Isolation like this keeps Big Sky Country appealing to many of us who choose to stay here.

This month the Brazilian government released aerial images of an Amazon tribe living in near-isolation along the Peruvian border.  Nude, painted red from head to toe and carrying hand-crafted bows, the tribe members were photographed shooting arrows at a low-flying airplane the images were taken from. The government, who has known about the tribe for decades, states the images were released publicly so the world could gain a better grasp on the threats confronting this tribe and others living in societal isolation in the Amazon.

Development, sprawl and logging are all eating into the tribe’s homeland, making it ever more difficult for these people to live entirely away from the globalized society which is creeping into their forest.  Contact by civilization could ultimately wipe out this tribe. “They don’t generally have immunity to diseases common to outside society,” states Miriam Ross, a campaigner with the Indian rights group Survival International, in an Associated Press article. “Colds and flu that aren’t usually fatal to us can completely wipe them out.” Survival International reports there could be nearly 100 tribes worldwide living in isolation.

While this story is fascinating on many levels, it caught my attention mostly because it reminded me of Trapper Harry, a former co-worker of mine on a dirt farm in Montana.

No, Trapper doesn’t go nude, paint himself red or live in a grass hut in the forest. In fact he’s just a flannel wearing good ol’ boy from Bigfork with a taste for homemade pot roast. But it is his feverish anti-growth stance on the imminent development of rural Montana that draws my comparison.

Trapper moved to the north Flathead valley over two and a half decades ago. A young man looking to relieve himself from the hustle and bustle of the East, he and his wife settled on the outskirts of Whitefish, a sleepy community of about 3,500 people at the time. He was happy to be away from “it all”, and by that he meant major commerce, development and generally speaking, people.

Yep, living was quiet for some time...that is until the boom of the late 1990s hit. Growth swept across western Montana like a grass fire in August.  New faces were coming out of the woodwork, houses were sprouting up all around him and once gravel roads into town were now, “paved highways to hell.”

Trapper couldn’t take it, so he moved south to Bigfork where he figured things were still on the sleepy side of the bed.  But things weren’t sleepy at all, and in fact, the party was just getting started, noise makers and all.  This is about the time I met Trapper on the dirt farm.

“This place, I don’t know man, it’s driving me nuts,” he tod me as we huffed tractor fumes under a splitter sky.  “I just don’t like how fast everything is changing. It’s all coming in on me too quick. I think northern Maine might be where I need to go.”

Trapper was always on the prowl for that virgin spot, where clear streams run into cold lakes, green mountains meet a blue sky and the moose run as free as birds fly.  More importantly, he wanted to find this oasis before anyone else and have it all to himself.  For him, that place was Montana, and it broke his heart to witness it’s deflowering.

I never could offer much solace to Trapper. In his eyes, I was the problem. I was an outsider who stormed his isolated mountain sanctuary and brought cancerous big boxes and paved highways in my wake. He loathed the idea that Montana could break the million mark in the next census.  

In the end Trapper was a complex individual, too convoluted for my small brain to wrap itself around.  But mostly he was just sad.  Sad that growth happens, that the earth rotates and that time refuses to stand still.

Admittedly, there are many places in our neck of the woods that are still off the grid. Take the Yaak for example, where sand trickles through the hourglass at a glacial pace and sprawl is just something your dog does on the front porch. Heck, Montana might be the last place on the planet where the iPhone still isn’t available.

It’s hints of isolation like this that keep Big Sky Country appealing to many of us who choose to stay here.  

But it’d be unrealistic for anyone to think Montana will always stay the way it is today. Like shit, growth happens.  And it is important for us to embrace with high spirits, the changes that ominously loom on the horizon.  Many will visit Montana this summer, most will realize its appeal and some will decide to never leave.  I was one of those people, maybe you are too.  

As for Trapper Harry, I often wonder if he ever found his oasis in the mountains.  Away from it all, where the moose fly free, the way Montana used to be, and in many parts of the state, still is. I hope so, maybe he’ll have me over for some homemade pot roast.

editor@offthegrind.com