Distinctly Montana Magazine

W W W. D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA NA . C O M 25 e Madison Range had advocates who were outfitters in the Gallatin Canyon. e Selway- Bitterroot had Doris Milner, a housewife and mother of four living in Hamilton. And the Scapegoat, the first citizen-proposed wilderness in the nation, had Cecil Garland, a Lincoln hardware store owner and World War II veteran. Montana is a state that prides itself on its independence and self-reliance. In part, that's why wilderness suits this state. Garland knew that. e fight to protect the Scapegoat went on for more than 10 years and ultimately cost Garland his business in Lincoln and took a toll on his marriage. Along the way he battled the powerful timber lobby and eventually convinced Montana's Republican Congressman James Battin and Democratic Senators Mike Mansfield and Lee Metcalf to support his idea for designated wilder- ness in the country north of Lincoln. In 1968, Garland testified at a congressional hearing in support of the Lincoln Backcountry Wilder- ness Act. He spoke eloquently about his time in the woods and what inspired him to act, saying: When I first brought my family to the community of Lincoln, I was told of a great wild country to the north... I longed to see that country, to know its wild beauty, to catch its fish and to climb its mountains… We took from our duffle an old elk reed bugle, and as the chill air fell with the sun, we shattered the calm of that September evening with a blast from our elk call. en, almost as by magic, above us on Red Mountain, a bull elk bugled his challenge that this was his territory… All through the frosty fall air the calls echoed back and forth and I knew that I had found wilderness. I would not sleep that night, for I was trying to convince myself that this was really so; that there really was wild country like this left and that somehow I had found it… at night I made a vow, that whatever the cost, for whatever the reason, I would do all that I could do to keep this country as wild as I had found it. In 1972, Congress protected the 240,000-acre Scapegoat Wilderness Area. Wounded from the fight to save this corner of Montana, Garland moved to western Utah shortly after the designation, where he lived until his death in 2014. Today, places like the Scape- goat are our children's birthright, unchanged and just as wild as we found it. We have these unspoiled places not simply because they exist, but because some people had the courage to fight for their protection, people like Cecil Garland. WWW.BLACKTIESKIS.COM | 406-995 - 3372 | BIGSKY@BLACKTIESKIS.COM NORTH AMERICA'S LARGEST SKI AND SNOWBOARD RENTAL DELIVERY SERVICE FREE DELIVERY IN-ROOM FITTING SLOPE-SIDE SERVICE Cecil Garland The value of Wild Montana www.distinctlymontana.com/wild174 DISTINCTLY MONTANA | DIGITAL

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