On a gusty day in Half Moon Basin, a meadow surrounded by towering mountains where we were camping, I participated in my favorite school assignment of all time. Every student had the opportunity to pick a plant to observe, sketch, read about in a nature guide, and make a creative piece about it. I had

Last September, we were all beginning our first full semesters of online school. Lab reports, essays, and even exams would be completed from our couches, kitchen tables, and bedrooms. We would tread the same path from bedroom to bathroom to kitchen and back again. If the weather was nice, perhaps we would venture to our

Overlooking the valley that shows open wounds and old scars induced by 100 years of various mining operations, a wave of grief surges through me. Two black rectangular “portals” to the mine allow my mind to drift into the destruction hidden from my field of view. Thousands of feet below me, the earth is chiseled,

I have seen where stars come from. They rise, tiny specks of light born from an equally illuminated world. Festering underneath furled logs, laying in wait until their home is disturbed, probed by the caress of a fellow branch, these specks burst outward in a fury of light and heat. I am one with the

“So what are you guys doing in town?” We get asked this question every day in the front country, in some form or another. “We’re a college course based out of Missoula,” we answer. “We’re learning about people’s relationships with the land in Montana.” “Oh, so is that just a field trip then?” “No, we’re

Rocks are lively, dynamic, and bearers of history. This was certainly never a thought that crossed my mind until I abandoned old perspectives and simply sat among them. With my college education rooted deeply in Western science, and working toward a degree in Fisheries and Wildlife Management, unbeknownst to me, my mind became rooted in

As we paddled down the Upper River Breaks National Monument, I was constantly reminded of the Corps of Discovery’s observations recorded by Lewis and Clark regarding the presumably untouched wilderness. These documented observations are found plastered on papers, posters, and plaques along the Upper Missouri river bottom, in “baseline of wilderness statements” in our course

As we enter Sarah Calhoun’s White Sulphur Springs shop, Red Ants Pants, we bring the smell of campfire with us. We spent two nights at Camp Baker, the put-in spot for boaters on the Smith River, and temperatures got down to the single digits. The fire has been our warmth for two days, and we

I sat perched several hundred feet up on the side of the crumbling sandstone cliff, looking out of the large hole that had been formed in its side. I gazed out at the vast expanse of land laid out below me, the hills of sage and towering white stone pillars reaching for the sky, and

Tromping through a tangle of bushes and grasses, I listen for a trickling sound. I know there must be a small waterfall nearby. We’re in Halfmoon Park – a massive, halfmoon shaped wall stands at the top of a valley. It’s our destination on our backpack and today we have a layover day. When I