Friday, August 21, 2009

Missouri breaks ...

Today's road is in one of my favorite parts of Montana ... the Misouri Breaks country of northern Fergus County. And it's my favorite kind of road, too ... no freeway can compare to this.

That pickup truck is heading towards one of Montana's very best backroad destinations ... the historic McClelland Ferry across the Missouri River. There'll certainly be a post or two on that later.

7 comments:

  1. I'm reading Joseph Kinsey Howard's "Montana: High, Wide and Handsome" right now, and just got through a chapter on the range wars of the 1880's and 1890's. Cattle rustlers would use the Missouri River Breaks as a hideout for stolen cattle and horses. Interesting stuff!

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  2. Yep, it's wonderful country with a fascinating past. It's really too bad so much of that area is drowned under Fort Peck reservoir, now ...

    And you're reading perhaps the very best book on Montana history ever written!!! You deserve major points for that. :)

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  3. Missouri Breaks is a pretty good movie too...and guess what I just found out...you can watch it for free on the IMDb site!!! I check in there all the time for film info...this is the first time I've seen that feature that allows playing more than just preview clips. Finally a useful application...I'll be crazy searching for old films now. I didn't see any apparent strings attached to the freeview. I just feel all toe-tappy now...all giggley. ;)

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  4. Forgot to say I ordered Howard's book too. It looks worthy, and I don't remember reading it before.

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  5. Oh, thanks for letting me know about that!! I don't think I've seen Missouri Breaks since it first came out ... and it is indeed a good film. I love stuff like that, too, and I love making little discoveries on the net. How did we ever live without it?!

    And I really hope you enjoy Howard's book. It was written way back in the 40s but it's still extraordinarily relevant to the state ... and the man was an outstanding writer, besides.

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  6. The other day I downloaded a pdf of a little elementary history of "Montana, Land of the Shining Mountains" by K.B. Judson, 4th ed., 1912.
    I've just scrolled through a bit of it so far, it's several hundred pages...but I don't know what we did before the internet and Google either. I know I panic when I lose my cable connection for any reason. It's a terrific addiction.

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  7. Yep, there are so very many resources available online nowadays ... what a resource for folks like us! I could spend years just browsing Google Books.

    And I'm addicted to the net, as well ... if more than a couple hours have elapsed since I checked my e-mail, I start to get all nervous. :)

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