The 74 Million – Carolyn Phenicie
“It’s hard to explain just how isolated this town in the far northwest reaches of the Montana plains really is. On the trip there, three-and-a-half hours from the capital of Helena, cell service and radio reception come and go. The road – speed limit 80 mph – winds for miles past vast plains, scattered farms and just one town big enough to have a gas station. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a statue rises of two Native American warriors welcoming drivers to the Blackfeet Nation. The same monument of the two riders — its base made of stones from a circa 1800s tribal mission and its figures crafted from the parts of rusted cars destroyed in a devastating 1964 flood — stands at each of the four main entrances to the 1.5 million-acre reservation. From the southern gateway off Interstate 89, it’s another 19 miles to reach Heart Butte proper. The school sits on top of a hill overlooking the rest of town — a post office, an Indian Health Services outpost, a few dozen houses and three churches. And that’s pretty much it.”(more)