Tue, 07/15/2014 - 15:07

Ron Joseph

There’s a lot to like about Montana. With so much to offer, I’ve returned to the Treasure State for the second time in nine months. Montana is ideal for those who enjoy tall mountains, short-grass prairies, world-class trout fishing rivers, mountain biking, wilderness hiking, C.M Russell’s art, the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, and western history prominently featured on colorfully worded highway markers.

In Montana, trailering drift boats behind pick-up trucks is as common as transporting kayaks on vehicles in Midcoast Maine. While Maine boasts no shortage of kayak waters, Montana boasts no shortage of trout fishing waters. The Gallatin River, I was surprised to learn today, supports 3,000 trout per river mile.

I was also pleasantly surprised to learn that Montana embraces its history like no state in the western U.S. Fancying myself as a history buff, I frequently stop to read highway historic markers. Clearly, as demonstrated in numerous advertising and educational signs, Montana also has a keen sense of humor.

Below are a few favorites, ones that begged to be photographed.

This straightforward sign can be seen on the edge of Glacier National Park. A ranger informed me that this and many other identical signs were erected in the late 1980s, following a 1985 Burlington Northern Train derailment that spilled hundreds of tons of corn. Work crews tried cleaning up the corn spill. However, do to the steepness of the terrain, tons of corn couldn't be removed. Grizzly and Black bears were frequently spotted gorging on the corn.

"For grizzly bears it was like dying and going to heaven," said District Ranger Allen L. Christophersen.

Eleven grizzly bears at any one time were seen feeding on piles of corn. So blissfully content was one grizzly that it laid on its side and scooped corn into its mouth until it could eat no more. Then, the bear promptly took a nap.

By spring of 1987 the corn had fermented, and officials began receiving reports about bears getting drunk from eating the spoiled spillage. Bears were observed staggering into campsites and along paved roads, both of which were eventually closed to separate people from bears. Wildlife biologists figure that even when the last kernels of corn are eaten, hauled off by crews, or rotted into compost, bears will remember and visit the scene each spring just to double check. This will likely go on for as long as grizzly bears live, which is about 25 years. As a result, Bear Beware Signs popped up like mushrooms on the boundary of Glacier N.P.

The Fort Maginnis Historical Marker is located 20 miles east of Lewistown, Montana. It is one of 115 Montana highway historical markers. A brainchild of Montana state highway engineer Robert Fletcher in 1930, the signs are as educational, charming and humorous today as when the first one was erected in 1931.

The Fort Maginnis historic marker enlightens motorists of the state’s colorful history with a dose of humor: “There were also a number of palefaced parties who were handy with a branding iron and prone to make errors as to ownership of their neighbors’ cattle. Such careless souls were known as rustlers. Sometimes cattlemen called on these pariahs with a posse and intimated that they were unpopular with the hangman’s noose. Usually such a visitation cured a rustler or two permanently.”

During a 1937 interview, Fletcher said, “The story they [highway markers] tell is pepped up a little for people who are human and don’t take themselves too seriously.”

If Montana permitted nonresidents to nominate the state’s best sign, I’d recommend Mentzer’s Used Cow Lot sign. There are 2.6 million head of beef cattle in Montana, which translates to about three head of cattle for every human in the state. With that many cattle, there’s a market for older cows and nine-month-old calves. Mentzer’s specializes in selling both. The manager of a convenience store across the street from Mentzer’s said, “That’s gotta be the most popular sign in Montana. If I charged every tourist like you a dollar for parking in my lot to photograph that sign, I could have retired many years ago.”

The Bozeman Pass historical marker highlights one of the most significant events in Montana history. On July 13, 1806, Captain William Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition wrote in his journal, "[T]he indian woman [Sacajawea] who has been of great Service to me as a pilot through this Country recommends a gap in the mountain more south which I shall cross." Previously, at Travelers' Rest, Captain Lewis and Clark rested their men, named the Corps of Discovery by President Thomas Jefferson, for two days in a meadow along a branch of the Bitterroot River. There, in a potentially dangerous decision, they divided the Corps of Discovery into separate parties. Sacagawea was with Clark's group, and as they ventured back southward into her Shoshone homeland where she had been kidnapped as a 12-year-old by a group of Hidatsa Indians, she began to recall landmarks and trails. The most important one, an "old buffalo road," was a shortcut to the Yellowstone River, which was Clark's destination. On July 15 the party took this route, which would later be known as Bozeman Pass.

Along the Yellowstone River in Livingston, Montana (photo above), about 15 miles west of Bozeman Pass, is where many historians believe that Sacajawea, Clark, and members of the Corps of Discovery camped one night. The following day, in dugout canoes made from cottonwood trees, they drifted downriver to rendezvous with Lewis 19 days later at the confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers in western North Dakota.

Ron Joseph is a retired Maine wildlife biologist.