{"id":20792,"date":"2025-03-31T12:13:40","date_gmt":"2025-03-31T16:13:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aleta.life\/?p=20792"},"modified":"2025-04-01T10:50:32","modified_gmt":"2025-04-01T14:50:32","slug":"i-will-live-in-montana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aleta.life\/index.php\/2025\/03\/31\/i-will-live-in-montana\/","title":{"rendered":"I Will Live in Montana\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"
Position: 45\u00b040’46.5″N 111\u00b002’34.9″W<\/a><\/h6>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

With the generous help of our friends Diane and Mark we spent the past month in West Seattle dog-sitting for Gus, and, at their insistence, exploring Bozeman, Montana. They sweetened the deal by letting us use their lovely houses in both places.<\/p>\n

My history with Montana is limited. I passed through it when I was 13 on Amtrak\u2019s Empire Builder. Over the next 40 years I did a couple more crossings by car while visiting family and national parks. Unlike Carol, I had never set foot in Bozeman until this year. It\u2019s a cool place, figuratively and literally. It is where Mark grew up, and we felt like we should treat it with respect. Respect in the guise of doing as much as we could during the day and unwinding at night.<\/p>\n

Montana’s is an outdoor culture. If you\u2019re not working outdoors wrangling steers or sowing wheat, then you should be hiking, skiing, or riding horses. A skosh over a million people live there. That\u2019s about eight people per square mile, or the 48th<\/sup> least densely populated state in the union.<\/p>\n

You might wonder, then, given how few people live there, why is real estate so danged expensive? I asked AI to clarify. It told me inbound migration, particularly from costly places like California and western Washington, comes top of the list. Then, like dominoes, things fall into place. Lots of people with deep pockets move into an area with limited housing stock and high construction costs and, well the ol\u2019 supply\/demand curve ends up working against folks of more modest means. Essentials like petrol and beer are downright cheap compared with Portland or Seattle, but rents are high and that pushes young folks to look elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Environs<\/h6>\n

<\/p>\n

The headwaters of the Missouri River form at the confluence of the Madison and Jefferson Rivers about 30 miles outside of Bozeman. Regardless of how excited you are about geography, imagine this: without the Missouri River carrying Lewis and Clark almost as far as the Continental Divide, America might not have stretched from sea to shining sea. Thomas Jefferson understood the British, via the Hudson\u2019s Bay Company\u2019s fur trading business, had established an economic foothold in the Pacific Northwest. Plausibly, the British might have leaned in and claimed the Oregon Territories for the Crown. Lewis and Clark\u2019s survey confirmed the boundless natural resources of the region and galvanised political interest in making and keeping it part of the newly United States. As you recall, the signing of the Oregon Treaty in 1846<\/a> resolved the conflict.<\/p>\n

Ten miles south of the headwaters, along a dirt road, is Madison Buffalo Jump State Park<\/a>. Here indigenous hunters drove bison over a cliff. As an alternative to puncturing the beasts with spears or arrows, gravity proved much more efficient at providing dinner. Unfortunately, Montana\u2019s state parks demand cash payments and we were out of cash. Weather courses through this low, dun and softly rounded valley. The wind kicked up dust and rippled the shallow waters of the Madison River. At Trapper Springs campground we boldly hiked into the teeth of 40 knot gusts and slashing rain. For almost a half mile. Then we turned around and skipped back to the car before we got soaked through.<\/p>\n

Bozeman<\/h6>\n

\"Gary_Cooper_1926\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Bozeman\u2019s proximity to some of America\u2019s most beautiful natural areas has helped establish it as a tourist destination over the past 200 years. Like a lot of western cities you can see the stepping stones of growth in its architecture. Many houses and notable buildings survive from the late 19th<\/sup> and early 20th<\/sup> centuries.<\/p>\n

Anchored firmly in late Victorian gothic is the Holy Rosary Catholic Church<\/a>, completed in 1908. Head east a half block and squint a bit at the Wells Fargo bank on the corner of Main and Grand and you\u2019ll see echoes of Mies van der Rohe\u2019s Chicago modern. Head east and you\u2019ll bump into the Willson School, actor Gary Cooper<\/a>\u2019s alma mater. Formerly the Gallatin County High School, Fred F. Willson<\/a>, a local architect, gave the original building an art deco makeover in 1936. Fred had a thing for art deco, and he designed a couple dozen government and commercial buildings that give downtown Bozeman an unexpected and welcome break from layer on layer of functional brick. Modern tract homes sit a couple of miles from the city centre, helping preserve its last century charms.<\/p>\n

Recent immigration has refashioned shopping along Main Street. Signs of Californication are everywhere: from Athleta to Lululemon. Elsewhere, fibre-optic cables crank Internet service speeds up to 11. But this is also a university town and there are plenty of bike, hike, ski and hunting stores to serve the needs of anyone wanting to explore the great outdoors.<\/p>\n

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