Medicine Lake, Montana, United States
Northern Montana just south of the Canadian Border is
nicknamed The Highline for the east-west railroad that runs through it. Much of it, particularly the northeastern
most counties, consists of vast grain fields, an extension of the agricultural
landscape in North Dakota and Saskatchewan, in contrast to the rangelands which
predominate in most of Montana’s eastern plains. The most notable features of most small towns
are large grain elevators along the rail lines, sometimes called Cathedrals of
the Plains. There are a couple outdoor museums in small towns in the area dedicated
to the pioneer lifestyle, but they had not yet opened for the summer or
reopened after the Covid-19 plague while I was there. Maybe the most interesting
building is the Daniels County Courthouse in Scobey, a white-painted
false-fronted Old West building that originally functioned as a bordello.
My main reason for heading to the part of the state was
Medicine Lake National Wildlife Refuge, a major waterfowl nesting and migration
area. Supposedly the refuge gets about
10,000 visitors annually, but I only two other people on the beautiful windy
morning I was there. Social
distancing! That’s about the same number
as its summer resident population of American White Pelicans, one of the
biggest nesting areas in the country. Besides the pelicans, the variety and waterfowl
and wader birds is astounding. It’s what I imagine the Great Plains and the
Prairie Pothole Region looked like before altered by man’s cows and plows.
2025-05-22