You’d assume selling Western Montana in August, with fires consuming thousands of acres, would be as arduous as hawking space heaters. Some campgrounds and trails are closed. Sporadic delays greet visitors to Glacier National Park. Smoke blankets the region’s valleys and some days the air tastes like burnt marshmallows. Apparently, Montana tourists are an altogether […]

Georgia is known for its peaches, Washington its apples. Here in Northwest Montana we have the huckleberry. August traditionally marks the height of the season when, to several locals, the little berries are big business. Inside a Kalispell shop, an eight-sided container holds the purple preserves. Beneath the dark green cap, an artist’s rendering of […]

At least seven small wildfires broke out in Flathead National Forest Tuesday afternoon, presumably the results of the day’s thunderstorms. The fires are scattered throughout Flathead Valley, said Denise Germann of the U.S. Forest Service, with the biggest located around the Swan Lake area. The largest was about two acres as of 6 p.m. Tuesday […]

SEELEY LAKE (AP) – Work to restrain a wildfire near this resort town is showing results, but an end to the fire is not in sight and, unless nature delivers a surprisingly good rain, burning could continue into the fall, fire managers said Wednesday. “We’ve got about a month and a half of this left,” […]

A recent article in the Seattle Business Journal discussed a new deal between Starbucks and Hershey that will result in an upscale chocolate product. Once again, we see cross-branding between two industry giants. What could they possibly gain – and what can the small business owner learn from it? Obviously, the corporates are looking for […]

From his 12 years in the U.S. Army, James Clark remembers one conversation above all others. He was in Bosnia, in the heart of combat, talking with his comrades about what they would want their kids to be able to do if the soldiers didn’t return home. “If something were to happen to me,” he […]

The battle for the hearts and minds of the Montana electorate has begun in earnest on the Internet: Both Democrats and Republicans are snatching up Web site URLs for opposing candidates and potential candidates and posting attack ads in places where the public might be seeking information for that candidate. Blog LeftintheWest on July 27 […]

Opening a new high AA school: what a challenge, and yet, how gratifying. Our community has supported the Flathead High School District’s efforts to provide more curriculum opportunities for our students, and twice as many activity and athletic programs. However, as occurs with most opportunities, there are challenges. One of the challenges of opening a […]

David Lewis, chef and owner of Pescado Blanco in Whitefish, is desperate for one of the beer and wine licenses up for grabs Aug. 8. “If I don’t get it, I’m closing for sure,” he said last week. “It just is not working.” Lewis works 14-hour days and said he barely pays himself at all. […]

Model airplanes, for some, are quite a bit more than wood, wings and glue. They are turbines and combustion chambers, fiberglass and landing gear, high soars and low dives – and the occasional crash at 200 miles per hour. They are jets, in fact. And for a father and son, they are the pinnacles of […]

The Columbia Falls City Council earlier this week approved the purchase of new riverfront park property down in the area known as “Mosquito Flats,” just east of the Habitat for Humanity project area. Columbia Falls City Manager Bill Shaw said Wednesday that the normal procedure for something like this is to assemble a citizen committee […]

SEELEY LAKE (AP) – People are settling in for the long haul as a large wildfire less than two miles from town continued to burn Wednesday through dry brush and trees, and fire officials said it could be more than a month before it’s extinguished. Residents of the Seeley Lake area, about 50 miles northeast […]

The Boys and Girls Club has reached a tentative purchase agreement for the Episcopal church building at 4th Ave and 6th St, located across from the old CFalls Junior High. The location is key, because the Club needs convenient access to the gyms at the junior high. The Club has 6 months to raise the […]

While some Montana fires, including the Jocko Lakes Fire near Seeley Lake, calmed Monday, winds hit blazes in the Bitterroot Valley, pushing the Tin Cup Fire near Darby to the south, forcing the evacuation of 37 homes. The National Weather Service in Missoula had issued a red flag warning for Monday with gusts up to […]

Monday evening the Jocko Lakes Fire was hit by the squall and high winds firefighters had anticipated, and it “bumped the fire a little bit to the northwest,” fire information officer Ricardo Zuniga said. The winds stirred things up enough overnight to force firefighters to retreat to a safety zone. But that was the only […]