When you listen to that voice inside, it leads you through life. Ignore it and you might miss the turnoff for the road you should take. If you’re lucky, and you miss it the first time, that calls comes again and it’s louder the second time. My recent trip to Montana began that way.

At first, it was a soft call. I thought I’d scratch the itch by reading a book or taking a long walk with the dog. In time, I believed it would fade if I moved onto something else. But I was wrong.

The seed was planted when I was younger and first read the works of Norman Maclean. He is best known for writing A River Runs Through It, his semi-autobiographical account of two brothers growing up in Montana. That book became a movie and everybody remembers it as one of Brad Pitt’s first films. But I think Maclean’s book was the hook for me. For some reason, I had ignored it for too long.

Some things are not truly forgotten.

“At sunrise everything is luminous but not clear.”

As time went by, the call grew stronger. I needed Montana. Had I been younger, I would have picked up my things and taken the trip. My feet have touched the ground in 25 countries, most of them before I turned 25. But life isn’t as flexible later on.

Children, work, and duties of life provide other ways to grow. But they hold you in place. You can’t just pick up your things and go. Or can you?

Damn it, I did just go, and I dragged my family along. We visited the Rocky Mountains and Yellowstone, the world’s first national park, most of which lies in the U.S. State of Wyoming. We saw the Old Faithful geyser, wolves and bears, and a herd of 1,000 buffalo. My kids saw things they will never forget. Even my “city girl” wife had a great time. It was an awesome trip.

And we combined it with the land to the north of Yellowstone that was crying out to me. Montana, home of big skies, wheat fields, tall granite peaks, and quiet evenings under the stars. Montana, where the footprints of dinosaurs lie beneath the rocks. Montana, where all things come together and the rivers run through it.

We paid a visit to the land and times of Norman Maclean. Our trip and this article are my tribute to a man whose words I have not forgotten. Some of the pictures here are mine. All quotes are from Maclean or the characters in his stories. I wish he written more of them, but he made his words count.

“I am moved by waters.”

In his famous opening line to A River Runs Through It, Norman Maclean wrote: “In my family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing.” Those are strong words coming from a man whose father was a Presbyterian minister. If you’ve read that book or seen the movie, Maclean’s Montana childhood included plenty of both religion and fly-fishing.

I’ve never been a fisherman and have never been particularly religious, but I think I know what he meant. Hikers, campers, surfers, photographers, and others: we feel a strong connection to nature. When we immerse ourselves in a beautiful place and open ourselves to the life around us, it calms the soul.

We are a part of something greater. We feel our place within it.

The ocean has always been my special place. I was fortunate to grow up near the beach and live within a short distance of it for much of my life. Waters move me also, but generally it’s been that big body of water that is the sea.

Going several hundred miles inland to Montana, I was just as moved by the rivers, lakes, and streams. And maybe in a different way. Being so close to the mountains, right up against them, those rivers and streams roll down with icy freshness. They cut through the land, both shaping and nourishing it.

Early one morning, my family and I saw a bear fishing next to a river. My kids didn’t get a good picture of it because the camera lens was smeared with sunscreen. But a memory is all you really need. Rivers are a powerful metaphor for one’s path in life.

Here is a picture of the Gallatin River that my family and I visited, one of Montana’s finest. Many of the fly-fishing scenes in the movie A River Runs Through It were filmed on the Gallatin.

“The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.”

The Rocky Mountains run like a spine through western North America. Millions of years ago, they were formed as tectonic plates came together and lifted up the land. We saw remnants of this in Yellowstone National Park, which begins in southwestern Montana and covers parts of three U.S. states. Boiling mud pools, erupting geysers, and streams of sulfurous fluids provide evidence of a thin crust and show that the world is still restless, still being formed.

During the time of the dinosaurs, Montana sat at the edge of what was then a vast inland sea. It was a rich coastline before those waters retreated. Today, fossils tell the story, and some of the most amazing stories from the past have been unearthed from fossil digs beneath the rocks in Montana.

My family and I visited the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana. It has one of the world’s largest dinosaur collections, the legacy of famed paleontologist Jack Horner and his team. There are more Tyrannosaurus Rex specimens at this museum than anywhere else in the world.

That museum does a great job of leading visitors though the history of Montana. We glimpsed it all from the formation of the mountains to the time of the dinosaurs to the culture of the Native Americans who called it home to the settlers who came west to homestead on this land. I gained a much greater appreciation for the influences that have shaped this land. Together, they created the setting for Maclean’s writing as well as our experiences on this visit.

“The world is full of bastards, the number increasing rapidly the further one gets from Missoula, Montana”

There are good people everywhere along with a few who are not so good. We met nice people wherever we went in Montana. Today, in the places where Maclean grew up and spent time, there are typical working class families, farmers, and merchants, along with college kids and outdoor enthusiasts who come for the skiing, whitewater rafting, and other adventures. And there are tourists from all over the world.

Norman Maclean was born in 1902. His ancestors were Scottish and his parents lived in Nova Scotia, Canada, moving west to eventually settle in Montana. I wanted my kids to see how people lived back then. And not just my kids; I wanted to feel it myself.

We didn’t go to the Maclean family home. Missoula, Montana doesn’t look quite like it did when he lived there anyway, so much of the movie was filmed in another location. The town that was set as Missoula is actually Livingston, Montana. It still has a lot of picturesque old buildings.

We also went a little further back in time. By reconnecting with the past, we can gain a better understanding of what our ancestors went through. And maybe that gives us a better appreciation of our own lives. Life is tough, but past generations often went through much greater hardship.

We visited the Tinsley House, an old house and farm that has been preserved as a historically accurate homestead. The home was built by a family in Willow Creek, Montana in 1890. Here are some pictures of the house and grounds, including the blacksmith.

Lots of tourists around, but no bastards in sight. Well, maybe the bears weren't so sure.

“The nearest anyone can come to finding himself at any given age is to find a story that somehow tells him about himself.”

Montana was calling me. It was Norman Maclean’s fault. And I finally went there and scratched that itch, dragging my family along for the ride. The rivers and mountains and wheat fields and big sky helped me connect with nature in a new way. I am a part of something much greater and now I will resume my own path forward.

If you’ve never been to Montana, I recommend visiting it someday. It’s the kind of place that gives your soul a fresh breath of air. It helps you connect and remember. But first, you have to forget.

Edit Note: Sadly, my own pictures were not coming out that well on here. Their orientations were weird (not just the sunscreen on the camera). So most of these are stock images, but they are quite beautiful.

#writing
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#books