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By Root 1915 0

and polarizing disputes might involve selfish behavior on the part of individuals who advanced their own interests in full knowledge that they were simultaneously damaging the rest of Montana society. This may be true in some cases, such as the proposals of some mining executives to carry out cyanide heap-leach gold extraction despite the abundant evidence of resulting toxicity problems; the transfers of deer and elk between game farms by some farm owners despite the known resulting risk of spreading chronic wasting disease; and the illegal introductions of pike into lakes and rivers by some fishermen for their own fishing pleasure, despite the history of such transfers having destroyed many other fisheries. Even in these cases, though, I haven’t interviewed individuals involved and don’t know whether they could honestly claim that they thought they had been acting safely. Whenever I have actually been able to talk with Montanans, I have found their actions to be consistent with their values, even if those values clash with my own or those of other Montanans. That is, for the most part Montana’s difficulties cannot be simplistically attributed to selfish evil people knowingly and reprehensibly profiting at the expense of neighbors. Instead, they involve clashes between people whose own particular backgrounds and values cause them to favor policies differing from those favored by people with different backgrounds and values. Here are some of the points of view currently competing to shape Montana’s future.

One clash is between “old-timers” and “newcomers”: i.e., people born in Montana, of families resident in the state for many generations, respecting a lifestyle and economy traditionally built on the three pillars of mining, logging, and agriculture, versus recent arrivals or seasonal visitors. All three of those economic pillars are now in steep decline in Montana. All but a few Montana mines are already closed, due to toxic waste problems plus competition from overseas mines with lower costs. Timber sales are now more than 80% below former peak levels, and most mills and timber businesses other than specialty firms (notably, log cabin home builders) have closed because of a combination of factors: increasing public preference for maintaining intact forests, huge costs of forest management and fire suppression, and competition from logging operations in warmer and wetter climates with inherent advantages over logging operations in cold dry Montana. Agriculture, the third pillar, is also dwindling: for instance, of the 400 dairies operating in the Bitterroot Valley in 1964, only nine still exist. The reasons behind Montana agriculture’s decline are more complex than those behind the decline in mining and logging, though in the background looms the fundamental competitive disadvantage of Montana’s cold dry climate for growing crops and cows as well as trees.

Montana farmers today who continue to farm into their old age do it in part because they love the lifestyle and take great pride in it. As Tim Huls told me, “It’s a wonderful lifestyle to get up before dawn and see the sunrise, to watch hawks fly overhead, and to see deer jump through your hay field to avoid your haying equipment.” Jack Hirschy, a rancher whom I met in 1950 when he was 29 years old, is still working on his ranch today at the age of 83, while his father Fred rode a horse on his 91st birthday. But “ranching and farming are hazardous hard work,” in the words of Jack’s rancher sister Jill. Jack suffered internal injuries and broken ribs from a tractor accident at age 77, while Fred was almost killed by a falling tree at age 58. Tim Huls added to his proud comment about the wonderful lifestyle, “Occasionally I get up at 3 A.M. and work until 10 P.M. This isn’t a 9 to 5 job. But none of our children will sign up for being a farmer if it is 3 A.M. to 10 P.M. every day.”

That remark by Tim illustrates one reason for the rise and fall of Montana farming: the lifestyle was highly valued by older generations, but many farmers’ children today have different values.