Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
have abundant options all around and right in town—hike the M or hang glide off it, kayak
the Clark Fork or bike along its shores. There is world-class fishing on a number of rivers,
hot-potting (the art of getting to and swimming in natural hot springs), mountain biking,
and no end of places to hike.
MM
Carousel for Missoula and Caras Park
Aside from being a beautiful hand-carved carousel, one of the first built in the United
States since the Great Depression, what makes the
Carousel for Missoula
(101 Carousel
Dr., 406/549-8382,
www.carrousel.com
,
11am-7pm June-Aug., 11am-5:30pm Sept.-May,
$2.25 adults, $0.75 children under 16, $1.50 adult with child on lap) so sweet is the way
in which it came to be. Local cabinetmaker Chuck Kaparich vowed to the city of Missoula
in 1991 that if they would “give it a home and promise no one will ever take it apart,” he
would build a carousel by hand. As a child, Kaparich had spent summer days in Butte at
the Columbia Gardens riding the carousel. For four years, he carved ponies, taught others to
carve, and worked to restore and piece together the more than 16,000 pieces of an antique
carousel frame he had purchased. The town raised funds and collectively contributed more
than 100,000 volunteer hours. In May 1995 the carousel opened with 38 ponies, three re-
placement ponies, two chariots, 14 gargoyles, and the largest band organ in continuous use
in the United States.
The jewel-box building opens to the surrounding green of
Caras Park
in summer and
keeps the cold and wind out during the rest of the year. A fantastic adjacent play area,
Dragon Hollow,
was built with the same remarkable volunteerism over a substantially
shorter time period. The entire playground was constructed by volunteers in just nine days
in 2001.
Missoula Art Museum
With the tagline “Free Expression Free Admission,” the
Missoula Art Museum
(MAM,
335 N. Pattee St., 406/728-0447,
www.missoulaartmuseum.org
, 10am-4pm Tues.-Sat.,
noon-4pm Sun., free) honors the past and celebrates the future. The building itself repres-
ents such a marriage, brilliantly combining a 110-year-old Carnegie library with a contem-
porary glass, steel, and wood addition. The museum has six exhibition spaces that host
20-25 solo exhibitions annually, most of them quite contemporary and provocative. Don't
miss the museum's own impressive Contemporary American Indian Art Collection, among
the largest of its kind in the country.
