The Battered Wife

The abusive relationship between Montana and mining

A few years ago, my friends Marc Beaudin, Max Hjortsberg and Seabring Davis put together an anthology called Unearthing Paradise in an effort to fight a proposed gold mine just north of Yellowstone Park.

The collection featured such luminaries as Terry Tempest Williams, Rick Bass, and Doug Peacock, so I was honored to be able to contribute to this project, and this is the essay I wrote for it, which compares our relationship to mining to an abusive marriage. A couple of years after the collection came out, a graduate student in the MSU film school, Jessica Portuondo, contacted me about making a film based on my essay, and I’m including the link to that film at the end. I think she did a beautiful job of complimenting my humble essay with some incredible scenes from around Montana. The five-minute documentary won Best Short Documentary at the inaugural MINT Film Festival. Enjoy!

The Battered Wife

The more I know about the history of Montana, the more it seems as if my home state is the battered wife in an abusive relationship with mining. From the time they met, back when gold was first discovered in Alder Gulch in the 1860s, mining has been whispering sweet nothings into the ear of Montanans, promising shiny baubles and a lavish lifestyle. The promises weren’t entirely empty either, so it was an easy sell. There has been evidence that great wealth is available throughout our vast landscape. From the time a few grubby miners pulled a huge payload from the hills surrounding Bannack and Virginia City, mining has given Montana just enough to keep her coming back.

Bannock, Montana 1860