Steve Lamar has lived in Condon for 48 years and was instrumental in the oral history project, which led to the book Swan Valley Place Names.
Steve Lamar has only lived in these parts for 48 years.
I asked him if he was a rich out-of-stater who doesn't understand our Montana values. He assured me he isn't running for political office.
Perhaps you have heard of the Lamar Valley in Yellowstone National Park, the Lamar River or Lamar Mountain. An ancestor of Steve's was head of the Interior Department under Grover Cleveland. An army friend of Mr. Lamar was sent to the Yellowstone area to survey it and was given the responsibility of naming various landmarks. Since there are many such features in Yellowstone, the name Lamar was used liberally. The eponymous Lamar never actually visited.
Steve came to Montana in 1976 from Illinois. His family had Kentucky roots, explaining the subtle southern lilt to his voice. A graduate of Kentucky's Murray State University in outdoor recreation, he worked jobs in the Shawnee National Forest.
Steve was looking for a graduate forestry degree program and had his eye on Idaho State. When his wife, Sharon, was offered a job at Hellgate High School, they landed in Missoula. Not fans of city living, when a friend suggested they check out the Swan Valley, they knew they had found home.
Steve worked seasonally for the Forest Service, also spending 14 years with a wilderness treatment center for young people fighting addiction. He's worked as a hunting guide, carpenter helper and for 10 years for the local conservation and education organization Northwest Connections.
For 18 years he has served as the president of the Upper Swan Valley Historical Society. The society's mission is the promotion and preservation of the cultural history of the Swan Valley. This includes discovering and assembling records of historical works. Steve showed me books composed of oral histories of valley residents. He personally interviewed over a hundred individuals for his project, which became the book Swan Valley Place Names.
One of these interviews was with Herb Styler, who had been a member of a survey crew who explored the far reaches of the Mission Mountains and mapped them. Camped near a high mountain lake, they were startled to see a large grizzly splashing about in the water. The great bear then climbed to the top of the nearby Fissure Glacier and slid on his backside to the bottom of the glacier. He repeated this several times. This led to naming the waterbody Grizzly Lake, the Mission's first waterpark.
The society has quite a museum - fittingly a log structure. There are extensive displays of artifacts from tools to clothes to home goods. Several vintage cabins and even a period tavern are nicely preserved and are onsite.
In addition to all the cool things to see, the society has developed a digital archive for researching the many materials that have been digitized.
I asked Steve why he cares about history and the history of the Swan Valley in particular. He feels that our current lives can be helpfully informed by our history. The perseverance, generosity and tolerance of the homesteaders and those who followed set the tone for a small but vibrant society. Documenting the lives and props of our predecessors is not only respectful but interesting. As we toured the museum and the cabins, I pondered life in a tiny, snow-bound trapper cabin, surrounded by stinky furs and plagued by lousy internet.
"The cabins we preserved would likely have been lost to history," Steve said. "Inside the trapper cabin, we've portrayed what life was like for the trappers - boughs on the floor for a mattress, and a small stove for heat and thawing the pelts."
Sharon is very active in the society, both as an artist creating paintings of family trees and authoring books of Swan history. A dedicated board of directors and ongoing fundraising efforts keep the society vital.
After hearing about strong, positive and resilient people, and marveling at the collection of physical history, I felt much better about humanity.
The charge for us privileged to live in this mountain cathedral is that when our history is written, we are worthy of those before us.
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