Each state has its nicknames. Mississippi’s include “The Hospitality State” and “The Magnolia State.”
Tennessee is called “The Volunteer State” while Alabama is “The Heart of Dixie” and Arkansas is “The Natural State.”
I don’t believe I’ve ever been to a state as appropriately nicknamed as Montana. With the perfect combination of mountains, plains and broken badlands, it is easy to see why Montana is called “The Big Sky Country.”
In Mississippi, ground and trees are always in view unless you deliberately find a big open field and look straight up. But when standing atop the evocatively named Tobacco Root Mountains or Big Butte, the Beartooth Mountains or the Absaroka Range, sky and cloud seem to be the most prominent features in the world. It is easy to see over any trees that happen to be around.
Any mountains that you can’t see over are miles and miles away, so you are left with easily 180 degrees and occasionally greater than 225 degrees of your field of vision being sky wherever you turn.
I’m no geologist, but as I understand it, back in the most recent ice age, glaciers covered much of what would become the northwest U.S. All the surface stone and soil was ground to dust under tons of ice, which finally receded, allowing the finely ground topsoil to wash down the Jefferson and Madison rivers, along the Missouri and down the Mississippi to wind up becoming part of Louisiana (“The Sportsman’s Paradise.”)
This left western Montana and surrounding states with topsoil that would only support smaller, hardier species of trees like juniper, fir and mahogany.
With just the right amount of elevation and relatively few trees to block the view (as compared to Mississippi), when you look around you, the sky is easily the most expansive feature of the landscape.
Add to this that Montana is far enough north that it has significantly longer daylight during the summertime than we are used to. You might have to deal with the infinite Big Sky all around you for as much as 18 hours per day.
The Big Sky nature of Montana actually extends eastward through a significant portion of South Dakota, so much so that we can’t remember any features of South Dakota east of Mount Rushmore except the Big Sky.
It can easily become overwhelming. After about an hour of unremitting Big Sky, the passing of cloud after cloud and nothing new to see on the ground can lull you into sleep while you are driving.
In fact, I think we missed Wyoming (”The Equality State”) completely, even though we passed through a significant portion of it on the way to Montana.
If you are headed to Montana from the east through South Dakota, you should watch out so that you are not overwhelmed by the miles and miles of Big Sky. In fact, when we head back home at the end of the summer, we’re plotting to drive south through Idaho, Utah and Arizona just to see something besides endless plains and Big Sky.
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Pat Parker of McComb, his wife Elise and their daughter Cady recently moved to Butte, Mont., to manage a KOA for the summer.
