Western Montana advice (Bozeman, Helena, Belgrade: school, college, living)

[movintime]

Originally Posted by Antonio Montana

I would definitely recommend against most hi-line towns (with the exception of Havre), including Shelby and Cut Bank. Those places have very few amenities, the scenery is ugly, and if you're not from those towns and/or you're not married, it's very hard to fit in and make friends. They can be very cliquey.

Well, we'd consider them due to being settled down re married vs single, & looking for quiet & peaceful. Cut Bank I know may not suit that as too rowdy. But Shelby might be bit better. Havre has higher crime rates & maybe a bit too far east too. I think being nearer Calgary, as only 3-4 hrs, gives chance to see my beloved hockey games. Lethbridge too isn't far & is closer than Calgary. Hi-line towns are kinda neat in my mind, as more remote & further from mainstream folks. Ok, sorry to jump in but just my ideas on this topic. I may be off-base but hope I'm sorta in the balllpark.

[MTSilvertip]

Personally, I love the Hi-Line towns. Small, insular communities, they take care of each other and are filled with independent self reliant people that can overcome pretty much anything that's thrown at them.

Mostly older people now as the kids had to move to find work, but old values of friendship, neighbors, and being part of a community still exist like nowhere else.
Lots of big farms and ranches loaded with game for hunting.

The scenery isn't the normal mountain vistas you associate with Montana, (except for the Bear Paw Mountains), but the hoodoos and prairie can be stunning. Stark buttes, long sweeps of grass with hidden coulees filled with cottonwood and box elder. Sunrise and sunset are like nothing else you can imagine, and watching storms move across the land is entrancing.

One of my favorite things to do up there is find a good butte where I can see for 20 miles or so, with my spotting scope and binoculars, I watch the animals. Herds of deer stepping out of the shadows of a draw, antelope running looking for all the world like a flock of birds as they dip and turn as one, covering miles in just a few minutes, they move so smoothly and so fast it's hard to believe they're actually running and not flying across the landscape.
Gamebirds are everywhere, waterfowl, it's a real hunter's paradise up there.

Finding hidden gulches and coulees where there are old settlers cabins for exploring, finding a small hidden pond where everything for miles comes to drink, the prairies are endless in their exploration possibilities.
Add to that there are so few people, you can transport yourself 200 years into the past in an instant. The buffalo are gone in their multitudes, but there are still some herds owned by ranchers or the Indian tribes you can see.

Maybe not the best place for furthering your career, or going to college, (although there is a community college in Havre), but a spectacular place to raise kids.

Come to think of it, I saw an opening for a butcher in Chinook in the paper yesterday.

The high plains aren't for everyone, but they are far from undesirable. It's tough living, but a good life there.

[Senah]

I also love the hi-line, but you won't necessarily have the mountains you are thinking of. That said, you could think of Dillon as it is in SW Montana, has a college and is surrounded by mountains not too far off. Another option would be Great Falls as there is medical there, lots of small towns around the bigger city, and lots of large and small mountain ranges all around, as well as Great Falls College. Certainly socially/politically what you are talking about.

Like others have said, if you post some questions we could better give you information that might be more helpful.

[Antonio Montana]

Originally Posted by MTSilvertip

Personally, I love the Hi-Line towns. Small, insular communities, they take care of each other and are filled with independent self reliant people that can overcome pretty much anything that's thrown at them.

Mostly older people now as the kids had to move to find work, but old values of friendship, neighbors, and being part of a community still exist like nowhere else.
Lots of big farms and ranches loaded with game for hunting.

The scenery isn't the normal mountain vistas you associate with Montana, (except for the Bear Paw Mountains), but the hoodoos and prairie can be stunning. Stark buttes, long sweeps of grass with hidden coulees filled with cottonwood and box elder. Sunrise and sunset are like nothing else you can imagine, and watching storms move across the land is entrancing.

One of my favorite things to do up there is find a good butte where I can see for 20 miles or so, with my spotting scope and binoculars, I watch the animals. Herds of deer stepping out of the shadows of a draw, antelope running looking for all the world like a flock of birds as they dip and turn as one, covering miles in just a few minutes, they move so smoothly and so fast it's hard to believe they're actually running and not flying across the landscape.
Gamebirds are everywhere, waterfowl, it's a real hunter's paradise up there.

Finding hidden gulches and coulees where there are old settlers cabins for exploring, finding a small hidden pond where everything for miles comes to drink, the prairies are endless in their exploration possibilities.
Add to that there are so few people, you can transport yourself 200 years into the past in an instant. The buffalo are gone in their multitudes, but there are still some herds owned by ranchers or the Indian tribes you can see.

Maybe not the best place for furthering your career, or going to college, (although there is a community college in Havre), but a spectacular place to raise kids.

Come to think of it, I saw an opening for a butcher in Chinook in the paper yesterday.

The high plains aren't for everyone, but they are far from undesirable. It's tough living, but a good life there.

I don't disagree with any of this. I regret that I probably came off as too negative on hi-line towns. I do have to offer a slight correction to your post, though. MSU-Northern, in Havre, is not a community college. It's a 4-year institution.

The hi-line does have it's own unique beauty and things about it that make it great. I lived up there for 3 years, but as young single guy who is not married and has no kids, I started to find it VERY limiting in several ways. But if I was married and had kids, it probably would have been a much better experience. I don't like to live in big cities, but I am someone who values amenities in my area (I don't like to have to drive an hour and a half to get to Target). I also like to meet different kinds of people and expose myself to different cultures occasionally. For example, Spanish is my second language, and I like to practice it as much as I can. You can't exactly find this on the hi-line.

So, in conclusion, there's nothing wrong with the hi-line....but as a young, single guy, I realized I couldn't be there long-term. I'm still in Montana, but I'm in a better location....at least for me and what I want out of life.

[Montguy]

OP, if you at all find yourself dead-set on a relocation to Montana in hopes of integrating with the Good Ole' Boys and/or their lifestyle, as in, like, the real deal, then you would really only need to focus on the entire Highway 93 corridor from Darby on up to Eureka, which I promise is almost completely littered with paranoiac rednecks and uptight yuppie transplants who live on high-alert to defend Montana-Land from anything too diff'rint.

It's impressive, I must admit, that those two worlds can mesh into such cohesion, but as they say, great minds...never mind.

Keeping it within a 50-mile radius of Missoula or Kalispell is a good idea, though. Florence, Stevensville, Polson, Arlee, Hamilton, Victor, Corvallis, Lolo, Frenchtown, Bonner, Columbia Falls, maybe Whitefish, Somers...have your money bags ready, however, the closer you get to Kalispell.

As for the Hi-Line, I would only like to contribute that, while I may have a little bit of a soft spot for Havre, I wouldn't wish a day of residency along that part of the state on anyone. (Not even a political transplant ). The bleak, creepy landscape and total lack of upward economic progress comes in second to only that which you'd find over in Southestern MT, and the spattering of population is likely to be a bit more insular than you could probably anticipate, even if insularity is what you're looking for.

So yeah, good luck.

[Montguy]

@Antonio Montana

Help me out on this question:

With Montana's lack of skilled labor and professional occupations, say, for college graduates, what are young, single men in Montana up to these days when they aren't given to borderline alcoholism while waiting around for seasonal employment, working for slave wages in the service sector and/or racking up baby mommas?

Maybe I need to look more closely, but damn, a large part of what I see around here is younger people, men and women both, squandering their time and staying detached from adulthood, often bringing kids into the mix and seeing nothing wrong with any of it.

I'm of course not implying that they're 100% of the picture, but that kind of social breakdown is very prominent here, and getting worse on an observational basis. But with you probably being closer to the younger crowd than I am...should I have a little more optimism? Genuinely curious.

[NDak15]

MontGuy, I love reading your realistic posts on this forum. It's good to get multiple viewpoints whether they are good, bad, or ugly.

Regarding your first post, that redneck/yuppie combo was precisely what made me look to move out of that area within two months of living there. It was so weird to see the paranoid, backwards mentality living alongside the yuppie mentality. Not much room for regular people.

I would disagree with Arlee and Polson. Anything on the reservation is bad news.

Your second post is so spot on.

[Montguy]

Originally Posted by NDak15

MontGuy, I love reading your realistic posts on this forum. It's good to get multiple viewpoints whether they are good, bad, or ugly.

Regarding your first post, that redneck/yuppie combo was precisely what made me look to move out of that area within two months of living there. It was so weird to see the paranoid, backwards mentality living alongside the yuppie mentality. Not much room for regular people.

I would disagree with Arlee and Polson. Anything on the reservation is bad news.

Your second post is so spot on.

Shhhhh!

I kid, of course. That's why I didn't mention Ronan, and OP, do scratch Arlee (it's actually a frightful dump, but a decently commutable distance to Missoula).

I would have to maintain that Polson is a pretty neat town where I've never felt uneasy in my surroundings. Little on the spendy side, yes, but if it were much closer to Missoula than it is, say a comparable distance to Frenchtown, I'd totally live there myself.

And yeah, rednecks and yuppies...I wish it was all a dream sometimes.

[Jayne Cobb]

I promise is almost completely littered with paranoiac rednecks and uptight yuppie transplants who live on high-alert to defend Montana-Land from anything too diff'rint.

[Montguy]

Originally Posted by Jayne Cobb

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