After serving nearly a decade in prison for a gruesome murder he didn’t commit, Ryan Ferguson walked out of the Jefferson City Correctional Center in Missouri a free man last week.
And that’s cause for celebration for one Missoula author, who worked tirelessly for two years writing a book proving Ferguson is innocent of strangling the Daily Tribune sports editor in Columbia, Mo.
Brian D’Ambrosio started working on the book with the Ferguson family when he heard about the case from a friend in Columbia.
He became intrigued by inconsistencies in the case against Ferguson – a case that, D’Ambrosio said, was predicated on the shaky testimony of a troubled teenager named Charles Erickson and the false testimony of an eyewitness to the crime.
Built primarily to serve as a major railroad center, Havre is the largest city on the Hi-Line of Montana. Incorporated in 1893, it's a community that was instrumental in the harnessing of the Wild West. Indeed, there are many voices telling multitudinous stories in this old rebellious railroad town.
A century ago the picture here was profoundly different: Railroaders and bootleggers, mountain men and cowboys, living midst common violence, with barrooms and saloons as the stage and marker of tested manliness. Close your eyes tightly and it's almost as if you can taste the city's rambunctious past.
Throughout the decades much of old Havre has been razed or fallen into utterly unrecognizable disrepair. One preserved piece of evidence testifying to the city's unique history, however, is still very much apparent.
On this slate-gray November morning, small, lustrous grids of purple colored squares can be seen embedded in the sidewalks of Havre's downtown area -- a short six-block section enveloping the north side of the city. At one point, these "skylights" -- transformed purplish over time due to the sun's frenzied rays -- supplied and controlled the ebb and flow of illumination for the underground city built below more than one hundred years ago. Throughout its history, this underground expanse has been host to riotous debaucheries, including a bordello, a Chinese laundry mat, a saloon, a drugstore, at least three opium dens and rooms used for smuggling alcohol during Prohibition.
Welcome to a new online initiative featuring the sounds of some of the West’s most iconic species and places. The Acoustic Atlas will collect the sounds of Montana and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, along with habitats and species from throughout the Western United States.
In the coming months, we will be adding many new recordings to this website. We invite you to listen to samples from the collection on these pages, as well as featured recordings from around the region.
Jenna Caplette migrated from California to Montanain the early 1970s, first living on the Crow Indian reservation, then moving to Bozeman where she owned a downtown retail anchor for eighteen years. These days she owns Bozeman BodyTalk & Energetic Healthcare, hosts a monthly movie night, teaches and writes about many topics.
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“...We must understand that we are all in this together . . . we humans are a profoundly interconnected species -- entwined with one another and with all forms of life . . . “.
-- Parker Palmer, Healing the Heart of Democracy
Imagine you had the best mentor in the world. What if that mentor isn’t a person but is the life all around and within you?
At the October Montana Non-Profit Association Conference in Missoula, Certified Biomicry Specialist Toby Lynn Herzlich suggested looking to nature for guidance, invited those of us listening to study nature’s “best practices,” something that we here in Montana are ideally situated to do. On her website, Herzlich writes, “We are learning to live sustainably on planet earth – why not turn to the Earth, itself, and gather insight from the 3.8 billion years of evolutionary success?”
Most Western institutions are based on a Newtonian world view, seeking to understand the world by breaking it in to parts. The result? Fragmentation and brokenness. Biomimicry and the study of nature’s best practices invite a shift from a linear approach to one that’s cyclical and adaptable, one that moves us from isolation to an awareness of being part of an interconnected whole.
“Life already does what we are trying to do, creating conditions that are conducive to life.” Herzlich said, “An attitude of awe is the first step to becoming a student of nature.”
In that study are time-tested solutions for the complexity of challenges we face, challenges that are systemic, global. She said, “We are called to rethink our basics, to think less like a machine and more like an ecosystem,” to reshape society in ways that are healthy, regenerative & just. We need to be open to discovery of how we can organize ourselves differently, need to shift our attention from what we knew and look to the natural world as a mentor.
For instance, nature cooperates; builds community; saves water in times of drought; invests in the next generations; educates; and protects. It finds opportunities even when conditions are tough; its purposeful; collaborative; adaptive; resilient; constantly confronting new possibilities. It models shared leadership.
Nature is a feedback rich, criticism free zone. Herzlich said that we need to listen for messages in our system, try a lot of things, fail fast,integrate the unexpected, institutionalize what works and let go the rest, let go of what no longer works. We need to learn to work with nature, not exploit it or force it.
“Nature is not ‘out there,’” she said. “We are it, part of it.”
"Be part of a new story of living on earth, humbling ourselves to sit and listen and learn and be grateful for what is all around us.”
How might you make that invitation a part of your Thanksgiving celebration?
When you envision Montana, you probably think wide open spaces, horses and cowboys, right? Well, Missoula will surprise you. Lots of green space and a university campus makes Missoula an unsuspectingly cool town. Missoula is surrounded by mountains and is home to art galleries (the first Friday evening of every month is "First Friday Gallery Night"), lots of outdoor adventure and the yearly River City Roots Festival. Missoula is also the host of Hempfest, if that's your thing.
Avian researchers have been stunned by the record number of raptors flying through the Bitterroot Valley this fall, including an explosion in the number of turkey vultures.
As of Friday afternoon, 5,063 raptors have migrated past an observation point near Florence since September, nearly double the seasonal average, according to a joint study by the MPG Ranch and the Raptor View Research Institute.
“People that have been doing this for a long time have never seen anything like it,” said field researcher Eric Rasmussen, one of many bird experts who have been scanning the skies with binoculars every day for the past few months, counting raptors and identifying them.
The researchers have seen 1,861 turkey vultures pass through the valley this fall, compared to only 23 last year. There have also been 120 osprey recorded, compared to just 28 last year.
After serving nearly a decade in prison for a gruesome murder he didn’t commit, Ryan Ferguson walked out of the Jefferson City Correctional Center in Missouri a free man last week.
Built primarily to serve as a major railroad center, Havre is the largest city on the Hi-Line of Montana. Incorporated in 1893, it's a community that was instrumental in the harnessing of the Wild West. Indeed, there are many voices telling multitudinous stories in this old rebellious railroad town.
Welcome to a new online initiative featuring the sounds of some of the West’s most iconic species and places. The Acoustic Atlas will collect the sounds of Montana and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, along with habitats and species from throughout the Western United States.
When you envision Montana, you probably think wide open spaces, horses and cowboys, right? Well, Missoula will surprise you. Lots of green space and a university campus makes Missoula an unsuspectingly cool town. Missoula is surrounded by mountains and is home to art galleries (the first Friday evening of every month is "First Friday Gallery Night"), lots of outdoor adventure and the yearly River City Roots Festival. Missoula is also the host of Hempfest, if that's your thing.
Avian researchers have been stunned by the record number of raptors flying through the Bitterroot Valley this fall, including an explosion in the number of turkey vultures.