight Meadow Drive $189,000 3 3 1859 Investment Opportunity
Firelight Meadows Condo 58 Candlelight Meadow Drive $194,500 3 3 2136 Own Entire Duplex
Beaverhead Condo 1412 Beaverhead Drive $595,000 4 3 2459 Front Row - Ski-in/Ski-out
Crail Ranch Condos 50 Crail Ranch Road $790,000 4 4 3730 Best Priced in HOA
Black Eagle Lodge Condo 1 Black Eagle Road $995,000 4 3 2497 Best Location in HOA
The Club at Spanish Peaks 430 Clubhouse Fork Road $1,380,000 5 4 2585 Private Location
Antler Ridge TBD Sixpoint Court $89,000 0.45 Great Value
Antler Ridge 441 Fourpoint Road $99,000 0.33 UNDER CONTRACT
South Fork Rainbow Trout - Lot 30 $99,000 0.314 Additional Dwelling Lot
South Fork Limber Pine - Lot 10 $99,000 0.307 Cul-de-sac
South Fork Limber Pine - Lot 8 $110,000 0.26 Cul-de-sac
South Fork Rainbow Trout - Lot 27 $115,000 0.27 Flat Building Site
South Fork Rainbow Trout - Lot 26 $115,000 0.27 Yellow Mountain Views
South Fork Rainbow Trout - Lot 19 $120,000 0.382 UNDER CONTRACT
South Fork White Bark Place - Lot 34 $140,000 0.34
South Fork White Bark Place - Lot 35 $140,000 0.424
South Fork Limber Pine - Lot 1 $140,000 0.401 Additional Dwelling Lot
South Fork Limber Pine - Lot 22 $145,000 0.57 Additional Dwelling Lot
South Fork Rainbow Trout - Lot 39 $145,000 0.477 Additional Dwelling Lot
South Fork Rainbow Trout - Lot 41 $160,000 0.494 Additional Dwelling Lot
Ramshorn View Estates 177 Silver Run Road $169,000 0.34 Will Trade for Income Property
The Club at Spanish Peaks Old Barn Spur - Ranch 117 $249,000 2 Bench Lot
Canyon - North 49827 Gallatin Road $299,000 5 Near River, No Covenants
Ousel Falls Estates Sage Hen Road - Lot 32 $325,000 4.84 Horses/Near Meadow
Ousel Falls Estates Ousel Falls Road - Lot 7A $395,000 6.47 Horses/River/Trails
Porcupine Park Fortress Road - Lot 24 $425,000 3.6 Horses/Southern Sun
Above Porcupine Park TBD Fortress Road $530,000 20.37 Biggest 20 Acres in Big Sky
Near Meadow Village Two Rivers Road $895,000 10.36 West Fork of Gallatin/Water Rights
Near Big EZ Mountain Meadows Ranch $3,495,000 120 Large Parcel
West Fork Meadows 77 Aspen Leaf Drive $75,000 480 Great Location
Canyon - South Half Moon Saloon & Restaurant $1,500,000 3 Price Reduction
Big Sky Town Center Marketplace Building $325,596 - $489,465 8 Units For Sale or Lease
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Area Address Asking Price Acres BA BD Sq. Ft. Notes
This information is based upon information which we consider reliable, but because it has been supplied by third parties, we cannot represent that it is accurate or complete, and should not be relied upon as such. These offerings are subject to errors, omissions, and changes including price or withdrawal without notice. All rights reserved. Sotheby’s International Realty is a licensed trademark to Sotheby’s International Realty Affi liates Inc. An equal opportunity company. Equal Housing Opportunity. Each offi ce is independently owned and operated.
4 Oct. 5-18, 2012
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13October
5TH
ANNIVERSARYCELEBRATION!!
5:00 PM
With Musical Guest John Floridis
Thanks for your Support!
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Celebrate W/ Us In Our New Upstairs Party Space
Prizes all night including Free Beer for the Year!Special Release of 5th Anniversary Harvest Ale and Fresh Citra Hopped Pale Ale
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Once again, our heroes came through with shining colors. On Sunday, Sept. 16, a bolt of lighting struck a tree on Towering Pines road off of Beaver Creek Road. A local resident called in the “plume” of smoke he saw from his home. Thirteen minutes later – yes only 13 minutes – Chief William farhat, Captain Seth Barker, Captain Dan Sheil and firefighter Mark Loomis arrived on the scene with a pumper and a water tender. After extinguishing two trees and two stumps with water, they covered the area with chemical foam and dug a trench around the total area. The area was secured in an hour and a half. With no rain for so long, the area was very dry and the lighting struck only one tree away from dense growth. We were very lucky. Many thanks to the ones we sometimes have to count on. They did a super job.
- Mike Brown
letter: Big Sky Fire Department are local heroes
BIG SKY – Two Ophir School classes paired up with the Gallatin County Noxious Weed Committee this September to identify, map and contain weeds.
Nancy Sheil’s Environmental Science class used the new GPS units to map nox-ious weeds along trails and roads in Porcupine Creek. The class of 10th-12th graders was spilt into four groups and led by Sheil, Jennifer Mohler, coordina-tor of Gallatin/Big Sky Noxious Weed Committee, Mike Jones of Gallatin County Weed District, and Shantell frame-Martin of the Montana Depart-ment of Aquiculture.
“Nancy’s class will map this area this year, and next year the new class will come out and map and be able to see the difference,” Mohler said. “They’ll see if the treatment helped. Was the area cured or did new weeds spread?”
This is the first year Ophir School has offered environmental science.
“It’s great to be able to go out into the field for this class,” said sophomore Gabrielle Gasser. “We’ve also gone to Yellowstone to learn about fire ecology.”
The noxious weed committee will use the information collected from the class’s Porcupine Creek trip to assess and treat the area. Brittany Ellis’ second grade class also mapped noxious weeds in the Big Sky Community Park with the help of GCWC. Ellis, frame-Martin,
Mohler, and Big Sky Community Corp. Executive Director Jessie Neal led the groups. This is the fifth year that the second graders have mapped weeds in the Big Sky area.
“Every year my class visits local areas like Red Cliffs or Moose flats to map and learn about noxious weeds,” Ellis said.
Information collected will be given to the Big Sky Community Corp., which will turn the information into maps for use at both the park and classroom.
“The school will get a copy of the map, and we’ll do activities back in the classroom, things like math equations to figure out which weed was most abundant,” Ellis said.
Later on down the road, Mohler hopes the second graders will be able to take what they learned into the Environmental Science class as well as their everyday lives.
“They’ll grow up and be able to take what they learned to Nancy’s class, bringing them into the next level of learning and understanding of noxious weeds,” Mohler said.
ophir school classes map noxious weeds in Big skySTORy aND PHOTO By RENaE COuNTERbig sky weekly contributor
BIG SKY – October will mark the 13th anniversary of the Big Sky Community Library and begin a new fiscal year for the friends of the Library.
Big Sky Resort Tax provides 83 percent of the funding for the library, while the fOL provides hundreds of hours of volunteer service and is responsible for rais-ing the balance of the budget.
The fOL annual meeting is Oct. 17 at 10 a.m. in the library. This is an opportu-nity to meet new community members, find out what the fOL has accomplished this year and what you can do to get involved.
During October, the fOL also kicks off its annual membership drive and encour-ages community members to join. fOL memberships are renewed yearly and renewal cards will be arriving in the mail this month. To become a new member, pick up a membership form at the library or visit bigskylibrary.org.
Hours: Sunday 1-5 p.m., Monday 10 a.m.- 6 p.m., Tuesday and Wednesday 4-8 p.m.
Big sky community library annual meeting is oct. 17
Got Noxious Weeds?
We can help!
The Gallatin/Big Sky Noxious Weed Committee offers free onsite assistance, including identifying weeds on
your property & recommending treatment methods.
For assistance, contact Jennifer Mohler at 406‐209‐0905 or [email protected],
and visit www.bigskyweeds.org.
Help protect wildlife habitat, water resources, & native plants by controlling noxious weeds!
Oct. 5-18, 2012 5
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BIG SKY – Big Sky businesses and families are passionate supporters of their school and their sports teams.
Kathy Tatom and her cohorts at the booster club – Deb House, Kimmie Warga and Kirsten King and others – thought they needed a fall fundraiser that was fun, affordable, and didn't over-tax this super-giving community more than necessary. Their solution, a school carnival, hit the mark on all counts, and by the end of the three hour event on Sept. 22, participants who were giving the event rave reviews had raised more than $5,000 for school athletic expenses.
In order to keep expenses down and meet their fundraising goals, Booster Club organizers recruited families and businesses to sponsor carnival booths and activities by setting up and running the booths, and in some cases providing prizes.
Many sponsors knew from the get-go exactly what they wanted to do. Mor-
gan Ayres painted faces, hair-stylist Jaci Clack festooned carnival-goers hair with feathers, and the folks at the China Cafe brought buckets of fortune cookies for prizes at their toilet toss booth. The Yellowstone Club brought the carnival games they own, and the people to run them, and took tickets and played games for the entire three hours.
Some of the more popular fair activi-ties involved good-hearted pranks more than games: Carnival goers could lay down tickets to send sisters, brothers and teachers to “jail,” force notable school and local characters to kiss Elizabeth Severn-Ericksson’s pig, Eloise, buy confetti filled eggs and silly string with which to ‘decorate’ fellow fair-goers, or have Dr. Jessie Coil bandage their 'shark' bites.
Warren Miller Artistic Director and choral music teacher John Zirkle emceed the goings-on, occa-sionally inspiring dance parties and contests from the main stage.
Traditional carnival food was in abundance. A cake-walk and bake sale organized by Jolene Romney overflowed with frosted confec-tions, and several businesses and families sponsored inflatable activities such as a Velcro Wall, bounce house, slide and obstacle course.
A raffle for one of 12 goodie-filled baskets was also a highlight, and carnival goers filled out tickets for a chance at a win, which was an-nounced at the football game following the event. One surprise was how unfa-miliar many kids were with a carnival, the Big Sky event being their first ever.
“I can’t believe how many kids came up to me asking, ‘what’s a cake walk?’” Kathy Tatom said.
Once the event got underway, how-ever, it wasn’t long before all of the kids got the hang of it, including kids who thought they were a bit too old for such fun and games.
“I think a lot of the older kids, and even adults, thought that it was a tiny kid kind of deal, but once we started rolling the middle schoolers and high schoolers were every bit as into it as the preschoolers,” Tatom said.
first ever Big sky carnival raises more than $5,000By BaRBaRa ROwLEy
interview with Eloise, Volunteer Pig
BIG SKY – If you teach children about fire safety, it has a ripple effect, says Big Sky fire Chief William farhat.
That’s one of the reasons departments across the country go into elementary schools and daycares during fire Preven-tion Week every year.
On Oct. 9, firefighters from the Big Sky department will visit Ophir School and Morningstar Learning Center, and do activities with the kids geared toward different grade levels.
“The funny thing is – we do this is and it helps the children, and also the fami-lies,” farhat said. “The kids go home and scold their parents about bad practices. If we can teach them at a young age it keeps them safe and also sets the stage for them to be successful adults.”
farhat hopes to add a wildland fire com-ponent this year for the first time, and estimates they’ll reach about 100 kids.
fire Prevention Week takes place annu-ally Oct. 7 – 13, marking the time period of the Great Chicago fire of 1871.
All codes and fire prevention practices are born out of tragedies, farhat says.
“Pick a code, and someone died or properties were lost. We’re trying to teach good practices, because we’re try-ing to learn from others’ mistakes. If we can share that with the children from a young age, we’re doing well, we’re gain-ing ground quickly. Kids not only learn for themselves, they can share it at home and take it into adulthood.” e.s.
Big sky fire teaches children fire safety
PHOTO By aNNa MiDDLETON
Q: Why did you volunteer to kiss humans for the booster club?a: "well, in lieu of there being any other pigs in the vicinity, i decided i would give humans a try... and since my sister (annika) attends the school i decided i should support it."
Q: Do you follow sports?a: "i don't care for football since i don't support the material the football is made of, however i do follow volleyball, basketball and soccer."
Q: What about when one of the kissers wiped your lips first? Was that offensive?a: "i think Mr. House found the froth around my mouth intimidat-ing."
Q: Did anyone offer to wipe their faces before kissing you? "a: They did not, but i wish they had! i also wish Mr. Middleton had considered some breath mints."
Q: in general, are humans good kissers?a: "well, i could teach them a few things."
PHOTO By aNNa MiDDLETON
6 Oct. 5-18, 2012
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BIG SKY – The roads at the Big Sky Mountain Village have long had confusing and mislead-ing names, with dispatcher maps mismatched to shipping addresses and street numbers. But that’s all about to change, and it’ll be a boon to public safety.
Madison County on Sept. 11 approved renam-ing Dam Road and Upper Low Dog Road, and by this winter they’ll be known as Big Sky Resort Road.
When Big Sky Spur Road this summer became Lone Mountain Trail in the official Gallatin County record book, it freed up the name ‘Big Sky’ for use elsewhere in town. Madison and Gallatin counties wouldn’t allow it previously, because having similar names would have been confusing for 911 dispatch purposes.
Perhaps the most important benefit from the name change comes in the form of emergency services.
“We have problems responding in that area now because addresses don't match the roads,” said Big Sky fire Chief William farhat. “We hope this will make it easier to respond to emergencies and for those who live up there, make it more like normal addressing system. It’s going to be great for us, a great help to public safety.”
Previously the resort’s address was 1 Lone Mountain Trail – an address that didn’t actu-ally exist on the record books.
“If you were to ask any UPS driver where 1 Lone Mountain Trail was, they knew, but it wasn’t official,” said Big Sky Resort Brand Manager Glennis Indreland.
Giving guests directions to the mountain was confusing, Indreland said, “and you can imagine how it sounds to say, ‘Turn on the Dam Road’.”
Upper Low Dog Road, which really had no official name, was also misleading, especially since it was near the residential street, Low Dog Road.
Parties involved in the name change include Madison County Planning Department, Madi-son County GIS, Gallatin County GIS, Big Sky fire, Boyne, the Big Sky Owners Association, and Madison County Commissioner Jim Hart.
The commercial structures in the Mountain Mall, the Yellowstone Conference Center, the Huntley Lodge, the Summit Hotel and the Shoshone Condos are the primary buildings affected by the name change. Residences on Low Dog Road will be unaffected, but will have new street numbers assigned so they match what Gallatin County has iin ts 911 dispatch book.
What's in a name?Dam and upper Low Dog roads renamed Big Sky Resort RoadBy EMiLy STiFLERbig sky weekly managing editor
Gallatin river cleanup
above: Eric Becker (left) and Steve Johnson (right) work together to remove a metal culvert from the gallatin River at the Lava Lake access. Big Sky's Blue water Task Force held its second annual upper gallatin River Cleanup on Saturday, Sept. 29. Several pickup loads – approxi-mately 25 trash bags – were collected from the river. Below: Steve John-son removing a metal culvert on the gallatin River. PHOTOS By JESS MCgLOTHLiN, FiRE giRL PHOTOgRaPHy
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a new leader for Bsoa
BIG SKY – Suzan Scott has years of experience working for nonprofit organizations and state government offices. Now, she’s bringing this expertise to the Big Sky Owners Association.
On Aug. 29, BSOA welcomed Scott as its new executive director then introduced her to the association’s homeowners at its Aug. 31 an-nual meeting in the Summit Hotel at Big Sky Resort. Scott replaced Mary Jane McGarity, who held the position from 2004 until this past summer.
A fifth generation Montanan, Scott hails from Gallatin County but has spent much of the last few years in Helena working in Gov. Schweitzer’s budget office. She has a political science degree from Mon-tana State University, focused on public administration. One could almost say she has been primed for the position with BSOA.
With more than 16 years working in both the public and private sec-tors, she’s been a lobbyist in Salem,
Ore. and the Public Policy Director for Coeur d’Alene, Idaho’s Chamber of Commerce, among other things.
“I couldn’t be more pleased with this choice,” said Rumsey Young, President of the BSOA Executive Board. “[Suzan’s] experience and knowledge of public policy and nonprofits will support BSOA’s mission to preserve, protect and en-hance our member’s property values in Big Sky.”
As BSOA Executive Director, Scott is in the driver’s seat, over-seeing and budgeting the associa-tion’s many responsibilities. These include road signage, trail mainte-nance and snow removal services, as well as noxious weed management and garbage removal.
The BSOA is also involved with community projects including a bear aware campaign as well as a tree pests program, which is work-ing to minimize the impacts of the mountain pine beetle and the West-ern spruce budworm on local trees.
By JOSEPH T. O'CONNORbig sky weekly editor
8 Oct. 5-18, 2012
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BIG SKY – At 4:36 p.m. on Aug. 20, two members of the Big Sky fire Department were dispatched to a medical call at the Yellowstone Park border on Highway 191, 18 miles south of the station. Jason Gras and Matt Kendzorski, a volunteer, responded to the scene, stabilized the patient and transported him via ambulance from the park entrance to Bozeman Deaconess Hospital, 75 minutes away. That left firefighter Matt Mohr alone at the Big Sky fire Station to handle calls.
At 6:55 p.m., Mohr received a report of a structure fire on Spruce Cone Drive. He responded in the engine, requesting assistance from volun-teer and off-duty BSfD firefighters, and from the Yellowstone Club fire Department.
Mohr worked to contain the fire as best he could until Dan Sheil and Greg Clark reached the scene, coming from home on overtime to help, along with volunteers Don Loyd and Bart Mitchell.
“It shows how tenuous the system can be,” says Big Sky fire Chief Wil-liam farhat, who says the department doesn’t have the resources it needs. “If it wasn't the house fire, it could very easily have been another medical call.”
farhat recalls another incident this summer when he left the scene of an accident in Gallatin Canyon to re-spond to a second medical call, where he was the only medical responder for 40 minutes.
“It’s a very weak system,” farhat said.
a strained department
This summer was a busy one for BSfD, with calls in June and July 88 percent higher than 2011, and in Au-gust 54 percent higher. The depart-ment last year responded to 500 calls, and farhat estimates this year it will see 550.
This is potentially a major problem, farhat says, because “volunteer num-bers have been dwindling since 1999, and at the same time, our call volume is going through the roof.”
The department currently has 10 paid firefighters and 10 volunteers. Two of its regular volunteers resigned in the last month, something farhat says is a major blow. The department has half as many volunteers as it did five years ago.
During the winter season, from
Thanksgiving through April 15 when the ski resorts are operating, the call volume is comparable to that of a 10,000-person town like Belgrade, not one of 2,000 like Big Sky, farhat said.
While Gallatin Valley fire depart-ments have resources to draw on from nearby, Big Sky has only the Yellow-stone Club’s department, which takes at least 20 minutes to respond and can only do so if it’s not already on a call.
Due to Big Sky’s remoteness, an ambulance call typically lasts three hours. This is a big reason it’s hard for the department to maintain volun-teers.
“That’s half your day, and we can have two or three at a time during the winter,” farhat said. “That’s a severe impact on someone’s life, and not one that many people are willing to take that much time.”
Big Sky fire is not alone in its dwin-dling volunteer numbers. In fact, farhat says, it’s a national problem due in part to new rules instituted in the late 90s that made it more time consuming to train volunteers.
Even with these disadvantages, the department reduced its response times in the last year. “We’re getting out the door much faster, and we’re getting to you much faster,” farhat said.
lack of long term funding
funding for the fire department comes from a combination of prop-erty taxes, Big Sky Resort Tax and ambulance fees.
The department received $382,000 for operations from the Big Sky Resort Tax Board this year; another $931,000 came from combined Madison and Gallatin county prop-erty taxes; and farhat is budgeting for another $300,000 from ambulance fees.
The property tax portion is less than half of what other comparable depart-ments in the area receive, farhat said, and makes it the third least funded in Gallatin County for property tax support.
While resort tax is designed, in part, to support emergency services such as fire and medical, it isn’t within the power of the resort tax board to make multi-year appropriations.
“One resort tax board cannot bind the next,” said RTB Chairman Les Loble. “We cannot say, ‘We’re going to fund [any one organization] for three years.’ We can say, ‘We’ll fund you for this year.’ … That being said, all you have to do is look at history of
appropriations to see that each year the fire department has been funded.”
At strategic planning sessions this fall, the RTB decided it’s interested in long term planning and plans to hold two community meetings this winter to gather ideas from the community on planning and “the sorts of things the resort tax board should be fund-ing,” Loble said.
One potential solution would be if the RTB could issue bonds, then it could have money for a large project beyond the scope of year-to-year ap-propriations.
asking for community support
In an effort not to rely so much on resort tax, the department requested a mill levy increase in 2008, but due to poor timing with the economic downturn, voters in the Big Sky fire District turned it down.
“This is not a new problem for Big Sky,” farhat said.
He forecasts $3 million worth of capital repairs or replacements will be needed in the next 15 years, and says the money to cover those expenses simply isn’t there. That, and he’d like to hire five more firefighters to help handle the growing call vol-ume, something that, together with operational cost increase, would be a $485,000 annual increase to the department’s budget.
He’s turning to Big Sky residents to ask for help.
farhat presented in front of the Big Sky Rotary on Sept. 26, proposing a property tax increase of roughly 11.27 mills to help cover this cost.
Millage rates are based on the tax-able value of a home. So, for the 11.27 mill levy increase would mean that a house with a state-assessed market value of $400,000 in the district would have its property taxes
increased by approximately $122 a year, or just over $10 a month.
“I think in general it was very well received,” said Rotary member Kirk Dige, a real estate broker with ERA Landmark. “With the number of volunteers shrinking, … it’s natural for it to become more of a paid fire department.”
farhat is also planning community meetings this fall, hoping to talk with as many stakeholders as possible and get a sense if this is something residents of the Big Sky fire District would support. If so, the proposed mill levy increase could go out to vot-ers in May 2013.
Dige acknowledged this is a contro-versial issue.
“Nobody wants to pay more taxes. It’s going to be a tough sell,” he said, noting that the school will also potentially be proposing a mill levy, and that Big Sky property taxes have been higher since the 2009 real estate reappraisal.
“Historically, a lot of folks have felt like the tourists are the ones who have the big impact on the fire De-partment, so they should pay for the services, which they do … It’s kind of a classic dilemma. Which pocket should it come out of? If you’re going to have a first class resort, you need first class services.” Opinions vary on whether the fund-ing should come from resort tax or property tax, Dige said. “But really what it comes down to, is you pay one way or another, or you don't have the service.”
Quite a bit of the funding would come from second homeowners, farhat says, since they make up 70 percent of Big Sky’s property owners.
“I want to emphasize that this is a proposal,” farhat said about the levy. “If it’s not supported, we’re going to have to change it, and we will.”
Big sky fire Dept. proposes mill levyBy EMiLy STiFLERbig sky weekly managing editor
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Number of Incidents Number of Volunteers Number of Career
response resources Dwindling
COuRTESy OF BSFD
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BIG SKY – The Big Sky Water and Sewer District is increasing its mill levy by 26.99 percent this year. That means property taxes will go up for residents of the district.
The district has funded many of its infrastructure improvements with general obligation bonds; the voters approved these in 2002 and 2006 to support the new sewer treatment plant, the water tank in Hidden Village, and the water facilities plan improvements
to connect the Mountain and Meadow water systems.
The annual debt service for these bonds is paid primarily with money collected from a mill levy assessed on property in the district. A mill is a monetary unit worth one thousandth of a dollar, and mill rates are based on state-assessed property values. At 27.8 mills, this year’s levy will be the highest rate to date.
The first two bonds in the amount of $5.9 million dollars paid for the filtration treatment plant, lining leaky
storage ponds, and expanding the golf course irrigation system. Those are fully paid off this year, funded 100 percent by Big Sky Resort Tax. Three bonds for water and two for wastewater remain, totaling $21 million.
A 1996 agreement between the resort tax board and the water and sewer district that committed $500,000 an-nually toward the bond debt service also ends this year. The only multi-year agreement the resort tax board has ever entered, the district used the money to expand its capacity.
Resort tax this year denied the district’s additional $350,000 request, which would have been applied against debt service pay-ments in the amount of $1,431,194, reducing the mills necessary to cover the total debt service for 2013. This is the primary reason for the mill levy increase, said Water and Sewer District Director Ron Ed-wards.
“We’ve made the argument that be-cause we’re a resort community, we
have to build things to accommodate all visitors that come here,” Edwards said. “Visitor influx has impacted how much and what size we have to build our infrastructure, and for that reason we think it’s a reasonable expense for resort tax to help pay for cost to upsize everything.”
The district’s financial officer Terrence M. Smith sent a letter to residents in early October, detailing the mill levy increase and explaining that the district will continue to apply for annual resort tax funding. The resort tax board “felt there were other competing needs that were more urgent than the water and sewer district application,” said RTB chairman Les Loble. “The water and sewer district has its own means of funding through mill levies and water and sewer rates. There are a number of other applicants that have no other means of funding except through resort tax.”
Property owners in the district will see the increase on their individual county tax bills in mid-October, due Nov. 30 and May 31. None of the money col-lected through these levies goes toward operations, according to Smith and Edwards.
Three of the bonds will be paid in full in 2023, one will be paid off in 2024 and the final one in 2027.
Big sky Water and sewer District increasing mill levy By EMiLy STiFLERbig sky weekly managing editor
MILL RATE SUMMARY
YEAR
Water Bond Debt Payments
% Difference
Sewer Bond Debt Payments
% Difference
Combined Bond Debt Payments
% Difference
BSRAD Funding
2004 7.6 -‐ -‐ -‐ 31.41 -‐ -‐ -‐ 39.01 -‐ -‐ -‐ 2005 7.6 0.00% 31.41 0.00% 39.01 0.00% $0 2006 7.6 0.00% 31.41 0.00% 39.01 0.00% $200,000 2007 24.74 225.53% 20.3 -‐35.37% 45.04 15.46% $200,000 2008 16.17 -‐34.64% 21.52 6.01% 37.69 -‐16.32% $300,000 2009 24.72 52.88% 23.9 11.06% 48.62 29.00% $32,648 2010 25.37 2.63% 26.88 12.47% 52.25 7.47% $50,000 2011 21.63 -‐14.74% 21.05 -‐21.69% 42.68 -‐18.32% $250,000 2012 27.8 28.53% 26.4 25.42% 54.2 26.99% $0 1. Final mill rates based on no resort tax funding and $400,000 from PIC Fund account Average WATER Bond Debt Mill Rates since 2007 > 23.41 Average SEWER Bond Debt Mill Rates since 2004 > 26.03
ThistableshowsthehistoryoftheBigSkyWaterandSewerDistrict’smillratessinceitsfirstlevyin2004.
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WEST YELLOWSTONE – West Yellowstone has a new Search and Rescue cache.
Montana’s busiest Search and Rescue teams are based in Gallatin County, and with the completion of the facility in West, each of its three teams now has a home base.
funded through the countywide 1 mill levy specifically for SAR Ser-vices, the building’s total cost was $439,389.00. $139,000 came from capital savings within SAR and a $300,000 loan.
Search and Rescue is a volunteer force of the Gallatin County Sher-iff’s Office. It responds to an aver-age of 100 calls per year.
“Our community members are very outdoor recreation oriented and value the opportunities this county has to offer,” Gallatin County Sheriff Brian Gootkin said. “The SAR volunteers have outstand-ing skills and this facility is part of our responsibility to support their important work.”
The building is located at 416 Yel-lowstone Ave.
new building for West yellowstone sar team
The majority of the park’s roads are open until Nov. 5, when they’re closed in preparation for the winter season. After that date, only the year-round North Entrance Road from Gardiner to Cooke City, through Mammoth Hot Springs, will remain open to auto travel, weather permitting.
The road from Tower Junction to a barricade just north of the Chitten-den Road turnoff on Dunraven Pass closed for the season on Sept. 22 for construction. Visitors will be able to access Chittenden Road and the Mount Washburn area from Canyon Village to the south, until that section of road closes for the season on Oct. 9.
Outside the park, the high-altitude section of the Beartooth Highway (Highway 212) between the junction of Highway 296 and Red Lodge can close unexpectedly depending upon snow-fall. The highway officially closes for the season Oct. 9, and travel between Red Lodge and the park’s northeast entrance isn’t possible until it reopens in late May.
fall weather is unpredictable, and roads may be closed temporarily by snow or other weather conditions with little or no warning. Updated information on park roads is avail-able 24 hours a day by calling (307) 344-2117. Outside the park, you can check Wyoming roads by calling (888) WYO-ROAD or by visiting wyo.road.info, or Montana roads at (800) 226-7623 or mdt.mt.gov/travinfo.
All lodging and most visitor centers in the park will be closed by the end of October. By the first week of No-vember, most campgrounds will be closed for the season. The Mammoth Hot Springs campground is the only site that remains open all year.
Limited lodging and services will be available again when the winter season begins in mid-December. 24-hour pay at the pump fuel remains available at all service stations year-round.
yellowstone seasonal road closures
WEST YELLOWSTONE – September was a good month in West Yellowstone. After July, it tends to be the second busiest month of the year, and this year’s warm weather and good fall fish-ing likely helped make it one of the best on record.
“There were definitely more people on the streets this September," lots of people were asking at the visitor’s center about rooms,” said Jan Stoddard, Marketing Director for the Chamber of Commerce.
Visitation at the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center last month “was up 3 percent from last year and last Septem-ber was our busiest on record,” said GWDC Director John Heine. “Tour-ism fluctuates so much that to match last year’s numbers and to achieve an increase, we’re overjoyed by that,” Heine said.
If the trend continues, the GWDC should have its best October on record, Heine said. “The weather has been great, and the [fall] colors are spectacu-lar this year.” A lot depends on the weekend weather, he added, since this time of year more visitors come from Montana and the surrounding region.
The Stagecoach Inn in West was sold out every night in September. “De-mand is just as strong in September for seniors as it is for families in July,” said operations manager Mark Rogers. Rogers believes last month’s success was also due to the inn’s smaller rate increase this year, as compared to other hotels in town.
“We purposely positioned the rate low-er than last year,” Rogers said. “Book-ings [last month] were up in town 3.8 percent, but the average throughout the country is up 5.8 percent.” He pointed out that hotel bookings nation-wide have also been high all fall, citing Smith Travel Research.
The fishing was quieter than usual in early September, but the Madi-son River below Quake Lake really heated up mid-month, said Cam Coffin, shop clerk at Blue Ribbon flies for the last 25 years. “The park was decent fishing last month, and the rest of the area was pretty dang good,” he said. “We may have been as busy as July. We had a lot of bookings just the day before, while people will typically book a month or two in advance.”
The word is out that September and October are nice months to visit the park, said Kelly Sanders, owner of free Heel and Wheel with her busi-ness partner Melissa Alder. “There aren’t many people, the fall colors are amazing,” Sanders said. “It’s not too cold yet, and we usually don’t get a lot of moisture in September and October.”
Two events - the annual fall cycling tour attended by 450 bicyclists this year that rode from West Yellow-stone to Old faithful and back, as well as the half marathon on Sept. 29 – boosted overall business in town, Sanders said.
“We’ve had unseasonably nice fall weather,” said park spokesman Al Nash. “We would expect that to reflect fairly strong September visitation.” The west entrance is by far the busiest and, “for the year we started out slowly, but should expect one of the highest visitations years [in the park] on record,” he added.
While the winter months can be pretty lean for businesses in West Yellowstone, the annual Yellow-stone nordic festival over Thanks-giving week, plus snowmobiling and snowcoach tours in the park, and heavily discounted accommoda-tions do also draw visitors through-out the season.
West yellowstone visitation up this fallBy TyLER aLLENbig sky weekly staff writer
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madison county commissioner raceMeet the candidates for District 1
BsW: What are the key issues fac-ing Madison County right now?
dave schulz: Senior services are key in my mind. Madison County’s average age is rising faster than other counties in the area. We need to make sure we are taking care of area nursing homes and senior facilities. By working with senior groups – four in county at the mo-ment – we can ensure our seniors have healthy meals and those who are housebound are checked in on. Ken yecny: Simply put, the budget. The county budget has risen 58 percent over the past four years. In 2008-2009, the budget was $20,146, 907. for the years of 2011-2012, the budget is $31, 886, 001. The economy can’t support an increase like this. BsW: How do the Madison and Gallatin County Commissions work together?
schulz: Both commissions meet annually to discuss issues. Regular discussions also take place with resort partners in Big Sky. In Big Sky, public safety is a large issue for us. Our $230,000 commitment this year supports two deputies to help increase public safety. The Madison County Commission has also part-nered with Big Sky Transit, though Gallatin County has not, to help increase access. Snow removal and invasive species removal are issues worked by both commissions in the Big Sky area.
yecny: It is important for commis-sions all around the state to work together on a lot of different fronts. One aspect I’m looking forward to potentially working on with Galla-tin County is the threat wolves pose to cattle. Management of dead and dying timber is also high on the list.
BsW: What are your views on property rights?
schulz: Property rights are an outstanding priority in my mind and heart. Residents do need to under-stand that what they do with their property affects others, however.
yecny: If it is your own property, it is your personal private property and you should be able to do any damn thing on it. BsW: What are your views on the school board and school issues?
schulz: Countywide, we need to focus on maintaining the school budget as well as school funding. The changing age demographic of the population means schools are show-ing little or no growth. While the Ophir school district in Big Sky does show growth, the rest of the county’s schools are losing students. We need to adequately fund quality education despite the declining student popula-tion.
yecny: I would like more oversight in the school districts. [Last year] the Ennis school district was found to have improperly used taxes levied for public transport and adult education to aid in funding the new elementary school.
BsW: Why should the readers of the Big Sky Weekly care about this race?
schulz: Madison County is not easy. We have many different demograph-ics – age, political views, geographi-cal – and many different styles of life. The county comprises diversity, variability and different mindsets. As commissioners, we have to be con-siderate of each. Using the facts we need to decide what is best and make decisions based on information.
yecny: Three commissioners run the whole county. It’s important that all Montana counties work together.
By JESS MCgLOTHLiNbig sky weekly contributor
SHERIDAN – This November, residents of Madison County Dis-trict 1 will cast their votes in the race for their representing county com-missioner. Incumbent Dave Schulz is running against challenger Ken Yecny.
Madison County, covering nearly 2.3 million acres, includes the towns of Ennis, Virginia City, Sheridan and Twin Bridges, as well as a chunk of Big Sky. Although the county at large does not elect them, the three com-missioners make decisions affecting the entire population.
With approximately 2,700 voters, District 1 makes up a third of the county’s population and covers Sheri-dan, Alder, the upper Ruby Valley, Virginia City, and extends into the western slope of the Madison Valley, south of Highway 287. While most county commissioners in Montana are elected for six years, Madison County limits its terms to four years.
The Madison County Commission meets once a week, for 5 – 7 hours at a time. The commissioners must work well as a team while also working in-dependently in their home districts.
Q & a with the candidates
14 Oct. 5-18, 2012
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HELENA – U.S. Sen. Max Baucus is working to make the most of Montana’s northern border, pro-moting international business with Canada through a tourism trade mission to Alberta this October.
Through the trade mission, David O’Connor, co-owner of Buck’s T-4 Lodge in Big Sky, will attend the TravXchange tourism trade shows Oct. 15 and 16 in Edmonton and Calgary. Designed for travel agents, tour operators, resorts and destinations, the shows are centered mostly on business networking, “getting up and getting to know people, starting relationships,” O’Connor said.
O’Connor will have a display alongside other Mon-tana companies, where he’ll have a display about Big Sky and Buck’s.
“You can’t talk about Bucks without talking about Big Sky,” he said. “You’ve got to sell the community first.”
According to O’Connor, partnering with the Baucus trade mission and Brand America, an arm of the U.S. Department of Commerce that promotes tourism as an export, will give Montana businesses a larger presence.
“My goal is to increase visibility among travel agents and tourism operators in Canada,” he said.
The show in Edmonton is “the best industry travel and tourism show in Canada,” said Carey Hester, Director of the Montana U.S. Export Assistance Center, who is working with Baucus’s staff to orga-nize a tourism trade mission to Alberta, Canada in October.
Trade delegates like O’Connor, there to promote tourist destinations or resorts, will talk with top tourism agencies or tour operators from across Canada, Hester said. “It gives exhibitors the chance to interact one-on-one with tourism agencies in Canada who are arranging trips for travelers.”
Baucus, a Democrat, is Chairman of the Senate fi-nance Committee. The Senator organized a previous trade mission that brought 20 Montanans to Alberta in September 2011. The October 2012 mission is designed to build on relationships and business contacts established during that mission. “Having the Canadian market right next door is a huge opportunity for Montana businesses to expand their customers, grow and create jobs,” said Sen. Baucus. “The best way to make things happen is to go straight to the source, and that’s exactly what Montana businesses are doing on this trip. I’m excited to hear how they turn this opportunity into jobs for Montana.”
for O’Connor, this trip is as much a fact-finding mission as anything.
“I’m very interested in looking at tourism as an ex-port from Montana to Canada,” he said. “I’m going up looking for more individual travelers.”
Hester’s U.S. Export Assistance Center in Calgary is also hosting a breakfast roundtable during the trade shows. “The whole purpose of these kinds of mix-ers is to put our tourist resorts and destinations in contact with as many industry people as possible,” he said. They begin to network and discuss business opportunities, identify potential projects and bring them to fruition.”
“There is opportunity in Alberta,” O’Connor said. “The market is close enough to be accessible. They know our mountains and climate, and the exchange rate is good. We just need to learn how to go up there and communicate that.”
Including the upcoming trip to Canada, Sen. Baucus has organized eight trade missions for Montanans to 11 countries: Mexico, Cuba, Japan, China, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, India, Brazil, Colombia and Canada. Last May, Baucus brought top-level trade officials from around the world to Montana for the spring APEC meetings in Big Sky.
montana tourism-trade mission to canada in october 2012Buck’s T-4 co-owner to attendBy EMiLy STiFLERbig sky weekly managing editor
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MISSOULA – On Sept. 30, rock legends Pearl Jam took the Adams Center at the University of Mon-tana by storm. The concert, which sold out in 15 minutes, was the band’s only non-festival show in the U.S. this year. Put on by U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, the show was an effort to create awareness about the race, encourage voting, and raise funds for the
Democratic senator’s campaign. It drew close to 7,000 fans, who poured into the auditorium and heard the band rail for nearly three hours. Pearl Jam co-founder and legendary bass player Jeff Ament, originally from Big Sandy, was instrumen-tal in bringing the show to his home state. He grew up with Tester in the small town northeast of Great falls, and together they hope the concert will help propel the incumbent senator to victory.
Tester took office in 2006, winning by a slim margin. The race this year between Tester and chal-lenger, U.S. Rep. Dennis Rehberg, a Republican, is one of the most watched in the nation.
The 29-song show featured rare performances of “Ghost” and “Man of the Hour,” as well as com-
mentary by Ament and lead man Eddie Vedder. At one point, Vedder gave shout-outs to Ament’s parents saying, “If not for you, there would be no Pearl Jam.”
After intermission, the band took time to reverse the stage orientation and played to the crowd located behind the stage, leading a sing along to Wayne Co-
chran’s cover, “Last Kiss.” The concert was con-cluded in classic fashion with a strong perfor-mance of Neil Young’s, “Rock-in’ in the free World," a song that criticizes former President H.W. Bush’s “thousand points of light” remarks made during some of his speeches.
The crowd showed Pearl Jam its due respect and in re-turn received a strong compliment from Vedder: “Best U.S. crowd of the year, Montana!” he shouted. “You have given me goose bumps!”
The band played until arena staff turning on the house lights, a gentle hint that it was time to leave, interrupt-ing the second encore of the night. But Pearl Jam kept rocking for several more songs.
At times the concert seemed more like a fundraiser for Montana than the Senator, as it drew people from around the country to Missoula. The line for merchan-dise was more than an hour long, and hotels were full. The show was a reprieve from the relentless barrage of campaign ads; for a brief moment in this election year, citizens were focused on the power of the music.
big sky weekly editorial staff
Pearl Jam rocks missoulaTesterbenefitconcertdraws7,000
Montana native and Pearl Jam bassistJeff ament was instrumental in bringing the band to Missoula. PHOTO By MaTTy MCCaiN
Pearl Jam played at the adams Center in Missoula on Sept. 30. PHOTO By MaTTy MCCaiN
guitarist Mike McCready PHOTO By THE OuTLaw PaRTNERS
The band played for nearly three hours for close to 7,000 fans. PHOTO By MaTTy MCCaiN
Oct. 5-18, 2012 17
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Homecoming
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By BRaNDON NiLESbig sky weekly sports columnist
In consecutive weeks, Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Greg Schiano has decided to wage war against the kneel-down play, sending his defensive linemen after the opposing quarterback in this position.
A legal play in football, this is where the quarterback drops to his knee immediately after receiving the snap, ending the play. The clock keeps running, which is why the kneel-down play is used at the end of the half or at the end of the game in order to prevent a fumble, and to let the clock run out. Often, a team will choose not to risk a turnover at the end of the first half, and will run a kneel-down play. At the end of the game, a team preserving a lead might run one as a means to expedite the end of the game after the score has been decided.
In most cases, opposing defenses simply let up during this play, understanding that the game is over and not
wanting to risk an injury. This is an act of sportsman-ship by both teams. The winning team is choosing not to try and run up the score or rub it in the face of the losing team, and the losing team is choosing to accept defeat and not risk injury to the players.
But Schiano, in his first year with the Bucs after several years coaching Rutgers, decided to take away this mutual respect by attacking the opposing offense during the kneel-down play, and he has done this with the kind of hubris that one would expect from a person spitting in the face of traditional sportsmanship.
While not doing anything technically against NfL rules, Schiano has certainly committed a faux pas in football circles. Most players, coaches and analysts have condemned him for his actions, with only a few people defending him.
Schiano has said this is simply his brand of football – a level of toughness and a “try hard till the very end” mentality that sounds fiery and motivating until you remember that player safety is supposed to be a league concern and that he’s fighting a battle no one else cares about. With all the issues that have gone on in the league, and the concussion problems plaguing football players at all levels, Schiano has chosen this
act of graceful sportsmanship as his target? I refuse to believe this is his real goal.
The Giants performed a kneel-down to end the half against the Bucs a few weeks ago, and Schiano did
not rush the quarterback then. Where was the “try hard until the whistle blows” mentality then? Rather, it seems clear this is just a coach whining about los-ing and throwing a tantrum.
This is an embarrassment to the league, and it’s dangerous for the players. If the league doesn’t step in and stop this, then it’s only a matter of time before a player gets injured. If that does hap-pen, the league office will have a hard time explaining why they
let someone in a position of power express his own frustration in such a petty and destructive manner. I would be embarrassed to be a member of the Bucs and to be associated with Greg Schiano.
Brandon Niles has done online freelance writing about the NFL since 2007. His articles range from NFL news to team-specific commentary. A Communication Studies graduate student at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, Niles is also an avid Miami Dolphins fan, which has led to his becoming an avid Scotch whisky fan over the past decade.
schiano the BullyTampa Bay coach an embarrassment
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montana fish, wildlife and parks
Most of Montana's upland game bird hunting seasons are under-way, but many experienced hunters – and their trusty retrievers and pointers – are hoping for good shooting and cooler days ahead. In most areas of the state, wing-shooters should find fair to good game bird populations and some pockets of very good hunting potential.
Montana's upland game bird hunting seasons generally run through Jan. 1, 2013. The exception is the sage grouse season, which closes Nov. 1. Montana's pheasant season opens Oct. 6 and runs through New Year's Day.
Here's what upland game bird hunters in Region 3 (southwest Montana) can expect this season:
• Upland game birds came out of the winter with slightly above average numbers. That's the case with both Hungarian partridge and mountain grouse. Mountain grouse appear to have had good size broods according to area biologists.
• Sharp-tailed grouse numbers have remained about the same, but the region isn't a prime area for sharptails.
• Sage grouse – found mainly in the Dillon area – are up a bit, and biologists have noted good survival rates through the last winter.
• Pheasant numbers are about average thanks to very little winter mortality seen on the whole. Still, there's not a lot of pheasant hunting in the region due to limited habitat. Most pheasant hunting in southwest Montana occurs on private land river bot-toms.
To learn more about Montana hunting, visit the fish, Wildlife and Parks website at fwp.mt.gov and click "for Hunters."
upland game bird season update
montana fish, wildlife and parks
More than 1,250 landowners have enrolled nearly 8 million acres in the Montana Block Manage-ment Area hunting program this year.
formally launched in 1985 and significantly enhanced in 1995, the BMA program gives the public access to hunt on enrolled private lands. More than 440,000 hunter days occur annually in these areas.
Here’s how it works:
Landowners develop contracts with fWP about how free public hunting may occur on enrolled lands. Every BMA contract is tailored to the spe-cific ranch, and each landowner determines ranch rules specific to his or her property. Enrolled lands remain under the control of the private landown-er, while the fWP enforces the rules.
Those rules specify how permission will be is-sued, whether hunter numbers are limited, which game birds or animals may be hunted, when the enrolled property is open to hunting, and what methods of travel may be allowed.
In return for enrolling, landowners may receive compensation and/or services to help manage the hunting activities and to offset the impacts of allowing public hunting. Those impacts may in-clude time spent dealing with hunters, increased costs of managing for noxious weeds, increased fire danger, maintaining roads and fences, and ad-ditional costs associated with managing livestock.
This sets Montana’s BMA program apart from several other Western states’ hunting access pro-grams, where incentives are often directed toward helping landowners generate revenue from offer-ing certain kinds of hunts – typically for bull elk and deer and antelope bucks.
Block management lands include a range of habitat types. Some provide a specific hunting op-portunity, like harvested croplands along a river bottom that accommodate waterfowl hunting, or large tracts of prairie grasslands and sagebrush en-rolled primarily for antelope hunting. Others are more diverse and have habitat for whitetail deer, pheasants and turkeys, and also marginally for elk, mule deer, sharptailed grouse, and the occasional gray partridge or sage grouse.
Most BMAs are open for all legal game species, although some may restrict what can be hunted or when it can be hunted.
About half of all block management land state-wide is considered Type I BMAs, where the hunter either administers his or her own permis-sion at sign-in boxes, or where no formal permis-sion is required. Typically on large ranches or corporate timberland in western Montana, these usually have no restriction on hunter numbers.
The other half are Type II BMAs, where the land-owner directly administers permission, and where hunter numbers are often limited and specific hunting areas assigned.
understanding montana’s block management hunting program
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INDIAN MEADOWS$560,000 • #182257 • Call Leah 763-4596• 4.02 +/- acre lot• bordering riverfront National forest land• direct access to blue ribbon fi shing• level building site w/ great views
SKYCREST CONDO #1704$320,000 • #184925 • Call Don
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GALLATIN RIVER FRONT$229,000• # 184874 • Call Brooms 580-4290
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Stuart Koch, Sales Associate, 406.581.1225
Oct. 5-18, 2012 21
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WHITEfISH – Avalanche profession-als and winter backcountry enthusiasts will meet on Oct. 13 for the second annual Northern Rockies Avalanche Safety Workshop, from 7:30 a.m. – 6:30 p.m. at the Grouse Mountain Lodge in Whitefish.
This pre-season avalanche safety workshop is dedicated to improving avalanche related decision-making and skills for winter backcountry users.
This year’s speakers have varied experi-ences, backgrounds and expertise in avalanche forecasting, theory, informa-tion processing, emergency decision-making and other up-to-date backcoun-try information. They are: Karl Birkelandfounder of the Gallatin National forest Avalanche Center in Bozeman, Birkeland has spent the past 30 years working professionally as a ski patrol-ler, educator, backcountry forecaster and researcher.
scott savage Savage has been an avalanche forecaster for Big Sky Resort in Montana, but more recently has toured the country giving lectures and talks analyzing his and other avalanche professionals’
experiences and mistakes. This year he is joining the Sawtooth National forest Avalanche Center.
leeann allegretto The Avalanche Program Leader for the Missoula National Weather Service, Allegretto is responsible for managing and updating backcountry weather data and forecasts
elyse saugstad A professional skier from Girdwood, Alaska, Saugstad is a ski film star, com-petitive freeride skier and accomplished backcountry skier.
christopher Robinson Robinson was deployed as a Navy SEAL in 2003-2004, where he special-ized in assignments that dealt with stressful group dynamics and learned decision-making methods to optimize performance and survival.
dale atkins Atkins has more than 30 years of experience as an avalanche expert as a rescuer, forecaster, researcher and edu-cator working in recreational, industrial and municipal domains. For more information visit avalanchesafetyworkshop.com.
northern rockies avalanche safety Workshop returns to Whitefish
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By EMiLy STiFLERbig sky weekly managing editor
22 Oct. 5-18, 2012
Big Sky Weekly
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HEaLTH & wELLNESS
since it’s fall, I’m wondering if my family and I should get the flu shot. We had them last year. Is it necessary again this year?
The short answer: YES!
Influenza is an acute respiratory illness caused by influenza A or B viruses, which causes outbreaks during the winter months. It’s spread through sneezing or coughing, and is shed by its host for two days before symptoms start, and for seven days after that. Symptoms include fever, muscle aches, severe malaise, headache, sore throat, runny nose and dry cough.
Typical flu sufferers usually improve over two to seven days, while some have continued fatigue and malaise for weeks. In some cases, the illness presents itself abruptly, allowing its sufferer to recall the exact time it started, while others pres-ent as a mild common cold. Unfortunately, the illness can become complicated by pneumonia in either the young, the elderly, pregnant or chroni-cally ill. In these cases, the mortality rate rises significantly.
Children in school are at high risk of exposure and are also very effective in spreading the virus. They also tend to have more complications, such as ear infections and pneumonia. In fact, studies
show that for every 10 infants six months old or less seen in the office for influenza, one will be hospitalized. This rate decreases with age to 250 to 1 by age 5. Additionally, the death rate in oth-erwise healthy infants and children with influ-enza is higher than in adults, especially children younger than 5.
Pregnant women are also at high risk for compli-cations from influenza. Research shows they are 5 times more likely to become severely ill, which can result in miscarriage or pre-term delivery. fortunately, the flu vaccine is safe at any stage of pregnancy. In addition, the antibodies produced by the mother cross the placenta and offer immu-nity to the baby for their first 6 months of life, at which point babies can have their own flu vac-cine. Clearly, this illness can cause a substantial burden to any community it infects, with poten-tially dangerous results.
Each year researchers with the Centers for Disease Control and World Health Organization track the virus and monitor its activity in order to predict the components for the flu vaccine. The vaccine is recommended yearly to keep up with changes the virus undergoes. It’s important to note that immunity from the previous shot wanes before the next season starts.
All people older than 6 months are recommended to have the flu vaccine. It’s highly recommended
for people who have contact with babies, kids who are less than 5 years old, elderly or chroni-cally ill people, or women who are pregnant. See your medical provider if you have additional questions about the flu vaccine, or log onto the CDC website at cdc.gov/flu.
Don’t hesitate to protect yourself, your family and your community from influenza!
ask Dr. DunnBy MaREN DuNNbig sky weekly health writer
Maren Dunn, D.O., is owner of Gallatin Family Medicine, a medical clinic in the Big Sky Meadow Village. Have a question? Email her at [email protected].
gallatinfamilymedicine.com
Annual flu shot clinicWomen in Action is holding two flu shot clinics this fall for Big Sky com-munity members. They will be Tuesday, Oct. 9, 4 – 7 p.m. at Gallatin fam-ily Medicine (18 Meadow Village Drive, across from the Post Office), and Tuesday, Oct. 16, 4 – 7 p.m. at the Big Sky Medical Clinic (upstairs in the RJS Building in the Town Center).
The clinics are free to anyone, according to WIA director Lisa Beczkiewicz. The nonprofit is requesting recipients with health insurance to bring their cards, so WIA can bill insurance.
Oct. 5-18, 2012 23
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BIG SKY – In early September, a Big Sky health and wellness spa welcomed to the scene a new acupuncturist, one who plans to stick around.
Christina Clark, a native of Bozeman, started at OZssage Therapeutic Mas-sage and Day Spa on Sept. 10, bringing with her an extensive knowledge of acupuncture and Chinese herbal medi-cine. She is eager to treat patients in Big Sky alongside OZssage owner Jacquie Rager.
“Jacquie has such a good reputation and the spa is beautiful,” Clark said of the wellness center located at 32 Market Place in the Meadow Village.
Rager, in turn, feels Clark’s unique brand of treatment will bolster OZs-sage’s ability to be a versatile spa. “Hav-ing acupuncture takes our treatment to another level,” Rager said. “The clients who have been going to Christina are definitely very happy with her and her level of expertise.”
Clark earned a master’s degree in Orien-tal Medicine from Southwest Acu-puncture College in Santa fe, N.M. and is licensed by the state Board of Medi-
cal Examiners. She has also maintained an acupuncture practice of her own in Bozeman for six years and previously worked at Bozeman Deaconess Hospi-tal as a certified health professional.
“Utilizing well-established principals of East Asian medicine, [Clark] is quali-fied to provide quality health care for a wide range of acute, chronic, physical and emotional conditions, for the entire family,” Rager said.
Acupuncture is an ancient practice used to treat everything from migraines and muscle aches, to anxiety and depres-sion. Consistent treatment by one acupuncturist is just as important as the treatment itself, Clark says.
“It’s a healing journey that the patient and the practitioner take together. If you’re with the same acupuncture practitioner, you really establish a relationship.”
And, she said, remaining with one acupuncturist eliminates the need to tell your story to a number of different practitioners, a weight she doesn’t plan on asking her patients to shoulder.
“I’m hoping to be around for a while.”
By JOSEPH T. O'CONNORbig sky weekly editor
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BuSiNESS PROFiLE
BOZEMAN, Mont., PUCON, Chile – Rivers, Lakes, Oceans has been sup-plying Central and South American boaters with quality water gear since spring of 2009. Started by Bozeman-ite Mike Garcia, Rios, Lagos, Mares – as it’s known in Latin America – imports most of its goods to the world-class boating destinations of Costa Rica and Pucon, Chile.
Mike, 59, spent time kayaking in Chile years ago, just as the rivers were becoming well known. “I saw this resource developing and what they were paying for products,” he said. “I said, ‘You guys are really get-ting dinged.’ It was the same in Costa Rica.”
He was already in the business, hav-ing founded the Bozeman outdoor store Northern Lights Trading Co. in 1979. When he sold Northern Lights in 2008, it was “the onus to do something down there.” He started in fall 2008, imported his first product to South America in spring 2009, and sent the first large shipment of boats south that summer, just in time for runoff in the Andes.
His three sons are all passionate kayakers who’ve gravitated to Chile in recent years, drawn by its wealth of previously un-paddled rivers. The oldest, Ian, 26, has spent the past nine winters in South America and has lived in Pucon for much of the last five years, where he’s an integral part of the business. Having married a Chilean woman, Ian will become a legal citizen this year.
Evan Garcia, 23, will be in South America this winter, his sixth season filming for kayak movies and search-
ing out first descents. Between them, Ian and Evan have more than 50 first descents in South America. Mike’s youngest, Nate, is 21 and has already been south three times; he’s currently attending the University of Montana in Missoula.
Chile’s recreation economy is grow-ing, Mike says. He visits the country twice a year, for work and play, and every year he sees more people get-ting out and recreating.
Today, Rivers, Lakes, Oceans imports products from more than 20 U.S. companies to Latin America. It has a warehouse in Costa Rica, and a warehouse and storefront in Pucon. It sells to hotels, outfitters, govern-ments and private boaters – both from the shop in Pucon and over the Internet.
Because boating in Chile tends to be cold, the company sells a lot of drysuits and wetsuits. It also sells whitewater kayaks (both play boats and creek boats), ocean kayaks, fish-ing kayaks, rafts, paddles, oars and boating accessories.
Ian works in the Pucon storefront, along with his father during Mike’s typical three-month stay. Mike employs a few locals as well, but says they don’t know the product as well. “We want people to buy the right product for the right purpose.”
Rivers, Lakes, Oceans does most of its business from October to March. With high water in Chile generally Nov. 1 through March, the Pucon store is busiest during that time of year, as well. However, Mike says, the paddling season there is year round because of the wet climate.
Because it takes so much product down at once, Rivers, Lakes, Oceans can offer better pricing, Mike said. Plus, it has the advantage of owning all its own shipping containers, which cuts down the freight rate per unit. The boats and accessories are consolidated into the containers
in Charleston, S.C., where they’re loaded onto large ships. A 17 – 24 day passage takes them through the Panama Canal, and down the West Coast.
At the dock in Chile, all the product is immediately assessed a 20 percent value-added tax by the Aduanas, or customs agents.
“A lot of things disappear down there,” Mike said. “The Aduanas may not be trustworthy. We’ve had some goods disappear in Venezuela, and we make the Peruvians carry their own goods over the border. We don’t really have that problem in Chile and Costa Rica.”
Locals buy more than 90 percent of Rivers, Lakes, Oceans’ products, with the balance being purchased by Americans and Europeans on vaca-tion. Customers expect to see a U.S. coastguard stamp on all life jackets, Mike said.
Mike bought back Northern Lights in July 2010 along with Barrel Moun-taineering – which closed September 2011 – and the Barn, which primar-ily sold boats and accessories until closing this fall. He did so when the interim owner gave five days’ notice before he was going to begin liquidat-ing all three stores.
“[That] put a chink in my armor as far as being semi-retired,” Mike said.
He’s busy with both companies now, especially since he’s looking for a new location where he can merge North-ern Lights and the Barn, which closed its doors Oct. 1.
for Rivers, Lakes, Oceans, which started just as the recreation market in Latin America was beginning to blossom, things are looking up. As the emerging economies in Central and South America create a larger middle class with more time and money to recreate, the market should continue to improve, Mike says.
And a country that enjoys its natural resources is more likely to conserve them, something that’s important to Mike as an outdoorsman and a busi-ness owner in the recreation industry. He cited dam and mining projects in Chile that have been halted by public opposition in the last decade.
“[Outdoor recreation] has awoken the Chileans and Argentineans in the Patagonia region as to the precious commodity they have . . . the beauty, the mountains, the water,” Mike said. “It’s paying dividends. Both countries are trying to be better stewards of that resource.”
Rivers, Lakes, Oceans outfits Latin American paddlersBy TyLER aLLENbig sky weekly staff writer
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This is how Big Sky getsinto hot water.
Paddling on Lago Villarrica in Pucon, Chile. PHOTO By MikE gaRCia
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ATV'S, Polaris RZR side by sides, RV's, Driftboats &
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$389,000. Call 406-595-6641for salEObsolete Equipment SaleBig Sky School District is selling obsolete equipment. A public sale will be held at the school, 45465 Gallatin Road, on Satur-day, October 13 from 10 am – 2 pm. A list of items can be found at www.bssd72.org. All items purchased must be taken at the time of sale.
Office desk- Great Condition, like new! HON 10700 Series Oak Right Pedestal Desk Dimensions: 72"L x 36"D x 29.5"H $250 contact 406-995-2055
HElP WantEDShuttle to Big Sky & TaxiNeed Some Extra Money This Win-ter? Come share your passion for the Big Sky area as a Part Time Driver for Shuttle to Big Sky & Taxi. Must be at least 25 yrs. of age with a clean driv-ing record and able to lift 50 lbs.Prior experience preferred but not re-quired. Must past Drug Test & DOT physical exam. PT positions available. flexible hours Please submit resume to [email protected]. EOE. Or call our office at 406-995-4895
Daily outdoor service routes. Must have clean driving record and auto insurance. Paid mileage. Some plumbing and electrical knowledge preferred. Headwaters Hot Tub 406.995.7319
If you have a desire to build positive encouraging relationships with youthin Big Sky this job may be for you. To assist the established local programat the middle school and high school. Working with students and recruit-ing new young adult leaders. The ideal person should have experience with Young Life. Please Contact: Anne Chiles (406) 995-4805Alan Johnson (406) 995-2524
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Hello, my name is katie and i am a young collie, Shepard mix, or at least that is what i think. i am Less than a year old but have already had a very hard life. i am currently in Stillwater, Ok where i was abused until i was picked up by Stillwater animal welfare. i am very sweet, but there is not much room in the shelters here and so i was scheduled to be euthanized. Lucky for me a soft heart-ed veterinary student picked me up and i am living the big life. with four dogs here, however,Iamtryingtofindaforeverhome.i am small, only about 25lbs but i hope to grow bigger and stronger from living an adventurous life. There is not much i don't love... i am quite the snuggler, love kids, think mountain biking and hiking are amaz-ing and i love my people. i can relocate to Montana in a second. i will make an amaz-ing companion and member of your family. you can call me at 360-393-2992
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EVENTS
BOZEMAN - Are you a fan of quad skates and war paint? Growing up, were you a roller queen, a rollerblading fanatic or an adrenaline junkie? Did you come see the Gallatin Roller Girlz bout it out at the fairgrounds this sum-mer and think, "I could do that!"? Then roller derby might be the best sport for you.
The Gallatin Roller Girlz are hosting a “fresh Meat and Greet” evening at Wild Joe’s Coffeehouse in Bozeman on Wednesday, Oct. 17 from 5:30 – 7 p.m. League skaters will be on hand to answer questions and explain how to get involved. A downtown pub skate will follow the event.
The team is currently searching for women and men 18 and older inter-ested in skating and non-skating posi-tions. Through the “fresh Meat” (i.e. new skater) program, Gallatin Roller Girlz will train women to skate – no prior experience is necessary. The team has several sets of 'try before you buy' gear for potential members to use be-fore investing in equipment. Men can skate with the league as referees.
More information on the fresh Meat and Greet, and on roller derby in the Gallatin Valley, visit grgderby.com or find GallatinRollerGirlz on facebook.
roller Girlz and fresh meat at Wild Joe’s
PIPESTONE – The third annual Butte Bouldering Bash will be held at the Trailer Boulders, a new climbing area north of Interstate-90 and west of Whitehall. Climbers have been developing this area for the last couple of years, and it now has a variety of excellent boulder problems ranging from V0 to V10.
There will be a fun bouldering compe-tition, a prize raffle, shoe demos, food, drinks and music. Organizers Tom Kingsbury and Patrick Odenbeck will release a guidebook to the area during the event. The following day there will be a clean up for the camping and bouldering areas.
for more information visit montanabouldering.com.
Butte Bouldering Bash is oct. 13
BIG SKY – The Lone Peak Brewery is celebrating its fifth year pouring pints in Big Sky this October. On Saturday, Oct. 13 at 5 p.m. the brewery will host a party culminating a week-long cel-ebration at its tap house in the Meadow Village.
Opened in 2007 by Steve and Vicky Nordahl, the brewery has appealed to a broad clientele in the last five years. “We get constant recognition for all the hard work we do, and [for] being a place where both locals and tourists like to go,” Steve said. “We get a fairly tremendous mix of both.”
To commemorate the festivities, the brewery plans to unveil two new beers during its anniversary week. The fifth Anniversary Ale will be available be-ginning Oct. 8, and the fresh Hop Pale Ale will be released at the party, which will be upstairs above the tap house.
The tap house is expanding this winter and will host events and music in that space when construction is complete. The wall that currently divides the space in half will be knocked out by the day of the party.
“It’s a finished space,” Steve said. “It just won’t be my vision yet, which will take a little time.” They will move tables upstairs for the weekend’s festivi-ties, he added.
The Nordahls moved to Big Sky in 2003 because it had the biggest ski resort in the country without a brew-ery. Steve’s family is from Montana, and both his parents graduated from MSU. He has been a commercial brewer for 21 years and started the frederick Brewery in 1991, in frederick, Md.
He says the biggest challenge to the business in the last five years was circumventing the brewery laws in Montana. As of 2009, Montana law differentiates brewery sample rooms from a tap house. Sample rooms can provide customers with no more than 48 ounces of beer during a business day.
“We had to split the business in half to have a brewery and tap house, and that made it possible for us to still be here,” Steve said. “It would have been pretty lean with just a sample room and hav-ing to close at 8 every night.”
The brewery will also be hosting an invitation-only party on Sunday, Oct. 14, for all the vendors, bartenders and restaurant owners that have served Lone Peak beer, “thanking them for the five years of support,” Steve said.
John floridis, a session musician from Missoula on a quest to play every brew-ery in Montana will perform at both events. Attendees at the Oct. 13 event will receive raffle tickets at the door and an additional ticket with every pint purchased. Prizes include gift cards, pint glasses and a growler that comes with a free fill once a week for a year.
lone Peak Brewery celebrates five years in Big SkyBy TyLER aLLENbig sky weekly staff writer
Josh Hood climbs the arete on the Central Highball Boulder at the Trail-er Boulders, with Zanna Drobnik, adam Fruh and Rose Marks spotting.PHOTO By EMiLy STiFLER
BOZEMAN – The Gallatin National forest Avalanche Center holds its larg-est annual fundraiser, the Powderblast, every year in October. This year, the 14th annual event will be Oct. 26 at the Emerson Cultural Center in Bozeman.
The family-friendly shindig will be host catering by the Bountiful Table, and music from the Americana-blue-grass band Holler N’ Pine, and beer and wine from Lone Peak Brewery. Silent auction items already in the
lineup year include an airbag avalanche pack from Mystery Ranch, a Bridger Bowl season pass, day tickets from Big Sky, a day of aerial videography with Elevated Productions, hut trips, avalanche beacons, skis, restaurant gift certificates, and name brand apparel from Arc’teryx, Patagonia and Outdoor Research.
Visit mtavalanche.com for more infor-mation or to buy tickets.
avalanche center fundraiser is oct. 26
Oct. 5-18, 2012 27
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saturDay, oct. 6
BozEman
Greater Gallatin Watershed TourRocking TJ Ranch, 9 a.m.
2012 Bridger Raptor fest Bridger Bowl, 10 a.m.
Big Brothers Big Sisters Bowl for Kids SakeThe Bowl, 4 p.m.
Beer, Brats, and Brewery folliesRocking TJ Ranch, 6 p.m.
Hush Hush festival with MimosaGallatin County fairgrounds Events Park, 6 p.m.
Taylor 2 DANCEEllen Theater, 7:30 p.m.
Muzik Lives Here DJ Dance partyfilling Station, 9 p.m.
liVinGston & ParaDisE VallEy
10 foot Tall & 80 ProofChico Hot Springs Saloon, 9 p.m..
sunDay, oct. 7BiG sky
Blessing of the Animals ServiceBig Sky Chapel, 9:30 a.m.
BozEman
2012 Bridger Raptor fest Bridger Bowl, 10 a.m.
The Bad PlusEmerson Center for the Arts and Culture, 6:15 p.m.
Textures – a concert of sonic & multimedia artReynolds Recital Hall, 7:30 p.m.liVinGston & ParaDisE VallEy
Andrew Jr. Boy JonesChico Hot Springs Saloon, 8 p.m.
monDay, oct. 8BozEman
Alejandro Ziegler QuartetReynolds Recital Hall, 7:30 p.m. tuEsDay, oct. 9
BozEman
The Bartender’s Tale Book SigningThe Country Bookshelf, 12-1:30 p.m.
WEDnEsDay, oct. 10
BiG sky
Gallatin Canyon Women’s ClubSue Lindley’s Home, 1 p.m.
BozEman
Art MachinesChildren’s Museum of Bozeman, 2 p.m.
Candidate forumGallatin Gateway Community Center, 7-9 p.m.
Uke GroupWild Joes Coffeehouse, 8 p.m.
liVinGston & ParaDisE VallEy
Holbrook Harvest Dinner and Silent AuctionLivingston, 4:30 p.m.
tHursDay, oct. 11BozEman
College Prep WorkshopsBozeman Public Library, 7 p.m.
Safety Not GuaranteedEmerson Center for the Arts and Culture, 7:30 p.m.
liVinGston & ParaDisE VallEy
Kurt ProndPine Creek lodge & Café, 7 p.m.
friDay, oct. 12BozEman
Big Brothers Big Sisters Bowl for Kids’ SakeThe Bowl, 4 p.m.
See Superheroes of StokeEmerson Center for the Arts and Culture, 6 p.m.
father of the Bride of frankensteinEquinox Theatre, 8 p.m.
The Boxcutters and Black Mountainfilling Station, 9 p.m.
liVinGston & ParaDisE VallEy
St. Mary’s Bash Medieval MasqueradeLivingston Civic Center, 6 p.m.
Denny and the ResonatorsPine Creek Lodge & Café, 7 p.m.
Beb CorbettLivingston Bar and Grill, 7 p.m.
Sweeny ToddShane Lalani Center for the Arts, 8 p.m.
saturDay, oct. 13BiG sky
Lone Peak Brewery’s 5th Anniversary Party Lone Peak Tap House, 5 p.m.
BozEman
Energy: The Psychology of the Psyche and the WorldBozeman Public Library, 1 p.m.
MSU vs. Eastern WashingtonBobcat Stadium, 1:30 p.m.
Big Brothers Big Sisters Bowl for Kids SakeThe Bowl, 4 p.m.
Tales of a fourth Grade NothingEquinox Theatre. 2 p.m.
MSU Volleyball vs. Sacramento StateShroyer Gym, 7 p.m.
father of the Bride of frankensteinEquinox Theatre, 8 p.m.
Hillbilly Sextet and Damsel in the Dollhousefilling Station, 9 p.m.
liVinGston & ParaDisE VallEy
The fossilsPine Creek Lodge & Café, 7 p.m.
Almost Anniversary Ringling 5Wilsall Dance Hall, Livingston, 7 p.m.
Sweeny ToddShane Lalani Center for the Arts, 8 p.m.
Honkey Tonk HeroesChico Hot Springs Saloon, 9 p.m.
sunDay, oct. 14BozEman
The Goddamn Gallowsfilling Station, 9 p.m.
monDay, oct. 15BozEman
Albert Gallatin DiscussionBozeman Public Library. 10:15 a.m.
MSU Volleyball vs. Montana GrizzliesShroyer Gym, 7 p.m.
tuEsDay, oct. 16BozEman
The United States of ALECBozeman Public Library, 11:45 a.m.
Peter fletcherBozeman Public Library, 7 p.m.
fall Choral Concert University Chorus ChoraleMSU Reynolds Recital Hall, 7:30 p.m.
Lydia Loveless and Tom Cookfilling Station, 9 p.m.
WEDnEsDay, oct. 17BozEman
Tapas and TriviaBaxter Hotel Ballroom, 6 p.m.
Whitebark forests LectureREI, 6:30 p.m.
Gallatin Roller Girlz fresh Meat & GreetWild Joes Coffeehouse, 5:30-7 p.m.
liVinGston & ParaDisE VallEy
Jack Galdstone, Stroysmith and Troubador from the Blackfeet NationLivingston Park High School, 7 p.m.
tHursDay, oct. 18BozEman
Mike D/Mike G “Dig It”Pine Creek Lodge & Café, 7 p.m.
Huckle and the Deadlocksfilling Station, 8 p.m.
WEst yElloWstonE
Rusted RootWild West Pizzeria & Saloon, 7:30 p.m.
EVENTS PlanninG an EVEnt? lEt us knoW! Email [email protected] anD WE’ll sPrEaD tHE WorD.
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FuN
Back in the early 1860s I was hiking in Montana and seen a middle-aged feller in his 50s standing on a tree stump. He had one end o’ the rope around his neck, getting' ready to jump off.
“Hey there, friend!” I said. “What-cha doin’ in these here parts?”
The melancholy feller stopped what he was doing and told me about his troubles.
“I have nowhere to go,” he said. “I’m wanted in several states by the law and other people who intend to hang me. But now, without my friends and family, I might as well save them all the trouble.”
“Name’s Buscrat,” I said, “and you are…?”
“Everybody calls me ‘Crooked Linc’. Name’s Lincoln. I wish I could go back and start my life all over.”
“Why dontcha git offa that rope and take a walk with me?” I said. Linc told me about the terrible life he’d led, and we walked fer a good mile ‘til we came to a cave.
“So, how’d ya git started with this notorious life ya been leadin’, Linc?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I was a good person once, but somehow one thing led to the next, and now I’m hated by my friends and family and wanted by the law.”
When we got to the cave I told him to foller me as we walked the deep tunnel. On one side of the cave we seen groups of people going about their business. We was able to see right through ‘em, like they was ghosts. In modern terms, you might call ‘em a hologram, but back in the 1800s we called ‘em ghosts. It was like riding one of them Haunted Mansion rides at Disneyland. People were going about their busi-ness talking, laughing and fighting in different scenes as we walked deeper into the cave.
We saw Linc in every scene, inter-acting with folks. It was like seeing a movie of his life doing all of the rotten things he’d done. It became perty understandable why everyone called him Crooked Linc.
Eventually we came to one last scene. In it, Linc was in his 20s working in a general store, in the early 1840s.
“I remember this,” Linc said. “After I helped that woman with her pur-chase I noticed I had accidentally shortchanged her a few pennies. She never noticed. I thought about how I had made a few extra cents with no effort.” (That was equal to a few dollars today.)
“Then another customer came in,” Linc recalled. “I shortchanged him too, this time on purpose. He didn’t notice. Before ya know it I was shortchanging customers or short-ing the amount of flour or oats I put in their bag for what I actually charged them.
“I couldn’t help it. It was so easy, I did it to everyone. Just a little bit of shortchanging, and none of ‘em noticed. But after a while Mr. Jenkins noticed and talked to some neighbors about it. They started watching me, and before ya know it they was onto me. I got accused of being crooked. That’s how I got my nickname.
“People stopped coming to store. I got desperate and started borrow-ing money from the bank and other folks. But I figgered they knew my reputation so I never bothered paying ‘em back. What’s the use? Everybody knew I was crooked. After a while I didn’t care what anybody thought anymore. Eventu-ally I had to leave town. I stold old man Jenkins’ horses and wagon and left the state.”
Then Linc told me stories that led to him being wanted by the law in many states and despised by his own family and friends.
“I remember now,” Linc said. “It all started right here in this general store when I noticed that I short-changed that woman.”
We both turned around in that cave, and we saw the deep tunnel from where we came and also another tunnel going to the right.
“You can go back out that way, from the direction we came in,” I said, “or you can choose that path to the right. You gots a chance to re-live yer life from this point forward. You’ll have an advantage too, cuz even though you’ll be a young man
in your 20s again, you’ll have the memory of the terrible life you’d led fer 30-odd years as an adult. That will remind you of the choices you made that led to misery. Not everybody has that chance.
“You decide which path to choose,” I said. “The first step you take in ei-ther will lead you to the last step of that path. You already know where the last step leads to the left. So be sure to choose the right path.”
He looked at the holograms of his past life as far as he could see down the left tunnel, which was dingy and dark. Then he looked down the right tunnel. He couldn’t see any holograms, but it was bright and cheery. He chose the right path, and off he went.
I found my way back out of the cave and returned to the 1860s. Curious what happened to Linc, I traveled to the eastern states to look him up.
I found he was living in a big white house. I went up to the door, knocked and the butler opened it.
“I’m looking fer Crooked Linc ….er, ah… Linc,” I said. I recovered from my slip of the tongue by jesting, “I used to call him that when we was boys cuz he was tall and lanky and bent over crooked sometimes. I ain’t seen him fer many years.”“We call him ‘Honest Abe’ here,” the man said.
“Innerstin’,” I said. “How come?”
“It started when he was working at a general store and accidentally shortchanged a woman,” the butler said. “He closed the store and walked several miles to give her back the pennies he shortchanged her. There’s lots of stories about Abe who was always honest in everything he did.”
He led me to the living room, where Abe greeted me with a warm handshake. We talked and laughed fer hours that day.
Then he said, “I’m glad I had an-other chance and decided to choose the right.”
Buscrat's fables are simple storiesthat teach a moral. Buscrat welcomesyou to visit buscratsfables.com andpost your comments regarding thefable.
Buscrat's fablesRedemption Cave
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flames and pink GatoradeBy JaMiE BaLkEbig sky weekly columnist
With the West ablaze this summer and fall, and fire-fighters working to keep us safe, it’s reminded me of my own brief foray into wildland firefighting.
It was the summer of 2007, and having recently gradu-ated from college, I’d gotten a job working an entrance station at Grand Teton National Park. At the start of the summer, my supervisor sent me to a weeklong wildland fire school in Bondurant, Wyo. Everybody was late for the first day of class on account of a group of cowboys herding cattle down the main road.
After learning the basics that week and passing the necessary physical tests and examinations upon my return to the park, I was issued a Red Card. In a fit of panic, I purchased the most expensive boots I could find, reasoning if I found myself running from a blaz-ing inferno, I didn’t want my feet to hurt.
Over-the-top custom boots take a while to arrive, and before they did, I received my first request to join a fire crew. I explained to the gentleman on the phone that having not yet received my boots, I would have to wait for the next callout.
Shortly thereafter, I received a call from a fire su-pervisor out of the park, asking for my boot size. We didn’t know each other, but upon learning my feet were within a couple of sizes of hers, she wondered if I might want to break into her house that evening while she was away and borrow her too-small shoes. I declined her generous offer.
Several weeks later, after the arrival of my boots, I re-ceived my second callout while hiking in Yellowstone. With all reasonable haste, I got myself home to prepare for departure the next morning.
My crew met at the fire cache to receive our gear. In my spastic excitement, I admitted to being an EMT, and in short order was designated a medic and issued a first-aid kit. We loaded into the vehicles and learned we would be headed to an assignment in Idaho. The fire had made a dramatic run the previous week, and with another wind event predicted, more crews were being called in as a precaution.
fire camp is an interesting experience, which could easily be the subject of an entire column. Perhaps my fondest memory involved my predominately male squad making relentless fun of me for stocking our truck with the purplish-pink Gatorade, and when it was their turn to retrieve our beverages for the day, making sure to pick up a few for me.
The first full day in the field, my squad spent the ma-jority of our time perched atop a beautiful hill, taking weather readings, and wondering if the wind would bring about the anticipated fire behavior. It did not.
During the first week we worked on protecting struc-tures and digging line. When it became clear that fewer resources would be needed, the fire was downgraded. We stayed to work on projects such as rehabbing fire line, felling dangerous burned trees near roads, and mopping up. The closest I personally got to fire was during the mop up procedure, when one of my co-workers identified a tiny smoldering ember. Because it was my first assign-ment, they made a big show of letting me “put out the fire.” These things start to seem funny when you have had very little sleep.
Although my assignment didn’t turn out to be the wildly adventurous experience I anticipated/feared it would be, I was glad to have the opportunity to participate. I barely scratched the surface of wildland firefighting, but was profoundly impressed by the professionalism, skill and knowledge of the more experienced members of my crew.
When I could barely see the Bridger Mountains through the smoke from Bozeman in September, I thought of them.
Jamie Balke moved to Bozeman in the fall of 2009. She can generally be found behind the cover of a book, meandering down a trail or desperately trying not to kill houseplants.
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noun: wild or rough terrain adjacent to a developed area
origin: shortened form of “back 40 acres”
For the Big Sky weekly, the Back 40 is a resource: a place where we can delve into subjects and ask experts to share their knowledge. Topics include regional history,profilesoflocalartistsandmusicians,snowandavalanche education, how-to pieces for traditional or outdoor skills, and science.
“I never thought picking up s*** could be this fun,” Tim Williams said, laughing as he wrapped a scat sample in a plastic baggy and recorded the date, our location, and elevation on a small white enve-lope. Williams is a seven-year vet-eran of the U.S. Army who served in Iraq from 2003 to 2004, but on this weekend in September he was a grizzly bear biologist conducting field research in southwest Mon-tana’s Tobacco Root Mountains.
With support from the Sierra Club’s Military families and Veterans Initiative, Williams and I, along with 14 other outdoor enthusiasts, half of whom were service mem-
bers, spent the weekend of Sept. 21 collecting what may be the first evidence of grizzlies in the Tobacco Roots for the first time since the 1930s.
The study was being conducted by Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation, and according to Gregg Treinish, Executive Direc-tor and founder of ASC, our work will “make a tremendous difference in the viability of [ASC’s] data and greatly help the forest service in managing for grizzly bears.”
To mask my own reservations about camping in bear country (I’m from New York City where there are definitely no grizzlies), I chatted with the other team members. After dinner at camp, we waited for the
moon to set behind the mountains in anticipation of Treinish’s stargaz-ing lesson.
Morning brought with it a sound familiar to Montanans in the fall, but one wholly foreign to a city kid: elk bugling. After making certain I was safe from bodily harm, I roused myself from my tent and joined the chow line. Our guides introduced us to basic data collection, and after a brief GPS tutorial, we were off, our large group broken into three smaller teams with different agen-das with one common goal: finding evidence of grizzlies.
My team was made up of our local guide Eric, an ASC staff member, and a couple from New Hampshire who recently moved to the Boze-man area. As a representative from the Sierra Club’s Mission Outdoors program, I was inspired to see our initiative in action and our support for programs like ASC developing positive partnerships.
That afternoon we found what ap-peared to be signs of grizzly bears along the trail. Back at camp, the day’s shared experience provided ample debate. Was the furry tail one team found from a snowshoe hare? What killed that bird, then plucked its feathers so delicately? Had we really found evidence of grizzly bears?
None of us had all the answers, but we possessed new enthusiasm for details previously unnoticed. The forest contained a story we hadn’t been able to read, and now we
couldn’t put the book down.
It’s precisely this enthusiasm and wonder that drives our work at the Sierra Club. Our goal is to ensure that all Americans are accessing the outdoors. We believe connect-ing with nature is fundamental to a healthy life and is an American right – especially for those who’ve sacrificed so much to protect it.
By supporting programs such as ASC, we hope to encourage more people like Tim Williams to get involved. We hope that by taking some extra time on the trail to no-tice a critter’s home or the remnants of its meal, our connection to wild places and their inhabitants will strengthen, and so will our resolve to protect them.
editor’s note: Data collected dur-ing this trip will be DNA tested in October, and the results will become public knowledge in early 2013. Evidence of grizzlies in the Tobacco Roots is not yet proven. “While we’re hopeful that this turns out to be griz-zly DNA, only a lab can confirm that,” Treinish said.
David Tucker is the Programming and Operations Coordinator for Mis-sion Outdoors at the Sierra Club. He is from New York City, but spends as much time as possible in the Bozeman area. He now lives in San Francisco. For more information about the Sierra Club’s Mission Outdoors and the Military Families and Veterans Initiative, visit sierraclub.org/mis-sionoutdoors.
By DaViD TuCkERsierra club mission outdoors
ASC finds possible evidence of grizzlies in Tobacco RootsMilitary veterans log clues, time outdoors
Local guide Eric leads citizen scientists in search of grizzly evidence.
