Big Sky Blog

Not a huge fan of Jewel, but still pretty cool that she wrote and performed “The Missoula Song.” Wonder what she could have done with, say, Two Dot or Wolf Point or Bigfork?

Wanna go for a helicopter ride over the Crazy Mountains in central Montana? Marnee Banks, a reporter for KXLH in Helena, did a story on the Montana National Guard, and she got to ride with them in a Blackhawk helicopter – and kept the camera rolling while airborne – cool!

Jason Burlage of Bozeman, an MSU graduate, will screen his documentary film “Mi Chacra” (My Land) at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival on February 19th at 5:30pm at the Wilma Theatre in downtown Missoula.

The film tells the story of Feliciano, an indigenous Peruvian farmer who works as a porter on the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu in hopes of some day taking his son to live in the city.

Learn more by visiting the official website.

Gary Marbut, President of the Montana Sports Shooting Association (MSSA) is scheduled to be on the Glen Beck Show this Friday, 3 to 4PM, MDT on the FOX News Channel, to talk about MSSA’s Montana-made guns bill. HB 246 sponsor, Rep. Joel Boniek (R-Livingston) is scheduled to be on the show also.

This is cool: Tim Montana, a country/rock musician who grew up in & around Butte, will appear on “The Late Show with David Letterman” tonight (Friday, October 17) to perform his song “Butte, America.”

Tim landed the gig on after he met Letterman while he (Letterman) was vacationing at his Choteau ranch.

More Montanans on Letterman: Cold Hard Cash (an awesome Johnny Cash tribute band from Great Falls) will be on Letterman in November. Like Tim Montana, they met Letterman when he was vacationing in Choteau.

Looks like aspiring musicians need to hang out in Choteau if Dave is in town!

The snowstorm that walloped Montana was newsworthy enough to be mentioned on the cable news networks:

Usually our dramatic weather just doesn’t rate coverage, probably because we don’t have a lot of people. Chicago gets hit with a few inches of snow, or Boston temps drop below zero, and it’s trumpeted in all major outlets. But Montana – often with huge snow and -40 temps – rarely gets mentioned.

Here’s a photo gallery of snow in and around Great Falls. Any other galleries of this weekend’s snow to share?

Heard earlier today that CNN political reporter John King was in Montana, and here’s a screen shot from this evening with John reporting from Helena:

Isn’t it amazing how much attention The Last, Best Place has received this year, thanks to the Presidential campaign? The Obama team spent plenty of time here, including his much-covered Independence Day stay in Butte; both Clintons campaigned here in Montana; and recently our Governor’s election-tampering remarks garnered some MSM coverage.

Montana’s not used to this kind of attention. But we’re OK with it…as long as it doesn’t last…right?

PS to John King: if you’re reading this, visit me at GreaterFalls.com! Better yet, take a scenic drive up here – lunch is on me!

Got an e-mail from Montana author and blogger TL Hines, and his new project sure sounds intriguing – especially to fellow bloggers, I suspect:

My new book, THE UNSEEN, is about a loner who hides in unexpected places. So to help roll out the project, it’s time to hide reminders about the book in unexpected places.

I’m calling it the Unseen Pages Project, and here’s how it works. I’m disassembling one complete copy of the book, and I’d like to hide every one of those pages–192 in all–across the United States and Canada. Bookmarks attached to each page direct people to my web site, inviting them to leave a comment about the page, where they found it, where they left it for someone else to find, or whatever. The page that gets passed around most–that is, the page that gets the most comments–wins prizes for each and every person who found it. If you’re a fan of the BookCrossing site, it’s kinda like that, except we’re hiding individual pages instead of entire books. (I explain why at my site, along with more details.)

Which brings me to you. I hope you…will be interested in hiding two or three pages in their first hiding places. You’ll get a link to your own site or blog for each page you hide, as well as chances to win prizes, and my eternal gratitude. And I hope it’s something fun for all of us.

Unseen Pages Project information

If you live in or near Helena, Montana, I’ll be doing a library program at the Lewis & Clark Public Library this Thursday, September 18th, at 7:00 pm. We’ll be discussing writing, the publication process, tiddlywinks, and anything else that comes up. I’ll also be doing other library programs in October and November across Montana (and maybe a few other places in the Rocky Mountain West), so stay tuned for details.

I hope you’ll be part of the Unseen Pages Project. I hope you’ll read the new book and let me know what you think. If nothing else, I hope you’ll drop a quick note to say “hi.” As always, thanks for taking the journey with me.

TL Hines

Seems like a pretty cool project – and the book sounds like a good read, too! Best of luck with the project, TL!