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Marcos Arroyo said there has been a running joke in the Lewis family that he was born to inherit Deer Creek Excavating. "Arroyo" is Spanish for creek, anyway. As of Feb. 20, Arroyo took the helm of Deer Creek Excavating from his father-in-law, Gary Lewis, who took ownership of the company in 1990. Before that, Lewis's brother had the company - then called Wilderness Excavation - for several years. Lewis's father had it as Lewis Excavating prior to that, which was one of two excavating companies...
RV park owners want to share a wastewater system with Seeley Lake and many experts see it as a good option for the town's wastewater challenges. During last month's Seeley Lake Sewer District Board meeting, members heard about a type of wastewater treatment system possible for a new RV park south of Seeley Lake, which was presented as an option for wastewater treatment in Seeley more generally. This system - called a membrane bioreactor, or MBR - has garnered attention in the past couple of...
Protect the Clearwater, a nonprofit based in Greenough, joined other citizen groups in the Jocko Valley, Libby, Paradise Valley, Ennis and Gallatin Gateway to oppose the effects of new open cut mining laws established in 2021. The changes brought about by a 2021 mining law, House Bill 599, removed red tape and streamlined the gravel mine permitting process for applicants. Gayla Nicholson, spokesperson for Protect the Clearwater (PTC), gave an update on the nonprofit's work to stop gravel mining...
Seeley-Swan Search and Rescue were called to assist an injured snowmobile rider on the evening of Feb. 28. The injured 40-year-old man, along with two other people, were located above Marshall Lake. The injured person was in a “tricky spot,” Karl Zurmuehlen — one of the volunteer responders and owner of Kra-Z’s Snow & Water Powersports Rentals in Seeley Lake — said, but the rescue team, which included volunteers Kurt Friede and David Pitman and Search and Rescue member Kelly Darrow, had 40-plus years of experience riding in the area, so they w...
Since our last Pathfinder report, we have traveled the 240 miles from Fort Pierce, Florida to Key West. Along the way, I would estimate we have heard some version of Jimmy Buffet 500 times. Apparently, tourists expect a mind-numbing repetition of "tropical" music, none written in the last 40 years. Don't worry, be happy. I have substituted "cheeseburger" in the Buffet song for "humble pie," as I have made about every goober mistake you can make on a boat. I thought I was quite the docking artist...
Today, March 7, is the commemoration of two early Christian martyrs: Perpetua and Felicity. They were residents of Carthage in North Africa and died in 202 A.D. In that same year, the emperor Septimius Severus forbade conversions to Christianity. Perpetua, a noblewoman, Felicity an enslaved woman, and other companions were all catechumens (preparing for baptism in the Christian faith). They were imprisoned and sentenced to death. In prison they were baptized. Perpetua’s father, who was not a Christian, visited her in prison and begged her to l...
It’s always difficult to say goodbye. Whether it’s to someone we love, a relative, or a close friend. Why is that? The obvious answer is our deep relationship to whom we’re saying goodbye. If we love someone and lose that person to a relationship breakup or death, the feeling of loss is the same. If it’s a close friend, the feeling of loss might be a little different, but saying goodbye remains difficult. Aside from this obvious understanding of loss, what else could be inducing the feeling...
Have you ever been driving Highway 83 and noticed the surface of Salmon Lake rippling with rising fish? It's likely what you were seeing weren't trout, but rather the landlocked version of sockeye salmon called kokanee. These mini salmon have been stocked in the Clearwater chain of lakes for over half a century by Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks to provide recreational fishing opportunities. The story of the Clearwater kokanee is interesting and involves biology, laboratory science and most impor...
The fans were on their feet as the Seeley Lake Elementary Eagles girls basketball A Team won their first home game of the season, second win of the season, on Feb. 28. The Eagles sixth and seventh graders battled the eighth-grade Lolo Lynx taking the lead in the final minutes of the fourth quarter and coming out on top. The first game of the night, the Eagle's B Team fell to the Lolo Lynx 24-40. "We have a very young team with no eighth graders on this year's roster," said Coach Scott Taylor....
Thirty-five years ago ... Thursday March 9, 1989 Writers planning return trip Three national magazine writers were so enamored with the Seeley Swan that they are planning a reunion to return sometime this summer. Cindy Sanguins, who played host to the writers along with her husband, Ron, for the Seeley Lake Driftriders said the writers "loved the winter and now want to come back and see the area in the July summertime." The writers will be publishing stories this fall about Seeley Swan's snowmob...
My fly tying friends are at their vices already. They're tying skwalas - old favorites and some inevitable new ones. They can't help themselves. And they can't help but add too much of this, and a dab of that to their flies. Every flytier in western Montana where the early season skwala stonefly hatch occurs probably has at least one favorite skwala dry fly pattern, a fugitive from the accumulation of wild overdressed experiments gone wrong. Taken together, that scrap heap of abandoned flies...
In 1987, the Seeley Lake Writers Club started a project that two years later — in time for Montana's Centennial — was published as the book "Cabin Fever." This remains the best compilation of articles and interviews of the first 100 years of the Seeley Lake area. One of the key figures in the writers group was Mildred Chaffin. We have read many of the fascinating stories she wrote, but her own life makes for quite a story as well! Mildred was born in Evaro in 1908, back when Evaro seemed to be even more remote from Missoula than it is tod...
