Distinctly Montana Magazine

100 D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA N A M A G A Z I N E • FA L L 2 0 2 6 i ted two years to the conception of Embedded, a longer time than she has spent on any place-based exhibition to date. When developing her site-based pieces, Hutchinson's process is systematic. She always starts by encountering in person the space she has been asked to fill. She then turns to research, sift- ing through regional history books, field guides, archival photo- graphs, and newspapers. With Embedded, she knew that the ten- sion between Yellowstone County's indigenous history and the transformations set off by the Homestead Act would be intrinsic to whatever form her exhibition eventually took. "This is a show about layers of history and layers of change, both positive and negative, it's all in there," she says. "If you want to get political about it, we eradicated native plants and we eradicated native use of the land. It's complex, and we need to be sensitive about that." To accelerate settlement of the American West, the federal gov- ernment passed the Homestead Act in 1862 and began offering 160-acre plots of land, for free, to anyone who filed a claim and managed to stay for five years. The United States had obtained this land via treaties with Native American tribes, whose tradi- tional land use ethos does not encompass "ownership" in the same way that the Euro-American legal system does. As a result, Native Americans unwittingly agreed to the permanent cession of their ancestral hunting grounds, an event that continues to have ripple effects. One of the key research questions Hutchinson sought to answer was how Billings had solidified economically after the home- stead era, and this question brought her to the story of the sugar factory on Billings' south side, operated today by the Western Sugar Cooperative. The plant opened in 1906 and was long con- sidered the largest sugar mill in the world. Built by the local- ly organized Billings Sugar Company, it came under the Great Western Sugar Company in 1918. The factory processed sugar beets brought in by rail from all over the state. Today, sugar beets continue to come in by truck from late summer through October, and processing runs through February. The surplus beetroot pulp is then either buried or sold for animal feed. Peo- ple who grew up in Billings remember the smell of sugar beets in the winter as "burnt peanut butter," a smell that, whether they loved or hated it, meant home. Hutchinson saw an opportunity, and asked her contacts at West- ern Sugar if they would save some beetroot pulp for her. Come February, they presented her with a 20-pound sack of beetroot, which she describes as "very beige, very fibrous." Hutchinson boiled the pulp, used a hollander beater to mix the plant fibers PEOPLE WHO GREW UP IN BILLINGS REMEMBER THE SMELL OF SUGAR BEETS IN THE WINTER AS BURNT PEANUT BUTTER, A SMELL THAT, WHETHER THEY LOVED OR HATED IT, MEANT HOME. C l u t t e r G o n e Fas t — Awa r d -W i n n i n g S e r v i c e Y o u r L o c a l , Awa r d -W i n n i n g H a u l- O f f T e a m ( 4 0 6 ) 57 9 - 8 22 9 j u n k i n t h e t r u n k m t . c o m B e s t o f M o n ta n a J u n k R e m o va l 2026 o f BEST M O N TA N A A S V O T E D B Y R E A D E R S O F

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