Margaret E. Davis: Peaks and Valleys
Explore Margaret E. Davis’ Peaks and Valleys column, where she captures Northwest Montana life through reflective storytelling, local history, community events, and everyday experiences across Northwest Montana. Her writing blends curiosity, humor, and insight into Montana’s people, landscapes, and culture.
Curiosity brings lives to light
The Great Falls native took off to teach in Shanghai motivated by the notion that “the world isn’t as scary as the nightly news makes it out to be.”
At curtain, I’ll fake Manhattan
Flathead Valley opera fans have it pretty good.
86th mission lasted 1,881 days
Tom was my grandmother’s favorite relative judging by the clippings she displayed wherever she lived.
Slayer plays the mall
The first time I ventured to the community chess club in the Kalispell Center Mall, the adults outnumbered the kids and just a game or two was under way.
Kalispell, are you ready to walk?
Use it or lose it, right?
Tourism gives us the FITs
This time of year finds us hunkered down, but the travel pros are revving up, hoping to capture the FITs of the future.
If time’s flying, give some away
I’m surprised how quiet it is.
Employers can boost hire power
Last summer my teenage son wanted nothing more than to lay about the house Howard Hughes-style in plush robe and thumb at his phone.
Amid the grim, find the funny
The seed was planted when I went to last month’s performance capping the Comedy Improv II class at Flathead Valley Community College.
Disaster takes no holiday
As Kalispell’s oldest public facility, the 1894 Richardsonian Romanesque edifice on Second Avenue East is a symbol of our earliest residents’ ambition for their town and the education of generations to come.
Life on brink saved by a bark
On this day last year, Bradley almost lost it.
We’re all in this town together
It was the last thing I wanted to do, leaving work to go anywhere but home in a driving snow.
The next generation speaks up
I could hear the clamor of students inside Flathead High before I opened the door to the school a couple of Saturdays ago.
The bullets kept dodging me
The third time's the charm.
For Pete’s sake, build a bridge
When I started working at the Northwest Montana History Museum I began to hear the name Pete Skibsrud. At first he merely sounded like a man about town.