Patrick Doyle, from Visit Montana, discussed the ghost towns, badlands, and Native American sights found in Big Sky Country's state parks. He also discussed why rodeos are such a fun lens into the state's culture and traditions, and when is the best time to visit Yellowstone National Park.

Takeaways:

1. Montana is characterized by vast landscapes and a relatively low population density, which affects visitor experiences.
2. The state has numerous historical sites, including Fort Owen and St. Mary's Mission, which tell of the state's early days.
3. Bannock State Park, a well-preserved ghost town, offers a unique glimpse into Montana's past as the first territorial capital.
4. The Bitterroot Valley is rich in history and outdoor activities, making it an ideal destination for tourists seeking adventure.

Companies and destinations mentioned in this episode:

1. Yellowstone National Park
2. Montana
3. Billings
4. Bozeman
5. Missoula
6. Darby
7. Fort Owen
8. St. Mary's Mission
9. Makoshakea State Park
10. Medicine Rock State Park
11. Carter County Museum
12. Bannock State Park
13. Montana State University
14. Western Montana College
15. North American Indian Days
16. Crow Fair
17. Wild Horse Stampede

Foreign.

And welcome to the Fromer Travel Show.

I'm your host, Pauline Fromer.

I can't remember the last time we discussed Montana.

And it's one of the most beautiful, unusual, undiscovered states in the United States.

Not fully undiscovered.

I mean, my goodness.

It has Yellowstone.

But people tend not to go to other parts of the state.

And so we are going to discuss this right now.

I have Pat Doyle on the line.

He is the marketing director for the state of Montana.

Hey, Pat, thank you so much for appearing in the Fromer Travel Show.

No, thank you so much for your interest in the great state of Montana, Pauline.

It really is a great state.

So tell us a little bit about some of the statistics.

How many people are there?

How big is it?

And what does the strange mismatch between those numbers mean for visitors?

Yeah, so Montana is the fourth largest state in our country, which.

Which is massive.

It's 147,000 square miles.

But we have a little over a million people in it.

So we have these vast landscapes, but we would consider a metro area.

You know, some of our larger cities like Billings or Bozeman or, you know, Missoula, some of our population centers are.

A lot of people look at those as a lot smaller communities.

So it is kind of this state that has, you know, everyone kind of has a connection to it, you know, and you're.

When you're sitting next to someone in an airplane, you tell them you're from Montana.

Everyone kind of has a story about someone they knew that had been there.

They've been there before.

They're dying to go to Place X, Y and Z.

So it really is something that people have been interested in forever.

And I think it fosters that, you know, that connection that people just feel drawn to the state for a lot of different reasons.

It could be from a book they've seen or a movie they've, you know, a movie that they enjoy.

But it is a really incredible place.

And I think right now, one of the reasons people want to go to Montana is because they are fans of the TV series Yellowstone.

But the TV series Yellowstone isn't actually filmed in Yellowstone National Park.

Right.

Where is it filmed?

Uh, correct.

Yep.

It is filmed in southwestern Montana in a.

In a town called Darby, Montana, which is in the southern end of the Bitterroot Valley, which is in Ravalli County.

So it's kind of right in the border of Montana and Idaho.

Incredibly beautiful area.

But I think to your point is, is that, you know, Montana has so many amazing Stories that something like that show Yellowstone can bring you into the state.

But then it's.

Then you have, you know, this amazing array of things that you can discover on your own that have actually nothing to do with the show.

Well, let's talk about first discovering the Bitterroot Valley, because I know that set jetting is a big deal for many people.

A lot of people are doing pilgrimages to the sets of their favorite TV shows and films.

So in terms of the Bitterroot Valley, what do you see and do there?

So the Bitterroot Valley, like I said, it's in southwest Montana.

So it's about.

It's over a hundred miles long stretches south of Missoula, Montana, one of our larger cities.

And it's nestled right in between the Bitterroot Mountain range and the Sapphire Mountain range and the Bitterroot.

That river kind of meanders through this, this amazingly beautiful valley.

It is a place of a lot of firsts for our state of Montana.

So Fort Owens State park and the St. Mary's Mission was really one of the first developments in our state.

So it was our first state irrigation system, flour mill, first cattle ranching operation, pharmacy school, you name it.

So there was St. Mary's Mission, which is followed by Fort Owen, which is now both open to the public.

Fort Owen is actually a state park.

St. Mary's Mission is operated by a nonprofit in Stevensville, Montana.

So they're both literally right across the street from each other.

But an amazing place to kind of start this adventure in the Bitterroot Valley to really gain some context about the historical significance of the area.

So you say it was the site of one of the first ranches in Montana or maybe the first.

Yep, and its first trading post as well.

First trading post.

Very cool.

And so do those are historic sites?

Do people go to see these historic sites or do they go to do a ranch vacation like in City Slickers?

You know, they.

They can do both.

We do have a lot of guest ranches in Montana, but we see that as Montana has become more of, of a well known kind of commodity in the west, we see that people want to learn as much as they can about the state.

And so we often tell our story through a variety of different ways.

Our state parks and things like that is a way to tell a more robust story about, you know, history of the west, our indigenous tribes that we, that we have in the state of Montana, also Lewis and Clark, things like that.

So there are a ton of opportunities in the state to learn from a variety of different Perspectives.

And I think that Fort Owen and the St. Mary's mission provide a really good piece of base to begin that exploration.

Right.

Well, let's talk about some of your state parks, because I think they get overshadowed by Yellowstone national park, which, frankly, I mean, I was there, oh, my goodness, maybe 20 years ago.

I'm embarrassed to say it.

It's been a while.

I was, of course, overwhelmed by the geothermal features and the fact that you can do, like, the American equivalent of a safari there because, you know, you're driving down the road and suddenly you're in a traffic jam and it's buffalo or bison in front of you.

I mean, that stuff is so much fun.

But that's not all there is to Montana.

So what.

Tell us about some of your state parks and why people should add them on to maybe if they're doing a nature trip to Yellowstone.

Sure.

Yeah.

And that's.

I think that state parks provide such.

In any state that you're in, provide such an awesome storytelling vessel.

You know, they take these significant sites and stories and really make them relevant to everybody.

So across our state, maybe we can start in the eastern side of the state and maybe move west.

But that we have an incredible.

Our largest state park in the state is Makoshakea State park, which is.

Which is a Dakota word for bad Earth.

So it is essentially badlands.

So much like the badlands that you may be familiar with in Badlands national park in western South Dakota.

We have incredible badlands in eastern Montana as well.

Before you leave that.

I have never been actually to the Badlands.

What do they look like?

Why are they bad?

So they are.

It's almost like being on another planet.

So almost maybe picture you're walking on the surface of the moon.

So lots of craters, lots of what we call cap rocks, which are little kind of sandstone formations that rise up from the ground.

So these are things that have been eroded through wind, rain, water, floods over thousands of years.

And so Makoshakee is our largest state park.

It is entirely all these incredible badlands formations you can hike around.

You have an amazing visitor center.

But also one of the things that makes that state park really special is that it is a paleontologist's dream.

I don't know if people are familiar with the paleontologist Jack Horner, who was responsible for a lot of the background for things like the Jurassic park series.

He is a.

Yes.

So he is a Montana resident.

And a lot of his digs and things like that from the Museum of the Rockies and Bozeman were in the area of Makoshaga State Park.

So there's an amazing visitor center.

They do have paleontological interpretive programs that are put on by the park.

Field schools from Montana State University do come out there quite often.

So a really.

When you say paleontological field programs, does that mean that members of the public can go out with a shovel and a sieve and, and dig or what does that mean?

And that is a tough word.

That is a tongue twister for me too.

I loved it.

I'm surprised I got it off.

You said it so fast too.

So it is.

So no, unfortunately, people can't go out and just dig wherever they want.

So they do have certain.

If you go on their.

If you go on just the state park's website, Micoshagan State park, you'll be able to find times during the warm season, so spring and summer months where they will have certain classes where they take you out into the park, kind of show you what to look for, things like that, you know, because the fossils are incredible, because you can, someone like me can walk past the same thing a thousand times and maybe not see something that to the trained eye would be a fossil or something that's been there for millions of years.

So it is.

So it is a really great.

It is a really great asset.

It's also a stop, one of our stops on our Montana dinosaur trail, which we can get into that.

We can get into that later in the interview.

But a really cool tourism amenity as well.

Yeah.

And I just want to say I didn't think anybody could just go out with a shovel, but there are volunteer experiences in other parts of the world where you work with a trained archaeologist and help them in their work.

So that's what I was asking about.

And we do have that actually very close to Makoshaga State park by Medicine Rock State Park.

It's in Ekalaka, Montana, which is another kind of cool word we got.

Got a lot of tongue twisters in Montana.

It's an extreme southeast Montana.

And Ekalaka is home to the Carter County Museum.

And it's an amazing paleontological center.

This town, Ikalaka, has really embraced all of the dinosaur assets in the area.

And so every year in the summer they have something called the dinosaur shindig, where paleontologists from all over the world and people from all over the world come and there's dinosaur digs, there's lectures.

And this town of 300 plus people has really embraced what this can do for their Community.

So it's, they just put over a $10 million addition on, on their county museum that, that, that has just an incredible array of dinosaur stuff to do.

So.

Wow.

So, yeah, the dinosaur shindig, that's so much fun.

Is it an actual shindig?

I was in Mexico City once and I happened to stay at a guest house where all of the archaeologists for who were working near Mexico City stayed.

And boy could they party.

We all went out dancing, we went out for drinks.

It was so much fun.

Are paleontologists fun folks?

You know, I, I cannot speak to any kind of after hours activity from our, from, from our friends in the paleontological industry, but they're all just so.

And one of the amazing things is they're just all sorts of passionate and something that I know, you know, very little bit of information about.

And I feel that the questions that I'm asking, you know, are always these novice things, but they're just so filled with knowledge, but also so willing to share what they know with people that maybe have an interest, maybe want to be a paleontologist.

So yeah, I mean it's, it's, it's a really unique event and I think a lot with, you know, the Jurassic park series being very popular again, a lot of those things there has been, we've seen a really renewed interest in kind of that, that those people that are willing to kind of go into more rural areas across Montana and really dive in to.

How cool.

Absolutely.

All right, so that was the eastern part of Montana.

What about in the center of the state?

What do you, what do you see and do there in terms of nature and maybe state parks?

Yeah.

So in, in central Montana we have one of my personal state favorite state parks south of Great Falls.

It's called First People's Buffalo Jump State Park.

And so if you're not familiar with what a buffalo jump is, it is before horses how native tribes killed bison so they would, they would herd them off of a cliff to put it in, you know, just, just basic terms.

And this buffalo jump, this cliff area has been used for thousands of years by multiple different tribes across the northern plains.

And just an incredible site to not only see the cliff, you can hike up to it, you can drive up to the top and walk down.

There's also an incredible visitor center as well.

So I believe it was used by over 13 different tribes in the, in the Great Plains.

So just a real way to look at something from a unique perspective.

Just a landscape that is that, that when you, if you're Just driving past it, you may not notice what this is, but then when you're walking up to this cliff, I'm in imagining people using it for thousands of years for, you know, harvesting bison and.

And, you know, what this landscape has seen.

It's a really incredible feeling.

The staff at the state park and this visitor center has a ton of different opportunities, really, to engage with everything from native games to storytelling, to even art exhibits with local art artisans.

So it really is a wonderful state park.

That's first people's Buffalo jump state park.

Are there indigenous tribes or indigenous nations still in the area?

Have they been involved in telling this story, or is it more a historic site?

I think.

I think it's both.

I think one of the interesting things about when you're.

When you're working for a state park system or trying to tell these stories is every tribe has their own story.

So there's not one story that is a common place throughout, you know, multiple different tribes.

The.

The park is active with multiple tribes in the area that have used this site for thousands of years.

So they really try to.

To honor that and really tell that story in an effective and authentic way.

Interesting.

Okay, so we've done the east, We've done the middle.

What would be in the west of the site of the state?

Maybe let's.

Let's maybe set our course to far southwest Montana In a state park called Bannock state park.

So Bannock state park is one of our nation's best preserved ghost towns.

Just an incredible place.

It's.

So very cool.

There's over 100 different buildings that still line main street at Bannock that you can enter in.

Most of them, kind of walk the streets as you would have during the gold discovery that was down there.

But yeah, just an incredible spot that you.

It's not called a ghost town.

It's not called Bannock, you know, ghost town.

So a lot of people stumble on this site and are just blown away.

It's got incredible hiking trails at it too.

It's got a wonderful campground, and it is high up in the mountains.

So it's a really cool spot that you can really kind of feel history alive at right now.

I'm assuming you're calling it a ghost town because there are a lot of abandoned buildings.

But I gotta ask, have people had paranormal experiences there?

Do people see ghosts?

There have been some talk of ghosts at Bannock and they do have, around the Halloween time of year, they do have bannock, even ghost walks as well.

Well, that's fun.

Very popular event that sells out really, really quickly.

But if you're lucky enough to get a ticket, it is an incredible way to spend Halloween.

Wow, that sounds fun.

When I first met you, you were discussing seeing Montana through the lens of rodeos because rodeos take place in many small towns around the state.

So it's a, a really good way to go to the places that people often overlook when they're traveling to Montana.

If somebody wanted to go do that, where's the best place to go?

And, and, and you know, what, what is the experience like?

Yeah, I think that, you know, so in this last legislative session, not to get into state bureaucracy, but our legislature did something really, really cool that we didn't have a state sport in Montana.

And so they officially designated American rodeo is our state's official sports.

We're the only state in the west to have this.

And so we thought, you know, and, and, and we were thinking about, you know, this massive state, right?

We're the fourth largest state, less than a million people.

We have all these vibrant small towns across them, right.

They all obviously vary in size, but one of the amazing things that a lot of these communities do is put on incredible rodeos, right?

Where, where it really is a town that maybe on the smaller side, you know, people come from all over the state to go to these.

It could be always the time of like an all class reunion, you know, a family reunion.

So it really is a time where people do come and really, you know, experience what makes rodeo incredible.

And so I know I cannot say my favorite rodeo, but I'll just name a few for you that could just pique people's interest maybe a little bit.

So the bucking horse sale in Miles City is a really incredible one.

They have a really incredible event called wild horse racing.

And so where it is a wild horse obviously and then three riders and really, you know, it's heart stopping.

And outside of the bucking horse sale, two things that we have that are really unique to Montana are what we call Indian relay.

An Indian relay is a relay race where there are three horses and there is one rider.

So one rider mounts a horse bareback, rides it around the track, has to get off and then get on another horse and then ride it around.

So there's, there's three horses, three laps, one rider.

And, and so there's about, there, there's multiple different riders doing this simultaneously.

So it is really heart stopping and a really incredible thing to watch.

It's, it's, it's something that people train all year for and is, it's wild.

It's something that you really need to see.

Can the rider jump on any horse or do they have his?

That's a great question.

He has his three horses and there's, there's, there's other people, the other team members that are there holding the horses in, in one designated kind of area where they get off and get back on.

But it's incredible.

I saw my, I'd seen it via video before and I saw my first one in person this last year and it's incredible the athletic ability of these riders.

Just the way they're able to control the horse and the way that they, in hearing about how they train all year for these things, it's really incredible.

Are they judged by how quickly they can accomplish this ride around the track on three horses or what makes the winner?

So they're racing, so they all start at the same time.

So there may be five other riders at the same time.

But yeah, it's, and it's really a quick race too.

So just the speed that they do these things in and you know, I mean, people are falling off horses.

I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's incredible.

It's almost kind of like stock car racing in a way.

But it's, but it's, but it's really interesting.

And so we do have two great events that people can, that can go to.

One of them is called North American Indian Days in Browning, Montana, which is just east of Glacier National Park.

And then another one is the Crow Fair, which is in southeast Montana on the Crow Reservation, and that's in August.

And then there is the Wild Horse Stampede, which is our state's oldest rodeo, which is in Wolf Point, Montana, which is in northeast Montana, which is just an incredible landscape when we're talking about just the wide open prairie.

It's it.

But it is a, it's a wonderful community.

Our state sold us rodeo and would encourage anyone that is interested to attend.

Yeah, I saw my first rodeo in Fort Worth, Texas, and I was surprised by how compelling it is because you have people, they're all well trained, obviously these are real athletes, but people get thrown off.

People hit the side of the arena.

It was clear to me how difficult this sport was.

So is it pretty widespread that you have a lot of people in Montana training for this?

Is this something that high school kids do instead of Football or do both go on?

We do, absolutely.

And even, even on the college level, so, you know, Montana State University, Western Montana College.

I mean, they, I mean it's, it's something that is at all levels, as you would see, you know, maybe high school football.

Sure.

Yeah.

Okay.

So we talked about state parks, we talked about rodeos in small towns.

If people want to have the nature experience in Montana, but also want a touch of the urban, albeit small cities, not, you know, not Chicago, not New York City.

Where do they go?

What's the best urban experiences you can have in Montana?

The great part about more of our urban areas, you know, in Montana is that they are all so accessible to nature, so accessible to trails.

Saying you're close to something is always, you know, what your perception of close is.

And so in Montana, if you're having to drive more than 10 minutes from a trail or, you know, national forest, that could seem like a long time to some people.

So anywhere, if you're in, you know, in Bozeman or Missoula or Kalispell, literally right out your doorstep is, is some kind of a trail system either on national forest, on state land.

So it really is depending on what people are looking for and kind of what kind of that topography is like in our central part of the state, like in Great Falls, you're looking at more of, you know, plains access there.

So some amazing bird watching amenities, amazing wildlife watching.

If you're in the Bozeman area, if you're close to, which is, you know, kind of north of Yellowstone national park, you know, you're getting into more of those high alpine mountain situations like the Bridgers, the Gallatin Range, and even in Helena, where I live, just in our south hills trail system on the east side of the Continental Dividend, there's really nowhere that you can go that doesn't have some kind of world class access to hiking trails.

Sure.

Or any kind of, you know, day trip outdoor recreation.

Yeah.

Final question.

If people want to go to Yellowstone national park, there are months where it's very hard to find a camp space or a place at a hotel because it is such a beloved national park.

What do you think is the best time of year to go to Yellowstone?

You know, so when you're looking at the year long, year round visitation for Yellowstone national park by month, you know, you see some months in our, in a warmer season, that could be 900,000 people coming in.

Wow.

Which is significant.

But then when you look at the time of year we're in now, like January, February, we're only seeing about 40,000 people that go into the park.

And I think one of the hidden gems of Yellowstone is seeing it in the woods winter.

So we do have one.

You can drive into the park in the winter from our north entrance in Gardner, Montana.

So that's an amazing place to actually drive into a landscape that is really devoid of people this time of year.

If you're into wildlife watching, there's nothing better than being in Yellowstone in the winter.

If you go down to West Yellowstone, which is more south of BOZEMAN On Highway 191, it's at the town of West Yellowstone, which is one of like the snowmobiling capital of the world.

And you can actually snowmobile into the park.

You can take tours on snow coaches into the park.

So really amazing ways to see it in winter when it is completely silent.

Right.

So I realize that may not be for everybody, but someone's looking for a kind of a.

A different kind of adventure, you know, when.

When it is just.

It's a different.

We know so many places in the world exist that just have a different perspective depending on what time of year you're there, you know, and I think that the silence in the winter there, especially with the thermal features.

I know you mentioned that earlier in our conversation.

It's really incredible.

So.

Well, you've made me want to go back.

Thank you so, so much, Pat, for appearing on the Fromer Travel Show.

Yeah.

I thank you for your interest in Montana.

This is an amazing state that's captured a lot of people's imagination over the years.

So hope this helps people plan their trip.

Definitely.

All right, thank you so much for listening.

That is the end of this week's Fromers Travel Show.

To those who are traveling, may I wish you a hearty bon voyage.

I'll see you next week.

Sour candy on the table?

Lazy afternoons in your sweatpants Watching cable?

Well, it feels so far away?

All the channels seem the same.

Trying to remember all the songs we like to play?

Cause those lazy afternoons don't come so frequently these days?

Oh, it's been so long And I cannot help but wonder Are you ever coming home?

I like you with your sour candy in the boothouse on the lake?

Oh, but I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate the way it takes?

I can't get you off of my mind?

Looking out the window where we spend so much of our time?

Cause I miss the way it felt?

But I guess you can't control those damn cards with the L dam, baby I know that both of us are happy when we're free but would it be so hard to find your freedom here with me?

Oh, it's been so long and I cannot help but wonder Are you ever coming home?

I like you with your sour candy in the boat house on the lake but, but I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate the way it tastes.

And I.

I.

Hate the way it tastes But I love it all the same tonight I hate the way it tastes But I love it all the same.

Oh, I know it's been, it's been, it's been, it's been so long and I cannot help but wonder Are you ever coming home?

I like you with your sour candy in the boathouse on the lake But I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate the way it tastes it's been, it's been so long and I cannot help but wonder Are you ever coming home?

When I see you with this source candy don't want it any other way oh, I just hate, I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate the way it tastes.