Greetings, readers! Our expedition began at Coal Banks Landing on the Missouri River where we met Jim and his wife, Martha, who have been floating the Missouri together for 23 years! Since retiring, they have volunteered for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) as camp hosts and educators. I have very rarely met anyone as

A low rumbling bellow echoes across the expanse of rolling prairie until it is swallowed by the deep recesses and waterways of a fen. The sheer volume of noise is enough to pause the conversations of the 13 members of WRFI’s Montana Afoot & Afloat 2018 course and our host, Dylan DesRosier. A lone cow

It was early May and it was one of the first warm days of a late Madison spring. I was sitting in my third class of the day, in a windowless lecture hall, dreaming about class ending and heading outside to get even an hour in the sun. My friend Claire and I started whispering

At first glance, these toothpick forests of the Scapegoat Wilderness in Montana want to invade me with fear and loneliness and hang me out to dry in the sun under identical trees across the hillsides. Their haggard branches reach weakly into the air before sloping downward into submission. They unsettle me with their lifeless stature,

Silence. Lichen spreads between my fingertips like spider webs as the callousness of rock scratches against my hands. It is the first day of WRFI’s Montana Afoot and Afloat course, and I just met my classmates for the next nine weeks. Giddy yet apprehensive about what was to come, I sat on a rock beside

With frozen toes and tired eyes I tread up the hill that rises high above our camp at Halfmoon Park in the Scapegoat Wilderness of Montana. My body is in a great amount of discomfort from the past four days of backpacking, and the fact that it is 6:00am doesn’t do much to relieve that.

 Between talks of “Keep Jumbo Wild” tattoos, endless Shrek references, and renditions of Abba’s finest, there are meaningful moments.  Moments that make me stop.  Moments that make me think, “This just changed my entire perspective in the span of a second.”  It seems to be a daily occurrence for me on this course. We have

After I arrived in Augusta, MT, I received a text message from my brother who lives in Okayama, Japan. During this bike trip from Billings, MT to Glacier National Park, I didn’t have many chances to have cell service, so I couldn’t check the news of my country, Japan. My brother told me that Japan

Today we met with Lou Bruno an older man who lives in East Glacier who shared his story of becoming involved with different Montana organizations and making a change. Lou joked about how when he was a young adult he didn’t even really know what the difference between a Democrat and Republican meant. I really

Not In My Backyard, not through the oak trees and my childhood playground, not through my favorite fig tree that produces fruit in August, not through the grass that stains my jeans and welcomes my wild running feet, and not through my neighbor’s either. Nimbyism, Not In My Backyard; defined as a term for someone