After eight years working as an ER-ICU nurse, Carla Brook was ready to set up an urgent care close to home. “I came to Bigfork five years ago and really wanted to open a clinic,” Brook says. “I had a big dream and didn’t think I could make it happen.” She’s been working toward this […]

MISSOULA (AP) – A climate scientist who was on the United Nations panel that shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore says a recent speech to high school students was canceled because of the controversy over global warming. Steve Running, an ecology professor and global climate scientist at the University of Montana, was scheduled […]

America’s youth has become increasingly wimpy. While some of the reasons are obvious, such as the proliferation of videogames, blame can also be placed on the nation’s schools. As the New York Times reports, recess – the rite of passage for every red-blooded adolescent – has morphed from a rough-and-tumble break in the day to […]

WHITEFISH – The seafoam green house on Spokane Avenue seems unremarkable enough; that is, until you notice the steady stream of middle school aged students coming in and out of the building, many hauling music cases more than half their size. One step inside and a visitor is greeted with a symphony of jumbled sounds: […]

The Kalispell Police and Flathead County Sheriff’s reports for Wednesday included the following: 6:35 a.m. Someone smashed a vehicle window in Evergreen and stole a shotgun. 9:32 a.m. Someone stole some gloves out of a vehicle. 10:21 a.m. There were some logs flopping around on US Highway 93. 12:54 p.m. A kid burned his hand […]

The gathering in a convention room at Kalispell’s Red Lion Inn last week was in many ways an anomaly: young workers in an industry with an aging workforce struggling to find more people just like them. The Young Constructors Forum, part of the Montana Contractors Association, is a group of managers under age 40 for […]

A “clunk, clunk” signaled the end of the 2007-08 Norwegian-U.S. Scientific Traverse of East Antarctica. The expedition sits 350 kilometers from its South Pole destination on a remote barren white expanse of hard wind-sculpted ice ridges called sastrugi. Two of the four red snow vehicles used to pull science equipment, fuel, supplies, and living quarters […]

HELENA (AP) – Canadian regulators say potential coal and gas projects north of Glacier National Park face many hurdles, including regulatory review. Montana officials have criticized potential development of a coal mine and a coal-bed methane operation in southeastern British Columbia. On Tuesday, the Montana Legislature’s Environmental Quality Council invited Canadian officials to provide their […]

HELENA (AP) – A steady snowfall and the possibility of another avalanche forced authorities to scale back their search Tuesday at the site of a large snow slide that killed two backcountry skiers near the Whitefish Mountain Resort in northwestern Montana. A day after some 100 volunteers looked for two other people reported buried by […]

My first TV appearance in Columbus was on a local cable program, and since then I’ve been lucky enough to spread the word about wildlife and conservation on many national shows and reach many more people. Getting together a group of animals and their caretakers, driving to the studio and doing the show can be […]

Good morning and happy Appreciate a Dragon Day. It’s a frigid morning in the Flathead; chalk up any type-o’s in the Buffet to numb fingers. Topping local news this morning, Myers Reece examines Whitefish’s planning doughnut dilemma, as a new city council there brainstorms ways to reach a consensus on the issue. The search for […]

Over the last 34 columns, I’ve spent a lot of time making note of good business practices and bad. While quite a lot of the things we’ve discussed are about the perhaps misguided things that businesses do, there’s always a lesson for the smart business owner who is paying attention. Now, it’s time to start […]

UPDATE Wednesday 12 p.m. After an avalanche threat assessment by experts in the U.S. Forest Service and Nordic Ski Patrol, Flathead County Sheriff’s deputies will escort two eyewitnesses back to the scene of the avalanche, to re-interview them and try to get further information out of them according to a news release from Sheriff Mike […]

Whitefish’s “planning doughnut” controversy is a touchy, if not convoluted, ordeal. Statistics are scattered or don’t exist at all. Residents in the outskirts of town are governed by city land-use regulations but can’t vote for city officials, nor can they apply for county boards. In some ways, they are in limbo. On the other hand, […]

The Kalispell Police and Flathead County Sheriff’s reports for Tuesday included the following: 9:39 a.m. A Kalispell restaurant patron called in to say that she thought the cook was the same man who was featured on a news program – which one, she couldn’t remember – as a wanted person. The man is not wanted. […]