What Is Next Year Country?

Extreme could well describe my Montana — high peaks or wide prairies, temperatures above 110 degrees in the summer or a shivering -60 in the winter. Clouded in myth and mystery, Montana seems to elude national news except as a place of unbridled recreational opportunities or as the home of a Unabomber. Movies like Robert Redford’s “A River Runs Through It” only add to the mystique with idyllic scenes of fly-fishing on
blue ribbon trout streams rushing through mountain valleys.

The river that runs through my world is not the Missouri River which bounds our family ranch, but a sleepy little stream named Bird Creek that defines the character of our family ranch (www.birdcreekranch.com). Rising in the mountains nearly 15 miles away and fed by little rivulets now dammed for stock water, this small creek flows against all odds to its destination in the Missouri. Even in the face of man’s upstream shovels trying to “improve” the stream by impinging on the water rights of downstream users and in spite of nature’s periodic blanket of drought, the creek still empties into the Mighty Missouri.

Bird Creek could be seen as a symbol that best explains “Next Year Country.” In a world, like Montana, life on the land is difficult, filled with numerous unknowns. It breeds people who use their creativity and the human hunger to learn in order to survive and thrive. Some years the yield is rich, but many years can be slim. It is during those difficult times that Montanans look to the possibilities of the future, a place they call “Next Year Country.” It is a place of potential, of hopes and dreams shaped by today’s realities.

It is the creek that runs through my world.