I stood outside on a cold January evening looking up toward Polaris, the North Star, twinkling in the sky some 430 light years away. That’s far, even for light travelling 670 million miles an hour.
The northern star rattled in my binoculars. I located Polaris using pointer stars Dubhe and Merak, the two outer most of the four bowl stars of Big Dipper.
I looked for the green comet, that once a 50,000-years visitor to our night sky. It’s passing nearby, 100 times moon’s distance away and viewed earlier near the lode star. It hadn’t visited since the Stone Age. I wanted a glimpse of the past.
I didn’t see it. The air was cold. I went indoors to sit by the woodstove which produced good heat. Soon I went back outdoors, let my eyes readjust to the darkness and viewed again, and again.
Still no green. I blamed the equipment. The morning clouds soon overcast the stars. And then the snow came. Lots of it, cold, dry snow. The kind that squeaks under your feet when you walk. My chances viewing the green comet looked poor. I’d missed my chance. Maybe. I’d try again over the next nights.
When the comet’s next orbiting cycle comes into view, it’s hard to imagine what the Flathead might look like. Just in the past few years tens of thousands of Americans relocated to the valley. Millions more visit annually.
The influx displaced a lot of local workers from their rentals. Whitefish estimates that the community needs to build 1,300 new homes over the next 7 years to address the dramatic housing shortage facing local workers and employers.
That’s a lot of units and a lot of density. Density for which exiting homeowners turn out to understandably voice objection. No one’s seems eager to have hundreds of multi-plexes and accompanying car congestion bear down on their existing neighborhoods which decades earlier were designed for single family living.
The state is busy repealing local planning and dictating lot sizing. The legislature is trying to mandate a minimum 2,500 square foot home lot size targeting places like Kalispell which has significantly higher local standards.
For the 2 million visitors to Montana who came to the state after watching the popular TV series Yellowstone, Whitefish was that far-away rural place where John Dutton’s grandson was rescued from kidnappers.
If the legislature has its way, a lot of those Yellowstone-watching, Montana-visiting tourists might be riding their 750-watt battery-powered ebikes throughout the state’s 5 million acres of public land. Land held in trust for Montanans to benefit public education.
That sounds like a management nightmare for a state land agency which enjoys little resources from lawmakers to help manage public recreation. I’m intrigued by ebikes having grown up riding dirt bikes. I image them almost as fun, powerful, but lots quieter.
No one really cared much about our dirt bikes when I grew up. As long as there was only a few of us. But once hundreds rode the sand dunes and hanger docks, locals took note fast.
It’s pretty obvious that ebikes are here to stay. Let’s hope the state gives itself the tools to manage our public lands, wildlife and waterways. Lawmakers’ political lode star is guiding the state to give our surplus federal money back to local people. And we’ll take it.
We’ll cash the check, for any amount, that Montana wants to send local homeowners or renters. It’s nutty how expensive living in the new Montana has gotten in the last couple years.
Send locals that federal money creating Montana’s surplus. We’ll spend the greens, give it to landlords and mortgage companies. We’ll buy $7 eggs and spend it wisely to fend off inflation for another day.