Distinctly Montana Magazine

D I S T I N C T L Y M O N T A N A M A G A Z I N E • F A L L 2 0 2 2 32 MONTANA'S RICH HISTORY and 147,040 square miles of land easily lends itself to the types of folklore that humans have participated in since the beginning of time. As a state we are not exempt from UFO sightings, ghost stories, or even the tales we spin to stop young children from doing some- thing dangerous. No, you can't go explore an old mineshaft in the middle of the night, and here's why… Whether it be hauntings by old ghosts, some form of bogeyman, or even the Flathead Lake monster, at some point, most of us have participated in the tradition of folklore. Now combine all that lore with Montana's 73,000 miles of publicly accessible road- ways, and sure enough, we have tales of what are known as phantom hitchhikers. Also referred to as vanishing hitchhik- ers, these are ghosts that haunt our roadways. Some seek to hitch a ride with the living and others simply drift through the thin veil between worlds to appear briefly on the side of the road or offer unsuspecting drivers a glimpse of what they had suffered in their final moments. FOLKLORE IN THE AGE OF THE INTERNET While researching these roadway phantoms, I strayed from the comfort of books with citations and boxes of historical documentation and very quickly remembered that anyone could post anything on the internet, be it true or false. One of the websites where I found some accounts of ghostly hitch- hikers had a link to another website that purported to have "lies we've told about Montana!" Immediately, I had many questions. Why does this exist? Who has the time to do this? Are the "lies" randomly generated, and again why? It is with this information that I implore to you, dear reader, that you must take all the following information with a grain of salt. This is a collection of just a few ghostly roadside encounters from around the Big Sky State. BEAR CANYON Some towns just cannot shake their unsavory pasts, and Bozeman is no exception. Our first possible haunting takes the form of a little girl in a white dress who is said to visit the Bear Canyon area. Some say she can be seen on Bear Can- yon Road, while others claim she appears to campers at the nearby campground. Either way, she is said to prefer women, and the girl attempts to draw them away from their cars or camping areas. Some say that this entity could be a demon, masquerading as a helpless ghost girl to inspire pity and lure women into the night. Another theory is that the girl was killed nearby, and she will only trust a woman to follow her to the scene of her untimely death. Others have claimed to see a different ghost in that area, the spirit of an older grizzled man of the woods. He appears while a snowstorm is blowing, walking along Frontage Road between the Bear Canyon interstate exit and Bozeman. Fort Ellis used to be located nearby, as well as farms that dwell on the edge of the forest, so this mysterious mountain man could have had vari- ous affiliations in the area. He is often seen with his head down, trudging an unremitting path through the dangerous weather conditions and perhaps braving his last storm ad infinitum. LAVINA The small town of Lavina sits 45 miles north of Billings, at the intersection of Highways 3 and 12. Many truckers pass through here, working hard to deliver goods around the state, and a few have reported seeing a ghost haunting the roadside. It is said that she appears suddenly out of the dark- ness near a sign pointing south toward Lavina; the ghost of a girl with outfit and hairstyle of the 1970s disappears before shocked motorists or seasoned, and therefore wary, truckers can offer her a ride into town. The monotony of the central Montana highway offers comfort in its predictability and vis- ibility across the plains, but that can be easily shattered when you slow down near the turn toward Lavina, and your head- lights illuminate a spirit. HIGHWAY 287 AND "YOU HAVE NOW CROSSED OVER INTO…THE TWILIGHT ZONE." Based on Lucille Fletcher's radio play of the same name, "The Hitch-Hiker" is the sixteenth episode of the first season of The Twilight Zone. A young woman named Nan resumes her cross-country road trip, lucky to be walking away from a rather nasty accident in Pennsylvania. She becomes increas- ingly agitated after seeing the same hitchhiker continuously as she makes her way west. Eventually, she reaches Arizo- na and calls her mother, only to be told that her mother has been hospitalized after hearing the news of her daughter's death. Nan realizes that she did not survive the accident and that the hitchhiker is a representative of Death who had been waiting for her to accept her situation. OTHERS HAVE CLAIMED TO SEE A DIFFERENT GHOST IN THAT AREA, THE SPIRIT OF AN OLDER GRIZZLED MAN OF THE WOODS. HE APPEARS WHILE A SNOWSTORM IS BLOWING, WALKING ALONG FRONTAGE ROAD BETWEEN THE BEAR CANYON INTERSTATE EXIT AND BOZEMAN.

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