Sorted by date Results 76 - 100 of 1846
The Fourth of July came at a perfect time, weather-wise, for the Blackfoot and Clearwater watersheds - just before temperatures were supposed to get into the high-nineties and even hundreds this week. Celebrations across the valleys were a delightful mix of some of the best parts of small town Montana, with elements that catered to locals and visitors alike. Books were available for purchase to support the Swan Valley Community Library, families wore matching outfits and water and popsicles,...
We have been up the Champlain waterways, through the Chambly Canal, down the St. Lawrence River to Montreal, up to Quebec on a train, and now on the Rideau canal, having passed through Ottawa. The foliage is verdant, the sky alternately weeping or dazzlingly blue, the churches ancient and towering, and the towns along the way quainter than quaint. There are a plethora of monster vacation palaces with 200K wake boats along the way, but they don't quite fit the narrative. This adventure is way...
There are days that depth of spirituality looms massively. There are other days that there is just a steady stream of awareness that God is good and present in day-to-day living. As the country song reminds us, “some days a diamond, some days a stone.” Diamonds and stones both have value, it just depends on where you find them and what you do with them. A Christian faith is like that as well. It is stony times that build foundations for us. Try building anything with a diamond but try carrying a foundation stone on your finger. Neither wor...
Rain and cold did not dampen the enthusiasm of the youth attendees at the first Swan Valley Youth Outdoor Education Rendezvous (YOER), held on Saturday, June 15. Fifty youth ages eight through 18 attended outdoor workshops designed to provide wilderness learning experiences. Children came from as far as Creston, Seeley Lake and other communities in between to join Condon youth in this special experiential event. The Swan Valley Community Foundation (SVCF) in Condon hosted the event at the...
Leita Elaine Anderson passed away on May 23, 2024 of natural causes in Enterprise, Oregon. Leita was born on April 17, 1932 to William (Babe) and Dorothy Moore Clothier in a log cabin outside of Pablo, Montana, weighing in at less than three pounds. Her mom kept her on an oven door inside a cigar box as there was no such thing as an incubator. She was an only child until she was seven when she was joined with little sister, Dixie, and two years later by little sister, Karen. Since Babe had no...
Forty-foot long cinder block cooking pits lined by piles of cherry, pine and oak wood, folk music in the background, kids flying homemade kites and beef quarters seasoning on kitchen tables mark the beginning of the second annual Old Salt Festival. The festival was the brainchild of Cole Mannix of the Old Salt Co-op in Helena and fifth-generation Montanan from Helmville. Mannix said the Old Salt Festival was designed to bring together local food, local people and agriculture through...
Nearly 90 plant enthusiasts gathered for Prairies to Potholes, the 2024 Native Plant Society annual meeting held at Camp Utmost June 28-30. The meeting was highlighted by 22 workshops and field trips throughout the Blackfoot and Seeley valleys. Trips visited public and private locations from Gold Creek to Browns Lake and north to Clearwater Lake. "This was a remarkable way to see some of the plant and ecosystem variety in the Swan Valley," Susan Ballinger, from Washington, said. "I've been a...
The Northern Region of the Forest Service, based in Missoula, is beginning the process of transferring its ownership of the Condon Work Center due to a backlog of maintenance on the property and associated costs. Swan Valley Connections, a nonprofit focused on conservation and stewardship in the Swan Valley, has an office in the work center and leadership has been encouraged to start searching for a new office space with a tentative deadline to be out of the work center by March 2025. Swan...
This summer, no operations at Holland Lake Lodge have been approved. Holland Lake Lodge Owner Christian Wohlfeil submitted an operating plan for 2024 but since the wastewater treatment system is unable to function at the level needed for the plan, the Forest Service has not approved any operations and Wohlfeil hasn’t submitted an updated plan, Chris Dowling, Swan Lake District Ranger, said at a June Swan Valley Community Council meeting. A design firm is looking at a replacement or repair of the wastewater treatment lagoon, which was found t...
On a sunny day buzzing with the anticipation of summer days to come - people lining up outside The Ice Cream Place, a boutique pop up outside of Good Times Gifts - some Seeley Lake locals were gathered outside the Seeley Lake Community Foundation building to celebrate the end of a month-long fundraising event. Twenty groups participated to raise $126,000 during the ninth annual Change Your Pace fundraising challenge. Both of those numbers are record-breaking, Seeley Lake Community Foundation...
Rebecca McCarthy got a call from Norman Maclean's daughter during an event at the Missoula Public Library. Based on the way Jean Maclean Snyder spoke on the phone, it could have been her father. Maclean had a deliberate way of speaking, which translated to the way he spoke over the phone. Per McCarthy's memory it would go like this: "Rebecca, dear." Pause. "How are you?" She'd answer and Maclean would respond with a particular exclamation that sounded like, "Gaaaaaaawd." That was the same way...
The fate of Pyramid Lumber has been very much a topic of local discussion over the last few months. It isn’t just the employees and owners of the mill that will be affected if it closes. Foresters, loggers and truckers are all part of the machinery that generates “timber dollars.” More than recreation, those “timber dollars” are what caused Seeley Lake and the Seeley-Swan Valley to grow in a stable fashion and become complete communities with schools, churches, grocery stores, hardware stores, auto parts, pharmacies and even a medical/d...
Thirty-five years ago ... Thursday June 22, 1989 Grand Marshals chosen for Swan Valley Fourth of July Parade The Grand Marshalls for the annual Swan Valley Fourth of July Parade for 1989 are Dorothy Clothier and Winnie Kaiser, Legion members announced last week. The pioneer women will be honored at the celebration in Condon and will ride in the parade, which begins at Liquid Louie's at 11 a.m. on July 4. Members of the American Legion Post 63 are organizing the parade. People who would like to...
It is evening at Liberty Landing Marina, New Jersey, which is directly across the Hudson from Manhattan, New York City. The fading sun is glinting off the glass skin of the Freedom Tower, which replaced the destroyed World Trade Centers. In the distance is the Empire State Building, now dwarfed by more modern edifices. We arrived here after a 132-mile run from Cape May, New Jersey, having toured the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays. We don't usually go that far in a day, but weather might have...
Last week Swan Valley Elementary School celebrated the school's eighth grade graduate, Noah Morgan, and three kindergarteners moving up to first grade. Three Swan Valley teachers spoke warmly about Morgan's positive attitude, hard work ethic and artistic skills in addition to his track and field prowess and ability to see the good in everyone. Morgan asked Swan Valley School Secretary Katie Gleason to be his guest speaker at the celebration. "I'm so honored that Noah asked me to speak today,"...
In an area where history, hindsight and remembrance are important, it's not surprising the Seeley and Swan Valleys - where at least in Seeley Lake 14.6% of the population are veterans, according to Census data - treated Memorial Day as something special, and not just a three-day weekend. The Pathfinder was able to attend three celebrations throughout the valleys, and further afield, to see how the holiday was being commemorated. From Condon, to Seeley, to Helmville, one thing was for sure - the...
The Swan Valley Community Council heard a presentation on what it would take for Condon to become its own town at the council's May meeting. No action was taken, other than forming a subcommittee to further investigate incorporation, but general considerations of the idea included the prospect of being able to handle things on the town's own terms - without needing to fit in Missoula County's envelope for some things like road maintenance and building codes - and looking toward the future on...
The winter of 2024 will be remembered as one of the driest winters on record for Montana. According to the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS), the average statewide snow water equivalent (a measure of how much water is in our snowpack) was only about an inch above the 30-year-average record low in March. In the Mission Mountains of the upper Swan River watershed, the snow water equivalent was 36% below average. These conditions aren't a complete surprise, as forecasters predicted that...
Condon voters approved two levies the Swan Valley Elementary School Board put on May ballots. Just a little over $20,000 will be added to the school’s budget, about $10,000 into the general fund and about $10,000 for a technology fund, which the school didn’t have before presenting the technology levy to voters. The timing of voted levies across the state couldn’t have been worse in many cases. For Condon voters, the early-March announced levy was right before extra property tax bills were sent out by Missoula County and just before the annou...
Danielle Oyler has worked across Montana teaching kids and adults about living in bear country in her role as the wildlife stewardship outreach specialist with Montana Fish Wildlife & Parks. In front of a group of Seeley Lake Elementary School third graders at the Bear Fair, she said students in Seeley Lake have seen more bears on average than any other students at schools across the state that she's talked to. The next closest school is Lincoln. "There's a very good chance you're going to see...
Primary election ballots were mailed to Montana residents on May 10. The Pathfinder reached out to the 12 candidates running for state House and Senate seats that are relevant to Seeley-Swan area residents to ask them a handful of questions to help voters better understand their prospective legislators. After the decennial redistricting, new maps were drawn by the Montana Districting and Apportionment Commission in 2023. That prompted a new district for Seeley Lake, which now lies in House...
Thirty-five years ago... Thursday May 11, 1989 Librarian leaves after 10 years Swan Valley branch librarian Susie Cox received a "going away party" from her friends and family at the Swan Valley Library last Wednesday. Susie, her husband Al, and their two daughters are moving to Arizona this month. Susie left on Saturday to visit her aunt in California who is undergoing treatment for cancer. Part of the reason that the Cox family is leaving the Swan Valley is to care for Susie's aunt, who will...
We are learning a lot about how the timber industry has been such a key part of the Seeley-Swan Valley for over 100 years. Our forests provided logs for lumber, and our loggers and truckers have worked tirelessly to make these logs available for mills. Let’s take a look back and see what the timber industry was like during the boom years following the Second World War, and how our area was involved. Dr. Horace H. Koessler, owner of the Gordon Ranch, started a sawmill on the ranch in 1946, using local timber. The following year, along with s...
During the early to mid-twentieth century several upper Swan Valley dude ranches were at the height of operation, providing packing and guiding services to guests from around the world. Holland Lake Lodge and 33 Bar Ranch In 1924, Roria "Babe" Wilhelm, along with his sister, Ada, and her husband, Art White leased land from the Forest Service and built the Mountain View Hotel near Holland Lake. The hotel was built with lumber from Babe's steam-powered sawmill and sided with half-logs to give the...
Thirty-five years ago... Thursday May 4, 1989 'Mock' school disaster, Emergency personnel cope with over 20 injured children "There's none better!" That's what the Red Cross official, Duane Hawk of Kalispell, had to say when the exercise ended Sunday, according to Joyce Himes of the Condon QRU. Emergency personnel from the Condon QRU, the Swan Valley Volunteer Fire Department, the Seeley Lake QRU, Swan Mission Search and Rescue, Black Paw Avalanche and Rescue Dogs and hospital helicopters from...
