Articles

More than vegetables and flowers grow in Missoula's newest neighborhood garden. In what once was a barren, scraggly lot between the Joseph Residence - which serves Missoula's homeless families - and Blessed Trinity Catholic Church near Eaton Street, now other things are taking root. With the help of Garden City Harvest, this once weedy plot of church land has become a place where community happens and a sense of well-being deepens.

It seems as though construction at the corner of Brooks Street and South Higgins Avenue is as much a Missoula mainstay as the M on Mount Sentinel or the Hip Strip itself. However, three years into the project, developer Eric Hefty insists the end result will be well worth the wait - for those who can afford it, anyway. Hefty's project, simply known as The Corner, is an eight-unit condominium development across the street from Hellgate High School. His wife Cheryl designed the interior, while he designed the exterior. Cheryl describes the look as an “old-new” design - a more modern, Flatiron appearance on the outside, with a rustic yet modern look within.

WHITEFISH - “Zip One clear; ready for flier.” The radio crackled and buzzed the forest with a brief burst of static. Bill Brown checked the clips, tugged the webbing, radioed his response: “Flier flying.” And that’s when the bottom fell away, the forest raced up, the thrum of wheel on wire hissed and grew in pitch until it drowned out songbirds and even the shining stream that tumbled beneath.

Vince Werner celebrated his 65th wedding anniversary on Saturday to the 1940s stylings of the Silk Stockings jazz quartet. On Monday, he was serenaded by another old favorite: the four engines of a B-17 bomber. Werner was part of the welcoming committee as the restored “Sentimental Journey” taxied up to the Museum of Mountain Flying after a one-hour hop from Great Falls. And he was one of the first people to take a spin around Missoula in his old navigator's seat in the nose cone. “I can't say too much about the ‘Flying Boxcar' - the B-24,” the retired Missoula architect said. “But we loved the B-17. We could fly 4,000 feet higher and we could see the fighters coming. There was great visibility from that airplane.”

COLOMA - Never has dirt looked so tempting. The one-square-meter patch of earth taunted Frances Clark. Just gazing at the gritty surface, the University of Montana student knew it was full of treasures from the late 19th century. What hid under the surface, however, was the real mystery. “I want to move on!” she said. For three straight days, she picked away at the same spot, located within a grid sectioning off a small area of Coloma. Little history is recorded about the abandoned ghost town tucked in the dense forest of the Garnet Mountains, only a short drive from the mining town of Garnet.

WOODS BAY - As fish stories go, it was a good one, and it quickly made its way late last week around the camp at Hidden Harbor and Woods Bay RV Park, home base for the 16th annual Fishing Without Barriers Day. There, 22 volunteer boats and their captains - several of them from fishing charter companies at the north end of Flathead Lake - hauled at least 95 anglers with disabilities out on the water for a morning of mackinaw fishing. The captains seemed determined that every person who wanted to fish would reel in and land at least one lake trout, and the 100 mackinaws turned in helped supply food for an afternoon barbecue.

Three Native American teenagers beat hand drums while singing a prayer Monday during the groundbreaking ceremony for a tobacco garden, where ingredients for traditional tobacco will be grown as a way to reduce the number of Native youths who smoke commercial tobacco. The Missoula Indian Center, an organization that offers health care and a chemical dependency program for Native Americans, is building a garden to educate its community and youth about the sacred role of traditional tobacco, said Dana Kingfisher of the center's Alcohol Substance and Tobacco Abuse Prevention program. “It's like a religion to our people,” Kingfisher said.

Jen Bohman blames the Internet for her recently developed case of joy - and anxiety. For the past two years Bohman has been designing and sewing women's hats in her garage, and selling her creations at Missoula's People's Market and local fairs. Now, the little one-person company, called Piper & Paisley, is about to go big time, thanks to www.etsy.com, a Web site dedicated to handmade items and the people who sell them.

While many tourists visit Montana for the scenic mountains, great fly-fishing and lush green plains, among paleontologists and dinosaur lovers, Big Sky Country is home to some of the most unique fossil digs in the country. And enthusiasts now have a unique way to see these prehistoric hotspots. The Montana Dinosaur Trail Passport encourages people to travel to the remote corners of the state to see firsthand this unique history. Tourists can buy the Dinosaur Trail Passport for $5 and get a unique stamp at each of 15 stops along the trail, said Sharon Emond, curator for the Phillips County Museum in Malta. Passports are available at each stop. When visitors fill up their passport, they receive a free T-shirt.

SKILLYVILLE - If the wind’s just right, you can almost hear the strains of Bob Skillicorn’s mandolin. Say it’s a soft June morning, like one last week or 70 years ago, when Skillicorn, his wife Myrtle and their brood of eight kids practiced in these hills east of Salmon Lake for Saturday night gigs at Holland Lake Lodge, at Ovando, at Seeley or Salmon Lake. If it’s the bump-ditty of a banjo that drifts across the meadow, it must be from the nimble fingers of Warren, who entertained at the nearby Kozy Korner Steakhouse up to his death four years ago at the age of 97.