BY HARRY WEEKES
Recently, I drove to and from Bozeman, Montana, for a hockey weekend. All such weekends revolve around substantial logistics: What is the game schedule? Who do we play? Where are we staying? What do we do for meals? And, most directly of all, When do we leave and how long does it take to get there?
Throw into this mix modern digital technology, and not only is it possible to make the five-and-a-half-hour drive without ever speaking to the other people in the car, but you can easily make the trip and have no idea where you are.
I would love to create a “Natural History Google Maps” that gave directions based on geography and cardinal points and the flora and fauna you are likely to see. Something that forced you to pay attention to what was outside of the car and taught you more than the distance to Whitehall or Twin Bridges. These would be directions focused only loosely on time and speed and more on the great world outside the windows.
I’d plug in my destination, say I’d like to get there by a certain time, and push “Go.” First response? “Head south.” From my house this would entail making two left turns and pointing to the distant ridges just lightening in the morning sky. Then, I would be gently pushed east, following the road between the hills toward the mountain jutting up like a triangle- King’s Crown.
Intersections would be wonderful challenges, with directions like “Drive through the junipers that look vaguely like a herd of bison” and “Keep the buttes to your right far enough away to be hazy.”
I would have to know or learn about buttes and mesas and escarpments. I would be directed to pay attention to seas of sagebrush and cultivated fields and the line of cottonwoods following some thin stream. I would be alerted to pronghorns and coyotes and the interesting abundance of ravens with their shaggy heads. And crossing the Continental Divide, I’d learn about the headwaters of the Snake and the Missouri and then be told, “Wait for it.”
“Keep the Beaverhead Mountains on your left, and as you come into this country, look for them.”
I would lean forward in the seat and scour the landscape. “What am I looking for?”
I can imagine the inhabitants of the car joining in. “Do you think it’s that distant mountain, bald and covered in snow?” “Is it just that this place is so BIG?” “It is… that?” An arm would emerge from the back seats pointing to one of the utility structures, those large wooden ones that march across the landscape like massive croquet wickets.
The hand would be pointing to the top. One on each side, like feathered gargoyles. And then, a great bird would take to the air, its enormity evident even at a distance.
“You are in the land of the golden eagle,” a reverential voice would say.
There is something about golden eagles in this landscape that expands both space and time. You are at once aware of how vast this place is and how old. There is a kind of ancient patience that seeps in, even as you shoot like an arrow toward Bozeman.
This is the narrative running through my mind as we curve our way east through Montana.
“Are you OK to keep driving?” Hilary asks from the passenger seat.
“Yep. I’m good.”