Columns
Searching for opinion based articles? Below we'll share opinion news articles on a wide variety of topics.
17 million words (or so): that’s all she wrote
Well, dear folks, the time has come for me to put down my pen — back away from the computer is more like it — an...
Celebrity concierge for a day
A close friend and fellow rowing club member of my oldest brother’s came out from Cincinnati to visit a couple of weeks ago, the first time he’d been to the Flathead Valley.
The sky is never the limit
It set the astronomy world on fire.
‘Those summer days’
These summer days have been abundant with the places, smells and tastes that come to mind whenever I think of summer.
Life extends past remote control
My dad taught me how to change the oil in a car when I was a teenager. A lifelong gearhead, he finally admitted after we groveled around on our backs in the driveway, that I “ought to just start going to one of t...
Montana elk management
The best part of Northwest Montana’s archery hunting season for elk will come in two weeks when bull elk will lose much of their normal caution and instinct for survival during the peak of the annual rut.
Timeless tales and other worlds
I was one of the 10 million, even though I never started watching the original series, but probably will sometime in the future.
Building up beats tearing down
My brother and I were pressed into the project: schlepping buckets of plaster chunks, clearing out crawl spaces and Brasso-ing doorknobs.
Early fall hunting, fishing awaits
For the outdoor person or family, the coming weeks will offer many more outdoor recreation opportunities as the summer season winds down and we move into early fall hunting.
The little, level trail that keeps on … climbing
I got more than I bargained for a couple of weeks ago when a good friend and I made plans for a Saturday morning hike.
A literary art feels the love
A literary art feels the love
One dog’s day in the sun
Our son texted us a photo last week during that heat spell of his Basenji dog lying in his arms on the sofa and sacked out on his back, paws limp, legs splayed out and spotted underside exposed for all the world ...
A walk prompts liking to lichen
One of the first things we learned: Lichen is not a plant.
Kayak yak
I finally got my kayak out on the water this month for the first time, the latest in any season I’ve had my boat out.
Good pay and good fishing
Here it is, mid-July, and we aren’t breathing unhealthy air from forest fires. We can be thankful for a cool wet spring, so lots of forest vegetation is still mostly green, not yet burnable.
Human nature hunts for sweet life
A couple of weeks after I moved here last fall, a Kalispell resident buttonholed me at an event to ask if people had been kind to me, as a newcomer to the valley.