Take a trip to the Prairie Reserve’s expanding empire, and you may wonder what all of the fuss is about. This isn’t the land of snowcapped mountains and icy clear streams jumping with trout that Brad Pitt romped through in 1992’s “A River Runs Through It,” based on the Norman Maclean novella about life in 1930s Montana.
Much of it consists of flat prairie dotted with scrub for as far as the eye can see, broken only by the occasional herd of cattle or sheep or by the swarming box elder bugs that can darken a ranch house window.
‘Gumbo’
The logistics of reaching the area alone may put off all but the most diehard of travelers. First, you drive three hours from Billings or four from Bozeman -- the two closest airports with regular service -- to where the paved road ends. From there, it’s another hour or so to the American Prairie Reserve headquarters along a network of dirt roads that the occasional precipitation turns into what locals refer to as “gumbo” -- a sticky mess than can quickly swallow a truck’s tires.
“We’ll be making liberal use of helicopters,” Gerrity says of his organization’s plans to navigate the area.
Bryce Christensen, the barrel-chested on-site manager for the Prairie Reserve and a 33-year veteran of Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, navigates the wet sections of road by barreling his four-wheel-drive pickup truck through the muck, shellacking its body with mud.
Buffalo Jump
The attractions of the land blend the subtle with the historic. Just over the border of the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge is a buffalo jump, a small cliff where Native Americans herded bison to their death. Prairie dog towns are scattered across the landscape, distinguished by their grassless mounds and their frantic chirping when an intruder approaches.
The Prairie Reserve also rebuilt a one-room log schoolhouse that was used from 1942 to 1957, with four desks for the nonexistent students. And everywhere are the ubiquitous barbed- wire fences that Gerrity and his staff are either planning to tear down or make more wildlife-friendly by raising the bottom wire and removing the barbs to allow antelope to scamper through.
Accommodations until now have been Spartan. Prior options included pitching a tent at a campground within whiffing distance of the bison herd or staying in a converted ranch house guarded by a friendly black cat.