Suggested Reading List
A River Runs Through It
Author: Norman Maclean
Description: Lean, penetrating lyrics of words describe a time and a life based in Norman Maclean’s childhood experiences. Descriptions of life, of fly fishing in Montana’s Big Sky country along the Big Blackfoot River is an exquisite blended word painting of land, water and family. Come fish in the Rockies and read this novella which begins:
In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing. We lived at the junction of great trout rivers in western Montana, and our father was a Presbyterian minister and a fly fisherman who tied his own flies and taught others. He told us about Christ's disciples being fishermen, and we were left to assume, as my brother and I did, that all first-class fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly fishermen and that John, the favorite, was a dry-fly fisherman.
The Bloody Bozeman: The Perilous Trail to Montana's Gold
Author: Dorothy Johnson
Description: Part of the Western Trail series, The Bloody Bozeman showcases some of the American West’s most colorful personalities, memorable events and personal stories of the men and women who emigrated to Montana over this trail and others. The author reviews the creation of the Bozeman Trail in 1862 and traces events along its length from 1863 through 1868. The bloody Bozeman Trail through Wyoming and Montana was known for the violence and peril that shadowed it as travelers faced hostile Indians, hard climates, outlaws and solitude. This historical book describes how the trail developed, why it was used, who utilized it and why the Army abandoned the forts it had established along the trail. Dorothy Johnson, a true storyteller touches on the other gold fields of early Montana, Road Agents, Vigilantes and Frontier Justice.
Bozeman and the Gallatin Valley: A History
Author: Phyllis Smith
Description: The author states that this is the story of those who traveled through, or later settled in, the Gallatin Valley region in successive migrations for perhaps as far back as thirty thousand years. She reviewed newspapers, memoirs, letters and other sources to put together this narrative history of Montana’s fertile Gallatin Valley and its urban hub, Bozeman. The Treasure State’s Valley of Flowers comes to life through beautifully written text illustrated with some 300 photographs, etchings and maps. Subjects ranging from famous frontiersmen, agriculture, transportation, crime and recreation to geology, notorious events and architecture reveal a rich and colorful past.
The Last Best Place, A Montana Anthology
Author: William Kittredge & Annick Smith, editors
Description: This anthology preserves Montana's rich literary heritage from myths and stories of the earliest Native American inhabitants to works of contemporary authors. Read accounts written by early explorers and visitors including Lewis and Clark, Osborne Russell and James Audubon and by miners, cowboys and settlers. This literature that has been birthed in the Last Best Place - diaries, essays, legends, journals, tall tales, poetry - reflects the remarkable nature of the Treasure State.
The Big Sky
Author: A.B. Guthrie Jr.
Description: The first of several novels of the Big Sky country; it was designated the "best novel of the American West" by the Western Literature Association. Its sequel, "The Way West," won the Pulitzer Prize. The Big Sky chronicles the fur trade era; you'll want to read the rest. You'll enjoy A.B. Guthrie, Jr.'s. fine style of writing.
Windows into the Earth: The Geologic Story of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks
Author: Robert B. Smith and Lee J. Siegel
Description: Find out about the forces that shaped and continue to shape the Greater Yellowstone-Teton region. Illustrations and driving tours of both parks help visitors enjoy and understand the Earth's creative forces in this wondrous region.
Yellowstone and the Great West: Journals, Letters and Images from the 1871 Hayden Expedition
Author: Marlene Deahl Merril, editor
Description: Daily record of Ferdinand Hayden's historic 1871 scientific expedition to the Yellowstone basin. This expedition's findings influenced Congress to establish Yellowstone as the world's first national park. The expedition made many scientific discoveries as well as producing the earliest on-site images of Yellowstone by photographer, William Henry Jackson, and guest artist, Thomas Moran.
Montana, A History of Two Centuries
Author: Michael Malone, William L. Lang & Richard B. Roeder
Description: "Montana: A History of Two Centuries" first appeared in 1976 and immediately became the standard work in its field. This book can be described as a "definitive" one-volume history of Montana. Written primarily to serve as a testbook for college-level history courses, this is a comprehensive, balanced, and detailed overview of Montana's fascinating history. All three authors knew the state extraordinarily well, and clearly loved its past. In this thoroughgoing revision, William L. Lang has joined Michael P. Malone and Richard B. Roeder in carrying forward the narrative to the 1990s. Fully twenty percent of the text is new or revised, incorporating the results of new research and new interpretations dealing with pre-history, Native American studies, ethnic history, women's studies, oral history, and recent political history. In addition, the bibliography has been updated and greatly expanded, new maps have been drawn, and new photographs have been selected.
Streams: Their Ecology and Life
Author: C.E Cushing & David J. Allen
Description: This is a handbook that combines a discussion of the ecology of streams and rivers in layperson language, with an illustrated field guide of the plants and animals found in running waters of North America. Various illustrations and maps accompany the text. The authors are extremely well known--Cushing is the lead content provider for an America On-Line service provided through Trout Unlimited entitled Ask Dr. Cushing. He is frequently asked the sorts of questions that are answered in this field guide. J. David Allan is the author of a well known textbook in Aquatic Ecology.
The Caddisfly Handbook
Author: Dick Pobst & Carl Richards
Description: A convenient and thorough guide with a handy Fisherman's Simplified Key to identifying all the major caddis varieties east and west of the Mississippi.
Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource
Author: Marq de Villiers
Description: In his award-winning book WATER, Marq de Villiers provides an eye-opening account
of how we are using, misusing, and abusing our planet's most vital resource.
Encompassing ecological, historical, and cultural perspectives, de Villiers reports from
hot spots as diverse as China, Las Vegas, and the Middle East, where swelling
populations and unchecked development have stressed fresh water supplies nearly
beyond remedy. Political struggles for control of water rage around the globe, and
rampant pollution daily poses dire ecological theats. With one eye on these looming
crises and the other on the history of our dependence on our planet's most precious
commodity, de Villiers has crafted a powerful narrative about the lifeblood of
civilizations that will be "a wake-up call for concerned citizens, environmentalists,
policymakers, and water drinkers everywhere".
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