Is Montana still the last best place?

MISSOULA – Annick Smith was the featured speaker for the Alpine Artisans fundraiser dinner that formed part of the 2019 three-day "In the Footsteps of Norman Maclean" festival. In introducing Smith, Michael Cropper referred to her as "the girl next door." For although writer-filmmaker Smith has gained a national reputation and garnered numerous accolades for her various projects and publications, those who live in the wider Missoula area admit to a certain possessiveness toward the woman who lives just next door in Potomac.

The topic of Smith's speech was "Is this still the last, best place?" The question refers to the title of what she calls "the big fat book" edited by herself and William Kittredge for the Montana Centennial Year, "The Last Best Place: A Montana Anthology."

Smith said the title was coined by Kittredge at Chico Hot Springs while sipping a gin and tonic and enjoying a view of the Paradise Valley -- Yellowstone River, meadows full of wildflowers, snow-dusted mountains. The phrase echoes the words Abraham Lincoln wrote to congress a month before he signed the Emancipation Proclamation: "We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth."

Smith said, "[Kittridge's] title has spawned a life of its own. It has become a symbol of all that we prize in our sprawling state. But," she added, "beware – being the best, and perhaps the last, is no secret anymore."

It is no secret that more and more people are coming as tourists or even moving to Montana, and no secret that more and more "native" Montanans are displeased with that fact. Smith pointed to a number of less than desirable side effects: "They overrun our National Parks, hunt our game, clog our fishing streams. They cause traffic jams, drive up real estate values, buy up scenic lands, build houses in wild lands and bring their city ways to our rural lifestyles."

Yet, looked at from a literary perspective, the complaint is older than the state itself. Smith read lines from noted Montana authors A.B. Guthrie in 1830 decrying the passing of the mountain men, Charlie Russell in 1943 complaining about the pioneers ruining the land and Norman Maclean in the 1980s grousing about tourists elbowing the rightful fishermen out of the best fishing streams (1980s). Russell even told the Great Falls Chamber of Commerce, "If I had my way, the land would be here like God made her..."

But what exactly would that land look like?

Smith said, "We're all immigrants. Every single one of us. And all of the animals and probably most of the plants too."

Smith added that everything and everyone who came to Montana immediately began to change the place. Returning to the question of Montana as last and/or best and, even supposing the claim is valid, how long will it continue to be so, she said, "Maybe the whole concept is arrogant and outdated."

According to Smith, despite all the ecological measures Montanans can take and have taken, "We can't stop the warming planet. Starvation, mass migrations, melting ice caps, unbearable heat, rising acid oceans and species going extinct will touch Montana too."

Smith ended by saying, "I see the landscape changing slowly. We can work to preserve the good and the rare – for the time being. The future is still partly in our hands. At least for a little while.