Below are links to just a few of our features in this year’s Flathead Beacon Summer Guide, which is inserted in Wednesday’s newspaper and available all summer on stands located throughout valley. It includes a map, dispatches from every community and recipes. Best of all, it’s free. So make sure you pick up a copy.
Ask any year-round resident of the Flathead, and they will unequivocally agree that summer takes a good, long while to arrive in the valley. Winter relinquishes its grip grudgingly from this land below the 49th parallel, and tosses the occasional June snowstorm into the mix to let you know it will be back.
But because summer shows up so late, the season engenders a kind of heightened vitality and fervor among the plants, wildlife and people of Northwest Montana – an ecstatic release following winter’s months. Tired of being cooped up, children play frantically outside until after darkness descends. Trees and wildflowers burst forth in colors so rich they seem engaged in competition. Birds squawk and call to each other, back home after a winter spent elsewhere. And neighbors do the same, lingering by the mailbox to chat about this or that late into the evening.
This is when we realize how rare places like the Flathead valley have become, where open space, and clean air and water persist in such startling abundance. We hope the suggestions, stories and tips in the second edition of our Summer Guide help you take advantage of your visit here. Whether it’s for a few days or a few years, time in the Flathead always feels, somehow, fleeting. Relish it.