Missoula: Home of High Country Culture

“I am in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection, but with Montana it is love, and it’s difficult to analyze love when you’re in it.”

— John Steinbeck

(Many thanks to Mark Martin for sending this in. – Russ)

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While this was first included in the MATR site in Sept. 2003, we wanted to bring it to your attention again. Great article about a place we love.- Russ

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As the great man of letters learned, the lure of Montana can entrap and befuddle even the biggest brains. Blame it on a high, dry environment that enlarges sky, clariÄes color, and ampliÄes the considerable splendor of mountains, meadows, lakes and streams. It’s easy to succumb to nature’s sensory appeal in a place so vast and wild.

By Colleen Birch Maile Skywest Magazine

That’s what makes Missoula, Montana’s Garden City, such an exquisite anomaly. Don’t get me wrong. You’ll Änd every anticipated Montana asset here—soaring peaks, raging waters, the seemingly endless canopy of sky in a vibrant blue that doesn’t exist on the other side of the Great Divide. Weather is reasonable here, by Montana standards. The growing season is longer; wildÅowers linger. Autumn is spectacular, especially in the wilderness area hugging the city, and along the greenbelt Åanking a gushing river in the heart of town. And it’s not just any river; it’s the A River Runs Through It river. This is the place Norman Maclean immortalized in what may be the best Åy-Äshing story ever written. The author’s boyhood home still stands, in a quaint tree-lined neighborhood, where many of the houses are neatly restored like so much of this thoroughly inspiring city.

While Missoula’s natural attributes are reason enough to visit, even the casual observer senses an uncommon spirit in what, based on geography, should be a typical Rocky Mountain town. Missoula, population 58,000, is more than a three-hour drive from the nearest “large” city, Spokane, Washington. Isolated, surrounded on every side by difÄcult terrain, it is nonetheless, urbane, artistic, hip. Home of the University of Montana, Missoula beneÄts from a college-town exuberance, (especially during football season when Grizzly fans invade for home games), and something more—perhaps its greatest assets are a legacy of quiet accomplishment and citizens positively smitten with their town. Good things tend to happen here.

This is a community where people still live and work and shop downtown. While national chains do preside over the suburban fringe, the heart of the city gives off its own distinct vibe. Books and bagels are as much a part of the scene as lattes and micro-brewed lagers. Step into a shop like ButterÅy Herbs or Rainbows End and suddenly you’re in Berkeley. Browse the unique homeware offerings of Splash and imagine you’re in Manhattan. Amble into the historic Wilma Theater or Florence Hotel and glimpse the grandeur of the city’s enterprising past.

Author and historian Allan James Mathews explains that “this never was a Wild West sort of place.” Despite historic ties to a trading post with the unseemly name of Hellgate, Missoula emerged a bastion of civilization from its earliest days.

Mathews, who until recently served as the city and county historic preservation ofÄcer, now offers guided tours that are an experience in time travel. An accomplished musician and storyteller, Mathews often assumes the persona of Judge Frank Woody, the city’s Ärst mayor. He explains that Missoula occupies a natural crossroads. Its site amid four other valleys at the mouth of a narrow mountain pass made it a gathering place for Native Americans on “the road to the buffalo.” Shortly after Euro-Americans encountered the region, entrepreneurial types recognized the trade route’s advantages, and a commercial center emerged. With the discovery of gold in surrounding communities in the 1860s, business boomed and when railroads began uniting the nation in the late nineteenth century, Missoulians had little difÄculty making a case for their location. The city grew up a railroad town, with our and lumber mills, mercantile stores and a Back-East sensibility. “The founders wanted it to be like the places they came from,” Mathews said, noting that early banker Francis Worden planted maples from his native Vermont in his front yard in 1872.

Mathews so capably weaves tales as he strolls around Missoula’s historic buildings, dishing dirt about madams and murderers, missionaries and moguls, that it’s easy to get lost in the city’s past. Fascinating as it may be, don’t let your adventure stop there. Enjoy Mathews’ tour, then ask for some insight into modern Missoula.

Visit the art museum; stroll through local galleries. Check out the music scene. Most weekends there are half a dozen live acts to choose from at bars and clubs around town. Amble along the greenbelt; cast a line in the Clark Fork.

No matter your age, you must take a ride on the carousel at Caras Park next to the river, downtown. More than a merry-go-round, this is a monument to Missoula spirit. Each of the 38 ponies, three reserve horses, two chariots and an assortment of gargoyles were hand carved by volunteers—many of whom had never whittled so much as a bar of soap before. The brainchild of local carpenter Chuck Kaparich, the carousel took four years to build and involved more than 200 people donating in excess of 100,000 man-hours. These “pony-keepers” also rehabilitated the vintage mechanism that allows the steeds on the outside row to zip along at almost 8 miles per hour. To fund the project, families, businesses, organizations, and schools banded together to “adopt” the horses. Other groups helped foot the $65,000 bill for the band organ (the nation’s largest in continuous use) by “adopting” songs.

Now, volunteers continue to carve, making ponies to auction at fundraisers for other worthy causes. Watch their work in a shop adjacent to the carousel. You can’t help but grin at the generosity of their spirit, and the joy the carousel inspires.

Equally heart-warming is a trip to Missoula’s Children’s Theater—especially when you realize that this homegrown Missoula effort reaches and teaches kids around the world. What began 30 years ago with a troupe of adult actors performing for children, has evolved into an outreach that each year involves more than 55,000 children performing in 900 locations representing all 50 states, Canada, Europe, South America and Asia. A two-person adult team of actors/directors spends two weeks in each place, creating musical performances based on updated classics—Cinderella, Rumpelstiltskin, Treasure Island, with 50-60 local kids as cast members. This year 27 teams take their shows on the road, auditioning, casting, rehearsing, performing with their young progeny—and inspiring children and parents alike.

The company is equally active in its hometown, offering classes and performances for youth all year in the recently renovated school that serves as both headquarters and theater. Take in a show and prepare to be wowed by the kids and the concept.

If more adult fare is to your liking, Missoula does not disappoint. This season, the local community theater company will present a series of hits—beginning in November with Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, also at the children’s theater facility.

Missoula’s untamed environs—it’s just Äve miles from downtown to the Rattlesnake National Recreation Area—make it the logical home for other organizations of national signiÄcance. The Adventure Cycling Association, the nation’s leading member-supported organization dedicated to bicycle travel, is located here amid some of the world’s Änest mountain biking terrain. The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, a conservationist group devoted to preserving habitat for elk and other wildlife is also based in Missoula. So too, the Boone and Crockett Club, a non-proÄt conservation organization founded by Theodore Roosevelt in 1887. It’s headquartered in the castle-like, historic Old Milwaukee train depot. Built in 1910 on a picturesque bend of the Clark Fork of the Snake River, it is among Missoula’s major historic landmarks.

When it comes to signiÄcant links to the past, none surpasses Traveler’s Rest—11 miles southwest of Missoula just outside the tiny town of Lolo. Until a year ago, historians conjectured that the only tangible physical evidence of the Voyage of Discovery still in existence was William Clark’s name crudely carved into a stone pillar near Billings, Montana. They also believed that the creek Meriwether Lewis called Traveller’s (sic) Rest in his diary was located at the conÅuence of the Lolo and Bitterroot Rivers. However, in summer 2002, archeologists found evidence of the Corps’ latrine and central cook Äre at what is now Traveler’s Rest State Park. The emerging facility strives to present interactive, interpretive experiences that bring history to life. A self-guided walking tour makes it easy to get in touch with America’s premiere explorers. This is more than the re-hashing of a familiar story. As Traveler’s Rest Executive Director Loren Flynn explains, “We want this to be a multi-disciplinary experience. A place where people will walk away saying, ‘I didn’t know I’d learn about that.’” Open all year, Traveler’s Rest will ultimately incorporate elements of astronomy, archeology, geology, botany, and Native American arts. Bitterroot (Lewisia) plants, like those that sustained Native Americans for thousands of years, have been re-introduced to the site.

“Remember, Lewis and Clark did not wander into a wilderness. They came into an existing culture that had been going on for thousands of years,” Flynn said.

Like those early adventurers, modern-day visitors encounter a unique culture—one that includes the generous helping of fun, excitement, and discovery that is inimitably Missoula.

Missoula Trivia

• There are more than 370 drinking establishments in this college town, population 58,000.

• In 1812, explorer David Thompson named the valley “Nemissoolatakoo,” from the Salish Indian words for “cold or chilly waters.”

• Missoula is home to Hellgate High School—named for the narrow pass, scattered with human bones, where murderous Blackfeet ambushed gentler Native Americans on their way to the buffalo grounds.

• To live like a local, partake of “brains and eggs” at the Oxford, a 24-hour casino and poker room, on Higgins and Pine. Orders usually pick up after closing time. The specialty is said to cure hangovers before they happen.

• The Missoula Carousel, the community’s present to itself and especially its children, offers free rides on Christmas Day, and on its own “birthday,” the Saturday before Memorial Day.

• A Guide to Historic Missoula, a fast-paced, easy-to-read volume by historian Allan James Mathews, published by the Montana Historical Society Press, recently received an award for excellence from the American Association for State and Local History.

Live Like a Local

City-dwellers, even those living in places as laid-back as Missoula, love their mountain getaways. Seeley Lake, just 50 miles southeast of town, provides the perfect retreat. A lovely trek through lush forest leads to a pair of crystal-clear lakes surrounded by more than a million acres of Flathead National Forest. This is the place to really unwind, Äsh, hunt, hike, or to just rent a cabin or book a room at the Double Arrow Resort which features trail rides, a golf course, and an exceptional nouvelle cuisine restaurant.

The community is also home to the Center at Salmon Lake, an 18,000-sq.-foot lodge, built as a private home and executive retreat, now owned and operated by the University of Montana as an upscale conference center for small groups. Situated on its own island and tricked-out with a plethora of amenities, it comes complete with chef and staff. This is the place to live a rich-and-famous fantasy.

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