Hello from New Employee and Upcoming Speaker at Blaine County Museum

Hello there Blaine County! My name is Austin Haney and I'll be working as the Museum's temporary Education and Interpretive Specialist this winter, a position made possible by funding from the National Park Service. I'm originally from Great Falls and have worked at a couple historic sites and museums over the years. I've been the park ranger over at Bear Paw Battlefield for three summers now, and I am thrilled to be able to stay in the area to help with some new projects going on here at the museum. We are in the process of developing new exhibit panels talking about the lead-up to the battle, focusing on the people involved as well as the local area's ties to the story. We're incredibly lucky to have such a great collection of materials related to the battle that will help us tell that story more thoroughly than we've been able to do before. We also plan on putting together some new interactive exhibit pieces where folks will be able to get their hands on history and really have a chance to experience a bit of the past. I'm incredibly excited to keep working on special programming as well, both for area schools and for the general public. We host a winter speaker series once a month, and I will be giving our next program on November 15th over at the Chinook Senior Center. The talk will cover one of my historical passion-projects I've been researching and following the trail of for years, and is a very overlooked part of Montana History: the Stevens Expedition of 1853. It was the largest expedition sent into the interior US up to that point in time, passed right through the heart of our area, mapped more of Montana than just about anybody else, and yet is almost forgotten today. I was really surprised just how much it shaped the Montana we know today, and I hope the folks attending the talk might come away feeling similar. Until then though, feel free to stop in and say hello or chat about some cool local history any time this winter!