Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 66
On April 29 the Double Arrow Golf Course in Seeley Lake opened the back nine half of their course for the first time this year and local golfers have been teeing off in droves. “It’s finally sunny and we can get out and golf,” said Chelsea Cahoon, pro-shop manager. “People have been itching to get on the course.” Each day has seen upwards of 60 golfers take the course. They can be seen from Highway 83 driving and putting their way through the fast-moving high-water streams and green grass of...
On Saturday, May 6, the Seeley Lake Fire Department conducted a training exercise for extracting persons trapped in a vehicle after a crash. Firefighters practiced techniques for quickly gaining access to damaged vehicles and safely removing anyone trapped inside. They were training with both old and new equipment such as a "jaws-of-life" which are designed to cut through the metal frame of a car when a person is unable to exit because of damage. The newer equipment, which is said to be...
Every summer, the lakes of Montana are crowded with watercraft from all over the United States and Canada, and with each of those watercraft comes a potential for dangerous contaminants. The most dangerous of those alien contaminants are invasive species of mussels that can lodge themselves into the smallest crevices of boats, anchors, and submerged equipment and be moved from one body of water to another without being noticed but even one mussel can explode into a population large enough to...
Missoula County Elections Office reported the unofficial results from the May 2 election. Results show incumbent Courtney Hathaway received 33% of the votes for the two open positions in the Potomac School Trustee election. She was followed by incumbent Wes Mitchell with 22% and Patrick Brewer with 11%. Five write-ins made up 0.66% of the results. In the election for the two Seeley Lake Rural Fire District Trustees, Susan Monahan came out on top with 29% of the votes, followed by incumbents Rita Rossi with 25% and Scott Kennedy with 19%. There...
Where I’m from we don’t really have any public lands. Much like Europe, New England is all privately owned. The 300 years of land purchasing, developing, and trading has left little unclaimed by some entity or individual. The American East, and especially the colonial region known as New England, has been a part of this nation since long before the concept of communal land occurred to the European settlers. My hometown of Proctor, was originally called Southerland Falls but was renamed when it was purchased by the Proctor family with the int...
SEELEY LAKE- A chimney fire on Morrell Creek Drive prompted a 9-1-1 call at approximately 10 p.m. on Wednesday, April 26. A crew from the Seeley Lake Rural District Volunteer Fire Department was on the scene in less than 10 minutes and had the fire under control almost immediately. “Everybody worked together,” said Fire Chief Dave Lane. “We’ve been pretty successful with our training recently and so everybody was working together and knew what their assignments were and it all came together.” The fire penetrated the attic but didn’t da...
Although Seeley Lake is known as a town for outdoor recreation, it so far has been lacking any accommodation for organized use of motorized vehicles on the trails. “There’s one quarter of one mile of ATV trails,” said Curtis Friede, a local businessman who has been working for years to increase forest access for outdoor recreation vehicles. “There are zero mountain bike trails and zero single track for motorcycles, zero.” The one off-road vehicle that has wide access to the forest lands around Seeley Lake are snowmobiles. While the snow trails...
The first week I started selecting content I remember choosing a public release about a herpes outbreak among horses in the Flathead Valley and thinking “Oh god, I hope that doesn’t end up on the kid’s page.” It didn’t. It ended up below the Passages column. But since that week I’ve been very mindful of what I add to the top of that page. I’ve opted to use stories about public parades or about the schools because I feel that it’s an almost sacred space. Literacy is something sacred to me, and as a writer it is something I want to keep sacred...
Roughly once per month a small film club meets in the hayloft of the Seeley Lake Historic Museum for a curated selection of films with one common theme, a connection to the state of Montana. "We've done writings of a well-known Missoula writer named Dorothy M. Johnson, three of whose books were made into movies," said Tom Browder, who organizes the event and is part of deciding which films to show. Johnson, who was a prolific author of western-themed books, and an instructor at the University...
At the Swan Valley Community Council meeting on April 18, and Librarian Jenny Kauffman presented some updates on services available at the Swan Valley Community Library. The Library which is attached to the Swan Valley Community Hall in Condon is open Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of every week. The shelves are stocked with books, both classic and contemporary, but the library has access to many more books through the inter-library loan system. “We do have a large collection of nonfiction and fiction books for adults and children and we can a...
SEELEY LAKE- Some voters in the area may be missing a ballot question regarding the Fire District Board election. A new voter registration system in use this year lines up voter registration with GIS maps which compare the property with tax-payer information to decide which issues should, or shouldn't be included in each ballot. The new system removed location specific questions from ballots going outside of the eligible area, but it also removed the election question from properties covered by tax assistance programs such as those for...
Seeley Lake Rural Fire District Board candidates sparred in a short open forum discussion at the Seeley Lake Community Council meeting on Monday, April 10. Each candidate was given a short time to introduce themself and explain why they are running for the fire board seat as well as explain a little bit of their platform and proposed changes. "This has been a long-term life commitment to fire and medical because it's one of the ways I give back to the community," said Scott Kennedy, the...
When I was seven years old, my great-grandmother died. I had been told that she was dying, so it wasn’t a sudden event and as my mother sat deeply into her squatting legs in the twilight morning and woke me so many hours before school, I knew what she was going to say. “Grandma Virginia is dead.” I rolled over and cried. I cried for the woman who taught me to crochet; for the frail woman in long dresses whom I remembered from summers in Oklahoma. I cried because I felt that I was supposed to. But the truth about Virginia Tally is more compl...
CONDON- April 5 brought snow showers, but despite the reluctance of spring to come around the Swan Valley Connections hosted their annual Spring Bear Wake Up Social- a potluck and presentation on the local bear population. Birdfeeders, outdoor pet shelters, gardens, and livestock can all attract the attention of a bear as it passes through, but in recent years the main concern for bear management has become chicken coops. "Chickens are the new trash," has become a kind of catch-phrase for the...
A few weeks ago our archives page featured a story about criminal charges filed in 1988 against two individuals who since that brush with the law had become well-loved members of this community before dying tragically and suddenly a year and half ago. As the editor of the Pathfinder I want to apologize for bringing up this dark time in the lives of people who, by all accounts, were wonderful people. But to be clear, our archives are selected randomly by a staff member of the Philipsburg Mail. There certainly wasn’t any malicious intent to t...
Water lines in the Seeley Lake area have been freezing solid quite late this year, but it's not so much from a change in weather as it is from a change in the town's population. Although the Seeley Lake soil has been known to freeze pipes from November to April, the last few years have been especially bad, and the culprit might not be as simple as the weather. According to Vincent Chappell, the district manager for Montana Rural Water Systems (WRWS), the biggest problem affecting local water...
Passover began on Thursday April 6, and the Holy Cross Lutheran in Seeley Lake hosted a Seder Dinner to commemorate the Jewish tradition and recognize its place in Christian belief. The Passover Seder is an annual tradition that marks the beginning of Passover, a week observing the freeing of the Jews from Egyptian slavery and the plagues which God passed down upon the Egyptians to punish them. Passover particularly pays homage to the final plague, when God sent the angel of death to take the...
On Tuesday March 28, the Seeley-Swan High School auditorium became a musical journey through ancient civilizations when students from the Seeley Lake Elementary school performed a theater production of "Dig It" with original humor woven in. The play is a musical written by Roger Emerson and John Jacobsen for production by grades 4-8. It follows two archaeologists, and their excavated skeleton friend, as they travel to various ancient civilizations. The production was led by Janet Morgenstern,...
Despite the lingering winter and subsequent soggy conditions, road work has begun on the stretch of Highway 83 that runs along Salmon Lake. Commuters are advised to expect "minor delays" as crews work from 7 a. m.-7 p. m. Monday-Saturday. Anyone driving southwest should remember to couple these delays with those expected in Bonner. The Highway 83 project is only a small part of a broader plan to update and maintain roads. Work is also scheduled to begin near Swan Lake in the near future. To...
On the morning of February 4 a customer pulled up to the Citizens Alliance Bank in Seeley Lake and found it covered in spray paint, vandalized, and damaged. Police inspected the machine and gathered what little evidence was there, but the culprits had spray painted over the cameras as well and according to some sources they had obscured identifying markings on their vehicle. Although they had obviously put some planning into the ATM robbery scheme, they never managed to access any of the cash...
Three Seeley-Swan High School students will be presenting their own original business plans at the Business Professionals of America (BPA) national competition this year. The BPA holds annual competitions for high school students across the nation to create and present business plans and receive feedback from business professionals in order to learn more about entrepreneurship, business administration, and many other aspects of how businesses operate. Students present before a panel of judges...
The Montana Department of Transportation hosted an open house for public comment and questions about the upcoming Highway 83 construction at Salmon Lake. Engineers for MDT and Kiewit were present to explain what work is planned for the two-lane route that snakes along the hill ridge next to the lake. The proposed work is only a small part of a large plan to renovate major roads in the area, and because of a prolonged winter it's already facing probable delays. "We hope to get in there [at the]...
The Seeley Lake Elementary School board consented to a proposed levy at a meeting last Wednesday, March 15, before discussing issues of staffing, hiring, and a staff complaint involving unclear contract language. The board voted in support of enacting a general operating fund levy for 2024 in the amount of $23,864.86 which will annual taxes on a $100,00 home by $3.21. and $6.43 for a $200,00 home. The levy will be on the ballot in May. Janet Morgenstern submitted a letter of resignation. Morgenstern spoke about her resignation from the...
Spring is here and so are the Girl Scout cookies. The Seeley Lake Troop #3436 which is only in its second year of activity had a mildly successful year of orders this winter compared to last year, but according to troop leader, Chantel Lynch, they expect to make the most of their sales at the in-person booths over the coming weeks. “We got more for the booths because that’s what we’re expecting more this year - people buying from the booth instead of individuals,” Lynch said. She attributes the dip in sales to people still having some boxes l...
