Who really owns ‘the last best place’?

The roiling dispute over who owns Montana’s last best slogan spilled over into the Flathead last week when a Whitefish author issued the claim that he coined the phrase "the last best place."

In an e-mail to Gov. Brian Schweitzer, writer and wildlife biologist Douglas Chadwick said he first used the phrase on page 186 of his 1983 book on mountain goats, A Beast The Color Of Winter, where he warned about the use of explosives in seismic explorations for oil and gas in the Bob Marshall Wilderness.

Saying he came from a family of geologists and had done his share of geophysics and logging, Chadwick drew the line around the Bob, saying, "I managed to envision industrializing the Bob. But I couldn’t accept it. Not here. Not in the last, best place."

The governor had announced July 19 that he would campaign against a Las Vegas businessman’s attempt to trademark what has become the unofficial state slogan, taking legal action if necessary.

Chadwick supports the governor’s position.

"I wish us all luck in making sure we don’t go down that road where a writer could one day be sued by some businessman for using a phrase that he, the writer, originally coined," Chadwick said. "It does get a little crazy out there, doesn’t it?"

This is not the first time Montanans have found their literary traditions treated like any other natural resource — seized for a profit. The most egregious example came in the early 1990s when French designer Claude Montana unsuccessfully laid claim to the state’s very name itself.

This time the word-mining assault comes from David E. Lipson, a merchant banker operating out of an office on Howard Hughes Parkway in Las Vegas. Lipson has applied for eight trademarks that would give him exclusive use of the phrase "the last best place."

By RICHARD HANNERS
Whitefish Pilot

Full Story: http://www.whitefishpilot.com/articles/2005/07/28/news/news01.txt