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5 Books You Should Read If You Love the History of Montana
Lessons we can learn from the many stories Montana has to tell.
I’m sure I was a pioneer woman or maybe Miss Kitty from Gunsmoke in a past life. I love learning about western history and exploring historical sites in places like North Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana.
It’s more than curiosity that draws me to these places. I never fail to feel an eery sense of familiarity, not so much with the location, but with the lifestyle, the events and people that lived there more than a century ago.
Perhaps it’s my overactive imagination fueled by the many books I read about the history of the west. I particularly enjoy finding old or long-forgotten books, memoirs of people who actually experienced the joys and hardships of settling the frontier.
Montana is my favorite place to experience history. This beautiful state works hard at preserving the past and curating the stories of the common people that settled, struggled, and survived under conditions we would consider unthinkable.
Here’s a shortlist (and great starting place) of some of my favorite, and mostly unknown, Montana history reads. Although they fall into the memoir/biography category, the styles vary, offering a little something for everyone's taste, time, and interest level.
“This House of Sky, Landscapes of a Western Mind,” by Ivan Doig
Ivan Doig is my favorite author. He never fails to pull me into his stories with lyrical descriptions and memorable characters. “This House of Sky” was his first book, something between a memoir and an autobiography.
Based on his life growing up in the mid-1900s on the sheep ranches of Montana, the story is both a lesson in history and a reflection of how family dynamics can be both simple and complex at the same time.
Doig’s writing is beautiful, both poetic and descriptive. As I read about his eccentric family and the people that came and went in his life, I could picture them so vividly. The places he lived and the events in his life were described with such clarity, I was sure I had been there to witness it myself.
