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Hunting & Gathering

A special edition celebrating autumn's traditions in Northwest Montana, with hunting, fair chase discussions, harvesting superfruits, and foraging for firewood

By Beacon Staff
A pair of stag antlers with fallen brown winter leaves on a rustic timber background and flaking paint. Adobestock

Autumn is a season of preparation, when we fill up our pantries with canned fruits and vegetables from the summer’s harvest and our freezers with wild game.

These traditions, rooted in survival, are held closely in Northwest Montana. In this edition, we take a look a few of these traditional ideas — what are we foraging for now, who is out hunting, how should they be doing it — and explore how they fit into our community’s fabric as a whole.

We hope you have a bountiful autumn, and may your aim on rifle and/or bow be as pure as your grandmother’s canning recipes.


Jacy Dowler holds freshly-harvested Aronia berries on Sept. 14, 2018. Greg Lindstrom | Flathead Beacon

A Superfruit Takes Root

by Molly Priddy

“Can we have some of your blueberries?” the people ask, a question farmers Jacy Dowler and her mom, Janice Olson, know will lead to a whole new conversation about berries, antioxidants, and being selective about what we put in our bodies.

First of all, they’re not blueberries, though they look the part. No, these gorgeous, deep-purple berries are aronias, a superfruit with three times the antioxidant power of blueberries and twice that of acai berries.

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Jessica Brewer. Courtesy photo

Hunting is for the Girls

by Tristan Scott

“Hunting is not sexy, and glorifying that by objectifying women is a disservice to the harvest,” Jessica Brewer said. “There needs to be an authentic portrait of what it really looks like and there needs to be space for everyone. It doesn’t matter how you look. It’s your public land.”

In Northwest Montana, the number of women enrolling in hunter education courses outweighs the number of men, while women who purchase hunting and fishing licenses has also risen dramatically.

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An elk hunter blows on an elk bugle against a sunset.

Big Game Hunting in Northwest Montana

by Andy Viano

Big game hunting is one of the Flathead Valley’s most closely held traditions, and while the general season for deer and elk does not open until Oct. 20, the archery season for most big game opened on Sept. 1 and the general season for black bears and wolves began Sept. 15.

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Adobe Stock

Harvesting Heat

by Myers Reece

Keeping in spirit with Montanans’ self-sufficient proclivities, residents scour the valleys and mountains throughout the year in pursuit of nature’s diverse bounty, including mushrooms, huckleberries, Christmas trees, and much more.

This time of year, as temperatures drop, many people head into the timber in search of an abundant heat source: wood.

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Adobe Stock

Films, Fair Chase and Productive Dialogue

by Myers Reece

Claude Boiteau and Dane Hollinger, two Flathead Valley natives and avid outdoorsmen, have noticed a clear-cut divide in the public conversation about hunting, which they think falsely inflates the differences between the two sides.

In fact, they don’t think it’s as simple as two sides: hunters and non-hunters. Montanans, through all their varied interests and love of the outdoors, have more in common than not.

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