Two weeks ago I and my family spent a
few days in Montana. The state has an overwhelmingly popular
reputation compared to, say, Arkansas, Delaware, North Dakota or West
Virginia. I absolutely love the place even though I don't think I
would want to live there permanently (because I hate snow), but what
a perfect place to summer visit! My Japanese wife commented that the
Montana people seem more friendly and sincere and down-to-earth than
the wanna-be kooks and kreeps from the Portland, Oregon area.
Indeed, I shook hands – with trust – with a few Montanans, the
first time I touched skin with strangers in over three months, and I
guess I really do miss that social contact.
I had zoomed through Montana once
before, about 20 years ago, on a fast road trip to elsewhere,
so in a sense this recent trip was my first “real” visit to the
state. The primary purpose was to pick up and return to home my
17-year-old daughter who was staying for a few weeks in Helena with
her best friend, a sweet, good-looking but vulnerable black girl who
certainly became a fish out of water when her parents dragged her
from Oregon to live in all-white Montana. I won't comment on that
further, however. Since I was going to be in Montana anyway, my wife
and I developed an itinerary that would mark it as a “business
trip,” i.e. a tax write-off.
Montana – Spanish for
“mountains” or “mountainous lands” – is known as the
“Treasure state,” maybe because its motto is Oro y Plata,
Spanish for “gold and silver.” Just over one million souls live
within its confines, the fourth largest state in size (145,392 square
miles) behind only Alaska, Texas and California. I like that the
state animal is the Grizzly Bear, the bird is the
Western Meadowlark, the fish is the Blackspotted Cutthroat
Trout, the tree is Ponderosa Pine and fantastically, the state
fossil is Maiasaura, the Duck-Billed Dinosaur. Also, rather
quirkily, certain areas or towns are known for other facts,
characteristics or endeavors: as in caverns for the
south-central Bighorns, artists for the Blackfoot Valley, pray
for Yellowstone Big Ranch etc. But what's the connection with bike
rides for Whitefish, or a Week of Hope or Buzzing Honey
for the Flathead Valley? Arlee too has Buzzing Honey, as well
as Drum Circles. Bozeman is similarly Abuzz with Honey,
but additionally Bozeman, Missoula and Great Falls are famous for
Roller Derby. I don't get the Neon Signs, though, for
what has that electricity got to do with hillbilly Sheldon, Chinook,
Butte, Big Timber, Miles City or Great Falls? Plus, a number of
places promote Bouldering where one apparently scrambles atop
rocks (either inside or outside) as a form of exercise, recreation or
as some research for stone spirituality. Hmm...call me dull,
but I don't really want to buzz or hum or drum, as I am adverse to
most types of formal spirituality. Anyway, if you are into any of
this type of information you can learn more at
www.distinctlymontana.com/whywelivehere.
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| Bibler Gardens |
Our first stop in Montana was in
Kalispell, a town of 24,000 people in the northwest corner of the
state. Bibler Gardens was our destination, a private arboretum built
on a hillside above the town, and the late “Sam” Bibler left it
well-endowed and thriving since his death in 2002. The garden is open
to the public from time to time, but not in June, so I was especially
honored that Director Tyler Hawk and Curator Jeanie Teausant allowed
us in and showed us around. Old Bibler made his fortune with gas and
oil and he loved gardening and the outdoors. Plants and lots of money
make a perfect combination, and I'm sorry that I could never have met
him.
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| Acer palmatum 'Ukigumo' |
Jeanie, Tyler and I chatted about
plants as we walked around, about what grows well in Kalispell and
what struggles. They had four Acer palmatum cultivars which have
survived because they are planted next to a building and given extra
winter protection, while all others planted elsewhere have since
perished. However, sometimes a harsh environment leads to more
brilliance in foliage color, and I was amazed that Acer palmatum
'Ukigumo' was more white than I have ever seen. One of the hybrids of
Acer palmatum x Acer pseudosieboldianum ('Northern Glow'
maybe?) was thriving, however, and indeed two different cultivars of
the cross were available at a Kalispell garden center (Hoopers).
Tyler mentioned that winter
temperatures at Bibler had not (negatively) exceeded -10 F in quite a
few years, whereas Jeanie lives 20 miles away where it has. But it's
not so much how cold it gets – for most palmatum cultivars
are listed as hardy to -20 F – but rather how it gets cold.
Kalispell's temperature fluctuations can be the death knell
for many ornamentals and the Rocky Mountain states are infamous as a
gardener's nightmare.
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| Abies koreana 'Ice Breaker' |
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| Abies koreana 'Ice Breaker' |
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| Picea abies 'Pendula' |
One design scheme that caught my
attention was a backdrop of about five Picea abies 'Pendula', the
“Weeping Norway spruce,” which diligently attended to more dwarf
conifers in the foreground. Another time I walked past an Abies
koreana cultivar, but no label identified it. It was an irregular
upright with very short recurved needles. They had an A.k.
'Silberlocke' displayed in the garden, but this little specimen was
something else, a cultivar I couldn't identify. I was shocked when
Jeanie eventually referred to it as 'Kohout's Ice Breaker', for the
needles were only ¼ the size of mine in Oregon. It didn't glitter as
spectacularly as those grown at the Flora Wonder Arboretum, but still
theirs looked completely healthy. As you can see in the photo the
Bibler tree had produced cones, and I reflected that I had never seen
cones before on any of the Abies koreana witch's broom cultivars, and
I'll certainly plead with them to receive some seed this fall.
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| Hooper's Garden Center |
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| Conrad Mansion |
We bade farewell to the kind folks at
Bibler Gardens, and after a quick stop at Hooper's Garden Center
(remember: “business trip”) I toured the grounds at Kalispell's
Conrad Estate, where apparently some of my plants were waiting to be
planted this fall thanks to the Bibler connection. We couldn't enter
the mansion as it was past closing time, but I was able to walk
around the landscape because it is now city property. Alicia Conrad
Campbell donated the estate to Kalispell in 1974, and though that was
a kind gesture, she was probably relieved that someone else was then
responsible to tend to the bushes and mow the lawn. In fact, the
property had gone into disrepair and it was the good Sam B. who
helped to recue it, becoming the first president of the Board of
Directors. Alicia and her husband moved into a trailer on a corner of
the property, and after much financial hardship the city accepted her
gift...with the condition that no taxpayer money be used to support
it.
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| Bitterroot Salish |
Kalispell is a spread-out city, as if
land is easy to come by and no one needs to feel crowded. I reflected
that if the same-size area was in India there would be a few million
people atop of each other. The name Kalispell is a Bitterroot Salish
(Native American) word meaning “flat land above the lake.” The
lake in question – the Flathead Lake – is huge, and it is the
largest natural freshwater lake in the western USA. K. is only 31
miles from Glacier National Park which we hoped to explore the
following day, but as it was cold and raining I had my doubts if the
roads would be open. In hindsight I felt pretty dumb because on the
19th of June in any year the park is probably still piled
with snow.
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| Helena Capitol Building |
We abandoned all Glacier plans and
instead headed southeast to the capital city of Helena. Besides
picking up my daughter I felt compelled to see the capitol building
which would be fairly easy to find in relatively small Helena
(population 32,315). One denizen pointed east and said, “I think
it's over that way.” He was right and I spotted it from a few
blocks away...glowering upon an incline, smudged under a layer of
depressing soot. One can imagine a multitude of dirty deals going
down within its walls, but I had no interest to enter. Helena was
inadvertently founded by four men from Georgia. They had been all
over western Montana looking for gold with no success, but on July
14, 1864 they decided to take one last chance in mining the nearby
creek. They lucked out, found gold and named the stream,
appropriately, Last Chance Gulch. When word got out Helena became a
boomtown and soon housed over 3,000 souls. The “Gulch” name
didn't stick and the young town was renamed “Crabtown” after one
of the four Georgians. No one really liked that name either, and
Pumpkinville and Squashtown were also used. Since many of the miners
were from Minnesota they preferred to name it after Minnesota's Saint
Helena, and the shortened version remains in use today. My daughter
concedes that Montana is a beautiful state and that Helena is
attractive enough, but she reports that there's absolutely nothing to
do and she would become a drug addict if she was forced to live
there. She worked with her friend in a crepe shop making and serving
the cheap, sugary confectionery, and her take-home pay for three full
days was $137, with quite a few other dollars going back into the
state's economy.
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| The Gallatin River |
We didn't stay even an hour in Helena,
instead zooming at a fast speed southwest to Big Sky, a tourist boom
town, poised an hour away from the western entrance into Yellowstone
National Park. The Big Sky developers boast that the new town is an
R-Destination: “come
Recreate,
Relax,
Rejuvenate and
Return home
Refreshed.” A van
loaded with noisy brats arrived as we were checking into our hotel
and they overran the lobby with no pretense of sobriety or social
distancing. After driving so much I was anxious to leave the hotel
and an easy hike to Ousel Falls was just a mile away. Haruko and I
took our time on the trail while our daughters chose the hotel's
heated outdoor sauna and pool. My youngest (14) reported later that a
45-year-old pervert was in the pool
with his wife, yet he kept
staring at her sister. I said that I would too, but that I'm more
subtle and careful to not get caught. That disgusted my daughter so I
changed the topic back to our hike. The southern Montana forest was
lush and beautiful and the snow was completely gone. Ousel Falls is
named for the Ousel bird (Cinclus mexicanus), commonly known as the
American Dipper, and the river forming the falls is the South Fork of
the West Fork of the Gallatin River. The Gallatin River, along with
the Jefferson and the Madison, converge near Three Forks, Montana to
form the Missouri. The Gallatin was named by Meriwether Lewis for
Albert Gallatin, U.S. Treasure Secretary from 1801-1814, and parts of
the movie
A River Runs Through It were filmed on the Gallatin.
These days I don't observe the fly-fishing religion although I used
to fish as a kid. When my daughter asked me about my fishing history
I replied that I used to fish for beautiful women...until I caught my
wife. “Ha to that,” said my 17-year-old, “now all you fish for
is compliments.”
I wanted to leave early the next
morning for Yellowstone but nothing is more problematic than waking
two teenage girls who stay up too late with their telephones and
distant boyfriends. They were crabby at the get-go but soon enough
fell into peaceful slumber. They were still sleeping in the car while
Haruko and I were waiting with half of America for Old Faithful to
erupt. H. called them to hurry up or they would miss it and they
finally arrived with just seconds to spare, but Miss 17 declared it a
“non-event” anyway. Later I had them trapped in the car and I
felt it incumbent to explain a little thermal geology, but they
groaned as if I was the family dentist. The English word geyser
is derived from the Icelandic Geysir, for one specific hot
spring, and it means “The gusher” from Old Norse geysa “to
gush,” and that from the PIE root gheu “to pour.” Even
Haruko grew weary of my lecture so I became a silent old man, alone
with his thoughts. At one point a half dozen cars were parked
randomly along the road and everyone was looking down into a meadow.
I detected a solo large gray canine, and a mangy coyote it was not,
so it must have been a wolf, which were recently reintroduced into
Yellowstone; my first wolf encounter ever. With no good place to park
I slowly drove off. But...a wolf, how about that!
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| Old Faithful |
While we waited at Old Faithful for the
erection...err, the eruption, I imagined that every
married couple snickered about the reliability of Mr. Geyser. Haruko
wandered off and chatted up a middle-aged park ranger who forlornly
mentioned that – in Haruko's interpretation – in five years the
entire Park would explode and that “nothing here today would then
remain, it would all be gone.” H. was appalled at the horrific
prognosis, “Honey, the park man said that we will melt into
oblivion in just five more years. Honeeeey... the world is gunna end
in just five years! – and I just barely got to know you.” “Ok,
dear, he really didn't say that we're all goners in five years, but
that the cataclysm could occur in the next five minutes, or in
five years, or in the next five thousand years...from now. We just
don't know, and he certainly doesn't either, so don't worry about
it.” Nevertheless Haruko fretted about her children, the cat and
dog, and that she might never become a grandmother. I don't know, but
I'm not even certain that our world will be around in five years
anyway.
National Parks are incredible places
and each one has its own unique identity. Yellowstone is a veritable
Disneyland of flora, fauna and geology, plus you get pristine rivers
and a huge sky. The park had lots of tourists but was fortunately
devoid of Chinese and Europeans during our visit. I guess that was
one small Covid 19 blessing, but sadly the magnificent lodge at the
Old Faithful village was locked up. I felt great the minute I entered
the park because the pleasant attendant greeted me with a smile and
waved me on when she saw my senior pass. After all I have contributed
millions of tax dollars and I feel that I certainly deserve a red
carpet as well as free admission.
We spent only one day at Yellowstone
and left in the evening of a most memorable day. The final encounter
was a solo bison standing next to the road, and was it possible that
he winked goodbye at me?
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| Old Buchholz with Miss 17 |
