More than 60 Boy Scouts from six troops in Bigfork, Columbia Falls, Kalispell and Whitefish descended on the Bitterroot Valley’s Rennaker Ranch this past weekend for the fifth annual Bitterroot Rendezvous. The event involves approximately 200 participants and staffers, with events and activities including a Colter Run, spear throw, flint and steel fire starting, tomahawk […]

The First Best Place Task Force has a full schedule this week, which started Tuesday afternoon with the screening of the film “Eight Below.” Rated PG and 120 minutes long, “Eight Below” is a story of two Antarctic Explorers who are forced to leave their sled dogs behind as they battle to survive. This movie […]

Since 1913, when Josephine and the late Hank Siderius homesteaded about 200 acres south of Kalispell and began farming and grazing animals there, the Siderius family has watched the valley undergo immense changes. Now, their historic homestead may be ushering in a new stage for the south Kalispell area as the proposed site of a […]

My birthday was earlier this month and as I do every year, I take great care to notice (and reward) those businesses who paid attention in the past when I brought it up, as well as those who already have my birth date and use it wisely. While not every business knows my birthday (or […]

Good morning. Today in 1951, the television sitcom “I Love Lucy” premiered. On the Beacon this morning, the proposed Siderius Commons subdivision has sparked a review of the city’s growth policy that could open up the lands south of Kalispell to new types of development. And while space and utilities on the north side of […]

GREAT FALLS – The first turbines at a wind farm in north-central Montana are online, supplying power to customers in California. The $500 million Glacier Wind Farm is being developed by Spain-based NaturEner. The first phase will produce 106.5 megawatts of power. Company spokesman Bill Alexander says each of the 71 towers in the first […]

HELENA – The Montana Republican Party announced Tuesday that Executive Director Jake Eaton had left his position to pursue other interests. Eaton was at the center of the party’s recent effort to challenge the registrations of nearly 6,000 voters in the state. The party later withdrew those challenges, after being stung by accusations it was […]

9:16 a.m. A distraught woman on Crestview Drive in Bigfork called in to complain about her ex and his drinking. 9:38 a.m. A vehicle hit a fence on West Valley Drive, damaging the gate. 2:29 p.m. A door was pried but could not be opened, and what would have been stolen, remained put. 4:42 p.m. […]

Congress’s lardy response to the Wall Street mortgage fiasco leaves me wondering about governmental fiscal responsibility – not just inside the Beltway, but here in Flathead County. Both Whitefish and Evergreen passed public-safety bond issues in the past couple of months in special elections. Evergreen’s fire hall is falling down, plus the department has seen […]

There could be at least one silver lining in the national and local economic and housing slowdown: A possible increase in affordable housing development in the Flathead Valley. “With the market pretty much paralyzed and less access to credit and home loans because of the financial crisis, one bright spot is that federal and state […]

WEST GLACIER – The alpine section of Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park is closing next week. Park officials say the eight-mile section of the road between the Loop and Logan Pass will be closed on Monday at 8 a.m. The closure will allow park personnel to prepare the Sun Road for winter by removing […]

When we launched Real Estate and Development in the Northern Rockies two years ago, markets around the region were booming and the big questions on many peoples’ minds were about how to control runaway growth. Today the environment is very different – but we think the insights you’ll gain into the economy, the real estate […]

Good morning. On this date in 1947, Air Force test pilot Charles Yeager became the first person to break the sound barrier as he flew the experimental Bell X-1 aircraft — which had been named the Glamorous Glennis — over Edwards Air Force Base in California. On the Beacon this morning, cooperative efforts between Whitefish […]

BONNER – The shuttered Bonner sawmill will begin auctioning its assets Tuesday and Wednesday as Stimson Lumber Co. continues to look for someone to buy the 155-acre property. The Portland, Ore.-based company recently closed the 125-year-old business, citing a deteriorating housing market and falling timber prices. The mill has been listed for sale since August. […]

BILLINGS – Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks has distributed about 8,000 blood sample kits to landowners, hunters, outfitters and guides near Yellowstone National Park in an effort to gauge the brucellosis infection rate of elk in the southwestern part of the state. “We’re looking at the incidence and range of infection,” said Mel Frost, an […]