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Beyond the Photos, the Real Magic of Crow Fair
This year during one of the daily parades at Crow Fair, the annual powwow and…
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Amateur Historian Produces History of Old West All-Indian Battle
A amateur Crow historian has completed a history of a pivotal -- and mystical --…
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High Gas Slows Good Times on the Lake
Water recreation has slowed. Instead of ripping across the water, with skiers in tow, boat…
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Designing the New West
The Designing the New West: Architecture and Landscape in the Mountain West Conference is wrapping…
Tourism
This year during one of the daily parades at Crow Fair, the annual powwow and rodeo held along the Little Big Horn River on the Crow Reservation in southern Montana, one of my mothers-in-law yelled combatively at a professional photographer who planted himself between her and one of her grandchildren on parade.
"Hey, get out of the way," she hollered. "We're taking pictures, too."
The guy knelt down and kept shooting film.
Amateur Historian Produces History of Old West All-Indian Battle
A amateur Crow historian has completed a history of a pivotal -- and mystical -- all-Indian battle in which his tribe defended its homeland.
The historian is Elias Goes Ahead, a storyteller and lifelong historian.
"I was brought up among natural historians," Goes Ahead told me at a table amidst teepees and cottonwoods at an encampment at Crow Fair, his tribe's annual powwow near Crow Agency on the sprawling reservation of the same name south of Billings. "Ever since I was a little boy, they told me stories, passed on their knowledge to me because I was the one who listened."
More Tourism
Fuel Prices and Recreation
High Gas Slows Good Times on the Lake
Water recreation has slowed. Instead of ripping across the water, with skiers in tow, boat owners and renters are coasting and drifting to save gas and money.
Owners of RV parks, boat and boat-slip renters - and other business owners who derive their livelihood from the tourist season on Flathead Lake - also say they see fewer cars with out-of-state license plates and more Canadian license plates (due to the relative weakness of the U.S. dollar to the Canadian loon)
NewWest.Net Conferences
Designing the New West
The Designing the New West: Architecture and Landscape in the Mountain West Conference is wrapping up here in Bozeman at the historic Gallatin Gateway Inn. Put on by NewWest.Net and sponsored by the Sonoran Institute, the conference brought together designers from all over the country to explore innovative design ideas, identify best practices, and better understand how to bridge the gap between good architectural theory and sometimes-messy building practices in the fastest growing region in the nation.
A mix of presentations and engaging panel discussions tackled pressing Western issues like sustainable development, land design and the special challenges of urban, rural and resort design, historic preservation and affordable housing.
Click on the photo or here for a slideshow of the days' events. Click "more" for a recap of the conference.
Boise office will close
Another Sign of Tamarack’s TroublesThe Boise office of Tamarack Resort will close this week, according to reports from KBCI, the Idaho Statesman and others.
The Valley County resort, led by CEO Jean-Pierre Boespflug, is in financial crisis after Credit Suisse foreclosed on a $250 million loan for which payments had stopped. Boespflug and his partner declared bankruptcy.
Independent contractors have filed at least 20 liens against the resort to recover their unpaid bills. There is now no construction active at Tamarack.
Boespflug told the Statesman that about 20 employees are affected by the closing.
Credit Crunch Hits the New West
Tamarack Resort Owners File for Bankruptcy Protection
The majority owners of tony Tamarack Resort in west-central Idaho, owing more than $300 million to lenders and international banks, filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Boise late last week.
According to Tamarack Resort CEO Jean-Pierre Boespflug, the Chapter 11 filing will have no impact on the resort's day-to-day operation. "You can continue to do business with Tamarack Resort in a complete and normal way," he said in an interview.
The two companies named in the filings are VPG Investments, Inc. and Cross Atlantic Real Estate, LLC, which own 27 and 48 percent of Tamarack Resort shares respectively. Boespflug owns Cross Atlantic Real Estate, and VPG is owned by Mexican businessman and resort co-founder Alfredo Miguel Afif.
Boespflug said the resort was counting on a $118 million dollar loan from the French bank Société Générale to complete the resort village, but the financing fell through. Société Générale is reeling from the loss of some $7 billion in a trading scandal, and banks around the world are pulling back from many types of loans in the wake of the sub-prime mortgage crisis and related problems in the finance world.
Introducing...
A New Magazine: The New West
The best way to check out The New West magazine is to subscribe. We want to know who’s interested in The New West, so we have made the magazine available free to qualified subscribers who answer a short questionnaire.
In the Spring Issue and online here:
- Montana’s Cash Cowboy
- Real Ranch Living: Not Everyone is Selling Out
- Essay: The Family Farm, Version 2.0
- Essay: Tracks Across A Landscape
- Have Your Ranch & Develop It, Too
- Design Showcase: The Big and Little of Western Building
- Stuff It: Can Wolf Hunting Help Conserve the Species?
- Traffic Perplexes New Western Communities
- Boise in Its Own Little Bubble
- Revenge of the Resource Economy
- Spotlight North Idaho: On the Agenda: Youth, Growth & Silver
- Spotlight North Idaho: Players of the Panhandle
- Spotlight North Idaho: Coeur d’Alene Tribe Rides the Idaho Boom
Conservation and Ranching
Sun Ranch Slates 11,000 Acres for Conservation EasementSun Ranch owner and Sun Ranch Institute Board Chairman Roger Lang is currently working with the Forest Service and the Trust for Public Land to add about 11,000 acres to an existing 6,800 acres of conservation easements on his Madison Valley property. Lang, a former Silicon Valley CEO, purchased the ranch ten years ago. Using an experimental “Sun Ranch Model,” Lang has strived to balance conservation and ranching on his wildlife-rich property, most famously amidst reintroduced gray wolves.
The publicly funded $4.5 million easement will include 10 three-acre building envelopes in the Papoose Creek area, but it will also erase over 200 platted subdivision lots from previous property owners over vast stretches of the property.
Wild bison advocates are embracing the easement cautiously; initial negotiations include talk of studying genetically pure bison on land within the easement. Bison advocates worry domestic bison would preclude chances for the traditional bison range to again carry wild bison populations, but Lang says the hope is to one day open the property to wild bison should the politically sensitive issue of brucellosis become resolved.
“If and when society says ‘let’s let bison roam again,’ then I want to be in a position to help,” Lang says. “I don’t want this easement to preclude Sun Ranch from participating in those kinds of issues.”
Old and Faithful Debate
Yellowstone Opens for Winter SeasonThe interior of Yellowstone National Park opens for the winter season today amid--surprise--much controversy surrounding the limits on snowmobiles allowed in the park per day. The Park Service's Final Rule implements a long-term winter use plan for Yellowstone, which will allow up to 720 commercially guided Best Available Technology (BAT) snowmobiles per day this season and 540 per day next season. The Wyoming attorney general office filed a petition for review of the winter-use plan soon after its release.
Wyoming officials say, even though the average number of snowmobiles in Yellowstone per day averaged 250 for the last three years, next season's cap of 540 is still too low. Environmentalists say the cap should be reduced even further. Yellowstone's wildlife denizens are largely silent on the issue.
In their petition, Wyoming officials decried requiring commercial guides for all snowmobile trips and also requested a "reasoned analysis" for changes made to management of avalanche-prone Sylvan Pass, which--thanks to helicopters and howitzers--will remain open to motorized oversnow travel this winter, presumably to the delight of Wyoming residents.
More on the most peaceful season to explore Yellowstone National Park after the jump.
