Distinctly Montana Magazine

w w w . d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m 59 2. THERE'S NOTHING SEXIER THAN A GOOD WORK ETHIC. This one might actually be true. No decent Montana romance novel can get enough of folks with a solid work ethic. Whether it's patrolling the backcountry of Glacier National Park, mending fences, or skinning a deer, nothing is hotter than a job well done. And in Montana, that makes sense, right? Real Montanans have to work for a living. And that's part of what makes Montana such an unbearably sexy place. 3. BEAR ENCOUNTERS MAY BE SCARY, BUT THEY'RE ALSO THE BEST KIND OF FOREPLAY. Dangerous wildlife encounters are major aphrodisiacs. For some reason, grizzly encounters come off sexier than brushes with other wildlife. Maybe it's their aggressive rep- utation paired with their relative rarity–it gives them a sort of unicorn patina. Just watch that bear and Leo tussle in The Revenant, probably one of the amorous and intimate scenes ever caught on film. Getting chased by a moose is terrifying, but not sexy. They're gangly and alien-looking and half the time look like they're drooling uncontrollably from having their face in the water. But being pursued by a ravenous grizzly with jaws of steel? Then tumbling down a cliff face and demurely spraining your ankle (as happens to the time-traveling hero- ine in Yellowstone Heart Song)? That just means getting to watch the hero's impressive pecs ripple as he broodingly tears his shirt into strips, applies a tourniquet, surgically reattaches whatever part of you he had to wrestle away from the bear, etc. 4. NATIONAL PARKS AREN'T LABYRINTHINE BUREAUCRACIES; THEY'RE THE MOST ROMANTIC PLACES ON EARTH. In Wild Montana, the stereotypically gendered roles of proficient outdoorsman and tender-footed city girl are re- versed. Voluptuous Alexis Finch has survival chops that put those of former FBI agent Casper Lawrence to shame, whose only physical flaw is wearing a cowboy hat as a fashion state- ment. Wild Montana also bucks the out-of-state heroine trend by allowing both protagonists to be Montanan. Casper is paint- ed as the "city boy" from Butte, which also feels like an inside joke. The price Alexis pays for her skill, grit, and moral courage is a professional one: she works for the National Park Ser- vice, and as such is beholden to a self-serving bureaucratic

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