The REAL Wolves of Butte Montana

Speaking of wolves, MollieTheDog & I took a hike just north of Butte, Montana, after the play about wolves (see previous post). Ooh, what's this big puppy track?

Yep, a wolf. Just to be sure it wasn't an errant neighbor dog, MTD & I  tracked it a mile or so, found a spot where it had bedded with another wolf or two for the night, and left this unmistakable (full of bones and fur) scat:

Later, Mrs Rover & I went to the holiday potluck at the Quarry Brewpub for another form of wild life. Little Brother A.J. participated in the uptown Butte ice sculpture event earlier that day and texted Mrs Rover to remind us to check out his work in front of the pub:

"Mug #138, EcoRover." Hmmm... if I could only get pub owner Chuck Schabel to fill that mug for the price of a pint!

After the potluck, more wildlife on display. Not sure who the artist was, but this sculpture of Moishe (from Where the Wild Things Are) was getting some attention:

Butte, America: Where the wild things are!

Wolves, Sheep, and Human People: An Environmental Play

I am currently blessed with an ambitious and intellectually challenging graduate candidate, Emma MacKenzie, who is working on an MS thesis about public discourse regarding Montana's wolf hunt following the reintroduction of wolves to the northern Rockies. Recently, the US Fish & Wildlife Service deemed that wolf recovery had met population targets in Montana, and so the gray wolf was de-listed (i.e. it's no longer protected under the Endangered Species Act). Montana sold permits this year allowing hunters to kill up to 75 wolves statewide. The state ended the hunt after 72 wolves were reported killed. It's been a hot button issue around Butte, Montana, and throughout the region.

Emma wrote & directed students in a short, three-act play about the benefits and problems associated with wolves, A WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING [poster image by Kirby Rowe]:

Cast: Emma MacKenzie, Joker; Jackie Dumke, The Economy; Stephanie Gruss, Mother Nature; Pat Munday, Environmentalist; Justin Ringsak, Wolf; Kirby Rowe, Lamb; Ginger Singer, Rancher Woman. As the Environmentalist, I found Ginger's portrayal of the angry ranchwoman (think Barbara Stanywyck in The Big Valley) very convincing!

Modeled on Augusto Boal's "Theatre of the Oppressed," the final act was performed three times. Audience members were invited to participate by taking the place of an actor and redefining that actor's role, or creating a new actor & role.

In developing the characters, their roles, and the narrative, Emma used Greimas' semiotic square along with other rhetorical and semiotic tools. With the semiotic square, the basic dialectical opposition of two initial terms (e.g. wolf vs. rancher) gives rise to new meanings. For example the environmentalist, as a meaningful actant, arises out of the opposition between wolf and rancher (or nature and culture). Here is an early version of the ideograph (a map of related cultural meanings) that Emma developed to help guide her narrative:

Act I included sock puppets representing (left to right) Lamb, Ranch Woman and Wolf:

Here is Act III of the play after some audience members have stepped in and modified the discussion, with (left to right) Frank Ackerman as The Economy, Noorjahan  Parwana as the Rancher Woman, Kirby Rowe as Lamb, Gretchen Miller as Environmentalist, Justin Ringsak as Wolf, and Stephanie Gruss as Mother Nature:

In addition to the fundamental problems of wolves killing valuable ranch livestock and the environmental value of wolves, discussion emerged over the private property rights of ranchers, the use of public land for livestock grazing, and the question of preserving private land as open space for ranching vs. subdividing it into house parcels. While there are no easy answers to balancing such conflicts in the contemporary West, it was a good discussion and I thank Emma for creating this production, students for working on it, and the Butte public for participating in it.

Thanks also to the Hummingbird Cafe for hosting our rehearsals and final production!

SkyWatch Friday: Life at Minus Twenty & the Air Quality Problem

I enjoy these cold snaps when the temperature goes to minus 20 or 30 deg F at night, and does not rise above zero for days on end. But it does make for air quality problems.

Air quality problem? In the pristine Northern Rockies of Montana?

It's easy for me not to think about. After all, I live in Walkerville, the old town on the hill above Butte (looking northeast from the west side of the Butte Hill toward Walkerville):

On the hill, the air is crystal clear. But Butte, Montana, like many high mountain valleys, suffers from air inversions:  cold, dense air flows down from the surrounding mountains and is trapped in the valley. Air pollution -- primarily wood stove smoke and vehicle exhaust -- is also trapped. The sun cooks it into a nasty bluish-to-brownish goo, i.e."smog."

Compare this view (looking south east from the west side of the Butte Hill toward "the flats") with the photo above:

Good news is, the weather is supposed to break in the next day or so. Warmer air and wind will sweep the stagnant smog away, and improve the quality of life for the denizens of the Butte Flats and other cities of the Mountain West.

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Return to SkyWatch Friday

Life at Twenty Below

It's been a year since Montana's last cold weather. I seem to have forgotten. But soon it all comes back to me.

Stepping out this morning into the -20 deg F or colder air, I inhaled a deep breath and felt that familiar, tingling sensation as my nose hairs froze stiff.

In uptown Butte below Walkerville, exhaust heat rises from buildings and moisture condenses into graceful plumes of icy steam (lots of wood smoke haze, too):

Then there was the seemingly deafening sound of an inch of dry, powder snow ("cold smoke," as we skiers say) crunching under my boots. While skiing in these conditions, skis generate static electricity in gliding over the snow and stick because of the "electrostatic friction." Sometimes, in walking at night, I swear I have even seen the snow sparking at my heels--but that's probably just a hallucinogenic effect of the cold.

Cold air contracts (remember "PV = nRT" from your chem class?) and becomes a better conductor of sound. I could hear the routine morning signs of cars, children, dogs, and the local ravens from afar.

On the east side of Butte, the warm waters of the Berkeley Pit (a former open pit copper mine, now a toxic lake) generate the infamous pit fog that creeps down to the flats, rubbing its shoulders along neighborhoods along the way:

The bright morning sun felt warm, but in passing through a shaded area where a cold air drain (depression in the ground) lets cold, dense air flow from the hills above to the valley below, I remembered to rub my stinging cheeks so as to prevent frostbite.

The battery of a digital camera in an outside pocket will not provide enough current for the camera to function. Keep the camera in an inside pocket--which means removing mittens to fumble with buttons and zippers in order to let your fingers to sting with cold once you finally fish the camera out, turn it on, and focus.

A dog -- especially a 13-month Lab/Border Collie cross name of Mollie -- becomes especially energetic. The dense air must help her achieve aerodynamic lift and I swear she could jump over my 6-foot tall frame.

Inside, the heated air becomes super-dry and you can generate some serious sparks of static electricity just petting the dog or cat. And you quickly learn to ground yourself after taking a few steps across the carpet to welcome your wife home with a kiss!

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Butte, America: it's not the Arctic, but you can feel it from here.

Cross Country Skiing: first tracks of the year

Butte, Montana, is blessed with two excellent areas for cross country skiing (and virtually unlimited backcountry/Telemark terrain). Usually, we have good skiing by the time hunting season ends (Thanksgiving weekend). This is an El Niño year, however, which means we're off to a slow start.

I prefer skiing at The Moulton on National Forest land just a few miles north of my home in Walkerville. Butte/Walkerville are in the upper end of the Clark Fork River valley, which tends to be drier than the upper Big Hole River valley just over the Continental Divide. So I bit the bullet and made the "long drive" (about 30 miles) to the so-called Mt Haggin ski area on Game Range managed by Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks. I say "so-called" because although you can see Mt Haggin from the ski area:

it's miles away and on the other side of the Divide. Much closer is the landmark Sugarloaf Mountain:

It was a delightful afternoon. The windless, bright sunny skies made it feel much warmer than the air temperature of 8 def F--a Green Wax day for those of you that share an appreciation for classic skiing. The ski club has not yet gotten around to grooming the trails, but there is only about a foot of snow and others had set tracks a day or so earlier. The trails are laid out very wide and with a generally gentle grade (ideal for skate skiing), but if you do want to rest the great view give you a good excuse to do so:

Note the many dead and dying lodgepole pine trees. The dominant species in this area, adult lodgepoles are being killed by a decade-long outbreak of pine beetles. The beetle epidemic is fostered by global warming (historically we experienced temperatures below -30 deg F which limited the beetle population), the even-aged stands caused by the Anaconda Copper Mining Company clearcutting the region c. 1900 to provide fuel for its smelter and cribbing for its mines, and by the very nature of the lodgepole pine species--a short-lived species very susceptible to bugs and  fire. Yes, fire--this area is ripe for massive fires that could easily consume tens of thousands of acres (not to worry--the trees will grow back and the ecosystem will recover, as it did after the nearby Yellowstone National Park fires of 1988).

Well, back to skiing. Speaking of which, this was 13-month old MollyTheDog's first ski outing. I fully expected her to be a wild & crazy maniac--biting at the skis, cutting in front of me on steep downhills, and otherwise earning her nickname (DamnItMolly!). Instead, she went about this as if she'd been doing it all her life. Who'd a thunk it?

Skywatch Friday: Giving Thanks

It's a beautiful world and there is much to be thankful for. Sometimes, simply while walking home to Walkerville from the little college where I teach in Butte, Montana, I stand agape at our Big Sky. Looking south to the Highland Mountains, a colorful sunset begins to develop:

Within minutes, the sun touches the horizon, the colors deepen, and the sky is aflame:

Walking to work in the morning, a full moon sets into the Clark Fork River valley:

After a successful hunting season, MollyTheDog is thankful that we butcher our own meat. Just a year old, she wasn't quite sure what to do with that first massive elk bone:

But soon she was an old hand at it (and our yard began to look like some sort of bone cult had been meeting there):

This cow and calf moose are thankful that hunting season is over and they can lie out in the open and chew their cuds in peace:

We are also thankful for good people. The day after Thanksgiving, a group of friends gathered at Don & Andrea Stierle's cabin at The Moulton just north of Walkerville. The group included Bill Macgregor and his son Alex, so there was of course a bonfire:

We're having a dry winter and there's not enough snow for cross country skiing yet, but until then there's good food, close friends, and the warmth of a big fire:

Skywatch Friday

A New Deer Hunter (at age 70+)

[Notice to sensitive readers: this blog post includes photos of dead animals. -ER]

Frank Ackerman, my colleague in Computer Science, decided to take up deer hunting this year--at the age of 70+. Montana Tech, the little college in Butte, Montana, where I work, is a tightly knit community where faculty are generally helpful and supportive of one another. Frank and his wife, Hwe-Chu Tu, have enjoyed meals of elk, deer, and antelope at our home. Hwe is an excellent cook and became interested in preparing wild game. When Hwe began questioning me about what it would take for Frank to become a hunter, his fate was sealed.

We hunted once for mule deer, walking the steep rocky ridges along the Big Hole River, but did not see a legal buck within shooting range. We hunted once for whitetails at a favorite ranch in the beautiful Ruby Valley and while my hunt was successful Frank's was not. This changed last night as we sat patiently watching many deer for an hour or more--all out of range or at an unsafe angle given nearby houses. We sat patiently watching, the sun dipped below a high mountain ridge, the temperature dropped as cool air slid down the mountain slopes into the valley, and then -- magically -- deer emerged from the safety of dense willows along the river to feed in the hayfields around us .

Frank chose a nice doe, aimed carefully, and fired. The deer dropped and the rest of the herd, startled only momentarily, returned to feeding. "Now what do I do?" (You have another tag?) "Yes." (Shoot.) He did and another deer fell (a spike buck with antlers less than 4"--technically an "anterless deer"). "Now what?" (You have another tag?) "Yes." A third doe died. As light faded from the sky, we gathered our gear, field-dressed the deer, dragged them to the nearby road, and I made a short hike to bring the truck around:

This morning, we hung the deer in their garage prior to butchering. Here are Frank and Hwe with their year's supply of meat (note the deer carcasses are split and propped up to facilitate cooling):

The Ruby Valley is seriously overpopulated with white-tailed deer. Some property owners do not allow hunting, major predators are scarce, and hayfields are planted with tasty alfalfa--a sure recipe for deer propagation. The huge deer population is a problem for cattle ranchers, gardeners and landscapers, and drivers. At the ranch where we hunt, one signs an agreement to shoot at least 3 if possible. It is not really hunting (the best strategy is to sit quietly and watch) but it does require patience, careful watching, and accurate shooting. For a novice hunter, it is a good learning experience and I have started several hunters in this way: my own daughter Emily; "Little Brother" A.J., Howard Smith, and now Frank.

Experienced and novice hunters alike should practice shooting so that are confident of the rifle and the range at which they can consistently hit a small target. Many hunters are terrible shots. There are various reasons: many are too cheap to buy ammo for practice; others are "too busy" to practice; some have never learned basic marksmanship skills. Too many times, I've had even experienced hunters "borrow" my rifle after they missed. This sort of carelessness results in many wounded animals--a terrible fate that any hunter worth their salt should be ashamed of.

After the Elk Hunt: from ridge-top to pick-up truck

With hunting there is a direct & unmediated connection between the meat on our table and the health of our environment. Since a low point around 1900, when Rocky Mountain elk were market-hunted nearly to extinction, their population has returned to historic levels experienced by Montana's First Peoples (and by early White visitors such as Lewis & Clark). Wolves -- an instrumental predator in shaping the evolution of elk and other large ruminants -- have also largely recovered.
We buy no red meat, and so are thankful for a tender cow elk. Field dressed, each half weighs about 150 pounds (head & legs removed; tenderloins, backstraps, liver, and heart packed separately). Even with snow and a mostly downhill route, it's a lot to move from the kill site to the nearest road almost 2 miles away. So I am also thankful for the help of friend (and former hunting buddy) Dave Carter. Here's Dave, on the first mile of the drag, still up in the timber:

I left the split elk in the hills a few days. Dragging the two halves a few hundred feet from the butchering site and marking the area with my urine kept the coyotes and wolves at bay. Covering the carcass halves with fir branches kept the birds from the meat, although the morning Dave & I returned there was a flock of about 40 Wolf-birds ready to begin feasting (the first raven to find a large carcass purposely calls others to the site--this spirit of cooperation works as a social welfare/survival system).

The dogs join us for elk dragging adventures. Here's JackTheDog working on the gutpile--he's part wolf and you can see that part in this photo:

For MollyTheDog, barely a year old, it's all about play. She runs back & forth between Dave & I checking on our progress and insuring that the elk does not escape. Here she is with Dave, on the last mile of the drag in a broad meadow bordering the road:

"Little Brother" A.J. spent this weekend at hunting camp with a friend & his family, where "hunting" is more about socializing than it is about the pursuit of food and developing an intimate connection with nature. That is OK and it's good for a young person to experience various aspects of hunting culture. In a world dominated by entertainment media, commodities (i.e. "shopping"), and motorized travel, it is getting increasingly rare to see another hunter even a half-mile from the nearest road. I have spent my life as a hunter on a spiritual quest, and am thankful to share that aspect with daughter Emily, A.J., and you as a reader of this blog.

Thank you, and may we all have much to be thankful for as the day shortens, the temperature falls, and the snow deepens.

Skywatch Friday: Montana Hunting Scenes

Antelope hunting under the big Montana prairie sky:

Dawn, and the moon sets over a mule deer hunter in the rocky hills along the Big Hole River:

Hunting until sunset, the same hunter is rewarded with a beautiful sky:

Another morning dawns, and an elk hunter looks up as the clouds open briefly over Mt Haggin:

Elk's In the Freezer, Let's go Skiin'

[Warning to sensitive readers: this post includes the photograph of a dead elk.]

An hour into the light of a new day. I heard the wings of a Wolf-bird slice the cold morning air and as Raven flew past it quorked a brief message: "This way." I followed and at mid-morning cut the tracks of a band of Elk People that had fed along the edges of a park. Tracking the elk toward the north facing bench where they be, I was not ready the first time. In fact, I was just photographing this track of a cow elk and its calf:

When I looked up, surprised elk plunged into the black timber below. I had not expected them to bed so high up on the ridge edge. I barked a cow call as they bolted. Sure enough, as I learned tracking them into the dense fir and thick deadfall, they ceased their panic and halted to look back after just a few hundred yards. Within a mile, they bedded again. This time I was ready, moving slowly, quiet wool & fleece from head to toe, glassing carefully every few steps. Soon I spotted a flicking ear and then the blond shadows. Less than 100 feet away, a nervous cow stood up from her bed and I shot once:

Raven croaked a happy note, but they are wary of us Human People and would wait to feed on the carcass until after I left. The Wisakedjak People ("Whiskey Jack," or Gray Jay) are much less timid, and I could hear their joyous, raspy calls before I had my daypack off. They cheered me on as I field dressed the carcass, and I rewarded them with some choice belly fat ("suet") from the kidney area:

The mating pair worked together cutting off slices to be cached -- they have a special, sticky saliva -- in hiding places around their small territory:

Meanwhile, I worked on splitting the carcass into two halves that could be dragged easily a mile or two to the nearest road (I'll return with help for this):

And laying out the heart, liver, tenderloins, and backstraps to cool before packing with me on the long hike back to the truck:

Each elk half I dragged away from the kill site and covered with fir branches to keep my Wisakedjak and Raven friends from stealing meat (Hopefully the wolves won't bother it before I return!):

On the 3 or 4 mile trek back (the last mile in the dark, using my headlamp) to where I had parked that morning, laboring up and over a steep ridge with 40 pounds of meat and gear in my pack, I thought about Bernard Dutka. My grandfather's friend and my hunting/fishing mentor, Bernie was about my age when he took me on as his outdoors apprentice. He guided me to the first whitetail buck I killed (I was 12), and in later years he liked to laugh & remind me of how long it took me to aim & fire the little .308 Sako rifle--the same rifle I carry today. Bernie was a crack shot, and I vividly recall him shooting a nice buck that leaped from its bed as we stalked through a slash-strewn clearcut in Wolf Run near Bradford, Pennsylvania. I need to call A.J., and take him elk hunting this weekend.

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This cow elk was taken from the Beaverhead National Forest on the Big Hole River side of the Continental Divide south of Butte, Montana.