The Blackfoot Valley's News Source Since 1980
The Blackfoot Valley's News Source Since 1980
Sorted by date Results 451 - 475 of 506
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks is actively trying to capture two bears that have been hanging out in the Ovando area recently. A web camera at the Blackfoot Angler capture the bears on video June 5 and again June 7 as they nosed around the center of town, apparently searching for trash. "They are definitely garbage bears and they also seem to know what chicken feed and grain is," Jamie Jonkel, Region 2 Wildlife Management Specialist for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks,...
With work set to resume at the Upper Blackfoot Mining complex later this summer, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality is planning to give a presentation on the 2018 construction during the Lincoln Community Council Tuesday, June 19, at 6:30 p.m. at the Lincoln Library. During the presentation, DEQ officials will discuss the plans for the remainder of the clean-up work, which is slated to begin in July. Efforts this year will focus on the area from the confluence of...
Today is my sweetheart’s birthday. He was born exactly three weeks before me, which puts us both under the astrological sign of Gemini – a personality pairing that astrology assures me is either brilliant, or disastrous. Whether or not you set any store by astrology, it’s still fun to read the occasional horoscope or breakdown of your astrological sign. Because each sign encompasses a number of personality traits, one can usually find some example in their own nature to back up the astrological data. Some of us, howev...
Lincoln Class of 2018 graduates...
The end of this year's flooding may not be here just yet, but with it in sight, the question arose at the June 1 Government Day meeting about what residents should do with the sandbags they used to protect their property. Upper Blackfoot Valley Community Council Chairman Bill Frisbee said volunteers in Lincoln filled close to 15,000 sandbags, which went out to the community here. Earlier in the meeting, the topic of sandbags came up when Lincoln Fire Chief Zach Muse expressed...
Makenzie Copenhaver (left) throws colored powder on Shanda Richards at the finish line of the Family Fun Day fun run while Lindsey Weisner and Hailey Corrigan laugh with Kylie Copenhaver. The 1-mile, 5k and 10k fun runs were the first event of the Fun Day organized by the Lincoln High School Social Entrepreneur class, Saturday, June 2. The fun run was developed as a fundraiser to help build the new Powerhouse Rec Center in Lincoln, which is set to open soon. The fun run...
Now in its 25th year, the Blackfoot Challenge is once again taking its monthly Board of Directors meeting on the road after several years of hosting the meetings at the Lubrecht Experimental Forest facilities. Last month, the Challenge hosted its board meeting at the Lincoln Community Hall, May 23. Next month the meeting moves to Seeley Lake's Community Hall, June 20. The travelling board meetings began earlier this year and are a throwback to the organizations earlier practic...
Lincoln grade school students on a field trip made a surprising discovery at Snowbank Lake last Thursday when they spotted a dead swan floating along the shore. Elaine Caton, the Swan Restoration Program and Education Coordinator for the Blackfoot Challenge, who had helped organize three days of presentations for the 5th and 6th graders, was also on the trip to examine the fire's effect upon the landscape. The large bird was found floating upside down so Caton had hoped it...
The fires around Lincoln in 2015 and 2017 have left the landscape scarred with swaths of burned trees, but comparing them to the area of Copper Creek that burned in the devastating fires of 2003 provides an opportunity to see first-hand how landscapes recover from fire over time. Lincoln fifth and sixth graders spent last week learning about native plants and wildlife with the help of the Blackfoot Challenge, and capped things off with a field trip to do just that. "I just...
Picking his way across burned patches of hillside above Sucker Creek Road, Joe Lafountaine kept an eye out for the small gnarled mushroom that proliferate in recently burned areas. He was having a good day. "Oh, yeah, really good picking," he said. "Plenty to keep the family in mushrooms over the winter." Lafountaine, of East Helena, makes the trip up to Lincoln every year and said he spends quite a bit of time here at a cabin, but his trip last weekend with his sons was aimed...
A long, hard winter and heavy spring runoff exacerbated by the conditions left behind after last year's fires, which destroyed trees that absorb water and the surface vegetation that slows it down, took a toll on roads around the Lincoln Ranger District Forest users heading into the National Forest around Lincoln this summer may want to be on the look out for damaged roads as well as closures for repair work. "(On) pretty near any road, I can think of some damage on it," said...
The three-year project to install fiber optic lines to all the premises within the Lincoln Telephone Company's service area got underway this month, with work in the Lincoln Valley delayed for almost a month due to high water. The wet conditions here prompted the company to begin work in the Canyon Creek area, with a crew beginning to work its way up Marsh Creek toward Lincoln last Thursday. "If they get up there and the snow's gone they'll just keep coming," Aaron Daniel,...
Grade school kids from several small schools around the region descended on Lincoln, May 24 for the annual Elementary Track Day. Track Day brings elementary students from Helmville, Wolf Creek and Canyon Creek to Lincoln every year as the school year winds down for a day of fun and games, and has proven to be one of the highlights of the year for the kids here. "They look forward to it, similar to elementary basketball," said Lincoln Health and PE teacher Shane Brown, who has...
Crossing the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex over the Memorial Day weekend may seem like a bad idea, but for a small group of ultralight backpackers the challenges it presents is the very reason to go. The Bob Marshall Wilderness Open got its start in 2012 when Dave Chenault, a social worker who evaluates and writes about lightweight backpack equipment. According to his website, Bedrocks and Paradox, Chenault has a history in both wilderness area traverses and ultra-endurance...
Lincoln American legit Post 9 hosted their annual Memorial Day observance ate Lincoln community Hall Monday May 28....
The Lincoln Rural Fire District is looking at options to fix a well and pump in town that was designed to both fill fire department trucks and improve fire protection for the downtown business district. Bill Frisbee, the Fire District board chairman, said the board made the well its number one infrastructure project for the district at their meeting last week. "The bottom line is the district made a commitment to the taxpayers to put in some sort of water pumping system that w...
The rainstorm that came through the Lincoln area Friday the Stonewall Creek to come out of its banks north of town, flooding houses in the Parlin Park area and turning Stonewall Creek Road and Youderian Drive into small rivers. Lincoln Fire Chief Zach Muse said it appears a flash flood washed debris from the Park Creek fire area into the creek, plugging the channel and causing the flood. He said the water pushed rock and debris into the Stonewall subdivision and flooded yards...
Lincoln's Hooper Park will once again be kicking off the summer with porta potties instead of restrooms, but plans call for that to change by July 22. The Lewis and Clark County Commission awarded Thompson Contracting of Libby the $155,000 contract to build the long-awaited cast concrete restroom and shower facilities for the park on April 24. To allay concerns another situation like the one with the original contractor, UBC Precast of Blackfoot, Idahomay arise, County Finance...
Two member of the Lincoln Track team are headed to Great Falls this Friday to compete in the State Class C track meet. Senior Payton Peterson qualified to compete in the discus event after a third-place finish at the Western C Divisional track meet Frenchtown last week. Payton set a personal record with a throw of 121 feet, seven inches. Peterson will represent Lincoln alongside fellow senior Hunter Woodward, who will be competing in pole vault. Woodward scored Lincoln's sole...
It's not every day you hear a catchy tune about the Plague, but the students at Ovando School found one to dance to. Every spring students at Ovando School cap off the year highlighting the topics they've been studying in history during a performance at the school's annual May Day Tea. This year, with their studies spanning from Viking invasions through feudalism and the dark ages and into the Renaissance, supervising teacher Leigh Ann Valiton said the performance was a bit...
Rain and hail hammers into puddles along main street during a storm Wednesday, May 16. According to Zach Muse, who recently installed a rain gauge provide by the National Weather Service, the area received .4 inches of rain in 30 minutes that afternoon. By the following morning the town had received .57 inches of water. To top it off, the lightning that accompanied the storm set fire to a tree in the Park Creek Fire area. Despite the recent high water and flooding, the rain...
Work on the Lincoln Ranger District's first dedicated mountain bike trails and on a series of off-highway vehicles connector trails should get underway late this summer thanks to a $82,393 grant awarded to the district this month under the Recreational Trails Program administered by the Montana State Parks. The Beaver Creek Trails Project includes development of seven to eight miles of mountain bike trails, as well as a series of connector trails that will create looped...
Almost four years after it closed, the Montanan Steakhouse is on the cusp of re-opening with new owners, who plan to focus first and foremost on the quality of the food they serve. "We're just gonna start with food and knock it out of the park with that," said Greg Smith, who owns the restaurant with his partner Julia Johnson. Smith said the plan is to have an unadvertised soft opening Memorial Day Weekend, with a focus during the first couple weeks on ensuring the staff is...
Re-opening the Montanan after four years may seem like a major challenge, but Greg Smith said one of the most vexing issues he and Julia Johnson have faced in the past couple months has simply been trying to find a place to rent in Lincoln. The new owners of the Montanan Steakhouse had been splitting their time between Lincoln and Malta, but as the re-opening of the steakhouse approaches, Smith has remained in Lincoln, living in a camper. With Lincoln rapidly becoming their home, Smith said they are in desperate need of a...
I would like to reiterate the comments of Dennis Conkle in the Blackfoot Valley Dispatch’s May 9, 2018 paper about wood cutters and gatherers keeping the roads and ditches clear of all brush and logs at the end of your wood gathering. Road maintenance is contagious. My husband’s and my experience with wood gatherers on Moon Drive is unfortunately disappointing. Many gatherers leave brush and sticks and logs in the road and in the ditches which we must clear. This hampers snowplowing efforts and on one occasion caused a fri...
