Hands of Harvest booklet maps cultural spots, art and craft stops

Not the highways but the byways of rural northcentral Montana have been mapped out for tourists looking for the local arts, crafts and services of the area.

The Hands of Harvest program mapped and described more than 100 cultural spots on five specific, rural tours through northcentral Montana.

By MARK DOWNEY
Tribune Staff Writer

http://www.greatfallstribune.com/news/stories/20040606/localnews/587313.html

An upscale booklet was published for visitors with details on participants, which include small town and rural art and craft makers, museums, bed and breakfasts, historic hotels, museums and other institutions.

To name a few, there’s Bless My Buttons in Fort Benton, Pilot Rock Trail Rides in Big Sandy, Marinkovich Art near Havre, Henry’s Miniature Farm in Cut Bank, Sun Tours in East Glacier Park, and the Buckeroo Coffeehouse and Eatery in Choteau.

Artist and longtime Box Elder teacher Tom Marinkovich said he was included in the program after he was contacted by organizers from Big Sandy.

"I would be hoping for some traffic, for some faces coming in to the gallery," Marinkovich said of his expectations from the program.

"It’s a grassroots effort to help the rural areas of northcentral Montana diversify and expand their economic situation," one of the organizers, Cindy Kittredge, executive director of the Cascade County Historical Society, said.

The project is based on a similar program developed in North Carolina called Handmade in America.

After eight years, a study there showed that that project helped increase revenue to rural participants by 27 percent, she said.

Travel Montana and the Montana Arts Council are highly interested in Hands of Harvest, she said.

"They think that it will help even out tourist traffic and spread the benefits rather than having it concentrated in certain areas, she said.

A recent Travel Montana newsletter describes the program:

"Hands of Harvest relies on joint partnerships and collective efforts to create, market and distrubute Montana crafts and services. The organizers and volunteers behind the program want to live in and create sustainable communities, celebrate their cultural heritage, and steward their cultural landscape."

These are the five northcentral Montana tours mapped out by Hands of Harvest:

# The Three Rivers Loop starts in Great Falls and continues west to Augusta, south to Wolf Creek and back to Great Falls.

# The Peaks and Plains Loop is from Vaughn to Conrad, west to U.S. Highway 89 near Bynum and south through Choteau and Fairfield to Sun River.

# The Foothills Loop is from Conrad to Shelby over through Cut Bank and Browning and south through Depuyer and back to Conrad.

# The Cottonwood Trail is from Great Falls, includes Highwood, and through Carter, Fort Benton and on to Havre.

# The Great Northern Trail traverses the Hi-Line from Shelby east through Chester and Havre to Chinook, Fort Belknap and ends in Dodson.

Hands of Harvest has been in the making since February 2002, according to Cindy Kittredge, executive director of the Cascade County Historical Society in Great Falls.

Then, Montanans met with Becky Anderson of Handmade in America and representatives of the National Trust for Historic Preservation to learn more about cultural tourism and what it can mean to rural communities.

Members of the Hands of Harvest steering committee are Havre native Vicki Warp, now of Missoula; Kittredge; Wendy Wedum who is from Choteau; Joni Stewart from Cut Bank; Sharalee Smith of Fort Benton; Todd Lehman of Highwood; Lorrie Merrill of Big Sandy; Jan Boyle of Simms; John Warner of Sun River; Janet Christenot and Patty Aaberg of Chester; Ruth Burleigh of Chinook; Elaina Zempel of Conrad, Randy Hanson of Havre; Anne Wiens, Randi Lenhardt and Jamie Vowell, all of Shelby, and Jessica Hunter Larson of Great Falls.

Hands of Harvest has printed 10,000 brochures for tourists.

The detailed, Hands of Harvest book is available for $12.

To order it: call Wendy Wedum at the Cascade County Extension Service at 454-6980 or the High Plains Heritage Center at 452-3462.

To learn more

For more information on Hands of Harvest or to get the guidebook, call Wendy Wedum at 454-6980 or Cindy Kittredge at 452-3462.

Downey can be reached by e-mail at [email protected] or by calling (406) 791-1464 or (800) 438-6600.