Seasons Greetings:

From all of us at the O'Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West, The University of Montana

The Christmas Griddle
Provided by William Farr

The "Crown of the Continent's" first Forest Ranger was a capable man named Frank Liebig.Pres. Theodore Roosevelt established the Flathead Forest Reserve in 1901, along with the Lewis and Clark Forest Reserve.The following year Liebig was appointed to the federal position of Ranger.It was a good appointment for Liebig knew the country well, having tramped, packed, and photographed his way among the lakes and forests and across the high passes on the Continental Divide.He had also surveyed the oil claims at the Kintla Lakes.

Upon becoming a ranger, Liebig was sworn in and given the tools of his trade-namely a notebook, a silver badge, a box of ammunition, and "two big sheets of paper" on which he was to officially record his activities.The ceremony, which took place in the newly established Kalispell, concluded with the admonition, "The whole country is yours, from Belton to Canada and across the Rockies to the prairie between Waterton Lake and the foot of St. Mary Lake.You're to look for fire, timber thieves, squatters and game violators.Go to it and good luck." (p. 43.)*

At 25 and a seasoned ranger for the U.S. Forest Service, Liebig married Lulu McMahon in June of 1907.They took up residence at the Mt. Stanton Ranger Station at the head of Lake McDonald.Two girls were born, Jean and Francis, and the combination of the needs of a beginning family, an isolated cabin, and a Ranger's eagerness to please generated the story of the Christmas griddle.

Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park

Just before Christmas, on a raw December day, Ranger Liebig seeing that the wind had blown much of the snow off frozen Lake McDonald, decided to seize the unusual opportunity to ice skate the ten miles to the foot of the lake and then to snowshoe the remaining three miles to the little town of Belton.The next day was Christmas and Liebig wanted to surprise his "girls."Once in Belton "he went to the mercantile and purchased a crate of oranges for the little girls (oranges brought in by the Great Northern train) and a hotcake griddle for Lulu."With luck and if the weather held, he could be home before the children woke up on Christmas day.Strapping the crate of oranges and the griddle on his back, Liebig set out on snowshoes for the return trip.Reaching the lake, the resourceful fellow, tied a short piece of rope to the handle of the iron griddle suddenly transforming it into a sled.Pulling it and the oranges behind him, he skated the long ten miles home.The weather had held.He made it and by the time Santa Claus was scheduled to arrive the following morning, the griddle was under the Christmas tree and the bright oranges decorated their bowl.

Merry Christmas

*Note:  You can read more about Frank Liebig in The First Ranger. Adventures of a Pioneer Forest Ranger. Glacier Country, 1902-1910, edited by C.W. Guthrie, (Huson, Mont.: Redwing Publishing, 1995).

staff notes

Center Senior Fellow Bob Brown will be leaving the Center for the Rocky Mountain West at the end of December to begin new work at the University of Montana's Mansfield Center.  Brown said, "I will be able to focus more directly on Asian and Pacific matters, particularly as they involve China, where I have taught and traveled. I am particularly excited about advancing the study of the Mandarin Chinese language in our public schools. Other languages are important, but one fifth of humanity speaks Chinese. English is required throughout China, and most young people there can speak to us in our language. Almost none of us can speak to them in theirs. In a shrinking and increasingly interconnected world that has to change."  All of us at the Center wish Bob well in his new position and thank him for his contributions at the Center over the past four years.

"All the mining before was tunnel mining. It didn't destroy the natural beauty."

Paul Helit, a resident of Cripple Creek, on why residents of the historic
Colorado mining town opposed a new gold mine.
- Los Angeles Times
10/01/2008

"Some look at it as an eyesore. We look at it as a lab."

Doug Abbott, Montana Tech's vice chancellor for academic affairs,
about the Berkeley Pit's role in training restoration workers.
- Montana Standard
10/03/2008

"My advice is Montana needs to get serious about land-use planning. "

Catherine Carroll, a member of Maine's Land Use Regulation
Commission, about development plans of Plum Creek Timber Co.,
which owns hundreds of thousands of acres of land around
Maine's Moosehead Lake and Montana's Whitefish Lake.
- Missoulian
10/06/2008

"My bottom line to you is that we in our state are open to business as it relates to oil shale."

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., at an oil-shale symposium at the
Colorado School of Mines on Monday, where the Utah Republican
urged the federal government to move quickly on oil-shale
development in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming.
- Aspen Times (AP)
10/14/2008

"Wolf stuff has nothing to do with reality; it's all about symbolism."

Ed Bangs, wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,
about the agency's new effort to delist wolves in the Northern Rockies.
- Washington Post
10/27/2008

"What's in it for Yellowstone bison?"

Tim Stevens, Yellowstone program manager for the National Parks
Conservation Association, questioning the Interior Department's
bison conservation plan announced Tuesday.
- Jackson Hole Daily
10/30/2008 

"Already in many places, every lodgepole over five inches is dead as far as the eye can see."

Clint Kyhl, director of a Forest Service incident management team in
Laramie, Wyo., describing the effects of bark beetle infestations
on Colorado's forests.
- New York Times
11/18/2008

regional trends

As Unemployment Rises Nationally,
The Rocky Mountain West Is Faring
Better Than Most

As the economy slows the U.S. unemployment rate has been trending upward. Analysts now say that the current nation-wide recession or slowing economy began a full year ago in December, 2007. And this recession is expected to continue through all of next year. Prior to its beginning, unemployment in the U.S. had fallen to as low as 4.1% in October, 2006. More recently in November, U.S. unemployment reached 6.5% (unadjusted for seasonality) and could reach 8 to 9% or even higher in the coming year. Unemployment has already reached 8% and higher in some areas of the U.S. However, as the map above shows, much of the Interior West, including the five-state Rocky Mountain West, continues to have some of the lowest unemployment rates nationally. Click here for more information.

center in the news 

Gazette Opinion: Put Montana perspective on recession news - Billings Gazette, Dec. 21, 2008

Official: Economy slower, but not too slow - Missoulian, Dec. 19, 2008

Economist says Billings faring well in recession - Billings Gazette, Dec. 18, 2008

Economist says Billings, Mont., won't see worst of the recession - TMCnews, Dec. 18, 2008

Recession and Montana - Billings Gazette, Dec. 17, 2008

Economist: Montana's Slowdown Will Be Shallow, Short - NewWest.Net, Dec. 16, 2008

Bankruptcy in Big Sky: Mile High Clubs in Trouble - WyoFile.com, Dec. 16, 2008

Pat Williams on Wilderness and the Beaverhead-Deerlodge Partnership - NewWest.Net, Dec. 13, 2008

Montana money matters. Should we be banking on our local economy? - Magic City Magazine, Nov. 2008

Wind Energy in the Rockies
Provided by Shellie Nelson, editor, Headwaters News

In the American Wind Energy Association's ranking of the nation's top 20 states for wind-energy potential Annual Rankings Report, Montana ranks 5^th, Wyoming 7^th, and Colorado, New Mexico, and Idaho 11^th, 12^th, and 13^th, respectively.New Mexico leads these Rocky Mountain states in actual wind-power production, with 3.9% of the electricity produced in the state coming from wind generation, more than double Montana's 1.7%; the 1.6% in Wyoming and Idaho, and Colorado's 1.3%.

Lack of transmission capacity in Montana and other Rocky Mountain states has long been cited as the reason the region is lagging in wind-power development. The recent approval of the Montana-Alberta Tie Line, the 214-mile transmission line between Great Falls and Lethbridge is expected to partly address this situation, and spur construction of wind farms.

The Judith Gap wind farm is the largest in Montana, with 90 wind turbines churning out 135-150 megawatts of power, although 

 
Photo courtesy of DOE/NREL, Credit - Warren Gretz

Spain-based developer NaturEner's Glacier Wind Farm 85 miles north of Great Falls is expected to soon be nearly double the size of the Judith Gap facility.It has 71 turbines already in place and producing power, and another 69 going online in the project's second phase, bringing the total production to 210 megawatts. NaturEner plans additional wind farms in Montana that will add between 300 and 500 megawatts of wind-generated power Montana.

As large wind farms take their place in the region, great care will have to be paid to how these facilities and the mega lines connecting them to faraway markets impact the region's widely acclaimed and coveted landscapes and environment.One possible answer to this is giving greater emphasis to smaller and more dispersed wind energy projects that produce power for nearby or more localized markets.This will afford more local communities and users the opportunity to own part of the power they consume, while also avoiding the disadvantage of losing significant amounts

  
Photo courtesy of DOE/NREL, Credit - Warren Gretz

of electricity through line loses incurred in transmitting the power to distant markets.Montana Green Power estimates smaller wind projects entailing more localized uses, some private some public, generate a total of 896 kilowatts of power.