Little house is big on style

Justin Armintrout’s dream house is small. At only 815 square feet, some might call it tiny. But Armintrout has mastered the art of making small spaces seem expansive.
“I’d always admired the house,” he said of the home at the corner of Lolo Street and Greenough Drive. “I always thought it had great potential.”
From the outside, the house is classic cottage, with potted plants, dark green shutters and an awning over the stoop. Within is a European styled interior, clean lines and clear views from one room to the next.
Through manipulating layout and décor, the cottage feels airy and open. Part of the trick is in color choice, and utilizing lines of sight.
“If you can look across a room diagonally, it makes the space appear much larger,” Armintrout explained.
Armintrout’s palate is earthy and bright: lambswool walls make a perfect canvas for bold metal antiques. The living room’s mustard brightens an otherwise small space, and an accent wall in the entry is bright Georgia brick, allowing the color to warm and flow from the focal point of the house back through the rooms. The floor is narrow planed oak, original to the house, darkly grained with time.
Armintrout moved to Missoula in 1994, to attend the University of Montana. He worked his way through school by gardening for Gilbert Millikan at his Rattlesnake estate. It was at that time he noticed this house. Intrigued by a circular driveway and mature but overgrown yard, he admired the house from afar.
Then a couple of years ago, Armintrout noticed the house was for sale.
“I jumped at the chance to buy it,” he said.
Armed with knowledge gleaned from Sarah Susanka’s book, “The Not So Big House,” Armintrout went to work modernizing the inside of house, while restoring quaint cottage accents to the outside.
Armintrout added shutters and an awning, resurfaced the driveway and landscaped the front yard to emphasize the sea-side feel of the house’s exterior.
Inside, the house was compartmentalized with small, cramped rooms. Armintrout took out walls to open the space, allowing light to flow.
“For me, a home is spiritual,” he explained. “It’s where I get my energy.”
“The idea of Susanka’s book,” he went on, “is to condense the square footage down to 1,200 square feet of fabulousness.”
“It’s like a sailboat,” he continued, “every square foot is utilized and has a purpose.”
To gather additional design ideas, Armintrout “subscribed to every magazine possible.” Still, he had an edge.
“I’ve always been interested in design, and most of my friends are designers,” he admitted. Plus, he emphasized, “I just really worked with what was here. The bones were here.”
Armintrout gives all the credit for his sleek, open kitchen to his partner, Peter Kulka.
“He’s Swiss,” Armintrout says. The space is small, and when they couldn’t find suitable components in Missoula, they went online. “Ikea has a website where you can build and design your own kitchen,” Armintrout said. And all Ikea’s pieces are “European sized,” with a width of 24 inches.
The duo went to Seattle and brought back 156 pieces in a U-haul, including a panel-fronted fridge.
“It’s much smaller than a conventional fridge,” Armintrout explained. Their stove is narrow as well, perfectly suited to the house’s space. Keeping everything in proportion is another key to making the small space look large.
Armintrout’s decorating is particular to him. “I’m big into family heirlooms,” he said.
His grandfather’s WW II flight jacket hangs on his office wall, along with family photos and a dollar bill that bears the name of every man his grandfather, a flight instructor in the war, taught to fly who did not make it through the conflict. “He carried that in his wallet til the day he died,” Armintrout said.
One kitchen wall sports miner’s helmets from Butte - “You can still smell the soot on them” A row of convex hubcaps lines another. The metal accents lend a modern flare.
A telephone nook is pure vintage, with a black rotary phone and a framed portrait of his mother as a young woman.
Armintrout’s philosophy on design is holistic.
“I look at houses as taking care of someone when they live there,” he said.
In return, Armintrout is caring for his house. He has revitalized the landscaping, applying the skills he learned at Millikan’s to his own gardens. “Gilbert taught me everything I know about gardening,” Armintrout said.
“I grew up in the country,” Armintrout recalled. “The backyard sold me. It’s almost three quarters of an acre.” His large lot, small house configuration replicates that feeling, while living in a vibrant urban setting. “I love it. It’s my therapy.”
With such a large yard, he gets to practice that therapy a lot.
The biggest battle is with the plentiful urban deer.
“I wanted a yard where I didn’t have to put a cage around any of my plants,”
Armintrout said. So the front is open to deer, but planted with deer-resistant species such as Echinacea and bee balm, sedum, Shasta daisies and agapanthus.
A line of mature trees shelters the house from the busy intersection. “The trees are really what anchor the place,” Armintrout said. Timbers that hem in the front yard’s junipers were reclaimed from the old Bonner Bridge. Other beds are rimmed with large rocks, gathered from the property. “One of the things I love about the Rattlesnake is the rocks,” Armintrout said. “Of course I don’t love them when I’m gardening, but every time I find one I add it to my rock walls.”
The backyard is surrounded by a six foot privacy fence, creating a personal park. “We kept the backyard for ourselves,” he said.
Armintrout mentioned “I do a lot of entertaining and a flat backyard with grass is marvelous for entertaining.” To soundproof the yard, Armintrout planted a double hedge – arbor vitae within the fence and cotoneaster on the street side. “Arborvitae is deer lettuce,” he said. A hammock out back is “a great place to take a nap,” he added.
The backyard also hosts a smaller guest cottage.
Built in 1994 by Terry Miner of Rockin’ M Designs, the 640 foot studio was being used as a rental when Armintrout purchased the home. He has since redone it into a guest house for his frequent visitors. The exterior’s white paint, dark green shutters and awning match that of the main house. Inside, the house is modern and crisp.
“We created this separate pathway to access the cottage from Lolo Street,” Armintrout says of the work he and Kulka did. “We wanted to give our guests some privacy.” They lined a gravel path with aspens, shrubs and containerized bamboo, creating a pastoral setting for the guest house. “It’s perfect,” said Armintrout.
“My mother comes and stays here.”
Armintrout has a penchant for antiques. In front of his house are iron urns, on the walls are family heirlooms, but the guest cottage boasts his true talent for décor.
Artifacts in the cottage include a stack of old, bound copies of 1920’s through 1940’s Billings Gazettes that Armintrout found in an antique store in Palm Springs, California.
“They’re stamped with the Montana Historical Society,” he said. “I tried to give them back, but they didn’t want them.” Apparently, the volumes were tossed after being put on microfiche. No one knew how they’d gotten to Palm Springs. “I brought them back here. I felt they belonged in Montana.”
The guest house has a spare, gallery feel. “I wanted to go with a clean look, so I whitewashed everything and painted the woodwork accents in black,” he described.
A loft above the living room sports a ’62 Peugeot moped Armintrout found while hostelling in Europe.
“It still works,” Armintrout said, though he mused “I don’t know if it would actually make it up Greenough Drive. In the center of the room hangs a deep green chandelier, made from the spotlight of a cargo ship. “It has a bit of an industrial feel to it.”
On the loft is the hood of an old car, weathered the same pink as the true linoleum floor.
Back in the main house, the 400 foot basement is “our winter project,” Armintrout said. It houses a laundry room and two legal bedrooms that still have walls decaled by the room’s former occupants. The couple intends to refinish the walls in bamboo and wainscoting, and use the space for guests.
In their own chamber, bedside lamps were once used by seamstresses in England, and were found during the same trip Armintrout found the Peugeot. “Other people collect keepsakes from their travels,” Armintrout said. “I collect antiques.”

Retirees find "Home sweet home" in community

Grizzly Peak

Say “dream home” to most folks and they envision 4,000 square feet, luxury appliances, spacious rooms filled with leather and finery. Marble counters, slate tile and a sprawling estate might complete the dream.
Say “dream home” to Millar Bryce, and a very different light twinkles in his eyes.
Bryce is at home – his dream home – at Grizzly Peak retirement community, an independent living facility for seniors on Missoula’s north edge.
Each resident has their own apartment in a dorm-like setting, complete with personal name plate on their door “in case they stay out too late,” jokes manager Lloyd Gillin.
There’s a lot of joking at Grizzly Peak. It’s not a stodgy, nothing-left-to-do sort of place, but a residence for those who like the ease of weekly maid service, a grounds crew-maintained landscape, and three meals a day served restaurant style in the resident dining room.
“Too many people think this is an institution,” says Bryce, who is keen on correcting that notion. “This is not a rest home,” he emphasized. “Most people don’t realize there’s such a thing as real, independent living.”
Bryce says at 88, he’s about the average age of a Grizzly Peak resident. Still, “there’s an amazing amount of people here who are 90 to 95.”
“I know so many people who think this is terrible, because I moved out of a nice home,” he said of his decision to move into the retirement community three and a half years ago. “For someone in my position, it is a perfect place to live,” he said.
His position is healthy, older and alone.
“Practically everyone here is widowed,” Bryce said, though with 113 apartments (97 are currently occupied) the opportunity to meet and mingle is superb.
“There’s more opportunity for friendship and socializing here than living on your own,” he commented. And company policy encourages that.
Residents are urged to eat with different people at daily meals, and most seem happy to do so. The result is a greater feeling of community.
“Everyone here is on a first name basis,” Bryce said. “That’s one thing you do here even better than a small town,” added Bryce, who moved from Plains. “You can make as many friends as you want.”
The active lifestyle and capacity to make friends keeps them young, the residents believe.
“I don’t really hear any moaning and groaning about going back home,” Bryce said. “It’s just too comfortable here.”
Margaret Carson agrees.
The painter and collage artist moved to Grizzly Peaks four years ago from Toronto, where she had lived for 11 years to be closer to two of her children. (The other two live in Montana).
Before that, “I was traveling around,” Carson said. “I’ve been a restless soul.”
For now she is content to live in the place she said she found “by accident.”
“I was driving around with my daughter,” she explained. “I wasn’t in good shape.” Reeling from the death of another daughter, Carson said “all I wanted was a room to hole up in for six months until I felt better. When the six months was up, I forgot to move out.”
“I’ve been perfectly happy ever since.”
Bryce said he first learned of retirement communities when his sister in Washington moved in to one managed by Holiday, the same company that runs Grizzly Peak. She was happy there, and through regular visits the idea of moving into a similar community seemed sensible to him, especially after his wife passed on. “It didn’t take me long to decide that was what I was going to do,” Bryce said.
“For me, it is my Dream Home.”
Another aspect of community living Bryce considers “dreamy” is the plethora of activities available to residents. Sightseeing trips to the Smoke Jumper’s Center, to Big Fork and Philipsburg are regular events. And while most residents still drive their own cars, a free shuttle service can ferry them to doctor’s appointments, grocery stores and other locations around town.
There are small group luncheons, ice cream socials, and plenty of space throughout the building to mingle with friends, be it for a game of cards or a turn at the third floor pool table.
“One thing Holiday did when they built the buildings is make sure there’s a lot of open space” to promote interaction amongst tenants, Gillin remarked.
“Lots of card playing goes on here,” Bryce concurred.
And, he noted, if you’re tired of Peak activities, there’s plenty of options awaiting just a stone’s throw away on North Reserve. The emphasis on independence is why Bryce believes Grizzly Peak’s tenants are so happy, by and large.
“What’s nice is no one feels sorry for you. No one fawns over you. I think most of us appreciate that.”
In Bryce’s generation, a can-do spirit predominates, and though they’re older, they aren’t ready to be coddled to.
“No one keeps their age secret – we’re all sort of proud of it,” Bryce smiled.
Carson, for one, is 88 and “full of aches and pains.”
“My daughter told me I wouldn’t grow old gracefully,” she says wryly.
Because age and its infirmities a factor to the group, each apartment comes equipped with an emergency pull cord, like those found in hospitals.
“That’s another thing that offers much security to those of us getting older here,” Bryce said. “You can pull the cord 24/7 if you need help. I think it’s a real security knowing you’re not alone.”
Bryce’s neighbor Glenna Mae Reish also agrees with him “I feel protected,” she said. “That’s the main thing – I feel very secure.”
“The comfort of being with people your own age should be discussed,” Bryce remarked. “You easily find friends with similar backgrounds, and just as easily form friendships that are very comforting.”
“Most men are much more afraid of this type of thing than women,” he added. The gender balance at Grizzly Peak “must be 80 percent women.” But Bryce doesn’t mind.
“There’s some interesting people here,” he said. “I eat with one fellow who was an executive in the steel industry. Another was a geologist.”
“People think it’s an institution, and that scares them.”
But for those who call Grizzly Peak home, that notion isn’t true. “I just hope that my message gets across to the folks that do not know there is very comfortable independent living available with no feeling of being institutionalized,” Bryce said, “At least nor for me.”
His fast friend Margaret Carson agreed. “I don’t feel when I walk out the door (of my apartment) I’m leaving my home. I feel the whole place is my home.”

MacDonalds home a bit of living history

The foundation for the MacDonald family’s home was laid twenty years before any building began, when Mike MacDonald’s parents, John “Mac” and Cloie MacDonald, drove through the Bitterroot valley as a young married couple in the mid-1950’s.
In love with each other, they also fell in love with the land, and made the Bitterroot their dream. But Mac had a job in Missoula, and there they lived.
Through the years that followed, the family grew and prospered, but their dream of living in the Bitterroot lingered. So in 1972, the couple bought a piece of land outside of Stevensville, complete with creek and seclusion.
Mike and his siblings were teenagers when his parents bought the land, and they were expected to work.
“My (youngest) brother was two,” MacDonald said. “He couldn’t do much, but he helped move rocks.”
MacDonald’s father was a teacher, so in summer, the family “vacationed” on their land, with everyone pitching in with the building. Cousins, uncles and aunts all helped build the cedar home that Mike would later buy from his father.
MacDonald has the original canceled check his father wrote to pay for the cedar logs. It’s tucked into a photo album chronicling the home’s transformation from logs to poured foundation to two-story home situated on a hillside overlooking a creek and five-acre meadow. The squared logs were purchased for just over $23,000. The cedar came delivered on the backs of two semi trailers.
“They just dumped the load out and drove off,” MacDonald said.
The family spent the first few days just sorting logs. Luckily, there was a plan to go with the pile. To facilitate putting the home together, the logs were notched with a “double tongue and groove” style, MacDonald said, fitting one into another.
Like Lincoln logs, “every layer of every wall has to go down before the next layer goes on,” MacDonald explained. The logs are solid, and though they’re made to fit together, the house’s wiring had to be planned out, drawn on and holes drilled into each one, as the walls went up. To house conduit, his uncle or another family member would mark the log after it was placed, be sure it aligned with the one underneath, and drill out a hole, repeating the process for each layer. Despite the help of “aunts, cousins and uncles” the building process was slow.
“It took two years, basically,” MacDonald said. “We got the walls and the roof up the first year,” but had to finish the interior from within. Their first year in the house, the family lived in the basement, using a portable kitchenette until their upstairs was complete.
MacDonald speaks with an obvious sense of pride about his family’s project.
“A lot of people don’t build their own homes,” he mused, “they have them built.”
This home, however, sports contributions from all his family members.
Fireplaces and floors were built after the family “spent long hours gathering rock.”
“One of my cousins was the ranger in Plains at the time, and he knew where there were some good outcroppings.” The family brought back rock “pickup load by pickup load.”
“Every time we went out we were looking for rock,” MacDonald said.
It wasn’t just rocks the family hauled back. The family loved to camp, and during one such trip to Idaho, his mom spied a downed cedar tree she thought would be just perfect as a fireplace mantle.
“It was on the other side of the river, of course,” MacDonald remembered, smiling.
Undeterred, the family floated the log across the Lochsa, and brought it home, where it does, indeed, make a fine mantle piece.
In addition to using native resources, MacDonald said his father was concerned with energy efficiency. He put in radiant floor heat, solar panels and vinyl double pane windows. “Those were kind of new 30 years ago.”
The family also worked to change the face of the hillside.
“It was just cheatgrass, knapweed and rocks,” MacDonald said of the original site. Now it boasts fruit trees and shade trees, flowers and shrubs.
“It’s a very different hillside than it was 30 years ago.”
The whole place, MacDonald said, is born of his family’s “blood, sweat and tears.”
“It’s a neat place,” MacDonald said. “I don’t know of another place like it in the valley.”
“You can’t see the whole of another house from here,” he added, which was his father’s goal. “It’s very nice,” he said, surveying the land, where a small creek ripples through a tree-lined gulch. “It’s very peaceful.”
MacDonald purchased the family home from his father in 1998.
“Mom died in a car accident on Highway 93 in December of 1996,” MacDonald said.
“Dad was going to remarry in ’98 and the plan was both respective spouses would sell their houses and start anew.”
“I came home with my daughters to pick up some furniture and I wanted to move back here. I’m really the only one of us four kids who wanted to move back, so it just worked out,” he said.
Although his parents had lived there for 20 years, there was work yet to do. The basement “was half unfinished when we moved back,” MacDonald said.
“When we moved in, we did a lot of the final finish work - putting up molding, trim and things like that.”
The MacDonalds moved the laundry room downstairs, put a pantry upstairs, redid bathrooms, put in new carpeting and rebuilt the front deck. They added a back deck and transformed the garage into a workshop for Mike, adding a new double car garage for vehicles. And they did “everything” to the kitchen, MacDonald said, including replacing all the cabinets and putting in new flooring.
“The old cabinets were home built, and the doors didn’t meet up anymore,” MacDonald said. “The flooring was older, darker indoor/outdoor carpeting.”
The MacDonalds removed the old boiler as well, and installed a propane furnace.
“Every year we had a logging truck load of wood brought in,” MacDonald said. “We spent $1,500 to $1,800 on wood, and a lot of hours chopping it.
My wife and I are both in our 50’s. No one’s gonna wanna do that work anymore.”
Plus, his wife and he both work in Missoula, and there was no one to keep the furnace fire stoked a steady six hours to get the boiler up to heat, he said.
“The propane is a better choice. We have a much more consistent, even heat.”
One thing MacDonald didn’t change was the writing on the walls.
Pencil marks from kids mar some of the walls, MacDonald said, along with original markings made by uncles when putting the building together. A sister was married on the lawn out back 26 years ago, and his younger daughter intends to follow suit some day.
“My older daughter wanted to get married here, but she wanted to marry in winter, and I said ‘No’,” he related. “Have you seen what it’s like out here in the winter?”
Three generations of MacDonald children have lived in the upstairs loft bedroom, along with foster families Mike’s parents took in. And “my grandmother lived out here with us in the summers,” he added.
“There’s a lot of family involvement here,” MacDonald said, looking around. “All of what you see is the result of 30 years of work.”
MacDonald and his wife hope to retire soon, and do a bit of traveling. He plans to sell the house to his youngest brother, now 37.
He’s happy knowing it will stay in his family, and that he’ll always have a place to come back to. After all, he said, “It's a beautiful home, and it's filled with memories. It’s got a bit of history here.”

Looking old is a trick of the new

As you round the curve of a mile-long drive, smack in the middle of a field of cows, a seemingly ancient cabin appears in a nook of the land. The weathered appearance belies the modern methods that make the house appear aged.
“We wanted to build a new efficient home, make it fit into the natural environment and look like it had been there for a hundred years,” Debbie Richardson said. To that end, the Richardsons chose modern methods to create an antiquated look.
“We used concrete "cultured logs", a rusting metal roof and 200 tons of rock gathered from the property for the outside of our home,” Debbie said.
The home’s walls are its star. They are built both of rock and a material called “cultured” concrete logs. The logs are molded concrete covering a Styrofoam core. Until you are beside them, they look like real wood.
“Dick Morgenstern has a patent on the system,” Debbie said. Her husband “has known Dick forever,” and the couple liked the system’s low maintenance, energy efficiency and rustic look, so choosing the product was a no-brainer. Inside the house, the walls are studded and sheet rocked, with insulation sprayed in.
“It gives you a large amount of thermal mass, so it takes a long time to heat and a long time to cool,” Dick said. The end result is “very reasonable heating bills.”
“This winter we had a week where it was 12 below, and you couldn’t even feel it,” Debbie noted.
Their metal roof is pre-rusted, washed with a solution of vinegar, hydrogen peroxide and salt. “You spray it on and within five minutes, it’s rusting,” Debbie said.
The roofing is specially made so that it will rust to a certain point – then stop. With the inhibiting layer built in, “It’s much heavier than conventional metal roofing,” explained Dick. It should last 70 years. The couple used the same treatment on the base of their barn.
“We just liked the look of it,” Debbie said.
Decks are made of Brazilian Ipe wood. “It’s very dense,” she said. Due to that density, “You don’t have to treat it. And it doesn’t get slick when it’s wet,” Debbie said.
North American woods were treated “with a product called ‘Lifetime,’” she said.
“It’s what the Forest Service uses on their cabins.” The salt-based crystals, in solution, become a weather and bug-proofing treatment.
“Supposedly you never need to treat it again. We’re trying to cut down on maintenance,” she said of their various choices. All the materials were selected for ease of care and longevity.
This is the Richardson’s dream home, built in a spot Dick saw during his rounds as a veterinarian 20 years ago.
“In 30 years, there’s very few places within 80 miles of Missoula that I have not been,” he said. Of all he’s seen, the one spot that struck him was the one where he and his wife now have their home. “I spent 20 years trying to buy it,” he said.
The couple finally bought the adjacent piece of land, and traded that with the ranch family who owned their dream spot.
“That’s the thing that makes a house special to someone,” said Dick. “They pick a special place and spend a lot of time planning.”
Situated atop a knoll, with no other house in sight, their meadow is full of cows, lowing and ambling about. Their house sits in a draw toward a corner of the property.
“We wanted to put it where it made sense,” Dick said, “where 150 years ago someone would have built a house – by the water, protected from the wind.”
Debbie concurs. “It can be blowing outside, and here around the house it’s quiet.”
The couple broke ground in March of 2007, and moved in in November of that year.
The house was designed to look like an old National Park building, Dick said.
Beamed porches, a rock base and “log” siding attest to that.
The 4,000 square foot home spans two stories, although from the outside, it looks much smaller. An attached double garage faces the gravel drive, so only a portion of the house is visible. The remainder of the home is built behind the garage, tucked into the sloping land. The illusion is a small cabin, magically enlarged when you walk through the doors.
“You need to give credit to our architect,” said Debbie.
Kelly Karmel designed the home, making the outside look rustic, while the inside is anything but.
Within, your eyes are met by a huge stone fireplace, created by mason Peggy Steffs, who also built the house’s rock base, incorporating stone arches over the windows.
Cathedral ceilings and multipane windows lend a feeling of clarity and warmth.
Radiant floor heat, granite countertops, sprawling halls and tile throughout the house gleam. Furnishings are polished cherry and leather. Everywhere is luxury, but no carpet -- “It’s nice when you have animals,” Debbie explained.
The Richardsons own 62 acres, lease adjacent ranch land for their cattle, and have permission to use the neighboring ranches for riding, as well.
“We have 600 acres we can ride our horses on,” Dick said.
Outside the windows, the couple’s cow-calf pairs amble past. They are so close, the feeling is they are pets. Debbie said they wanted it that way.
Another nod to the couple’s love of their animals is an expansive mud room, divided into two sections. One side boasts a full – sized fridge and sink, the other, a special wash area for muddy boots, dogs and buckets.
“This mud room we love,” Debbie smiled.
The upstairs is where the Richardsons live.
“The basement is for guests,” Debbie said, crossing the two bedroom, 1,700 square foot lower level. With the idea of one day turning it into an apartment, the basement is wired and plumbed for an additional kitchen. Right now, where a kitchen could be, is Debbie’s old piano.
“I never go in basement except to go to the barn,” she said. With middle age firmly upon them Debbie explained, “We wanted everything we needed on one level. We’re getting older and I don’t want to climb stairs.”
Upstairs, gorgeous French doors, made of oak-encased ripple glass, open from both sides of an airy hall. One set reveals a vast laundry room, the other the master bath.
The laundry room hosts a state of the art washer and dryer, plenty of room to fold and hang, and the working end of Debbie’s in-wall fish tank. “I’ve always had fish,” she said. This, however, is her first salt water tank. Windows pour light into the tank through its face in the couple’s large bedroom, and Debbie is still figuring out how to control the resultant algae blooms.
The bedroom is simple, a combination sleeping and sitting room, with windows overlooking those golden cows. The room spans the width of the house, and windows on three sides give it a broad, airy ambience. You feel more like you’re on a deck than within a typical bedroom.
The master bath is broad and spare, tiled in relaxing sand.
“We had a teeny, tiny shower in our last place, and I wanted a bigger shower,” Debbie said, displaying the walk-in marble stall. “I hate cleaning shower doors, so we wanted something big enough that you don’t need a door.”
At the end of the hall, solid French doors reveal an office.
The Richardson’s halls are wider than average, about five feet wide, Debbie said. Angles allow for easy maneuvering around corners, rather than having sharp turns. All the doorways are double wide French doors.
The house, Debbie explained, is built to accommodate aging and its needs.
“I’m hoping I’m never in a wheelchair, but…” she tapers off.
Wide halls, smooth floors, and extra wide doorways will all accommodate any adaptive or assistive devices the couple might need. Everything was designed with accessibility in mind. The space doesn’t give up luxury for practicality, but once pointed out, it is easy to imagine maneuvering a wheelchair through the floor plan.
It’s simple, Debbie said. “I don’t ever want to move again.”
Outside, a rock patio abuts the house, while landscaping is still in progress. It is here the house looks largest from without. Where the two segments of the house meet, the roof is flat and slightly recessed.
“The flat roof area allows us to put solar hot water or solar panels on without having them visible when you look at the house,” Dick explained. “The thing we wanted to accomplish is to build the house out here and not destroy the scene of this pastoral view.”
Dick said that sensibility is getting rarer these days.
The view is as important to Dick as it is to Debbie.
“I drive up and down this valley every day,” he said. “It’s a special place."

Cut water use by gardening with native plants

Landscaping with native plants is a great way to create low-maintenance, water wise gardens said the experts at a recent native plants meeting that combined landscaping tips with weed-combating strategies.
Native plants have developed over millennia in Montana’s arid, cold ecosystem, and are well suited to the typical hot-cold-wet-dry seasonal weather patterns experienced in western Montana. They can add visual diversity to a garden or landscape, through architectural shapes and non-flowering color, while flowering natives can often endure the driest weeks of summer without the daily fuss that typical garden plants require to survive.
There are different ideas about gardening with natives, said Richard Rogers of the Calypso chapter of Montana’s Native Plant Society. Rogers is a revegetation expert who does site reclamation using native plants.
Some people feel nature will “claw its way back” no matter what, he said, while others prefer to “assist nature” with irrigation, soil preparation and the like.
Rogers said the approach you choose is really up to you – and how many acres or square feet you have to work with. The smaller the plot, the more you can amend your approach, he said. Regardless of your choice, Rogers said, the secret to growing native plants “is matching plants to habits.”
If you have a shady spot, don’t try growing a sun-loving flower there. If you have a sandy spot, don’t plant a water loving tree. “You’re not gonna grow aspen on a dry prairie,” he said.
In order to mimic nature, Rogers said you have to think about how the plant lives in the wild. Most natives drop seed in the fall, he said, then experience winter dormancy. “If you seed natives,” he said, “you shouldn’t expect them to come up the first year.” The seeds need to lie dormant through a winter cycle before they can germinate, he said. When landscaping, Rogers prefers using plants. That approach, he smiled, “Is faster and more assured than seed.”
Rogers also said to think in terms of micro habitats. “A chink in concrete is similar to a chink in rock,” Rogers said. “It might not look like native habitat, but it can act like it.”
For urban and suburban gardeners, Rogers recommends asters as an easy-to-grow native flower that establishes quickly and provides visual interest. Other natives that grow well in our area are flaxes, evening primrose, and coneflowers. Shrubs that do particularly well here are big sage brush, flowering potentilla, serviceberry, snowberry and any of the gooseberries, he said.
In order to keep native plantings healthy, they must be watered. But, warns Bill Allen of Allen Landscaping and Nursery, “Over-watering is one of the biggest mistakes made when landscaping with native plants.” Because the plants have evolved in Montana’s arid climate, over-watering can be detrimental. Flowering natives such as penstemon can actually be killed by too much water. Trees, however, are a different story.
“A spruce tree in hot, windy weather will take a hundred gallons of water a day - that’s a lot of water,” Allen remarked. “Of course,” he said, “soil type determines” how much supplemental water a tree needs. Heavy clay soils retain moisture, while sandy soils dry out quickly and require more.
The Native Plant Society’s Patrick Plantenberg recommends using mulch to conserve soil moisture and discourage competition from weeds. And, he said, mulches can be decorative in and of themselves. So, while “there’s no such thing as no maintenance landscapes,” Platenberg said, mulches helps get you closer to that dream.
If you are planting your yard to attract birds, Rogers said, species diversity is important, but structural diversity is even more so. Birds need plants of varying heights and cover densities to provide habitat for them to feed and raise their young in safety, he said. “Physiognomic diversity matters.”
As for weeds, Jeanne Caddy, a weed control expert from Divide, said educating oneself about weeds is the best defense against them. “It’s important to learn to identify weeds before they become a problem,” she said.
Because many desirable natives have counterparts in the weed world, Caddy reminded gardeners it’s just as important to learn to identify native plants as well. “You don’t want to pull up your good plants,” she said.
Managing small infestations is the foremost step a person can take to keep weeds from spreading, she added. Pulling weeds from your garden or lawn and properly disposing of them can keep the invaders in check. While a weed here or there doesn’t seem like much now, uncontrolled, they can take over.
Other tips are just as easy. “Take the burrs off your dog,” she instructed, “and instead of throwing them on the ground, throw them in the garbage.”
No matter what you want to grow, the Native Plant Society encourages you to start at home. Many local garden supply outlets carry native plants or their close relatives, and have informed staff that can help you decide what plants will work best in your yard or garden.

Ranch club wonder

Marcia Holland’s house in the Ranch Club west of town is peppered with Alaskan art. Her family lived in that northern state until 2006, when they decided to build in Missoula.
Holland, from Butte, moved here because her husband Chuck loved it, she had family here, and importantly, her son could breathe.
“One of the reasons we moved is Mick’s allergy to birch pollen,” Holland said. Birch is common in Alaska’s wet climate, but far less so here.
Still, the family didn’t move right away -- they needed a place to come to.
“We were building our house in Missoula, but we were doing it while living in Fairbanks,” Holland said. Finding a designer they could trust to bring their vision to life was paramount. Page Goode, of Makeroom Design/Interiors, was the one.
Though the family was only able to journey to Montana four times during the process, Goode made the most of their visits.
During one, she had them scrambling from paint store to fixture store to lighting store, looking at pendants and paint colors and faucets and drawer pulls and cabinet knobs.
“They were exhausted,” Goode said. The next day, they did it again.
“What was most amazing about Page was the breadth and depth of her knowledge,” Holland said of their concentrated encounters. That knowledge, earned through 31 years of designing interiors, allowed Goode to select colors, styles and furnishings that matched the Hollands’ tastes.
Rubber flooring in the kitchen is one example. “Chuck used to cook in a restaurant, so Page chose (this),” Holland said. The commercial flooring reduces fatigue, and it’s black. The countertop is black. The kitchen island is black. Appliances are black. Turns out, black is one of Holland’s favorite colors.
“A friend from Chicago came and is redoing her kitchen,” Holland smiled, “and was stealing the ideas.”
Off the kitchen, a small, quiet space hosts a gas fireplace, a soft couch and a small, designer table on a black rug.
“We discovered we spend all this time just sitting here in the winter,” Holland said.
Other rooms are treated differently.
In the dining room, the accent wall is bold slate blue. Amber pendant lights balance that. The dining table of African wenge wood boasts seating for eight. The chairs are sleek black leather.
The colors, Goode said, are intentional. They are designed to pull the outdoors in through the room’s large picture windows that overlook the Ranch Club’s golf course. From the panes, blue sky pours in, bouncing off a thick glass coffee table mimicking a slab of ice.
Goode, with a background in architecture, said, “I tend to pay attention to the structure” of the home, and select design elements accordingly.
Other touches in the house reflect the family’s personalities and preferences.
In Micah’s bathroom, drawer pulls are small black stones. The counter laminate is called beluga. Alaskan art hangs on the walls.
A special room off the garage was made for Chuck’s bicycle gear. Jerseys, bicycles and accessories all hang neatly in their own organized space.
Green River slate covers the foyer, while blue-toned slate covers the bathroom walls. The flooring shows flecks of mica and garnet, polished to enhance the colors.
Holland credits 11-year-old Micah with the stones’ selection.
Off the foyer, the washroom sink is a glossy black basin-on-table, filled with river rocks. Holland chose it because she liked it. “Why not,” she asked of her accent rocks.
The paint on the home’s walls was selected by Goode. Unbelievably, it is the same color throughout.
Called netsuke, it appears warm amber in one room, cool cream in another. “I love it because it picks up the color of the landscape,” Goode said. “There really is a method to the madness.”
The color flows from room to room, morphing to suit the personality of each space. In the master bedroom, the accents are all brown.
“We found this bed that’s copper and steel,” Holland said of her platform frame, “and had a greened copper planter made into a side table for the room.”
“This is a complete change from any color I had in my house in Alaska,” she admitted.
A unique feature of her bedroom is a deep L-shaped closet that provides plenty of space to organize personal items, but minimizes wall space usurped by doors. The result is copious storage, “so we didn’t need to add another dresser out there,” Holland said.
The basement, referred to as “Mick’s bachelor pad”, sports a Wii, large screen TV, pool table and prep kitchen. Admittedly, the kitchen with wine cellar is more for adults, but as a result of the design, Holland said her family spends more time together downstairs, playing pool, watching movies and making snacks.
They also have a closet especially for hockey gear, so the family can leave their duffels packed and ready to grab for road games.
“We have enough space now,” Holland said of her 4,000 square foot home. “It’s much bigger than our old house by a lot.”
“When we tell friends that we built our house "remotely" and that it turned out beyond our expectations, they cannot believe it all worked - and it did only because of Page,” Holland said.
“Page did everything from understanding our taste and recommending selections to finding craftsmen to take on projects. She helped select furniture and placement to maximize features of our new house, like our spectacular view,” Holland gushed.
“I cannot sing Page's praises enough - she made our beautiful house happen.”

Fein stone kitchen

Kim Fein has moved 17 times in the last 30 years. In that time, she has renovated seven homes. It helps that she’s trained in interior design, holding a design degree from Purdue University.
Fein has moved to follow her husband, an engineer with Envirocon, who is currently the senior project manager for the Milltown Dam removal. In an ironic twist, Fein is dealing with a water project of her own.
The kitchen in their mid-1990’s Lincoln Hills home was damaged by flooding during its previous ownership. The house, Fein said, was in the 1995 Parade of Homes, but the builder “took pride in some things and went cheap on others.”
“It was just bizarre,” Fein said of the odd combination of techniques throughout the home. Worst was the kitchen.
“We came across flooring issues where there were floods,” said contractor Steve Monogue of Natural Stone Solutions who is assisting with Fein’s remodel.
The kitchen floor was ceramic tile over concrete board, and had been damaged by water. Monogue suggested removing the concrete board and replacing it with hardiboard, a waterproof underlayment, and replacing the ceramic tile with stone. “If you’re using natural materials, you don’t have to worry about water,” he said.
Water damage to the kitchen necessitated removing the cabinet faces as well.
“The cabinetry was flaky,” Fein said. “It was terrible.”
Refacing the cabinets helped keep remodeling costs down. “If you’re doing a kitchen remodel that includes cabinetry,” Monogue said, “the cabinets will be the most expensive thing.” Fein chose solid wood doors, but is modifying them.
“I’m about to put a higher gloss, tougher seal on them to make them easier to clean,” she said.
Before redoing her kitchen, Fein toured houses for sale in her neighborhood, and noticed they all had granite counters. Attention to market trends prompted Fein’s use of stone in her own house. That, and a desire to eradicate germs.
Fein wouldn’t disagree that she’s germ phobic, and prefers surfaces that are easy to clean. One of the changes Fein prioritized was removing a tile counter top “with a wood edge, which you’re never supposed to do because you’re constantly wiping it down,” she said. And she was. Besides constantly washing the peeling wooden edge, Fein was “resealing the grout every three months.”
“The germs were just unacceptable,” she said.
Instead of hard-to-clean grout, Fein now has a smooth granite countertop, cut of a huge slab of stone requiring only one seam for the length of her kitchen.
The pink, black, taupe and crystalline stone attracts natural light from the nearby window, and bounces it on the slick, semi-translucent surface.
“It’s not impervious, but it’s nearly impossible to scratch it,” Monogue said of the granite. Fein has relied on Monogue’s assistance with her entire kitchen remodel.
“When you have places that make very professional decisions, you stick with them,” she said.
Natural Stone Solutions suggested slate for Fein’s backsplash, and Fein chose to have it set on point, in a diamond pattern, with copper tiles for accents. The slate will be sealed with a gloss finish to accentuate the colors in the stone, and to make it easier to clean, she said.
In addition, “There was a two-inch gap behind the sink that was a catch all for dirt,” Fein said. To remedy that, Fein had her backsplash set flush with her windowpane.
She also replaced her sink, selecting a granite-polymer composite with straight sides and a deep bowl. The material is “almost bullet proof,” Monogue said, stating it is resistant to hot pans as well as scuffs and scratches.
To enhance the crisp look, the sink is mounted under the counter, rather than from above. This method also keeps water from sheeting up and over the sink’s edge.
Fein will soon have a striking, modern kitchen featuring natural stone counters, walls and floor. She intends to faux-finish the remaining walls to match the natural rock tones.
“Then we’ll pick a paint color about four shades lighter than that for the ceiling,” Fein said. “I’m not a big fan of white ceilings.”
“She’s literally redone the whole kitchen floor to ceiling,” Monogue said.
Doing much of the work herself allowed Fein to have a high-end kitchen for a very reasonable price.
“Some people choose to use a general contractor. I’m my own general contractor,” Fein quipped.
“It’s a lot of time,” she admitted. “I just spent three hours running samples back and forth.”
Monogue encourages that sort of involvement, though, as stone samples look completely different in the warehouse than they do in a person’s home.
One project Fein credits to Monogue alone is simplifying a small “wet bar” sink tucked into a nook beside Fein’s fridge. The former sink extended over its countertop and had rounded edges, so “there wasn’t even room to set a glass,” Monogue said. He moved the basin to the side of the two-foot space, selecting a deep, straight sided model to minimize counter loss. The result is a small but usable space that maximizes flat surface availability.
“I was ready to get rid of the whole thing,” Fein said of the bar before Monogue’s modification.
The reworking fits Fein’s ideology in remodeling: “Kitchens and bathrooms not only need to be beautiful, they need to be functional.”
“The trick with remodeling is you want it to look like it was intended originally,” Monogue said. “It’s tough to do.”

Plumbing company brings modern to design

You don’t typically think “industrial” when you think interior design, but at 4-Gs Plumbing and Heating, industrial is daily business.
The mechanical and electrical contractors recently built a new home for their growing business in Missoula’s Industrial Park. The outside prefaces the interior, using copper color and piping to reflect the business’s mainstay. Inside, the theme continues with paint color and decorating schemes. Kathryn Kress, of Perfect Color, said that was her plan.
“One thing I do is I want the exterior of the building to match the interior,” she said.
The color continuity begins in the foyer. Freeform gold slashes are painted upon a copper colored wall. They’ll mirror the sway of golden grasses that will be planted outside the entry windows, said business owner Melody Bryan. Sconces of copper with a pebble-look patina add to the naturalizing effect.
In the business proper, practicality merged with color preference in carpet tile for the main floor.
“We knew we wanted carpet tile because we have heavy wear patterns,” Kress said. “We bought overage so we can replace them,” as they get worn, she added.
The business wanted to involve its employees in the remodel process, and held a design contest for a conference table. The winner is a glass-topped table with curved steel piping for legs. The pattern on the carpet, a black and grey curving slash, mirrors the table’s “parabolic shape and creates a shadow line, just like the table does,” Kress said of selecting the pattern.
In the break room, she selected Adura flooring by Mannington. “We adora the Adura,” she quipped. “It holds up,” Bryan said.
“Before we moved in, the construction workers were using this doorway and leaving clots everywhere. It holds up and cleans up so easily,” she explained. The flooring is wax-free, requiring only sweeping and mopping, saving the business maintenance costs as well.
One of the natures of remodeling is changing your plans as you go. The original counter chosen for the break room was discontinued before it could be ordered. Kress said you have to stay flexible, and they chose a different laminate.
The new counter looks like granite. “It just goes to show you, laminate can be beautiful,” Kress said. Other touches that reflect the business’s central nature are the brushed stainless steel fixtures.
Choosing materials suited to the plumbing and heating business was one of Kress’s responsibilities. “We have a little techno thing going on,” Kress said of the accents.
In a business that focuses on the bones of a home, industrial accents are not a shock. Coming as a surprise, however, is the “girl’s room,” a fitness lounge for the female employees of the business.
“They’ve moved so far from their exercise class, they have to have something here,” Kress said. Bryan agreed.
All three female office employees used to go to workout classes regularly, and the new fitness room provides them with that same opportunity on site.
“As the boss, you get to decide these things,” Bryan smiled.
The mini-gym sports “ionique” flooring, a textured hard-surface tile said to release invigorating negative ions.
“The Japanese have been putting these into post-ops for years,” said Kress.
Adjacent to the fitness room is a deluxe shower and bath, all built around the color of a sink.
“Melody loved this sink,” Kress said of the soft-grey porcelain.
“I saw this at one of our kitchen distributors,” Bryan said, caressing the finish, “and one day I’ll have it in my home. But for now, this will do.”
The grey became the anchor color of the room, reappearing in the commode and shower tile.
“I think a paint designer would call it mouse,” Kress laughed when asked the color’s name.
On the design side, the shower is intentionally huge. Faced in clear glass, the shower “has the monolithic rectitude of the concrete vault that’s in the center of the building,” Kress said.
Both women praised Creative Paint and Glass, who put in all the glasswork in the building. Bryan said they were wonderful to work with. “You just ask for what you want and it appears.”
Upstairs, the project managers are on a bright, open floor where Kress said “all the colors we used in the building are repeated in succession.” The structural elements of the building are repeated, too, with wall mounted file cases mirroring the shapes of the windows and the lines of the walls.
The upper conference room is warm with cherry cabinets and walls of muted blue.
“The blue is like a breath of fresh air,” said Kress, who chose it to contrast with the earthen tones that otherwise dominate the building. It is in this room that John Bukovatz, another 4-Gs owner, has his winning table. A boat-shaped light currently hangs above it, but will be replaced by one that Bukovatz designs as well, Bryan said.
The “boat” was hung before the large screen TV was placed upon the wall, she said, and now it conflicts, so it has to go. It’s another reminder, Kress said, that a remodel is a work in progress.
Still, Bryan is happy.
“It’s all come together. Everyone who has walked into this place has said ‘Wow.’”
“We have people bringing people over to look at our building,” she added. “I’m just sitting back and going, ‘It’s just what I wanted.’”

Hmong family supplies markets

Cua Grogan has been waiting for spring all winter long.
The Hmong woman, whose family sells organically-raised produce at Missoula’s farmer’s markets, has been planning her garden since fall.
When the markets close with the coming of winter, “we’re already planning the next year,” she said. Winter, Grogan said, is consumed by planning plots and rows and greens and flowers. Now that spring is here, the rejuvenation begins.
Any gardener knows and loves this time of year, when all the unspoken hopes of new seed varieties and tiny color catalogue pictures give way to the reality of hands in earth, fingernails crusted with mud and backs that begin to ache in that satisfying way from pulling weeds. It’s an annual rebirth, after the hibernation of winter’s doldrums that sapped the colors from the land.
The bright lime sprouts of leafy greens, the ruffled reds of baby lettuce, the impetuous resurgence of perennial herbs all seem celebratory after months of cold and grey.
Already, one of the family’s greenhouses is filled with tiny salad greens. Carrots are almost ready to pull in another. In a third, bok choi have reached maturity, though the snappy green is tender as a seedling due to never experiencing wind.
All told, the family has five greenhouses. The one behind Grogan’s home is new, and at 34 feet wide by 135 feet long, it’s larger than some Missoula housing lots.
The other four are located on the Moua’s farm in Frenchtown, where the majority of the family’s produce is grown. Seeding of the houses began in late February, and is spaced to ensure a steady supply of food throughout the market season.
The history of the family’s involvement in Missoula’s farmer’s markets stretches back over 20 years. At the time, Cua was just a little girl. Her mother and relatives raised vegetables in community garden plots on Spurgin road. The downtown farmer’s market was young and spare.
Grogan’s mom, Ia Lee, was approached by members of the farmer’s market board back in 1985 or 1986, she said.
“My mom and aunt were approached … to be a part of the farmer’s market,” Grogan said. The early market provided tables, tablecloths and market space, “because they wanted the farmer’s market to grow,” Lee said. The effort was appreciated.
At the time, Grogan’s father was in school and her mother was holding down two jobs, doing whatever she could. “When they were approached, they saw that as the first door to do what they loved, and that was farming,” Grogan said.
“My mom always tried to persuade all the Hmong families (to grow vegetables for the farmer’s market), but they were reluctant.”
“They didn’t have the land, and there was the language issue,” Grogan said of the reasons the other families didn’t jump on board as readily as hers. Grogan’s father, Vang Moua, did know English, but her parents didn’t have land either, she said.
Neighbors, however, noted the industriousness of the family and knew the benefit of producing crops rather than potential weed fields, and let them borrow their large lots along Spurgin Road. The neighbors shared in the crops the family grew, and the remainder was sold at the budding farmer’s market. It was a beneficial arrangement for all. “A lot of people have been so generous in sharing their land,” Grogan said.
That sharing of land helped her mother convince additional Hmong families to become market gardeners as well.
“She said, ‘You grow your own food, you feed other people, you make some money,’” Grogan quipped of her mother’s sales pitch.
To continue to feed others, her parents purchased a 20 acre plot in Frenchtown about 13 years ago, and most of their market produce is now grown there. Come summer, the farm takes up most of the family’s time.
“We pretty much only have Saturday after the market, that’s our day of rest,” Grogan said regarding the 12-hour days she and her family put in during the height of summer.
The family starts harvesting on Thursday, she said, to prepare their booths for Missoula’s two downtown markets. Almost everyone helps.
Grogan’s husband married into the lifestyle. A commercial estimator by day, Kyle Grogan joins his extended family in the fields in evenings and on weekends.
“He knew he was marrying into a Hmong family that likes to farm,” Grogan said. “He’s kind of a closet farmer,” she smiled. “He really enjoys it.”
The couple’s son likes to plant seeds, Grogan said, but as for Saturdays, “He’s at the age when he’s running around, so we’re chasing him more than he’s helping.” So, while the family works downtown, two-year-old Shane goes to visit his grandparents.
If tradition holds, he won’t always have it so easy.
Cua began helping her family in the fields in third grade, she said. “When we were kids, there was no going to friends’ houses on weekends,” she said. At the time, she wasn’t thrilled. “As a kid, you’re around your peers and they’re always doing stuff and you wonder why you can’t. But now, I appreciate it.”
Grogan said the communal work keeps the family close. Her sister and her husband also help on the farm. Her uncle, aunt and cousins do, too. Grogan’s parents are still the driving force, but happily let the younger generation do what they can.
“Family life is pretty much out on the farm,” she said.
This year, the Moua clan will grow corn and kohlrabi, eggplant and tomatoes, peppers and basil and cucumbers. Of course there’ll be salad greens.
And every day, there will be members of the Moua family, hoeing and weeding, watering, feeding chickens, thinning and picking produce as it readies, keeping Missoulians eating fresh throughout the growing season.

Bevingtons at Brookside

Tyson Miller can do it all. Just ask his biggest fans.
Gary and Emily Bevington have had Miller do numerous remodeling projects on their home, and they trust him enough to give him the keys and leave on vacation while he’s at it.
“He’s very clean,” said Gary Bevington. He cleans up after himself completely, Bevington said. Many contractors don’t, he noted, but Miller is meticulous that way, and in the work he does. “He’s absolutely compulsive,” Bevington said. “He’s so careful, and clean.”
One project that exemplifies that care is a tile entryway the Bevingtons had Miller construct during last year’s respite from Missoula’s winter. Bevington had wanted a sand colored tile that matched the kitchen of the open floor plan in their Brookside home.
“This open plan was popular in the 90’s,” Bevington commented, and while it still looks contemporary, they wanted to delineate each individual space in the room a little more.
The kitchen is separated from the wide entry way by a long counter, and the living area has carpeting and couches, but the entryway needed a pick-me up.
Because the natural traffic flow follows from the front hall to the kitchen to the patio deck, and vice versa, Bevington wanted an easy-to-clean and durable surface, as it would get a lot of wear and tear. Tile fit the bill, especially as that was already what the kitchen had for its flooring.
But the color they had chosen was no longer available, something the couple didn’t know when they left town, leaving Miller to complete the job.
“He called us and said he couldn’t get that tile,” Gary Bevington remarked, “but he said he’d been looking at some design plans and had an idea for a transitional space between the kitchen and the patio. We trust him, so we said go ahead.”
When the couple returned from their trip, they found a new transition zone, with clay-colored tile that reflects the rust-brown stain of the patio deck, and also picks up the color variations in the kitchen tile.
“He said if you can’t use the same color, you should use something that picks up one of the accent colors in the original tile. That’s what this does,” Bevington said, pointing at the new space.
In addition, Miller laid the tile on point, in contrast to both the parallel lines of the decking and the traditional square layout of the kitchen floor. He also added an accent border between the kitchen and the newly designed space, mirroring the kitchen tile’s squares, but more-closely mimicking the new tile’s colors. The result is a perfect zone of movement, between the regularly-used deck and the kitchen not far within. The couple even placed a café table in the space, so they can sit indoors and gaze out at the landscaped area behind them from the new, warm space.
Intentionally or not, the tile also replicates another of the Bevintons’ loves: their home in the Yucatan of Mexico.
In the basement, the Bevingtons show off another of Miller’s creations.
“We have a lot of friends from Europe,” Bevington said, “and when they come to visit, they like to stay for a while.”
“The problem with long-term guests,” he added, “is food coordination. So I had the idea of putting in another kitchen.”


This, a fully-enclosed “junior” kitchen, remedies some of the problems of the open floorplan upstairs, Bevington said.
While he enjoys the look upstairs, Bevington ticked off numerous reasons an open kitchen plan is not ideal. Foremost is cooking smells. Bevington jokes he can come downstairs and make kimchee and no one would ever know. After admitting he doesn’t really create the hot, pickled cabbage dish, he does own up to cooking German sauerbraten, another smell he’d rather not have wafting through his living room. Nor even that of the fish he’s fond of grilling.
To minimize odors, Miller install a commercial exhaust fan designed for venting petroleum smells from gas stations. Miller did that work, plus all the wiring and plumbing on the kitchen as well.
“He can do everything,” Bevington said. That multi-talented ability is important to Bevington, who doesn’t want a bunch of subcontractors mucking about his home. Equally important is the ability to make the new space seem a part of the old.
“I wanted it not to look like an add-on,” Bevington said. And with Miller’s ability to match color and texture, it doesn’t. The walls, ceiling, and texture of the pre-existing finished parts of the basement all flow into what was, until he began its transformation into a kitchen, an unfinished, concrete-floored space that looked like, well, a basement.
After finishing the foundation work for the kitchen, Miller put in a floating laminate floor to reduce foot fatigue, had cupboards installed and selected a laminate countertop of bright marigold. “The countertop was Tyson’s idea,” Bevington said, letting on he probably wouldn’t have thought of that color. But in the windowless space, it adds light and a splash of fun, again reflecting the Bevingtons love of Mexico, which they have been visiting for endless years now.
The new kitchen will serve him well when he wants to cook foods too daunting for upstairs, and it will provide the perfect space for the couples’ numerous long-term guests. It will also be the food-preparation spot of choice once the Bevingtons complete their next project: a lower level entrance and patio off the basement living room. He plans to have Miller do that job, too. And he couldn’t be happier about that decision.

Heart of the Bitterroot keeps Salish history alive

ARLEE — “Salish women. Strong women. … Our ancestors died and became roots that reached the sun, became the faces of deer.” This poetic opening lures the listener to silence, to a relaxed hearing of the tales told by Salish women in story and song, in their own voices.
“Heart of the Bitterroot” is a newly released CD of Salish and Pend d’Oreille women’s stories and songs. The CD is a project of Julie Cajune and Npustin, an Arlee–based indigenous arts organization. The stories on the CD were collected from local women and tribal history. They are re-written by Jennifer Greene, and recited by Joanne Bigcrane. The booklet within the CD tells the fuller tales.
The CD mixes sounds of the natural world into the stories, so that birds sing as a story ends. The stories are bold and morbid, interspersed with songs to lift ones spirits.
In one tale, children’s voices fade out, followed by the story of a woman willing to kill for the ones she loves.
“No woman raises her son to die,” Kwilqs says, “But I have killed the sons of other women.”
Kwilqs was a strong Salish warrior alive in the 1800s. She was a prominent community member, and is remembered here.
Another family history states, “Truth and love and family are sure to guide like stars on moonless nights.”
Throughout the tales, Gary Stroutsos’ flute weaves, stepping around words, adding to the soul of each piece.
Local women’s voices sing while crickets, hawk and songbirds dance softly behind the speakers.
These are tales that are recent history. There is the story of Sinshe, mother of two boys left with the Blackrobes when her husband Ignace Lamoose took them to St. Louis, trying to get the Fathers to come west. When her husband is killed, the mother goes in search of her sons.
“I walked into a land of foreigners,” Sinshe’s tale says, “and I had the strength of a mountain cat. My love for my boys is strong, and I would always come for them.”
The overall theme of the disc could be summed up in a line from the story of Pretty Flower: “I know that compassion lives and stories heal. I see myself as proof.”
Julie Cajune’s ambitious project “Heart of the Bitterroot: Voices of Salish and Pend d’Oreille Women” is available for purchase at Hangin’ Art Gallery.

Mission seniors receive $10,000 donation

ST. IGNATIUS — The Mission Senior Citizen Center will be a lot spiffier this time next year. The group was recently granted a check for $10,000 to replace their worn kitchen floor.
The money is a gift from the Mission Valley Old Town Development Corporation, a local CDC. Stuart Morton, president of the group, said the Senior Center’s Peggy Johnson “cornered me and asked for letters of support.” The seniors were trying to gather enough letters to help them win a grant to upgrade the building.
Instead, Morton offered to look into the giving arm of his own organization, and after presenting the request to the Old Town Development Corporation board, the organization granted the center the money it needed.
“The people from the Senior Citizens Center have earned this along the way,” Morton said at the seniors’ monthly dinner.
“All this is, is one arm of the town giving to another arm of the town,” Morton said of the Development Corporation’s donation.
The money will go to good use, said Mack McConnell, one of the seniors. The group has already reinsulated the building, but needs to do additional upgrading to make it more energy efficient, McConnell said, such as adding new windows and doing electrical work.
Morton said the donation is no big deal. “There are no big shots in this town,” he said, handing over the check.

Wolves still troubling ranchers

POLSON — A number of Dixon ranchers have said they have lost cattle to wolves again, in the same location where they were pestered by a tenacious wolf pack last summer and fall.
Ranchers say there are six wolves in the Selo Creek/Valley Creek drainage, where last year the He-wolf pack was a recurrent problem to cattle producers. That pack was eliminated, save for one lone female pup who had been radio collared and left for tracking purposes.
According to Tribal biologist Stacey Courville, there are now three confirmed wolves in the Selo Creek area. One is the collared pup remaining from last year’s He-wolf pack. “She found a couple companions,” Courville stated. “We’ve been tracking them.”
While ranchers believe there are more wolves there, only sightings confirmed by tribal or state fish and game representatives are considered official.
Confirmations can be through “credible sightings,” typically those by a game warden or other wildlife official, through photographs, or through descriptions that match up to the reality of what the game wardens know is on the ground.
Courville said one example of misidentification is through hide color. He recalled checking out a report of “grey wolves” only to discover a pack of coyotes.
While Courville said there have been no confirmed depredations since December, ranchers are wary.
Wolves have picked the drainages around Dixon to settle into, and have been preying on the cattle of ranchers in the area. The carnivores are getting too close for some.
Kraig Glazier, a wolf expert with the USDA’s Wildlife Services program, said wolves will kill anywhere. “It doesn’t matter if it’s right next to your house.”
Melanie McCollum knows that for a fact. Last fall, she faced off with a wolf over a calf carcass the wolves had killed. While trying to cover the carcass as instructed by APHIS, the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, she was confronted by a wolf who didn’t want to leave.
While no one was hurt in that incident, it could be worse. Those living near the recovered populations have seen a lot of activity, and are concerned about the wolves’ presence.
“I don’t have young kids anymore,” McCollum said, “but I have grandchildren who play in my yard.”
While controversy rages in the environmental circle as to whether or not wolves should be delisted, to the men and women who work with wolves in the state of Montana, there is no doubt: “Wolves are here and there’s no going back,” said Glazier.
Glazier works with APHIS, the department in charge of responding to calls of livestock depredation. In the Mission, that depredation typically means wolves.
According to a recent presentation Glazier gave to the Western Montana Stockgrower’s Association, there are over 1,550 wolves in the tri-state recovery area that includes the Idaho panhandle, northwest Wyoming, and western Montana. There are over 400 in Montana alone, he said.
Ted North, who works under Glazier, said the agency removed 15 wolves between Sept. 26 and Dec. 1 of 2007 from the Flathead reservation.
Nonetheless, “They just keep showing up,” he said. “We can never find an end to them.”
Basically, North said, “What’s happening is there’s so many wolves, they’re saturating the area. It seems in every drainage there’s a pack.”
Unfortunately, some of those wolves seem to prefer beef for supper. And that concerns ranchers. There are 55,000 head of cattle in Lake and Sanders Counties, according to the Stockgrowers’ Association. The Dixon area, which straddles both counties, has been especially hard-hit by beef loving carnivores.
Glazier said as sheep production decreases in the state, the wolves have turned to calves for easy pickings. As part of his presentation, he showed a video a rancher had shot of a newborn calf being taken by a wolf. As the large canid made off with the calf, he carried it in his jaws, shaking it vigorously. Glaizer said it looked like a coyote with a jackrabbit. The crowd said it looked like a dog with a toy. No one could believe the wolf so greatly outsized the calf.
“Normally, we don’t get the luxury of seeing a depredation in action,” Glazier said.
The footage gave credence to what ranchers have been saying: when a wolf takes a calf, there’s nothing left.
The men form APHIS also admitted what the ranchers already know: wolf depredations in their part of Montana are high. Really high. “It’s the next highest region after Yellowstone Park,” Glazier said.
Agency-confirmed “damage on calves went up 300 percent,” he added.
“It’s just getting worse every year,” said North. “It’s just increasing.”
Also increasing has been ranchers request to fly over an area in search of wolves. The agency uses one pool of funds for the overflights, but that budget has been cut this year by $160,000, Glazier said. In 2007, there were 159 requests for flights. 73 wolves were removed as part of the state’s management, “and the population still increased by 31 percent,” said Glazier. “Biologically,” he said, “the wolves are recovered.”
The majority of the wolves, and the complaints, are in the western part of the state. “We have five active managements going on (in Western Montana) right now,” Glazier said.
It’s hard to keep track of all the wolves, and their movements. An average dispersal range for a wolf is 550 miles, Glazier said. “They can move.”
The problems faced by ranchers in the Dixon area are due to resident packs, however. North said while the local wolves “eat a lot of elk and deer, they’re hunting livestock, too.”
“You see a lot of attacks on cattle,” Glazier said.
The wolves are only doing what’s natural, everyone agrees.
A wolf’s skull, Glazier said, is about the size of a black bear. However, the wolf skull is configured for just one thing: killing. The large cranial horn on the skull is there only to support jaw muscles, Glazier said. Those jaws can take a five-pound bite out of a cow. And a single feeding on a cow can remove 300 pounds of meat Glazier said.
Because the wolves in the Mission Valley reside north of I-90 and migrated in independent of human reintroduction efforts, they are considered fully protected under the Endangered Species Act. The Mission’s wolves cannot legally be shot, harmed or harassed, no matter their actions.
“You can’t even legally scare them off if they’re harassing you’re livestock,” Glazier told the cattle producers.
Glazier hopes that delisting will help control the predation problem by instilling a fear of humans into the wolves. The state’s proposed hunting season could be enough to convince the wolves to stay away from human settlements, he hopes.
“The first year would be the best year for a hunt,” he said, “because the wolves are pretty habituated to humans now.”
However, even if a state officiated hunting season was put in place, it wouldn’t apply to the Reservation, said Dale Becker, the Wildlife Program Management director for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.
“I anticipate the state’s hunt will not occur here on the Reservation,” Becker said. “When I work this process through the tribal council and elders, I suspect they would limit some kind of hunt to tribal elders.”
“You guys are going to have problems,” Becker told the ranchers, “If there are wolves in the area.”
And that means trouble for the ranchers, and possibly an end to a way of life some families have known since they settled into the area a hundred years ago.
An Idaho study on wolves depredating cattle stated that for every one confirmed loss of cattle to a wolf, there are eight unconfirmed losses. That’s too big a hit for the cattle producers to take.
As one rancher said as the meeting came to a close, “It never hits home to anybody until it’s in your own backyard.”

Entangled elk to become educational aide

DIXON — A couple weeks ago, Confederated Salish and
Kootenai Tribes Game Warden Pablo Espinoza received an unusual call. Two bull elk were tangled in a length of barbed wire fencing just outside of Dixon. The elk, seven point and six point bulls, had been there for an indeterminate amount of time before Espinoza was called to the scene. Both had their antlers entwined in the wire, which by then had been wrung from the fence posts. Both were tired and stressed.
Espinoza dispatched the animals, and their saga began.
The elk are now traveling cyberspace, subject of emails called “tied up in Montana.” Soon the Dixon elk will be on display in the tangible world as well.
The skulls have been cleaned and preserved, and will be sent to the CSKT Fish and Wildlife headquarters in Polson. There, they will greet school children who tour the facilities, and serve as an example of the sometimes tragic interface between the natural and the man-made world.
Rodney Tobler is a taxidermist at Alpine Taxidermy on Valley Creek Road. He said cleaning and processing the skulls was a challenge.
“The wire made it extremely difficult,” he said. “It was hard to cut off the skin.” In order to process the skulls, he said, “we have to take off as much meat as we can.”
After stripping the skin, flesh, and organs from the skulls, they were placed in the taxidermy shop’s beetle room, where flesh-eating beetles remove remaining scraps from the bone.
The beetle room is kept at about 85 degrees, Tobler said, and leaving too much flesh or soft organs in the skulls would be detrimental to the bugs, which do their work in a crate filled with dry straw.
“We have to take off the eyeballs and the brains,” he explained, or “the brains turn to soup and the beetles would drown.”
After the bones have been worked by the beetles for a few days, they are boiled, bleached, re-boiled, and bleached again.
“We had to do some major reconstruction on these,” Tobler said, as the skulls were fragmented due to being head shot.
That was necessary, Espinoza said, to salvage as much meat as possible from the game.
There was no possibility of releasing the animals, Espinoza said. “They were so tangled, there was no way to safely snip the wires,” he said. Plus, there is no guarantee the elk would have lived.
“They were both on their sides exhausted,” he remarked, adding there is no way of knowing what internal injuries the animals may have already been facing.
Espinoza told of a situation last year, where the CSKT tranquilized a deer caught in a flooded stream. Even though the animal was subsequently rescued, it died due to stress and exhaustion.
With the two bull elk, Espinoza decided the highest possible good would come of quickly ending their ordeal, and getting the meat to the processing plant.
The drugs used in tranquilizing big game are extremely powerful, and not suitable for human consumption, Espinoza said. Also, game wardens do not carry them, he said, as they are a highly regulated controlled substance. If he had chosen to attempt to drug the animals, they would have continued suffering until the tranquilizers could have been retrieved. In addition, once filled with tranquilizers, the meat would be unusable for human consumption.
Espinoza said there were a lot of bystanders watching the elk, which contributed to the animals’ stress. That also contributed to the potential for a hazardous encounter, Espinoza said. “These are wild animals. You could get tripped or kicked.”
Espinoza felt it was most humane to dispatch the animals as soon as possible. “I tried to put the animals down as quickly as I could without any more suffering,” he said.
The head shots, he said, while not the best for taxidermy, were the best for the job. “You could shoot them in the body, and they might not die right away, and the meat could get damaged. With a head shot, you don’t waste any meat.”
The elk were put down with a 12-guage shotgun, which Espinoza described as “a very powerful shotgun. That’s the weapon of choice for bear protection,” he said.
After dispatching the elk, they were taken to a nearby meat packer by rancher Ross Middlemist, whose fence they had tangled with.
“Ross and Terry and Reese Middlemist were very helpful,” Espinoza said, “and I’d like to thank them.”
The meat, once processed, will be utilized by the “tribal diabetic program,” he said, which will provide the lean, high protein meat to those who need it.
“I knew the meat was not going to go to waste,” he said, “and that’s the most important thing.”

Water negotiations stall

PABLO — There are those who felt that not much was accomplished at the latest negotiation session of the Montana Reserve Water Rights Compact Commission, held Dec. 12 in Pablo. A sense of tension filled the air, accentuating the lack of concrete gain. As one citizen said, it’s as if the officials were all there for show, but do their work elsewhere, behind closed doors. Clayton Matt, head of the tribal Natural Resources department, reminded members of the group “the Compact Commission sunsets in 2009, and our goal is to achieve a settlement for the 2009 legislature.” The current meeting provided a lot of background, as well as explaining possible glitches with a plan to use Hungry Horse Reservoir as an alternative water source under the proposed settlement agreement with the Tribes.
According to Jay Weiner, lawyer for the state of Montana, the compact to be reached will quantify tribal water rights, and determine how Indian and non-Indian rights will be administered on the reservation. Any agreement must then be ratified by Congress.
James Steele, Jr., chairman of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribal council, offered the philosophy behind the Tribes’ position.
“The agreement the Salish and Kootenai people signed in 1855 was for this to be an exclusive homeland for the Salish and Kootenai people. Our tribal leaders opposed very vigorously the opening of our reservation to settlement. We do not like that at all.”
The Hellgate Treaty, he said, “was a government to government treaty” and “had specific provisions in it” regarding the use of the reservation’s natural resources.
“We were told this was the law of the land,” but that law has since been “modified against our wishes.”
Matt explained that, in negotiations, the Tribes start from the point of view that “in a claims setting, the Tribes can claim all rights to all water on the reservation.”
Steele acknowledged the water rights negotiations affect a larger number of non-Indians than native people on the reservation, but emphasized “The negotiations are to protect the tribal right to the water on the reservation, to the surface and subsurface water.”
But Matt countered, “We also recognize the water users on the reservation. That’s why, at the last meeting, the Tribes proposed a uniform priority date for the irrigation project.”
To underscore the importance of settling the issue, Steele told the commission if a settlement isn’t reached before the compact expires, “I think we’ll see the largest lawyer employment program the west has ever seen.”
Matt agreed. “We are prepared to go to court, and are preparing to go to court, should we have to go that route.”
Both Matt and Steele’s remarks reinforced the Tribes’ stand on the issue.
Matt said negotiating an agreement before the sunset date “would be ideal.”
The federal team would like to see something proposed to Congress in 2008, said Bill Faust, division of water manager for the Tribes. Chris Tweeten, chair of the Reserve Water Rights Compact Commission, said the goal of coming to agreement “is a very worthy task to undertake.” But, he said, “It has not been our objective on the state side to get this compact done for congressional approval in 2008.” The Tribe’s deadline, according to Faust, is the compact sunset date, June of 2009.
Tweeten said “We are aiming at submitting something to the Montana legislature in 2009. Our deadline for that could be as late as March or April of 2009, after the bill introduction deadlines have passed in the legislature.” He proposed using a suspension of rules while the legislature is underway to introduce any settlement proposal the tribes and the state may come to.
Tweeten said bluntly, from the state’s point of view, “Our goal has never been to try to do something by 2008.”
“We appreciate and support the idea of making a to-do list, but not deadlines or expectations of when those are going to be finished,” he said.
As justification, Tweeten mentioned “We’ll have two, if not three, Montana compact proposals for congress seeking funding in the 2008 cycle.”
“We’ve been told under the current administration, if these compacts require significant funding, they will not be considered by the current administration.”
The state intends to present compacts with the Crow, Fort Belknap and Blackfeet tribes to Congress this coming year.
Typically, as part of a water rights settlement, large sums of money are appropriated by congress to mitigate the loss of tribal water rights.
Essentially, full or partial rights to the water are bought by the federal government, to ascertain all users on the affected reservations have access to the resource.
The payouts requested for those rights have risen exponentially the past ten years, said Susan Cottingham, Staff Director for the Compact Commission.
Where the United States government paid $50 million for certain settlements in 1999, Cottingham said, the Fort Belknap request alone is $255 million. The Crow settlement is more than twice that.
“The expectation level has gone up,” Cottingham said, describing the increased funding requests.
Duane Mecham, the Federal representative, updated those present on the quest to include Hungry Horse Reservoir in the CSKT settlement.
Hungry Horse is being considered as “access to an additional water source,” he said.
The water is necessary, said Cottingham, to provide an alternate source of irrigation water for non-Indian users of the Flathead Irrigation Project, should other water sources become unavailable. It also would provide water to tribal users in times of scarcity.
Utilizing a water source outside the basin in question is common in these negotiations, Cottingham said, especially if the water is unencumbered and under federal jurisdiction, as Hungry Horse is.
The only potential glitch in utilizing Hungry Horse reservoir is its status in the larger Columbia Basin river system.
Weiner said Hungry Horse is currently “managed predominantly for downstream users.”
Hungry horse sits at the top of the Federal Columbia river power system, which involves Oregon, Washington, tribes and “an alphabet soup of acronyms,” Weiner said.
“Because the Hungry Horse facility is part of a larger grouping of federal resources called the Columbia water power source,” Mecham said, “there are issues with salmon and power generation with these waters.” Mecham said there are seven cases before the Federal judge in Portland revisiting Federal plans for salmon.
The state’s goal at this point is to “minimize the opposition we’re likely to see from downstream states,” Weiner said.
Other kinks to iron out in a final plan between the state and the Tribes include adjusting allotments for all users during years of drought. This plan, called “shared shortages,” has not yet been finalized.
Data management is another factor in the continued negotiations.
The tribes have been “seeking funding to develop new ground water data,” Matt said. Clayton: “The irrigation project constitutes the largest single user on the reservation. Understanding the scope of that is key to understanding all our water use issues on the reservation.”
Cottingham said the state would be happy to pitch in with funding the research, after receiving a copy of the Tribes’ proposal. “We do have some money we could contribute towards it if we know what it’s for,” Cottingham said.
“How we define the technical and legal issues makes this process work,” said Matt. “We’re looking forward to more discussion.”
“These negotiations need to proceed apace. With the compact sunsetting, we need to proceed in earnest,” Matt said.
Despite the state’s reluctance to set a goal for completion of negotiations, Cottingham said, “If we start laying out this work plan and a start looking at all the tasks we need to do, looking at the deadline, we should be having these meeting every month. I know that puts an increased burden on legal and technical folks, but we need to keep our feet to the fire.”
Matt suggested the team meet the last weds of every month. This was the last scheduled public session of the process.
As a cap to the meeting, public comment was taken. A realtor suggested extending the compact through 2010 to accommodate upcoming changes in the federal administration. Water user Rory Horning probably spoke for the bulk of the irrigation project users, however, when he had the last word: “We all appreciate the fact you want to get it right,” he told the commission, “but I’ve watched you for years, and until you complete your work, our land rights are not complete. Until you (finish the negotiations), you impact our communities.”

Water of life

To the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, water is more than what flows through the ground.
“This is a very sacred thing,” said tribal council member Reuben Mathias.
“We have to keep that in mind at all times,” Mathias continued.
“Without (water), we would perish.”
Mathias spoke at the close of the most recent water rights negotiating session between the CSKT, the US Department of the Interior and the State of Montana, over rights to the irrigation and ground water on the Flathead Reservation.
Mathias voiced the sentiment that flowed as a chilling undercurrent throughout the formal meeting.
Water is a limited resource. Without it, the present system of agriculture, future economic and community development, recreation and wildlife will all be dramatically impacted.
Whoever controls the Flathead’s water, holds the controls to so many of these other aspects of life.
Tension at the meeting over who had ultimate ownership of the water was anchored in that awareness.
The issue is rooted in “priority use rights.” Who had rights to the water first? Who first used it?
The tribes assert that “the US Government made a promise to us that everything on this reservation would be ours, to keep our people from perishing,” said Mathias.
That includes the water.
However, there are plenty of non-tribal users of water on the Reservation, and the negotiations are aimed at providing that all water users are given a fair claim to their historic use.
The situation is complex, and results from a reallotment of tribal lands carried out by the US government in the earliest 1900’s, as the Flathead Valley became more desirable for homesteading.
According to John Carter, lawyer for the tribes, reservation land was allotted to individual tribal members beginning in 1904.
The Flathead Allotment Act also “directed the US government to build an irrigation project for the benefit of the Indian people,” he said. Three-fourths of the service of this project was intended for Indian use, although, over time, “many of those uses went to non-Indians,” Carter said.
In 1910, after the allocation of specific lands to individual tribal members was completed, remaining non-allotted reservation land was opened to homesteading. Until then, there were no non-Indian inholdings on the land.
As a result, the Flathead Reservation is unique: home to tribal members, diverse communities, and plenty of non-tribal landowners within the boundaries of an Indian reservation.
It is the state’s job, according to Chris Tweeten, chair of the Reserve Water Rights Compact Commission, to ensure that those non-tribal users keep the rights to their water. The state proposed applying the management scheme it developed on other reservations to the Flathead.
But Carter said that wouldn’t work here, given the diversity of ownership issues. “The ability to administer based on a fence line gets very complicated,” he said.
The irrigation project uses 95% of the surface water within the reservation boundaries. As that project was intended to provide for tribal use, tribal members have priority rights to that water, Carter said.
“Why are you guys arguing over all this water and stuff, when it belongs to everybody?” Mathias asked. As for desiring control over the water, he said the tribes were not being greedy, but looking to protect the resource.
“We need to share this for all people, not just for today, but for the future. For our children’s children’s children.”
To that end, the Tribes brought forth a proposal at the meeting that would grant all users within the historic irrigation project boundary an equal priority use date. According to Carter, that would account for 96% of the users on the Reservation.
The Tribes are also proposing uniform management, between themselves and the state, in addition to the uniform priority date.
Carter acknowledged selecting a court for the settling of any outstanding cases is a challenge, as there are three legal jurisdictions involved, and any court can hear the cases.
After mentioning a litigious case on the Wind River Reservation that has, thus far, cost water users $40 million, Carter proposed all settlements be handled in federal court for uniformity’s sake.
Federal attorney Duane Mecham stated US Department of the Interior would be fine with this.
Because “pictures explain things better than lawyers do,” Carter offered a flip chart graphic of the proposal. On the map, red and brown lands represent non-Indian holdings, while green and yellow lands are those still under tribal control.
Lands that were once allotted to tribal members, but have since passed out of tribal ownership, still hold a priority date of the origin of the reservation, according to a Ninth Circuit Court decision based on a similar case on the Coleville Indian Reservation, said Carter. However, land acquired under the 1910 Homestead Act can have no water right prior to the opening of the reservation to white settlement.
Carter said the more recent priority date would apply to half the water users on the reservation. If litigated, “half the non-Indian people will get a significantly shorter priority date,” he said.
“That’s the risk we all face if we litigate this. Non-Indian owners of land might get shorted all together.”
Tweeten, speaking for the state, said they appreciate the “positive change in the tribe’s approach,” and though they would consider the arrangement, he said “We’re not prepared to say with any finality that the proposal that the tribe has laid out is the framework upon which this agreement will be built.”
While the state disapproved of previous plans, Tweeten acknowledged they saw no blatant problems with this new proposal, but “that’s not to say that there may not be matters that come to light. For now, we’re prepared to go forward and analyze the tribe’s proposal.”
Clayton Matt, the head of CSKT’s Natural Resources Department, repeated “what I take from your comments is you see no deal breakers and we can use this as a basis for discussion.”
Tweeten answered, “That’s correct.”
Mecham wanted to be sure the proposal met present and future water needs, but remarked it “proposes to acknowledge valid existing rights.”
However, he said additional water sources are generally needed for these settlements.
Fisheries uses, future growth of communities and agriculture and considering water allocation in years of shortage must all be considered as well, participants agreed.
The Tribes agreed to negotiate with the state on utilizing staff on hand, for water data analysis and hydrogeology work.
Susan Cottingham, director of the RWRCC said, “We both have competent hydrogeology staff. We should think about how we can put our staff together to make the best use of their talents.”
She remarked that the simplicity of the plan is appealing.
“It would give everyone on the project a comfort level.”
Matt stated the Tribal Council has already dedicated funds and have a contractor who has started the process. However, he said, “We’re ready to accept any contribution and help, and we’re proceeding.”
Tweeten replied that the state is “not ready to contribute, but will contribute contracted staff.”
He also reminded people that when it comes to court challenges, individual users are on their own. “Each user must defend their own claim,” he said. The state would not be defending individual water users in court.
Technically, Tweeten said, negotiations terminate on July 1, 2009.
All parties hope to have the water rights compact issues settled before then.
The next negotiating meeting was penciled in for Dec. 12, 2007.

Victor Charlo's war

DIXON — Victor Charlo is a poet and educator. At one point, he wanted to be a soldier. That desire — and its remission — came about as a result of his brother’s death.
Charles Charlo was a radioman. He carried his radio to the top of a mountain, one of four volunteers to plant the American flag atop a peak on Iwo Jima — a symbol to sustain the hearts of the troops through that brave and terrible fight.
Victor was only a child when his brother died. But he can recall the past.
“I was six years old, but I remember. I remember a lot.”
Vic was working in the field with another brother, feeding his uncle’s cows, when the telegram came about his brother’s death.
His mother’s keening cry carried on the evening wind.
“We heard mom do that cry, that keen. So we hurried up and did our chores,” he said. True to the discipline instilled in them, the boys finished the cows, even though they knew what lay ahead.
The family was Salish-Chippewa-Cree. They’d always lived in the Flathead. Before the war, their father had worked with the CCC, helping to build Kerr dam. The influence of recruiters on the older boys frightened Victor’s mother, so the family moved south to Evaro.
“We lived right on the Northern Pacific Railroad,” Victor said. His father worked for the railroad, as did Charles before enlisting. The jobs, Victor said, were essential to the war effort, and his brother was exempt from war duty.
“Charles didn’t have to go, because he had one of those essential-for–the war jobs. He worked on the railroad with my dad,” Vic said.
But friends, peer pressure and societal pride led the young man, not even 18, to sign away his life for his country. Charles became a Marine, the toughest branch of the service. He was sent to Japan, to the heart of World War II.
Charles landed on Iwo Jima just weeks before the war would end. He wouldn’t live to see it.
In a letter to his family, Charles told of volunteering to be flag bearer, to stake a psychological victory against the entrenched and hidden Japanese by raising the American flag upon the highest hill. The men climbed a volcano, holding the flag against enemy fire.
“As soon as they got that flag up, all hell broke loose,” Victor stated.
The soldiers stayed there while the battle raged. “At that point, retaining the flag up there was the most important thing.”
The Marines expected the battle to last just days, Victor said, but instead it lasted weeks.
The troops had been bombarding the strategic landing strip for weeks, and they thought they had killed all the Japanese there, he said. But the enemy had lain low, silent as an ambush. The Japanese soldiers had hidden in bunkers known as “pill boxes,” little concrete lairs where they could outwait the onslaught of bombs. The Marines had no idea. In addition, the Marine’s heavy equipment was mired in the sand. The Japanese had the tactical advantage.
Raising the flag against them was a sign of American indomitability, Victor said. His brother was called to play a part. But just two weeks before Hiroshima melted, Charles Charlo was killed by a sniper’s bullet.

When a child dies, the whole family is affected. Charles was the eldest of 13. He was the golden boy of his large family, the promised son into whom all the hopes were placed.
Victor's father could not read. When the telegraph came of his hope’s death, he carried the paper home to his wife. The boys’ mother read, and wailed.
The family was dampened from that time on. They lived under an umbrella of sadness. Victor said his mother would smile again, but she never regained the joies de vivre lost when her eldest son died.
The family was weaker after that, Victor said. It was like the tree his brother didn’t kill.
A few years before, Charles had gotten a brand new cross cut saw. The boys took it out into the woods, and Charles cut through a tree, but not all the way. “Now this tree,” he told his younger siblings, “will live, just not well.” Victor said his family was like that tree after Charles died.
“It really hit everybody,” Victor said. “Everybody was just devastated. And that lasted for a very long time.”
The family wouldn’t get Charles’ body back until two years after the war. The gap delayed their healing, and reopened the wounds of his loss. As a result, some of the rage of war swept into Charles’ siblings. Other brothers joined the military.
Victor, too young for World War II, was drafted into Vietnam.
At the time, Victor was a seminarian. Schooling at Loyola High School led him down that path. But a yearning to avenge his brother’s death made him accept the military’s calling.
“What I was thinking at that time was I was going to go to war and get revenge,” Victor said. Instead, the military rejected him.
4-F’ed due to a bad back, the young man’s intent was turned around. Victor then pursued a path of social change and education.
With degrees in Curriculum Administration, Latin, and English, he joined the government’s Office of Economic Opportunity, training tribal leaders in self-governance. Victor was the regional trainer for seven states west of the divide.
He was a coordinator with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, in the era of Black Panthers and Martin Luther King.
He worked with Martin Luther King’s Poor People’s Campaign, living in “Resurrection City” trying to bring about social change. But Victor refused to fall into the rhetoric of violence that began to overtake the social change movement. He returned to Montana.
The present could have been very different, if that one event hadn’t occurred.
There’s no telling the cost of a life. In the Charlo family, the loss of Charles equated to years of mourning for his mother and for his siblings, the overhanging pall of a lost son’s glory.
Yet if Victor’s brother had never left the family, never ventured forth into unknown and dangerous shores — would the history and iconography of America be the same?
Charles Charlo gave his life to give America an indelible image of freedom, of four soldiers grasping a flag atop a mountain in the midst of war. Victor Charlo took that spirit of freedom into his work for social change and tribal self-governance. Now, he works with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes preparing educational materials so that schools on the Flathead Reservation meet the standards set in Indian Education for All. And he writes the poetry of his life, which his daughter translates into Salish.
His has been a full life, maybe enough for two.