We've Got The County Covered
We've Got The County Covered
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Dale Mailand, from Harlem, asked me for a digital photo of the Whitlash church's steeple and belfry. I sent the photo and shortly received a poem Dale wrote about the building and installing of the steeple, an event that happened in 1973. Dale Mailand is an original member of the Montana Country Poets and Pickers, a group that has gathered for 25 years, meeting in Chinook for the last several winters. Dale's also a retired teacher, a former postal employee, a gunsmith and a self-described "Mr. F...
My wife joined a local home demonstration club after we moved to the Sweet Grass Hills. I had not thought about those clubs since I was a kid. When I was growing up in southern Illinois my mom was active in what was called a 'home extension club.' The ladies met regularly and extension agents presented topics on food safety and cooking, sewing, child rearing and topics related to running a successful household. I was interested to learn about the homemakers clubs in Blaine County (the clubs...
Correspondent's note: A fellow Chinook senior coffee drinker, Larry Wisch, asked me a few weeks ago if I'd ever heard about the weird event that happened to Ray Reid at the end of World War II. I finally connected with Ray on one of our trips back from Whitlash and he shared a remarkable story. Ray admitted, "I've forgotten some of the specifics, like the time of year and some other details. I wrote an essay about the experience for a class I took at teachers' college after the war. Now I can't...
Columnist's note: Alert readers may recall my request for information about snow planes in our area in a June, 2017 article in the "Journal." I got a few rumors from that appeal but if snow planes were ever used in Blaine County, they were scarce at best. Snow planes, also called 'snow cars' or 'air-sleds,' don't fly. They are lightweight enclosed conveyances for one to four passengers powered by a rear mounted engine that drives a propeller. Most snow plane bodies sit atop a front ski and two...
Columnist's note: When Sherry (my wife) and I moved to Whitlash mid-December of last year our plan was to leave about this time (December, 2019) when Sherry's year of pastor-in-residence to the Whitlash Presbyterian Church would be completed. She and the congregation decided to extend the arrangement until next fall. That gave us a second Christmas at Whitlash. Our first Christmas here was very sad and neither my wife nor I have a clear recollection of our first Christmas in the Sweet Grass...
South of the Border, Column No. 39 Columnist's note. The postmaster in Whitlash pointed me to a poster in the post office. The poster shows a photo of a young woman posing with a copy of a small book. The book is the first novel she wrote, "The Wild West," and published in the winter of 2017. Mariah Eide lives on a ranch outside Whitlash. The postmaster said, "I think you'll find an interesting story if you visit with Mariah and her family." I contacted Eileen Eide, Mariah's mother, and spent...
Vicki Kultgen is the Postmaster in Whitlash. She's also a ranch wife, a mom and a volunteer with a variety of community groups. And, she owns and operates Broken Mountains Signs, an online business that makes and sells "western and rustic styled home décor." Three years ago this busy lady started her sign business and has sold 1000+ of her personally designed signs that include scripture, quotes and sayings. The start of the business might be described as the 'perfect storm.' Vicki and her husba...
Senior friends in Harlem recently invited my wife and me to come for a visit and "help tell others about what is going on at the Harlem Senior Center." Being seniors ourselves, my wife and I always enjoy interacting and fellowshipping with others. We headed over to Harlem for lunch and "some visiting." As a senior I've become more aware of the pitfalls of retirement. Oh, it's nice to have more control of your time and maybe no longer have a full time job. But there's also a downside, it's easy t...
Columnist's note: I'd heard of cattle mutilations but when we moved to the Sweet Grass Hills (about this time a year ago) I began to learn about the specifics of these mysterious happenings. Bob Thompson and his family operate the 3U Cattle Ranch south of Whitlash. As we got to know the family our conversations turned to a cattle mutilation on their ranch in the summer of 2018. They had photos to document the carcass of a yearling left in one of their pastures. The photos were, well, weird and...
The Indian National Finals Rodeo, Inc. (INFR) held its 44th championship event the end of October in Las Vegas. At the latest Finals Eddie Hawley and his team roping partner, Myles John, won their second consecutive world title. No stranger to this international competition, it was Eddie's thirteenth time to qualify to compete at the INFR and his fourth time to win a team roping championship. Eddie grew up in Hays and graduated from Dodson High School in 2002. He and his family now live in...
Columnist's note: In the past three weeks two community gatherings were held at Liberty Hall in Whitlash. The Hall is a 103-year old community meeting place, the first building completed when more than a century ago the old town site was abandoned and moved to the current location. The hall was built before a permanent church building, though a congregation was already functioning. Early settlers recognized the need for community-wide gatherings and built a suitable place for them to happen....
Columnist's note: In prior columns I've written about folks making interesting contributions from their homes in the Sweet Grass Hills. Lauren Lauder Brown came to the Hills from Canada. She married B.J. Brown who grew up on a ranch in the east shadow of West Butte. The couple lives in the Oilmont area where B.J. does ranch work, Lauren works at Marias Veterinary Clinic in Shelby and does osteopathic work in both Canada and the U.S. Together the couple has a beef cattle herd. I met Lauren at a...
Columnist's note: Travelers in north central Montana are used to seeing pumpjacks (oil wells) dotting the region. Around Oilmont on the way from Whitlash to the I-15 access north of Shelby (on S-343) we pass a sizeable area of small, older-looking oil wells. Some are pumping, others seem to be idle. There's also a lot of abandoned buildings and equipment that were used to produce oil and gas. East of the town of Oilmont, about two and a half miles on the north side of the highway, there's a...
Many locals know Ken Finley as "the guy who gives away pumpkins for Halloween from his garden." For the last few years Finley has invited anyone, especially elementary school students and their families, to come out to his pumpkin patch and pick a pumpkin for Halloween. The pumpkin patch is part of a large garden Ken has each year along Cleveland Road next to the Chinook Water Plant. He said this year he even had a volleyball team from Hays-Lodgepole that stopped and picked pumpkins on their way...
Columnist's note: Forty-seven Hi-Line Travelers recently visited the Land of Enchantment with extended time in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, New Mexico. This was the third coach trip for the group made up of travelers from Glasgow to Chester and south to Polson and Chouteau. We even picked up a couple of new folks from Wyoming and Washington state. New Mexico was the 47th state, joining the U.S. in January, 1912. Interestingly, much of the state was already settled when the east coast of the U.S. wa...
Columnist's note: A few weeks ago a neighbor asked me to attend a meeting in Sweet Grass about feral swine. The invasive critters are also called feral pigs, wild hogs, razorbacks, Eurasian boars and a lot of expletives by farmers, ranchers, hunters and others. Any pig not penned or under human control is generally regarded as feral. The meeting was attended by 60-70 folks mostly from the U.S. They gathered to hear regional and national experts explain the challenges of dealing with feral pigs...
This is the seventh year that four local congregations in Chinook have hosted young adult volunteers. The Young Adult Volunteer program (YAV's) places volunteers at nine sites in the U.S. and six in foreign countries. Emily Osborn, from La Porte, Indiana, and Sophie Schreiber, from Sandy, Utah, arrived the end of August to begin their year of service in Chinook. They will work with various community and youth groups as well as church-related organizations. The local Presbyterian, Methodist,...
Columnist's note: In 2000, when my wife graduated from seminary and started a new career as a Presbyterian minister, we made an agreement: she had followed me and my career locations for about 30 years, now I would follow her and her career. While she pastored churches the arrangement has allowed me to try some interesting jobs in some far flung places-working on a grain farm in North Dakota, at a sugar beet plant in Minnesota, being a "toilet ranger" for the Forest Service in the Kootenai...
Columnist's note: The Sweet Grass Hills are blessed with some very talented individuals. Not only are there ranchers and oil/gas operators, there are teachers, nurses, bureaucrats, writers and artists, even a former engineer on the B-2 stealth bomber. Jesse Thompson who lives on a ranch south of Whitlash, is a spokesperson for both the Montana Wool Growers and the Montana Angus Associations. I was curious how Jesse balances helping her husband, Chance, on their commercial Black Angus cow/calf...
Columnist's note: This past July the old Whitlash School was sold by sealed bid. That concluded more than a century of providing elementary education to students in the Whitlash area. Students now attend school in Chester. The history of the school is one of many examples how the pioneers and subsequent generations adapted to deal with the needs in rural communities. The Whitlash School hung on longer than most pioneer schools. Locals devised ways to acquire physical space for the school and...
Columnist's note: Alert readers may recall the June, 2016 "Journal" story about the Fred Robinson Bridge and its dedication in 1959. The giant celebration drew an estimated 10,00-15,000 celebrants. At the end of 2016 story I wrote, "Here's one interesting but somewhat mysterious connection between the bridge and Blaine County. Both the "Harlem News" and the "Chinook Opinion" reported, "The first person to walk across the bridge after the log was cut (like a ribbon cutting) and the bridge officia...
Columnist's note: In early July I looked out a bedroom window and saw an empty flatbed truck go by our house pulling a trailer with a machine I recognized as one used for moving beehives. A few days later, along Whitlash Road, I saw a couple of groups of beehives that I was sure were not there earlier. I asked some local ranch families about the hives and they assured me I was not confused, the hives had just arrived. I'd never wondered about beehives in the Sweet Grass Hills. I talked to some...
Columnist's note: About 30 miles east of Missoula on MT Highway 200, while taking a couple of my grandsons back to the Seattle area, I saw the sign for the turnoff to 'Garnet Ghost Town.' I'd passed the turnoff many times. I told the kids, "Today we're going to the ghost town." 'Ghost town' got a positive response from the ten and twelve year old boys. Established in 1895 Garnet became a ghost town in the late 1940's when it lost most of its population and businesses. Renovation and...
Columnist's note: Writing about Grandview Cemetery, south of the Hills and north of Galata, I learned that Agnethe Forseth donated the two acres that became, for 90 years, a children's cemetery. Toni Brown Dafoe, a great granddaughter of Mrs. Forseth, recently brought me a notebook with 71 letters written by Mrs. Forseth and her two daughters. Toni's mother, Mrs. Jeannette Brown, told me the letters were translated by "a friend of Mrs. Forseth in Norway who was an English teacher." Agnethe...
Columnist's note: I recently took my vehicle for a recall notice to a dealership, the nearest being in Cut Bank. Beforehand the shop manager said, "Be prepared to spend the day." Like most folks from this area, I've driven through Cut Bank on US Highway 2 several times heading over to Kalispell or on west. My wife and I rode Amtrak to Cut Bank from Libby to a church meeting several years ago and spent a weekend there. It was the dead of winter so not a good time to be walking around. The day I t...
