Category: Cultural critique
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Our internal Yaak
Diffidence. That’s the nicest thing I can say about the ocean of trees, 5500 foot ridges, and 3000 foot valleys that stretches from the Flathead to the Cabinets, the Kootenai to the Clarks Fork. In half a dozen years living on the eastern shore I made a handful of excursions into and across the green…
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The grand Helena brewery tour
Montana brewery laws take some getting used to. The Kafka-ishiousness does not approach Utah levels, and the peculiarity has quite inadvertently given birth to an institution which adds a lot to a quiet, family-centric, even staid city like Helena. Before recent beer and pretzel adventures are further discussed, some juridical background is in order. In…
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Bob Open 2018; what is the point
This is how all those other people experience backpacking. A thought that echoed through my skull with each step, achilles and calves and quads miles beyond tender and enduring the powdery downhills, sprinked with edged loose running rocks only because of the trailhead and car and beer and fast way out waiting, 3 miles further.…
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Boycott Colorado?
Boaters, fisherfolks, and anyone interested in the subtleties of US public land law will know that stream access laws in the western US vary enormously from state to state. It is worth considering, especially in the age when the “non-consumptive” side of the outdoor industry is finally flexing political muscle, why the issue of stream…
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My best time of year
At work we have three recesses a day. The kindergartners would not mind another, and from a no-window office my sense of the how the day evolves is generally driven by these three openings, which together add up to just short of 90 minutes. Some days I hardly make it out of my cave, and…
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Bar of Montana: Metals
Montana is not entirely a culinary wasteland. I can name three truly exceptional bakeries west of Bozeman Pass, and our effete little slice of Heaven here in the Queen City has two outstanding locations for real pizza. However, you can count the number of good Mexican restaurants in FWP regions 1 through 4 combined on…
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Great Nature
There are occasions, weekly, when the weight of my professional life demands of me nothing other than escapism. This, least I forget who I am entirely. Beer is instrumental here, just like coffee, each morning, noon, and night. The world without can be horrid and in proportion to how I would alter it but cannot,…
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When bow hunting isn’t anymore
Bow hunting has been on a slow march towards it own obsolescence. The Garmin Xero bow sight is the best example yet of this trend, both in archery hunting and hunting generally. The debate over this product has been heated, though not vociferous, and like any particular item the particulars are less important than their…
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Pushing the next button
On a few occasions last year I mentioned that, over the past decade, my happiness had generally correlated with the volume of activity, which had in turn tended to spawn more frequent and especially longer writings here. More interest has almost always meant more words. Thankfully, this is has ceased to be the case, as…
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Guns and schools in the era of Trump
Today something entirely unexpected happened. Since last spring I’ve been a therapist in a local elementary school, something that is harder to explain than it should be. For one, I don’t work for the school district, I work for a non-profit which contracts with the school district to place myself and a partner in the…
Bedrock & Paradox 
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