In the spring and summer of 2016, I had the good fortune to travel to the four corners of Montana with wordsmith extraordinaire, Kristen Inbody. We always arrived unannounced, spending one full day in each town listening to residents tell stories of times past and futures ahead.
Click here for copy accompanying Westby, Alzada, Darby, and The Yaak.
Westby, northeast // People gather at Charlies Place, the town bar, as the sun sets behind old grain elevators.
Though Dennis Kittelson no longer owns Kittelson Hardware, he visits the store every day because it was a big part of his life.
The Westby water tower as seen through the windows of an old fire truck.
Peggy Lagerquist wraps jerkey while Vicki Kittelson cleans a saw in Al's Meats, Westby's community convenience and butcher shop.
Beef hangs on hooks in Al's Meats.
Pat Long, an oil worker from Illinois, checks his phone while Jared Stevens, right, talks to Ron Nelson at Charlies Place. Stevens says he enjoys living in Westby because "your word is your word and everything here is still worth a handshake."
Workers clean the sides of a truck outside Triple S Enterprises, an Iowa-based oil company working in the North Dakota Bakken oil field.
Alzada, southeast // Ed Bischoff stands in his shop, Little Missouri Gallery, filled with antiques and oddities he has found over the years. His collection includes everything from antique cameras to ranching equipment.
Alzada's schoolhouse has four students.
Sheep lazily walk over a driveway 12 miles outside Alzada. Sheep were once the primary industry, but now most ranchers fill their land with cattle.
Joyce H. takes her best sheepdog Drift to the pastures to look for ewes and their lambs. Drift is getting older and soon he will be retired. Finding a replacement sheepdog isn't simple as not every border collie is suited to the job.
Ella Oleson, now retired from ranching, remembers driving her children 120 miles each day for school from their land along the Little Missouri, 26 miles from Alzada near Capitol. As businessmen with less experience buy up ranch lands, Ella worries, "The way of life is changing so fast. Young people have got to keep this country going. Somebody has to make the food for the country.”
The Stoneville Saloon, an island of eclectic mischief surrounded by ranchlands. Thousands of bikers heading to the Sturgis Bike Rally in South Dakota stop every August to enjoy "Topless Tuesday" and live music.
Diane Turko was photographed in The Stoneville Saloon Tuesday, May 24, 2016. Turko has owned the Saloon for 24 years and says "I'll probably be here until I die. I don't have the money to retire and it gives me a reason to get out of bed."
Kent Barker, a trucker from Wisconsin, looks at the old farm and ranch equipment hanging from the Stoneville Saloon's ceiling. Diane Turko spent eight years hanging it all.
Gary Bischoff, a lifetime resident of Alzada, enjoys a drink in the Saloon. As a cattle rancher just over the border in South Dakota, he has a hard time finding help. "It used to be you could ask employees what they could offer you. Now it's what can you offer me? A job, that's what."
Darby, southwest // Darby, once a logging town, struggles to re-invent itself after the industry disappeared.
Mitch McLain works a Custer re-enactor who promotes tourism in South Dakota's Black Hills but lives in Hamilton with his wife. "Being a re-enactor for 30 years, it puzzles me why this valley doesn't have more Lewis and Clark attractions. It's low-hanging fruit to promote yourself historically," McLain said.
Children jog across the street lined with buildings whose signs evoke the past.
James Blackwell tosses his two-year-old grandson, Ezekiel Blackwell, into the air at the Lake Como beach. He moved to Darby in 2009 so his children could go to school there.
Sprinklers keep fields south of Darby green into the summer.
A speckled trout snatches a mid-afternoon snack off the water's surface in a child's fishing pond near the Bitterroot River.
Mike Conroy holds up a board and a finished violin. "Making violins was going to be a retirement hobby," Tari Conroy, Mike's wife, joked outside the door, "but we got into it early."
Darby Police Deputy Marshal John Ringer helps his daughters practice softball behind the elementary and middle school. Their team practices in Stevensville, a town 38 miles north, so Ringer works with his daughters when they can't make the trip.
The Yaak, northwest // The Yaak River, a Kootenai River tributary, churns across boulders lying in its path.
Kenneth Breitenstein's home just east of The Yaak.
Kenneth Breitenstein, 81, remembers the days woodland caribou, the only big game species Montana has lost, shared space with him.
Piles of tree limbs and debris left behind after Mennonites finished logging the area. Breitenstein worries the dead plant matter will become a fire hazard when it dries.
Antlers adorn the Yaak River Tavern's backyard entryway.
Carolyn Bennett, a 40 year resident of The Yaak, remembers days when everybody had to use a Citizens Band Radio to share narrow roads with logging trucks. "The log truck drivers would call out their makrs and you'd find a hole to get off the road", she recalls.
Children play near the Yaak River behind the Yaak River Tavern.
Ray Potts, 86, worked on the Libby Dam, mined Hardin coal and precious metals in Tennessee before choosing to stay in The Yaak. "I love the people of The Yaak. They all know this old grey-haired man," he laughed.
Military flags wave outside the Dirty Shame Saloon, noting the owner's past as an Army Ranger. John Runkle allows unruly patrons to let loose, to a point. "The Dirty Shame has always been one of the wildest bars in Montana and bringing it back has helped business - it's a controlled wild," he said.
John Runkle laughs with a customer at The Dirty Shame. Runkle has turned down many offers from reality television shows over the years, "I have no shortage of wacky customers but none of them would go on TV," he said.
A cat, startled by lights from an approaching car, goes on the defense outside the Yaak River Lodge down the road from the Tavern and Saloon.