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Meeting under the Boot Tree outside of Ovando, tour participants looked through a forest managed for health and wildlife habitat on the Blackfoot Community Conservation Area. Abundant grass grew amongst trees with up to six foot diameter trunks and visibility up to 100 yards. Soon the tour caravaned to the perimeter of the Type One treatment unit. Visibility through the forest was limited at the edge of the road as the sunlight was strangled by a dense screen of ladder fuels. As part of the...
Some of the only known Swiss Valais Blacknose sheep in Montana live in Potomac on the ranch of Marin and Brad Hall. "I was taken with the breed when a coworker showed me their picture," Marin said. "Then my cousin and I were daydreaming about the sheep and the idea got born to develop a small flock." Margie Chritton from Seeley Lake, Marin's cousin and business partner, thought learning about the sheep business would help her transition from New York City life to rural Montana. Two foundation...
Parents across the Seeley-Swan and Blackfoot Valleys got a sigh of relief last week as the 2023-2024 school year officially kicked off. With more than 250 students in Seeley, Condon, Potomac and Ovando, some new faces and projects will mark what educators hope will be a successful semester. Seeley Swan High School, Swan Valley School and the Helmville School were too busy teaching to comment for this story by press time. Seeley Lake Elementary Students are returning back to Seeley Lake Elementary with a big list of items for the fall,...
As Montana students head back into the classroom for another year of school, our education system is facing multiple challenges. There’s an ongoing teacher shortage in many districts, particularly the more rural parts of the state. Test scores and achievement metrics are still behind where they need to be following years of academic disruption caused by Covid lockdowns. There’s been an under-emphasis on career readiness in the K-12 to college pipeline for decades, and employers are struggling to find workers with necessary skills. Parents are...
Health care policy is a perennially hot topic, and with good reason—it’s about the welfare of the people and how the nation takes care of its most vulnerable. When it comes to health care, few programs have been as transformative as Medicare Advantage, a public-private initiative that provides high-quality, low-cost health care for seniors and people with disabilities. In health care, consumer choice is paramount. While original Medicare offers a one-size-fits-all model that might not be optimal for every senior, Medicare Advantage plans provid...
Languages and words have always fascinated me. The way one word in one language is not easily translatable in another language. The way words are not merely words. The way we communicate with more than our speech or our writings. In high school and college the Spanish language held my attention. In seminary it was Greek and Hebrew. Creole when traveling to Haiti; Norwegian when traveling to Norway. I have come to understand that language is more so much more than words. This was made even more clear to me recently when listening to the Irish...
It was a cold, rainy June back in the 70s when I and other members of the Rustics log home company assembled the logs for what would become the Hungry Bear Restaurant in Condon. Many fond memories since—I brought my now wife Pam there in 1982 to show the city girl Montana, only to have my Rustics coworker Tuffy Anderson say “I like her better than the last one you dragged in here.” The Hungry Bear has endured the many decades with different owners, a significant expansion, and evolving gastronomic emphases. Current owners Rick Medeiros and Deb...
8/25/2023 Medical Moose Lane 8/26/2023 Medical Hauser Drive 8/27/2023 Medical Highway 83 8/28/2023 Medical Highway 83 8/28/2023 Medical Moose Lane 8/28/2023 Accident injury 12 MM/Highway 83 8/29/2023 Accident Injury 17 MM/Highway 83 8/30/2023 Illegal Fire Cotton Wood Lake 8/30/2023 Wildland Fire Evergreen Drive...
8/25 10:17 a.m. Suspicious Activity 3XX Lodge Way, Seeley Lake 8/25 11:50 a.m. Offenses Against Family/Children 430XX Blanchard Court, Greenough 8/25 1:08 p.m. Accident - Injury 394XX Highway 83, Condon 8/25 5:13 p.m. Suspicious Activity 30XX Highway 83, Seeley Lake 8/25 5:30 p.m. Accident - No Injury 30XX Highway 83, Seeley Lake 8/25 7:41 p.m. Trespassing 32XX Highway 83, Seeley Lake 8/26 9:23 a.m. Suspicious Activity Highway 83, Lake Inez 8/26 3:31 p.m. Vandalism 27XX Boyd Lane, Potomac 8/26 6:00 p.m. Suspicious Activity 25XX Rumble Creek...
A Message from the Missoula Aging Services (MAS) Resource Center: Open Enrollment is your annual opportunity to optimize your Medicare coverage. Whether you’re considering a Medicare Advantage plan or adjusting your Prescription Drug Plan, MAS is here to help you make the most of Medicare. Open Enrollment consultations are tailored to your situation, helping you review your options and secure the most suitable and cost-effective plan for the coming year. Missoula Aging Services doesn’t offer a singular approach to Medicare and Medicaid ass...
Peggy Watts Sisco, 70, of Seeley Lake went to her heavenly home on August 26, 2023. She was a beloved wife, sister, and friend. Peggy was a faithful woman who loved the Lord, her family, her friends, church, and community. Peggy was born on November 29, 1952. She grew up in Dallas, Oregon, and graduated from Dallas High School in 1971. She married her love, Ron Sisco, on September 20, 1980. They built a life together in California and eventually moved to Montana where they enjoyed taking trips... Full story
During the past legislative session, the Montana Taxpayers Association was excited to support the Gianforte administration’s ideas that improved Montana’s tax systems and provided tax relief. We look forward to continuing that working relationship. However, unless the administration decides soon on the level of the State’s property tax collections, when tax bills go out this coming November the State of Montana could receive a windfall collection of 65 million dollars in ongoing property tax revenue. This windfall is in addition to the 22 mi...
My guide client and I were crouched tight under my portable table – we dared not reach out for any of the food we'd left on top of it. The sound of a thousand drums assaulted our ears as hailstones the weight of big round ice cubes totally destroyed our lunch. The hailstorm slowed to silence within less than a minute after what must have been a ten minute or longer onslaught. We crept out through the hail balls piled at our feet to find my client's fly rod leaned against the leeward side of a t...
Last winter several Seeley Lake area residents concerned about bear activity and conflicts met with local conservation groups, wildlife agencies, bear specialists, and biologists. We wanted to know how to best tackle bear population issues, sparking the formation of a local working group. This is the first of several articles that will introduce the community to the group. Why are we called the Clearwater Valley Bear Smart Working Group? With bear issues being served by Swan Valley Connection and Blackfoot Challenge, we realized the Clearwater... Full story
Twenty Years Ago Thursday, Sept. 4, 2003 Theatre camp tucked away on other side of Salmon Lake offers fun time Tucked away on the other side of Salmon Lake, there's a camp that allows kids to laugh, play, learn and be creative - It's called Aunt Kat's Theatre Camp. Kathleen Vosburgh (Aunt Kat) and her husband, bought the cabins and 10 acres on Salmon that fulfilled Aunt Kat's dream to provide kids with a safe, natural outdoor setting to write, create backdrops and act in their own play. This...
As summer begins to wrap up here in Western Montana, we are all doing what we can to soak up the warmer weather before fall sets in. Whether you’re fishing along the Blackfoot, hiking in the Mission Mountains, or just getting outdoors in general, Montana summers are a brief and coveted time of year for our part of the world. While the summer provides a lot of opportunities to experience all that the Seeley Swan has to offer, it usually brings one unpleasant, unavoidable experience: wildfire. This year, however, we seem to have gotten lucky. L...
