Opinion / A Place For All
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Noxious weeds and the environment: A bigger picture
Although anyone who knows me knows that I'm a "certifiable" botany and native plants nerd, I love everything nature. In particular, I share a love of birds with one of my sisters. On a trip together...
The Seeley-Swan valley real estate markets are red hot
HOW WE GOT HERE Between the years of 1970 and 2001, the Seeley-Swan Valley real estate market was a consistent market demonstrating slow upward trends in values and sales. Land sales in 2000 were between $2,000 and $4,000 per acre. Beginning in the...
Getting started in the garden
To the right is a picture of my garden on March 1! It's not looking very promising right now! But by month's end, we will see the beginnings of this summer's garden. Late March – early April is the...
CRC establishes a "Place for All" despite Covid-19
The beginning of March has teased us with a little taste of spring. We've been treated to temperatures in the forties, hours of sunshine, and clear skies providing crisp views of the Swan Mountain...
Public access and wildlife connectivity maintained
Before the pandemic, 2019 saw Glacier National Park host more than three million visitors. In 2020, Montana's housing market boomed, with a recent Housing Heat Index report from Bankrate ranking the...
Answering frequently asked questions about outdoor burning
This past winter and fall we measured more smoke at the Seeley Lake air quality monitor than we have for several years. Since Oct. 1, there have been 11 days when smoke pollution exceeded the National Ambient Air Quality Standard. While smoke from wo...
Thinking like a beaver: A BDA primer
In the first snow of October 2018, along Basin Creek outside of Butte, Montana, I volunteered to be a beaver. Or, lacking all the right anatomy, I at least tried to think and act how nature's best...
Living and heating with propane
As we all know, living here in Western Montana comes with the challenge of ever-changing weather and temperatures. We all know the saying, “If you don’t like the weather in Montana, wait five minutes”. With so many variables to consider when...
Conversations around water
If you've been around in the Blackfoot long enough, there's a good chance you've heard the words "Murphy right" or "Milltown right" thrown around. If you're an irrigator in the watershed, you've...
Considering purchasing a vacation rental?
Last year's fast-paced real estate market changed our local vacation rental environment drastically. Many of our area's long-standing vacation rentals were sold and are no longer available to area...
Closing a chapter and welcoming the next
As we welcome the New Year, The Nature Conservancy was glad to end the last one with some good news. On Christmas Eve, we finalized another sale of more than 12,000 acres of land to the U.S. Forest Service. Together with a previous sale, more than...
Double Arrow Ranch - Facts, figures and a little history
Double Arrow Ranch has been a part of the Seeley Lake community for 48 years. It continues to see new construction and undeveloped lots change hands. This past year over 60 property transactions...
Get outside, be active for the health of it
Some of you were lucky enough to have been born here, in the gorgeous Crown of the Continent and the bridge between two of the most awe-inspiring parks in the entire country. Some of you discovered...
Love, war and State Parks
What do Montana's 55 different state parks mean to you? Montana residents who do not regularly visit our state parks may not realize just how beneficial the state park system is in their communities...
The marathon of collaboration
Have you ever had an idea that could benefit more than just you? Maybe it is something you love to do and want to share it, maybe you've seen it done in another community, or maybe you've even tried...
The open and sustained circuit of life
"Land, then, is not merely soil; it is a fountain of energy flowing through a circuit of soils, plants and animals. ... The circuit is not closed; ... but it is a sustained circuit, like a slowly...
Launching the battle against fragrant water-lily
The word on the street in the Seeley-Swan is that the Missoula County Weed District may grab the bull by the horns and implement management tactics to control the prolific aquatic invader. Common...
Letters from a Swan Valley homesteader
This is the second USVHS article about Henry Thomason, an early-day Upper Swan Valley settler who wrote a series of letters to his family in the Midwest documenting life as a homesteader in the early...
Letters from a Swan Valley homesteader
Beginning with a trip out west to Polson in 1913 to later homesteading in the Upper Swan Valley, early-day settler Henry Thomason wrote a series of hand-written letters to his family in the Midwest...
Making progress in spite of COVID
When COVID-19 first popped up in the news, we weren't too worried it would affect us here in Seeley Lake. Then it became a pandemic and things changed. We urged our employees to follow all...
Self-preservation: Taking better care of ourselves
While sitting on the back porch, soaking up the warm fall sunshine, contemplating the benefits of a good growing season, little did we know that we would be lead, a few short days later, to grapple with a cruel twist of frigid cold and falling snow....
Effectively treating fuels at the neighborhood level
Wow! A record 16 inches of snow and -19 degrees in October. We must be in Montana! Wildfires are now far from our thoughts as we bundle up after still being in tee shirts only a couple of weeks ago. With our climate extremes, we know that another...
Seeley-Swan real estate - What just happened?
2020 REAL ESTATE SALES IN THE VALLEY WILL BREAK RECORDS As we all started to hear a little bit, then a lot about COVID-19 in March and April. The US economy appeared to be in for a big fall. When local state and county - imposed lockdowns began to oc...
Protecting grizzly country near the Gateways to Glacier
Grizzly bears are highly intelligent, but as far as we know they can't read maps. When a bear living in Glacier National Park sets out in search of food or a mate, it doesn't know when it crosses the...
Strong relationships built through weed management
The mission of the Blackfoot Challenge is "to coordinate efforts to conserve and enhance natural resources and the rural way of life in the Blackfoot watershed for present and future generations." A...
