—By Kasja McGeorge, Upper Willow Creek Landowner

In late September of 2006, Gene and Kasja McGeorge and their sons, Gavin and Nils, signed a conservation easement to protect their beautiful property on Upper Willow Creek. Here, Kasja McGeorge writes about the land and why the family made this generous decision.

I’m the one elected to write something about our new conservation easement with Five Valleys Land Trust because my husband Gene is busy weather-proofing the windows for winter. No matter, we agree on what I have to tell you.

We bought our quarter-section of creek-fed mountain valley forty years ago. It had been on the market for almost two years. It seemed dirt cheap to us, but the local ranchers had scorned it because it didn’t have enough pasture land to justify the asking price, and it wouldn’t have penciled out in the revenue department. It just wasn’t “useful” from a ranching perspective. There is some pasture, but a great deal of the property consists of lodgepole pine on the slopes and dense willows in the bottomland.

That doesn’t mean that it had not seen grazing use. The meadows and stream corridor had been heavily grazed and somewhat degraded. We heard that the beaver had been trapped out. And apparently, not long before we came, a massive spraying program to eliminate tree-killing insects had also managed to eliminate lots of the local fauna, including songbirds and other small critters, so that except for the indestructible Colombian ground squirrel, there was an eerie emptiness to the place, quite foreign to people from the California mountains—as Gene was—or the forests of Vermont, where I grew up.
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-Louise Dean, Lincoln Valley Landowner

We sat with Louise Dean on the deck outside her home a few miles north of Lincoln. It was a fine May morning. Snow sparkled on the shoulders and summit of Stonewall Mountain. Sandhill cranes warbled from the wetlands around Liverpool Creek where it empties into the broad Lincoln valley on her 160-acre acre ranch. Widowed during WWII, Louise came to the upper Blackfoot with an infant son to start a new life. Now in her nineties, she has been living on, and making a living from this ranch for the last sixty years. In September 29, 2000 Louise decided to protect the many natural values of the ranch by donating a conservation easement to FVLT. More >>


— By The Jill Perelman Family, Blackfoot Valley Landowners

The Perelman family completed the donation of a 680-acre conservation easement on their Blackfoot Valley property in late 2000.  They placed an easement on an additional 77 acres in 2003.  FVLT and other partners have been actively working on a stream restoration project on the property.

The land our family recently acquired is a mix of forested slope, wetland meadow, creekside riparian zones, native range and hay field. It lies in the shadow of peaks along the southern edge of the Scapegoat Wilderness with national forest, private timber, and ranch land as neighbors. More >>

— By Barbara Clark

Barbara and her husband Larry are fifth and sixth generation ranchers who have lived in Rock Creek for over 40 years. They have two grown children who help on the ranch.

Ranching is steeped into our souls. You cannot plow a field, pick rock by hand, plant that field, irrigate it, watch the hay grow, hay it, get ready to defend it from wildfire, watch the calves you calved graze it and not feel it is a part of you. A part of you just as real as your arm and leg. More >>
                   

— By Brandon Bert, Rattlesnake Valley Landowner

I currently live in California, but grew up in Missoula.  I knew I always wanted to come back someday, own land and a place of my own.  However, I didn’t think the opportunity would come so quickly.  About eight months ago, my father Steve, found an incredible piece of property in the Upper Rattlesnake.   After a tour of the redwood cabin and long walk around the property, we both knew this was home. More >>

— By Celestine Duncan, Upper Willow Creek Landowner

My husband Cary and I are both private pilots who have for many years taken great pleasure in experiencing our magnificent Montana landscape from the air. When the time came to find a place that could serve as a getaway from our busy lives in Helena, it was logical to start our search from the air. A little valley, tucked in between Rock Creek and Flint Creek had caught our attention many times as we flew over it, headed for the Big Hole or the Bitterroot country, so we decided to look into it. More >>