The name Montana conjures up cowboys herding cattle on the open prairie, and gunfighters hiding out in canyons to hide from rope-swinging vigilantes. But does Montana summon images of the lone sheepherder tending his flock and enduring days of solitude, bitter cold and the intense summer heat?

What better way to tap into the nineteenth-century fascination of the perceived free, nonconformist Western lifestyle than a woman who dressed in men's clothes and did stereotypical men things, like army scouting, drinking whiskey and smoking cigars? 

In the end, Shaw had his gun and badge taken away. But the worst insult was yet to come: Hoover transferred Shaw to Butte, Montana—as close to Siberia as he could muster. 

When someone ordered a whiskey ditch at the bar, the "ditch" part was almost literal: the water was collected from a small spring running through the scene in between small trees (cut from the very tops of junipers and then treated with glycerine and formaldehyde).

Daly spent about $2.5 million on the Anaconda campaign, while Clark spent $500,000 on his own campaign for Helena. Helena won the second referendum, helped out by 40% of the Butte vote and overwhelming support from eastern Montana.

Draft horses fall into two categories. The first is the working class. Any horse, from a pony to your saddle horse used to pull things, is in this sense a draft horse. Draft means "to pull."

Every state has their unsolved murders, of which they are justifiably proud (or is it ashamed?), and Montana is no different. Here, then, are six of Montana’s most enigmatic cases. May they send a wintry chill down your spine, and make you glad of your hot cocoa.

I let my eyes wander over the colorful forest of fish tempters, which have been hung in the order they were found, resulting in a random array of shapes, sizes, colors and styles. A sleek, white, torpedo-shaped plug with black dots for eyes hangs next to a segmented silver minnow jerkbait.

But while the Cold War never escalated beyond proxy wars and nuclear proliferation, it did change Montana, and the landscape of the West, forever. As author Ian Frazier writes, the nuclear missile silo has become "one of the quintessential Great Plains objects," along with the American bison, the prairie dog, and the outhouse.

These so-called "patent medicines" thrived during the frontier era. Part of the reason is that the tent shows, presided over by colorful and theatric charlatans, were as much entertainment as medicine.

Along with Washington D.C.’s famous summer of the saucer sightings in 1952 and Point Pleasant, West Virginia’s hallucinatory year spent in the shadow of Mothman in 1966-1967, whatever really happened in Montana during its sustained ”flap“ constitutes one of the strangest episodes in the history of America’s long, intimate dance with the just-plain weird.

One famed night, a pack of wolves frightened Mary’s team of horses, and the coach flipped on its side. Taking shelter behind the overturned vehicle, Mary held the wolf pack off all through the night, armed with her pistol and shotgun.

As we neared the door to the store there was a roguishly handsome gentleman sitting on an old wooden Remington cartridge box that was inverted so as to make a seat. The gentleman was under a large cowboy hat, and he looked up at me and said, “Did you come for the shoot?” 

Enter Alexander Culbertson, the most influential person in the establishment and development of Fort Benton. Culbertson joined the American Fur Company in 1829 and soon became the principal trader with the Blackfeet. His wife, Natawista, was of the Canadian Blackfoot Blood Band, which gave Culbertson a great advantage in building trust with area tribes. 

At nearly 11,000 feet, the sprawling alpine tundra at the height of the Beartooth Pass has been referred to by many as the “Top of the World.” What better way to experience the harrowing thrill of driving one of the highest-elevation roadways in the United States than from the back of a motorcycle?

At the end of our conversation, Ty said, “I've walked this path many times in my career and I'm smiling through the buck offs and mild pain because I know what being disciplined will lead to. Not to mention I'm thankful to be able to walk this path at nearly 51.”

Many, about to embark on the wilderness, therefore chose to seek lodging in Livingston. H. F. Sanders wrote in his three-volume History of Montana (1913) that visitors "will usually find themselves directed to the Grabow Hotel, one of the finest hostelries in the state..."

Cabin Creek today is home to the Williston Basin Interstate Pipeline gas compressor station.  It lost its post office in 1931.  Ollie, near the North Dakota line, is another railroad town—this time the Northern Pacific.  Its post office was open from 1911 to 1955.  

They longed for a way of life that no longer existed and in some cases never had, a Montana more mythical than Disney's Davey Crockett TV show and John Wayne matinees. They smoked their Marlboros and repeated their mantra: any day now I will get a call, and then I'll know it's my turn to go.

The NIWRC mission, in their own words, is to “to provide national leadership to end violence against American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian women by supporting culturally grounded, grassroots advocacy.”