The Outlook in Montana

      There’s a reason Montana is called Big Sky Country. The horizon stretches endlessly. During short summer nights, stars sparkle in dark skies. On brilliant summer days, blue meets green in the distance. Images of mountains and trees shimmer in pristine lakes and ponds.

      Fifty-five summers ago, in 1970, I split my work week between night and day shifts as the fill-in guy for the night watchman, desk clerks and bell hops at Many Glacier Hotel in Glacier National Park near the Canadian border.

On days off, my then girlfriend, now wife, Kathy, and friends and I would hike on mountain trails, passing hardly anyone. We’d occasionally bang pots and pans to scare off any nearby bear.

A bear in Montana

      I didn’t much like my night watchman shift because I’d wander alone through the cabins and parking lots of the lodge property with nothing but a flashlight for protection. After day shifts, I sometimes sang for tourists in the hotel lounge, and some nights a group of us would stuff into cars to drive 10 miles or so to the nearest watering hole outside the park.

      Back then both of Montana’s U.S. senators were Democrats. Today, the last Democrat to hold statewide or national office was former-senator and farmer Jon Tester, who lost his bid for a fourth term in 2024.

      I’d imagine most Montanans don’t spend much time worrying about the deployment of the National Guard or U.S. troops to Los Angeles or Washington, D.C., in recent weeks or the Trump Administration’s threats to occupy more cities. They likely take Donald Trump at his word when he pronounces big cities to be dangerous places: 58 percent of Montana voters chose Trump in 2024 and the local newspapers I visited (virtually) did not print a word in the last few days about the militarization of American cities.

      But there is some grumbling about Donald Trump’s policies here, particularly those affecting the state’s environment, the country’s health care and the economy.

      Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill Act” rescinded $276 million from the National Park Service across the country and it’s taken a bite out of Glacier, too. So, when the Congressional Western Caucus showed up at the park’s entrance for photo-ops last week, its members were greeted by a mix of park rangers, volunteers and local residents protesting the cuts and their impact on park maintenance.

      The attempted firing of Susan Monarez after less than a month as head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has prompted considerable coverage in the state. Though the lead story one day in the Bozeman (Mont.) Daily Chronicle was about a second dog adoption day at the Kimpton Armory Hotel, this Associated Press article on Monarez was posted prominently.

      About 140 miles due south of Glacier in Missoula, Mont., The Missoulian led with a story titled, “Woman Injured by Bear in Glacier National Park.” (You see, it really does happen.) There were stories on “how summer lightning impacts wildfire monitoring and response,” a fire chief’s retirement and a car crash that killed four on Hwy 93. But The Missoulian, too, ran two stories about the CDC situation Thursday and a third the next day that led its national and world news. It was titled, “Departures roil the CDC leadership. What’s next for the agency?”

      Back in Bozeman, the Chronicle also offered some spirited letters and opinion pieces on national topics. One letter, written by an economics teacher, was titled “average person loses in tariff wars because of increased costs.”

      And a guest columnist argued that efforts by “decision makers in Washington D.C.” to repeal something called The Roadless Rule would threaten the cleanliness of the state’s drinking water. The rule, in existence for nearly 25 years, has helped to prevent unnecessary roads and to slow development in six million acres of National Forests, wrote the columnist, a water treatment expert.

      I made one more virtual stop on my journey, this time at the Great Falls Tribune. There sports ruled the day. The lead story honed in on the “starters [and] key reserves for Great Falls high football.” The other top stories were on Montana lottery Mega Millions and Taylor Swift’s engagement to Travis Kelce (punctuated with an exclamation point).

      National headlines of any kind were scare, but there was an article on a rise in gas prices in the Rocky Mountain region (the average price had risen to $3.16 for regular on Monday, up three cents).

      It’ll take a sizable shift in outlook for Montanans to elect someone other than Trump loyalists in the 2026 election. But it’s not impossible, especially if Jon Tester can be convinced to run again for the U.S. Senate, this time against Republican incumbent Steve Daines.

      In the meantime, a little research into local football teams might come in handy, especially if you decide to combine some political campaigning with a vacation among the bears and under the big beautiful sky.