Charlie’s Old West Montana Tour Can Lead You Through The Times And Places Made Famous By Artist C.M. Russell

The men’s room at the Oxen Yoke Inn in Utica, Mont., wasn’t exactly on the itinerary but a knowledgeable local insisted we take the detour.

We were midway through the Charlie Russell Auto Tour, a 100-mile trip through gorgeous landscape and cowboy history that, at the turn of the century, inspired the artist C.M. Russell to paint and sculpt more than 4,000 works.

Spotted with minuscule towns hushed in the aftermath of homesteading gone sour, the tour encompasses much of the territory Russell traveled in his horse-wrangling days.

It seemed that the Oxen Yoke Inn offered something Russell-related, so into the tavern we marched, four women and three men, past a few bar stools that rotated slightly as our motley band made a beeline for the recommended men’s room. Once the all-clear was given, we pressed through the bathroom door like so many teenagers surging into a Pearl Jam concert.

It was a rather ordinary washroom in most respects but it did contain one unique element. Unlike the standard graffiti, this stall featured ceiling to water tank reproductions of Russell’s work. Buckboards shattered and horses scattered across the walls, yet not a scratch was visible on the cowboy scenes so stirringly depicted.

“It would be,” underscored the tavern owner, “a desecration to mess with it.”

If local appreciation of Russell’s work is deep-seated and widespread, it appears to have been matched by the artist’s lifelong love affair with the area known as the Judith River basin.

A native of St. Louis, Mo., Russell moved to central Montana in 1880 at age 16. Like today’s visitors, he was awed by three island mountain ranges: the Highwoods, the Little Belts, and the Big Snowies, a river and its mountain-fed tributaries that support miles of undulating meadows, and myriads of water-sculpted limestone canyons. Blackfeet Indians to the north and Crow to the south often battled in the basin over hunting rights to the rich, fertile land.

A terrific storyteller, Russell wrote that “a man in the States might have been a liar in a small way, but when he comes West he soon takes lessons from the prairies, where ranges 100 miles away seem within touching distance, streams run uphill and Nature appears to lie to herself.”

Eventually landing a job as a night wrangler, watching the cowboys’ horses while they slept, Russell’s days were free to paint and sculpt and explore.

Lacking both the spectacular peaks of the western ranges and their accompanying crowds, the basin continues to offer traffic-free sightseeing, good hiking and camping, and a palpable sense of life lived simply. There are only 2,300 residents in the basin, and this is a place where modesty is an art form and a person’s word is still as good as gold.

The tour route covers 25 sights along U.S. 87 between Great Falls and Lewistown, with the option of another 25 miles on single-lane gravel roads southwest of Utica. Yellow signs indicating landmarks in Russell’s work are helpfully placed when the route traverses federal forest land.

Unfortunately, the state highway department reportedly has balked at erecting tour signs on highway 87. Still, an informative tour booklet, complete with map and interpretive text, is detailed enough for the alert traveler.

The logical starting point for the tour is the C.M. Russell Museum Complex in Great Falls, one of the tour sponsors. Comprising the most complete collection of the artist’s work anywhere, the museum also abuts Russell’s house and his 1903 studio. Full of the props and models that he used in his later work, the studio is an especially evocative place.

Heading southeast, the rolling hills, buttes and limestone caves featured in much of his work comprise the first three stops along the route. Saddened by the almost overnight extinction of the buffalo and displaced Native Americans, Russell shows the majesty of the former in his “Buffalo in Winter” and artistry of the latter in “America’s First Printer.” Many pictographs, or painted rock pictures, remain in the canyon entrances of nearby mountain foothills visible from the road.

The arrival of the great cattle barons in the mid-1880s ushered in the era of the cowboy. Where the land had been wild and untamed, hundreds of thousands of cattle and wranglers now tramped traditional Indian hunting grounds.

Three paintings set in in the vicinity of the town of Stanford document this rapidly changing era: “Roping a Wolf” depicts the effect of the wolf bounty of the time; “White Mans Buffalo” shows two Indians querying each other in sign language about the strange, new thing that was the long-horned steer; and “Paying the Fiddler” shows the deadly battle between cow rustler and cattle owner.

Off Highway 87, the auto route proceeds from Utica along Memorial Way and Yogo Creek roads through an area rich in gem-quality sapphires. The Yogo sapphire, renowned for its natural cornflower blue color, drew many a prospector to Yogo Gulch beginning in 1896. A plaque mounted into a boulder at marker 23 commemorates the entrepreneurial spirit of one Dudley Hawkins, who blasted through limestone to complete a direct route to the mine and subsequently erected a toll gate to compensate himself for his trouble.

Perhaps one of the most beautiful spots of the trip lies along the middle fork of the Judith River in the Judith Game Range. While Russell painted “The Elk” at a time when the herds were being hunted to near-extinction, the establishment in 1938 of this protected winter range has boosted to a century high the number of these magnificent animals.

The Forest Service also is restoring the original ranger station here, a two-story log cabin erected in 1908 in a lush setting of lodgepole and ponderosa pine, Douglas fir and spruce trees. Larry Timchak, the district ranger, says there are plans to reopen the building to the public, complete with original furnishings. Not far away, a small campground overlooks the meandering tributary lined with buffalo and snowberries, sage and horsemint.

Before cowboys came to dominate the western landscape, a breed of men as swift as the animals they tracked and as cunning as their prey tramped over the territory’s peaks and plateaus. These mountain men survived on their uncanny natural instincts and were able to trade their pelts and expertise for enough food and fuel to get them through harsh winters.

One such character, Jake Hoover, saved Russell’s hide in 1880 following the artist’s disastrous first attempt to herd sheep - he lost the whole flock. The two-room, sod-roofed cabin they shared for two years on the south fork of the Judith River is still standing.

Just outside Lewistown, at the geographic center of the state, the auto tour concludes near a piece of the Nez Perce National Historic Trail. Russell, who counted many Indians as his friends, painted the portrait “Chief Joseph,” depicting the leader of this non-treaty tribe that was forced to flee more than 1,000 miles from Oregon to Chinook, Mont., only to be overcome by federal troops.

There are lots of ways to approach a place like Montana. Seeing a piece of it through the eyes of a painter who lived through an extraordinary time helps a visitor understand the peculiar myth of the cowboy.

Wrote Russell: “It put me in mind of the eastern girl that asks her mother, ‘Ma,’ says she, ‘Do cowboys eat grass?’

“‘No dear,’ says the old lady, ‘they’re part human.”’

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: IF YOU GO Great Falls is about 350 miles from Spokane. Take Interstate 90 to Missoula and then route 200 to Great Falls. For a free Charlie Russell Auto Tour brochure and area information call 800-527-5348. An auto tour through south-central Montana is best in late spring through early fall. The region doesn’t get as hot as Eastern Montana or receive the moisture of the Rockies but an August visit this year did bring rain, hail, hot temperatures and cold winds. Be prepared to be flexible.

Accommodations Traditional accommodations are scarce. There are a few B&Bs, including Meadow Brook Farm (406-423-5537) in Hobson, and lots of ranches that take guests. Hill Country Expeditions (406-735-4484) in Geyser puts guests in a trailer and offers huge meals and a working ranch experience. The Circle Bar Guest Ranch (406-423-5454) in Utica is more luxurious and there is a minimum stay. Information: For a complete listing of area accommodations, including campsites and outfitters, call Travel Montana at 800-847-4868.

Food Hungry? Think beef. Burgers, steaks, ribs and roasts are the mainstay in rural Montana. And unless you’re staying at a ranch, the only places you’ll find ‘em are bars and the occasional supper club.

For more information An excellent guidebook to Montana is “Montana” by Norma Tirrell, (Fodor’s Travel Publications, 1991.) Another useful book is the “Montana Handbook,” by W.C. McRae and Judy Jewell, (Moon Publications, 1994). Charlie Russell’s tales about the old West are collected in a book “Trails Plowed Under” (Doubleday, 1927) which is still in print. Raphael Christy, a student of American history, has performed the stories nationwide and the audio cassettes “Charlie Russell’s Old Montana Yarns” are available by calling 800-484-9684, ext. 2884.