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Earlier this week, the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians of Montana gained the city of Great Falls’ approval to build a large, affordable housing development that will include 65 single-family homes and duplexes and two apartment buildings with 50 units.
The Good Medicine development will be built on Hill 57, an area steeped in historical and cultural significance on the west end of Great Falls.
But what is Hill 57?
In the late 1800s, as the city of Great Falls grew and as white settlers pushed Native Americans off their homelands, a growing group of displaced Indigenous people gathered on and around a hill in Great Falls. For decades, until the late 20th century, Hill 57 community members lived in shantytowns, often without electricity and with limited access to food and water.
“As the story goes, the landless refugees existed on the fringe of a larger settler community and were there because they had nowhere else to go,” Montana-based writer Chris La Tray wrote in his book “Becoming Little Shell: A Landless Indian’s Journey Home.”
Hill 57, La Tray wrote, was also a central gathering place for social events and where people organized and raised money for important tribal efforts. People convened there to practice religious ceremonies and speak Indigenous languages that were otherwise banned in the United States. It was a place where residents kept their cultures alive.
So, why is it called Hill 57?
In the 1920s, with help from his friends and family, local salesman Art Hinck built a giant “57” out of sandstone on the hill in Great Falls to spread the word about his Heinz 57 Varieties products, which included pickles, canned goods and condiments.
“The whitewashed ‘57’ (each letter was about 80 feet long and 35 feet wide) was visible for miles and became a landmark for aviators in the days when there were few navigation aids,” according to a 1963 article in the Great Falls Tribune. “Soon the band of Cree, Chippewa and other landless Indians who lived near the hill became known as the Hill 57 Indians.”
In his book, La Tray characterized Hill 57 “as a place, despite its history of darker times, still sacred to the community.” Soon, with the addition of the Good Medicine housing development, the area will take on new significance.
— Nora Mabie
Wildlife Watch 🐺
How many wolves should there be in Montana?
It’s a question that’s plagued wildlife managers, livestock owners, hunters and trappers and wildlife advocates for decades. But to answer it, you have to know how many wolves there are in the first place.
Last Friday, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks released their annual wolf report. For wildlife nerds like me, it’s always fascinating — laden with data like how many cows and sheep were killed by the canids and how many wolves were killed by hunters, trappers, wildlife officials, cars and poachers. But this year’s report came with a surprise.
The state released a new, radically revised estimate of the wolf population. Sneaky and wary of humans, the animals are notoriously difficult to count, so wildlife scientists rely on complicated models to estimate their population size. The new model, yet to be peer-reviewed and dubbed “iPOM 2.0” (short for integrated Patch Occupancy Model), shows a drastically smaller, declining wolf population in the state.
The previous model put wolf numbers in Montana at 1,094. The new estimate puts the population at 725 animals — roughly 34% fewer than previous projections.
This isn’t happening in a vacuum. Population size affects hunting and trapping regulations, and a 5-year-old mandate from the Legislature throws an even larger wrench into the works of wolf policy. That edict from 2021 directed the state to reduce its wolf population, and ever since, the Fish and Wildlife Commission has attempted increasingly aggressive hunting techniques to do just that — from approving night hunting and neck snaring to letting individual hunters and trappers kill up to 15 wolves a piece.
Despite all those new ways of killing wolves, actual wolf harvest numbers never went drastically up, and the old population model showed a population that was relatively static. The new model, though, shows the population is declining.
So instead of offering yet more ways to harvest wolves (last year, the Fish and Wildlife Commission debated but ultimately didn’t approve a nearly year-round wolf hunting season), FWP is reversing course. The agency proposed reducing the hunting and trapping quota from 452 wolves last year to only 250 for the upcoming season, which runs from September to March.
Will this actually reduce the number of wolves that are hunted and trapped? It’s too early to tell.
Last year, only 247 wolves were harvested, despite the much higher quota.
The Fish and Wildlife Commission will decide on regulations for the upcoming wolf season August 19. Public comment on FWP’s new proposal for a quota is open until August 12.
— Nick Mott
In Case You Missed It ↩️
Less than two weeks after Gov. Greg Gianforte suspended utility board commissioner Brad Brad Molnar, the governor’s office announced that the search for a replacement is underway.
Gianforte is seeking “qualified applicants” who live inside the PSC-2 district, which covers much of south-central Montana, including parts of Billings and Bozeman.
The deadline to apply is Aug. 5. From Aug. 5 through Aug. 20, the public will have an opportunity to submit letters of support or other comments regarding applicants.
Matthew Monforton, the attorney who has represented Molnar throughout the nearly yearlong dispute with the Public Service Commission, wrote in an email to MTFP that he’s flagged the governor’s solicitation for a replacement commissioner for Montana District Court Judge Mike Menehan — a nudge, presumably, to act on Molnar’s request for a temporary restraining order to halt his client’s ouster.
As of Friday morning, Menehan had not ruled on the proposed TRO.
Earlier this week, Monforton issued a statement repeating what Molnar has consistently argued: that the effort to remove him from the PSC has more to do with utility regulation than workplace conduct.
“Every dollar an unregulated data center doesn’t pay is a dollar a Montana family does, which Molnar objects to and which is why Gianforte wants him replaced,” Monforton wrote.
An investigation into Molnar’s conduct found that he sexually harassed PSC employees and engaged in retaliatory behavior, offenses that Gianforte found sufficiently serious and credible to authorize his suspension, a move that all parties agree is unprecedented.
— Amanda Eggert
By the Numbers 🔢
The decline in visitors to Montana from 13.8 million in 2024 to 13.2 million in 2025, according to the University of Montana’s Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research. Melissa Weddell, the institute’s director, isn’t concerned.
“Montana’s tourism economy appears to be transitioning from the rapid growth of the post-pandemic years toward a more sustainable long-term pattern of visitation and visitor spending,” Weddell wrote in an email to Montana Free Press.
Weddell noted that despite the dip in visitors, nonresident spending increased by 12% to $5.6 billion in 2025.
Most of that spending is concentrated around Glacier and Yellowstone national parks, the institute reported.
— Zeke Lloyd
Say What 🤔
Every year, about a dozen inmates at the Montana Department of Corrections raise and release 10,000 pheasants designated as game for youth hunters. Now, the department wants to increase the annual pheasant population to 50,000.
But there aren’t enough suitable sites on state land to release all those birds, according to Sara Meloy, the education bureau chief of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. So FWP, which collaborates with the corrections department on the pheasant program, is asking the Fish and Wildlife Commission about releasing the birds on private and federal lands, too.
Some lawmakers have concerns about the proposed expansion, which was first reported by the Daily Montanan.
A 2021 law created “Roosters for Recruitment” to increase the number of young Montana hunters. Funding comes from the Pittman-Robertson federal tax on ammunition, which the state earmarks for hunting and conservation.
In a letter to FWP Director Christy Clark, three Democratic state lawmakers wrote that funding for Roosters for Recruitment might be better spent on something other than pheasants. Other uses, they maintained, would be “more sustainable, more effective, and more broadly supported by Montana hunters and conservationalists.”
The trio — Rep. Tom France, D-Missoula; Rep. Josh Seckinger, D-Bozeman; and Senate Minority Leader Sen. Pat Flowers, D-Belgrade — also questioned how much Roosters for Recruitment actually increases the number of youth hunters and how many of the birds are hunted.
“Five years later, the agency appears to be reinterpreting the Legislature’s original intent while the effectiveness of the program remains largely unmeasured,” the lawmakers wrote.
This month, FWP moved the program to its education bureau to align the pheasant hunting initiative with the agency’s broader hunter education program. Meloy at FWP said it will also enable the agency to better track results.
“We are looking forward to improving our metrics for success,” Meloy said.
Public comment on the proposed change ends July 29.
— Zeke Lloyd
Snapshot 📸
I recently made this image of the Lewis and Clark National Forest while on assignment with Amanda Eggert for a story about an exploratory copper mine. Keep an eye out for Amanda’s coverage next week. It’s such a joy to work with someone so dedicated to their craft, their beat and the community. I could say that about all the reporters here.
— Lauren Miller
Highlights ☀️
In other news this week —
• Former Senate President Jason Ellsworth, R-Hamilton, was found guilty of official misconduct for awarding no-bid contracts to a company represented by a longtime business associate. Then, that verdict went poof.
• Nick Mott offers this fascinating article about how the future of the Yellowstone fisheries is tied to the salmon fly.
• Readers’ pick: Our most clicked story on the MTFP website over the last week was Matt Hudson’s report about the financial future of the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center, a big tourist draw in Great Falls.
On Our Radar
Nick E. — I’ve lived in Bozeman for more than a quarter-century, so I feel qualified to offer my two cents here on Pottery Barn introducing “The Bozeman Coffee Table,” ($1,199) in its catalog that arrived at the house this week: grumble, grumble, grumble.
Lauren — I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the passage of time. Especially in the summer, I lose all sense of it. I confuse days of the week and the time of day. Sometimes, I eat dinner at 5 p.m., sometimes at 10. Sometimes, I sleep late, and on other days the sun blasts me awake early. It’s really lovely to lose myself in the rhythms of the Earth. I hope you get a bit lost in time this weekend and instead of making choices based upon a schedule, do so based simply on the next right thing for you.
Ellis — I have slowly been making my way through Terry Tempest Williams’ latest book, “The Glorians: Visitations from the Holy Ordinary.” I say slowly, because it’s hard to read more than a single chapter or essay without wanting to sit down and bask in the beauty of her prose. I cannot recommend it enough if you’d like to fall in love with, or remember what you love about, the natural world. And as a native Utahn, her writing about the red rock desert always warms my soul while making me ache for home.
Stephanie — After replacing one too many appliances and household gadgets that mysteriously died after their warranties expired, I’ve started checking r/BuyItForLife on Reddit before making big purchases. It’s full of people who have somehow kept the same toaster since the Reagan administration and have very strong opinions on the best vacuum cleaner. If you’re also tired of buying the same thing twice, it’s worth a look.
Brad — Why I’m suddenly thinking about sardines after a solid half-century in which the words “tinned fish” never entered my earhole is deeply uninteresting. And the question would probably strike Matthew Carlson, of the YouTube channel “Canned Fish Files with Matthew Carlson,” as utterly nonsensical. All Carlson seemingly does is think about sardines: cheap sardines, sardines for beginners, luxury sardines, not sardines.
Katie — The many recent days in Missoula with temperatures in the 90s have me avoiding using my oven, which has unfortunately left me without baked goods. To satisfy my craving for a sweet treat (that’s not ice cream), I’m planning on making some of my favorite no-bake peanut butter cheesecake bars this weekend. If you’re like me and need a little chocolate in your life, I also add chocolate chips and an Oreo crust.
Lowdown is edited by Nick Ehli, with additional copy editing this week by Mara Silvers.