THE WHITEFISH TRAIL (formally known as The Trail Runs Through It project) I have lived in Whitefish for 17 years. When I first moved here, I was a city girl. I didn’t understand the value of open space any more than I understood what it would be like to fall in love with it. How …
THE WHITEFISH TRAIL (formally known as The Trail Runs Through It project)
I have lived in Whitefish for 17 years. When I first moved here, I was a city girl. I didn’t understand the value of open space any more than I understood what it would be like to fall in love with it. How land gets under your skin and makes you whole. Calls you to be your best self by challenging you with its humility and inspiration. As I slowly made Montana my home, I fell in love with the freedom of hopping on a horse and heading into the hills. Of who I was when I mused upon the grit and grace of life out on the trail. The honesty and vulnerability it required of me, bald eagles soaring, bear scat front and center, moose moving like ghosts in and out of aspen groves.
And then I started to notice fences. Lots of them. I’d go into an area that had helped me grieve my father’s death, or celebrate my child’s birth—to greet it like an old friend, to learn from it– and it would be gone. “No trespassing” signs were left in its wake like a fouled eulogy. Suddenly in Big Sky Country, we had gated communities. Built by city people who, like me, didn’t understand the privilege of wandering rights. They understood the idea of us/them. Not us/us. They understood how to enthrone power and even fear. They didn’t understand what Montana has to teach.
A few years ago I had the privilege of sitting on a steering committee that built the foundation for what is now a trail system that is setting a new precedent for open space in the rural west. The goal is to have a hundred miles of non-motorized trail around our town, linking private to public land. The Whitefish Trail is as inspiring as it is inspired, and if we can receive our state’s support, we can continue to teach the developing rural west how to build future communities. Responsibly and, as Montana has taught so many, with respect and humility. Please support the Whitefish Trail. And to the powers-that-be, please honor our community’s good work by helping us continue our dream.
Yrs.
Laura Munson
