by Dina Mishev
The Northern Pacific caboose available for nightly rental at Chico was meant to be a writing studio for Seabring. “My husband bought it at auction,” she says. “He thought it was a super score to bring me this dream of my writing studio. But I don’t want a caboose in my backyard in my house in town.” So Colin came up with another idea: move it to Chico and make it a custom guest room. It was an empty shell when he bought it, so they were able to completely design it. The floors are cherry. There’s a giant soaking tub, the wallpaper is a red Victorian pattern, and the stained glass windows and light fixtures are from the Victorian era. “It doesn’t feel like you’re in a caboose, but a luxury train car from the early 1900s,” Seabring says. 163 Chico Rd., (406) 333-4933, www.chicohotsprings.com/accommodations/caboose
Q: Do you remember the first time you came to Chico?
SEABRING DAVIS: Yes, I was in college in Bozeman, so it was around 1990. I remember exactly what we ate and I remember the wine, and, since I later worked as a waitress in the restaurant, I remember the table number we sat at. I didn’t marry the guy I came with, so it wasn’t special in the sense that I still have a relationship with the person, but I still have a relationship with the place.
Q: So what’d you eat?
SD: We had the beef Wellington, which is only available in service for two and is carved tableside. I had never eaten anything like that before. Then we had the flaming orange for dessert. It’s a frozen orange filled with ice cream and other goodies and lined with chocolate and set on fire tableside. Staff calls that combo “the classic.” It will always be the same. For so many people, this is what their image of eating at Chico’s is like and that’s why we won’t change it.
Q: How often do you soak in the mineral pool now that you own it?
SD: I probably go once a week. I love to go in the winter. Locals’ favorite time to go is winter just because it is so great to have the steam coming off the water into the cold air.
Q: There are lots of different room types for overnight guests. Do you have a favorite?
SD: Room 101 is in the old hotel. It is kind of funny because it’s right adjacent to the lobby. Most people would think it would be too noisy. But what is cool about it is that it has velvet flock bordello wallpaper and one of the old brass beds that is original to the property, which is 1900. This little room epitomizes what Chico is historically.
Q: Do you feel pressure as the owners of such a beloved piece of history?
SD: Chico is everybody’s place and we do feel the responsibility of maintaining it to match the memories of so many people that have visited. I don’t know how many old-timers I’ve met that have told me their first job was at Chico back when they were 15 in the 1960s or however long ago. I’ve heard from people that Chico is the reason they moved to Montana, that it made them look at the state differently. We’re very aware, and we feel this ourselves, that it’s not just a place you come to have a great meal and stay on the way to somewhere else.
CHICO’S PINE NUT–CRUSTED HALIBUT
SERVES 4 PEOPLE
PINE NUT CRUST
2 cups pine nuts
1 cup breadcrumbs
1 teaspoon salt
⅓ cup parsley
PORT WINE BUTTER
2 cups port wine
1 cup heavy whipping cream
8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter
MANGO SALSA
(YIELDS 2 CUPS)
1 mango, peeled, seeded, and diced
1 small red onion, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 bunch chopped chives
3 tablespoons raspberry vinegar
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
HALIBUT
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup flour
4 6-ounce halibut fillets
PREPARATION
PINE NUT CRUST
In a food processor, add all ingredients. Pulse until nuts are diced, but not too fine; remove and set aside. You may also prepare the crust by hand. Be sure to dice the nuts before combining with other ingredients.
PORT WINE BUTTER
This sauce cannot be reheated or chilled, so prepare it just before the main course is in the oven. Reduce port over medium heat until it forms a syrup (about 20 minutes). When it coats a metal spoon, it is ready. Add cream, reduce until thick. Remove from heat and add butter, stirring constantly until melted and smooth. Turn heat down to low and use promptly.
MANGO SALSA
Mix all ingredients together in a bowl and refrigerate until needed.
HALIBUT
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Place buttermilk, flour, and pine nut mixture in separate bowls and arrange in a row on the counter. Dip fillets on one side only in flour, buttermilk, and then add pine nuts. On the stove, heat a pan with a touch of olive oil (teaspoon) and with crust-side down sauté the fish until nuts are golden brown. Place the sautéed fish on a greased baking dish, crust-side up, and bake in the oven for 8 to 10 minutes.
Present the halibut in a pool of port wine butter sauce, topped with the fresh mango salsa.
ROAD TRIP 3 A TRIP TO PARADISE
Paradise Valley comes by its name honestly. On the flat land between the craggy Absaroka Mountains and the Gallatin Range, the Yellowstone River winds through an agrarian landscape. It was this valley that was the original entrance to Yellowstone.
While the number of ranches in the valley has declined, the valley’s wild lands have not. Much of the valley is part of the 1.8-million-acre Gallatin National Forest, which has more than 3,000 miles of hiking trails and forty drive-to campgrounds and is home to 300-some species of animals, including grizzly bears and wolves. Livingston is home to the forest’s Yellowstone Ranger District, which covers Paradise Valley and even goes north to the Crazy Mountains.
Emigrant Peak
Livingston outdoor store Timber Trails maintains a series of handouts on its staff’s favorite hikes. Emigrant Peak is one of them. You can stop into the shop to get a copy of the handout this description is adapted from. 309 W. Park St., (406) 222-9550, timbertrailsmontana.com
Emigrant is the distinctive peak that stands out from the main body of the Absaroka Range. Its 10,921-foot summit provides exceptional views of the crest of the Absarokas, Lone Peak, and, away to the south, the Tetons.
Start at the Gold Prize Creek trailhead. Drive 1.5 miles up Six Mile Creek Road to a signed left turn; the trailhead is a short distance farther. Walk past the road closure. The old road quickly becomes a trail. After walking on the old road through part of the 1,200 acres that burned in July 1999 in the Six Mile drainage, the trail begins to steepen. Don’t expect it to mellow out anytime soon. Stay left and climb steeply through sage and scattered stands of pine and fir toward a large meadow. From here, there are gorgeous views down onto Paradise Valley. Continue hiking along a fence line at the meadow boundary. Beyond the fence, you’ll climb through a grove of fir and whitebark pine. At this point, you’ll be nearing tree line. Continue to follow the obvious ridgeline. Here, sometimes there is a trail and sometimes there is not. The ridge is a combination of boulders, scree, and alpine tundra to the summit.
Not that anyone is counting, but, on a clear day, from the top of Emigrant, you can see twelve different mountain ranges: the Absarokas, the Beartooths, the Crazies, the Castle Mountains, the Big Belts, the Bridger Range, the Gallatins and Madisons, the Gravely Range, the Tobacco Roots, the Pioneer Mountains, and the Tetons. And, of course, you can see Yellowstone National Park too.
Emigrant Peak is named for the hundreds of miners who emigrated to the area beneath this peak in the mid-1860s looking for gold. It was in 1863 that prospector Thomas Curry discovered gold in a creek on the east side of the peak. The gulch this creek flows in was first called “Curry’s Gulch” but today is known as Emigrant Gulch.
LOCAL LOWDOWNDALE SEXTON, Founder of Timber Trails
Dale Sexton was born and raised in
Livingston and in 1996 founded Timber Trails, an outdoor store in a historic building in downtown. The shop “sells stuff to survive, but our foundation is providing information to people first and foremost,” Dale says. Since it opened, the shop has doubled in size. Still, Dale says, “we’re surviving on our growth, but we’re thriving with what this business enables us to do.” 309 W. Park St., (406) 222-9550, timbertrailsmontana.com
Q: So what does the business enable you to do?
DALE SEXTON: Yesterday I went skiing with my older daughter’s fifth-grade class, and today I was in the classroom helping out. Annually I take my girls on a bike trip where we just pack up all our stuff and go. I put their old child trailer on my bike and the dog rides in the trailer and we just camp along the route. Last summer, we did our first backpacking trip and we got to the top of Emigrant Peak and Elephanthead Mountain.
Q: How did Timber Trails come about?
DS: By the mid-1990s, I was doing more hiking, biking, and skiing than fishing. And Livingston didn’t have an outdoor specialty store. I had a building in downtown I had bought in 1992 and was trying to figure out what to do with it.
Q: So fishing was your first love?
DS: Fishing for me goes back to before I could walk. My mom and father were avid worm dunkers and we caught oodles and oodles of fish. It was one of my favorite things growing up. I can recall my father coming home from work, and if I had the fishing gear ready to go, we’d head out for an hour. When I was in fifth grade, I remember him saying, “Boy, it’s too bad you can’t make a living as a fisherman, because I think you could do good at it.” I started guiding in 1983, when I was still in high school. When I was working at Dan Bailey, I got my outfitters license, probably in 1992, or 1993.
Q: Do you still do any fishing or are you all about the other sports now?
DS: I have a few clients that date back to my earliest days of guiding, but they’re friends more than clients today. I still have my outfitters license. I probably guide 30 to 40 days a summer. It reenergizes me and gets me out.
Q: What’s the most usual information people want when they come into the shop?
DS: They’re looking for places to hike or bike. We have an “Our Favorite Hikes” series that we’re always adding to. The descriptions of the hikes are a free handout we have here in the shop.
Gallatin Petrified Forest and Tom Miner Basin
Tom Miner Basin is on Timber Trails’ list of favorite hikes. There’s wildlife—this is serious grizzly country—but the basin’s most unique feature is the Gallatin Petrified Forest. These trees were petrified in an upright position, and, 50 million years later, they’re still in that same upright position. The “Petrified Forest Interpretive Trail” starts at the Tom Miner Campground.
If you’re more interested in grizzly bears than trees-turned-into-rock, look for them in the large field near the B Bar Ranch headquarters as you’re driving down Tom Miner Creek Road. Wild caraway grows here, and grizzlies love to eat its roots. Tom Miner Creek Road is 35 miles south of Livingston; the trailhead is 10 miles down this road at the Tom Miner Campground; (406) 848-7375, www.fs.usda.gov
WHICH RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT?
It was one of the many writers who lives in Paradise Valley, Thomas McGuane, who introduced Robert Redford to Norman Maclean’s story “A River Runs Through It.” Redford then turned it into a feature film of the same name. The story actually takes place in the 1920s in Missoula, with the fishing happening on the Blackfoot River, but that city and river were very different by 1992, when the movie was filmed. Downtown Missoula was no longer all quaint redbrick buildings. The Blackfoot had suffered at the hands of humans. There was the failure of a tailings reservoir that released tons of toxic sediment into its headwaters. Generations of timber harvesting had left mountain creeks and streams full of sediment, and grazing and irrigation had killed much of the native fish population. Redford knew that Livingston had a downtown that, with a little work, could be brought back to the 1920s. And the nearby Gallatin River was a healthy fishery. So Livingston was transformed into 1920s Missoula and the Gallatin River stood in for the Blackfoot. A River Runs Through It won the Oscar for best cinematography in 1993. Since the early 1990s, conservation groups have been successfully working to restore the Blackfoot and the river is now close to being the great fishery it once was.
LOCAL LOWDOWN STEVE HORAN, Photographer of the People of Yellowstone Project
Photographer Steve Horan knew pretty early into his People of Yellowstone project that he wanted to make a book. He did not know, however, how much work and time goes into making a book. “I thought it’d take 1½ years,” he says. “It took 5.” People of Yellowstone, featuring eighty-five of Steve’s photos and text by writer Ruth W. Crocker, was published in spring 2017. Ruth, whose work has been featured in the annual anthology Best American Essays, came into the project in year 3. “I thought I’d be able to write it too,” Steve says, “but the more stories I heard, the more I realized I couldn’t do the words justice.”
Steve first came to Yellowstone in 1985, to visit his brother Jim Horan, who lives in Livingston. “I came out to visit him and fell in love with the place and got a job myself in Yellowstone for the summer. I left after that season, but Jim stayed, so I’ve now been visiting him for over 30 years—I come out whenever I get the chance.” It was Jim who suggested a Yellowstone-based photo project. Steve started his project in 2010, first by photographing people who lived, worked, and played “strictly in the park,” he says. “But it became obvious I couldn’t do that. I had to expand. Sure Yellowstone is a national park with distinct boundaries, but its wildlife doesn’t recognize those boundaries. It’s the whole Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.” So Steve expanded to include people throughout the ecosystem.
He ended up photographing 120 people who work in and around Yellowstone, including wolf biologists, backcountry rangers, volunteers, a Crow tribal elder, wranglers, bellhops, and researchers. “I didn’t just go for photos of people standing in a field,” Steve says. “I wanted to connect with each subject and to their ideas and what they do.” The end result is a book that “helps people understand that this place is magical and that it changes people, for the best, and heals people, and that it’s worth something to fight to preserve it for future generations,” Steve says. “The more people outside of this area understand what it takes to make it in a place like this—how people survive here, what characters they are, and how hard it is to make a life here—the better it is. So many people in this area could be somewhere else making a lot of money, but they decide it is the lifestyle and beauty of this area that is what is important.”
As diverse as Steve’s subjects are, he found commonalities. “Everyone I photographed—and I spent a lot of time talking to them beforehand, getting their stories and learning about their lives—seemed down to earth and connected to nature. There was a general love of life and willingness to explore. It is inspiring and educational to hear all the different ways people connect to this special place.” Steve says his subjects ranged in age from 19 to 94 at the time he photographed them. Peopleofyellowstone.com
FLY FISHING
According to John Bailey, nowhere has the variety of fishing that Livingston does. There are big rivers like the Yellowstone, which runs right through town and which you can fish year-round. There are spring creeks like Armstrong’s, and there are small stream fisheries like Mill Creek. And then there are all the secret spots local fishermen won’t dare share for publication.
It makes perfect sense then that Livingston is the headquarters for the International Federation of Fly Fishers. This group works to conserve fly fisheries around the world and educate people about the sport. It also preserves the history of the sport, which it turns out you don’t need to be a fly fisherman to appreciate. Included in its collection of thousands of flies, from antique to modern, is one tied by the illustrious British angler Frank Sawyer, who was a river keeper in the early to mid-1900s. (The musician Sting
owns one of the sections of river Sawyer was once responsible for.) Sawyer is best remembered as the inventor of sunken nymphs. These flies were unique at the time because they were tied with copper wire, which was heavier than the thread typically used at the time. The museum’s collection also includes memorabilia that once belonged to fly-fishing power couple Lee and Joan Wulff and a variety of rods. Lee Wulff is credited with inventing the fishing vest; Joan is considered the best female fly fisherman in the world. 5237 US 89S, Suite 11, (406) 222-9369, www.fedflyfishers.org
ROAD TRIP 4 RED LODGE
Red Lodge has had ups and downs since its founding in 1884. Today it’s on its way up, not that anyone in town would ever say that (its residents are pretty low key). Red Lodge has mining and western histories like many Montana towns and celebrates both. What makes it unique though, especially in the 21st century, is that it is an authentic, unpretentious, undiscovered northern Rockies mountain town. Red Lodge has a ski resort with no lift lines, a main street lined with brick buildings (including one of the West’s most classic outdoor gear shops), fly fishing right in downtown, and over 1 million acres of national forest and wilderness right out its back door.
The Pollard Hotel
When the Pollard Hotel was built in 1893 for the then whopping sum of $20,000, it was Red Lodge’s first brick building. Opening first as the Spofford Hotel, it didn’t become the Pollard until 1902, when Thomas F. Pollard bought the hotel. Pollard almost doubled the size of the hotel, from thirty-five rooms to sixty, and added a bowling alley and barbershop in the basement. The hotel’s restaurant was the nicest in town, serving such delicacies as broiled lobster, which was brought to town from the East Coast via train. (The depot was a short distance from the hotel.)