A Journalist Runs Through It

By Amy Linn, 10-20-09

Folks in Lolo are quietly happy about the fact that the bitterly-disputed Bitterroot Resort—with its proposed 2,700 homes, a golf course and skiing galore—looks doomed. That’s according to a story in the Atlantic by Christina Davidson, who’s offering various dispatches in a feature called (downer alert) Recession Road Trip.

Davidson recounts how Tom Maclay, the driving force behind the Bitterroot Resort, once dreamed it would be one of the nation’s biggest ski destinations. Instead, a major creditor, Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. Asset Holdings LLC, filed foreclosure papers Oct. 2 in Missoula District Court, seeking control over the 3,000-acre property and naming Maclay and his parents.

Writes Davidson: “The Maclays have some of the deepest land-owning roots in western Montana, going back five generations to 1883 when the family first established a ranch in the Bitterroot Valley south of Missoula ... If the foreclosure filing against Bitterroot Resort proceeds to its likely end, Tom Maclay’s 3,000 acres will be taken over” to satisfy “a festering $19 million debt.” (To read the rest of Davidson’s story, click here.)

There’s nothing very new about the Bitterroot Resort’s rise and demise, of course. The development was first announced in 2003 and has been ably covered by the Missoulian’s Rob Chaney and in our own pages, among other places.

So what’s different? Montana—in the past three days alone—has been the backdrop for all sorts of far-flung journalists, including a reporter for the BBC, a reporter for NPR, and now the Atlantic. Maybe the sensibility is this: If you have to report on the economy, why not do it in a place with real live bears and bulls?

Or maybe there’s something else afoot—some budding bellwether-hood, or some kernel of an idea that “As Montana Goes, So Goes the Nation.”

If that’s the case, perhaps the anonymous Lolo resident in the parking lot of a local deli is voicing something worth noting.

“I don’t feel sorry for [Maclay] one bit,” the Lolo-ite told Davidson. “We didn’t want it and he didn’t give a damn. ... We didn’t want the traffic, higher property taxes, expensive housing, and all the rich la-di-da yuppies that would have come with it. God bless this recession if it puts an end to that nightmare.”

Or maybe the voice of the future is 18-year-old Felicia, the main character in what sounded like an “All Drinks Considered” NPR segment about Lewistown, Montana. The story, from a feature called “Mapping Main Street,” mainly included people who were planning to drink, drinking, or telling stories about being drunk.

Montana might be leading the way in some respects. But it might need a designated driver.