Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
literary bent. From books and music to landscape painting and sculpture, both states have a
remarkable range of fine art to discover.
Montana has an especially long list of literary heroes, both past and present. Andrew
Garcia's
Tough Trip Through Paradise
may be the state's first famous export, a gripping
firsthand account of the Nez Perce flight in the 1870s. The writing program at the
University of Montana in Missoula—established in 1919 by H. G. Merriam—can largely
be credited with putting Montana on the map; students and faculty have included A. B.
Guthrie Jr., William Kittredge, Annick Smith, Kevin Canty, Judy Blunt, Rick DeMarinis,
James Welch, Deirdre McNamer, and poet Richard Hugo. Contemporary authors that call
Montana home include Rick Bass (
Winter: Notes From Montana
), Thomas McGuane (
The
Bushwhacked Piano
), Richard Ford (
Independence Day
), Walter Kirn (
Up in the Air
), and
many more. There are thriving writing communities in Bozeman, Livingston, and Missoula,
the latter hosting the annual Montana Festival of the topic every October.
While Wyoming does not have quite the literary lore that Montana has, it has its share
of standouts. Platte Valley resident C. J. Box is one of the top-selling mystery writers in
the country, and Annie Proulx won a Pulitzer Prize for her novel
The Shipping News.
Oth-
er writers that call Wyoming home include Mark Spragg (
Where Rivers Change Direc-
tion
), and Kathleen O'Neal Gear (
People of the Longhouse
). In addition, Ernest Heming-
way spent a lot of time in Wyoming, where he worked on several novels, including
Death
in the Afternoon
and the
Green Hills of Africa.
Not surprisingly, both Montana and Wyoming are hotbeds for Western art lovers. Two
of the West's premier art events—Jackson's Fall Arts Festival and Cody's Rendezvous
Royale—take place each September in Wyoming. Much of the Cody event is centered
around the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, which houses the impressive Whitney Gallery
of Western Art. Collections here include works from the early 19th century to contemporary
times that commemorate the events, people, and landscape of the Rocky Mountain region.
One of the best-known Western artists is Charles M. Russell (1864-1926), who left Mis-
souri for Montana in 1880 at age 16. He soon became a working artist whose colorful and
detailed scenes captured the landscape, spirit, and culture of the West during the late 1880s-
early 1900s. Russell was also a sculptor and writer, and the excellent C. M. Russell Museum
in Great Falls houses five galleries of paintings, sculptures, drawings, and illustrations that
Russell created from childhood through the end of his life.
Two particularly art-themed towns are Bozeman, Montana, and Jackson, Wyoming.
Both feature quaint streets lined with galleries and shops, offering everything from locally
made stationery to the finest in Western photography, sculpture, and painting. The bustling
