d i s t i n c t ly m o n ta n a • s p r i n g 2 0 1 4
12
If there is any widely accepted sacred
ground in Montana, it is the revered Bob
Marshall country — aptly dubbed the flag-
ship of our nation's wilderness fleet. In
shorthand, we affectionately call this vast,
wild region. "The Bob," to include not only
the 1.5-million-acre designated wilderness
core but the surrounding 1 million acres of
contiguous — but unprotected — federally
owned wildland that wraps around the core
like a giant horseshoe. Ironically, the wildest
part of this entire magnificent complex is
de facto wilderness, lacking in any form of
legislative recognition or protection. This is
the eastern face of the Bob Marshall coun-
try — the Rocky Mountain Front — and it
harbors the wildest and least-visited land in
the entire complex.
What do we mean by the term Rocky
Mountain Front? How might we geographi-
cally define this sweeping landscape? We
could assemble a dozen locals who know
t
wo centuries ago when lewis and clark explored the
vast land we now call Montana, they encountered a
wilderness of some 93 million acres. Today, less than
a tenth of this land remains wild and undisturbed, and much of this surviving wild country
clings to the most isolated reaches of the Continental Divide between Marias and Rogers Passes.
As such, wilderness and, arguably, its most dominant topographical feature — the Continental
Divide — interconnect so as to form the wild heart and soul of Montana.
This excerpt is from Landscape
and Legacy, The Splendor of
Nature, History, and Montana's
Rocky Mountain Front, published
by Dr. John A. Vollertson with
Sweetgrass Books, Helena.
By
BILL
CuNNINgHaM
M o n t a n a ' s W i l d H e a r t :
M o n t a n a ' s W i l d H e a r t :
M o n t a n a ' s W i l d H e a r t :
