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As Lewis and Clark ventured west and into present-day Montana, they traversed rare and beautiful landscapes — prairie grasslands, rivers, forests and snow-capped mountains. When Americans remember the Corps journey, they often imagine scenes of the men lugging gear beyond the Great Falls of the Missouri River and the awesome site of the Bitterroot Range of the Rocky Mountains.
Their journals describe the diversity of life found here and how the landscape changed as they ventured west. Today, many pristine lands remain seemingly untouched. At places along the trail, you still can grasp the awe the Corps felt in seeing these wild, untamed lands.
In north central Montana, north of the vast Missouri River Breaks, ranching country undulates as far as the eye can see. The Glaciated Plains region boasts some of North America’s best remaining northern mixed-grass prairie, which supports robust populations of grassland birds that are in decline elsewhere throughout their range. It also is home to black-tailed prairie dogs and is a site of ferret reintroduction efforts.
Here, ranchers are working with the Conservancy at its 60,000-acre Matador Ranch — one of the state’s oldest ranches — on a new concept: grassbanking. It involves the exchange of forage for conservation practices. Participating ranchers graze their cattle on the Matador and, in turn, agree to manage for livestock grazing and wildlife habitat across more than a quarter million acres.
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In Their Own Words... |
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“The mountains, they still continue high and seem to rise in some places like an amphatheater one rang above another as they receede from the river untill the most distant and lofty have their tops clad with snow. the adjacent mountains commonly rise so high as to conceal the more distant and lofty mountains from our view.”
~ Lewis | | Farther west, at the Gates of the Mountains near present day Helena, steep limestone cliffs rise up around you, seeming to block your passage along the Missouri River before giving way to a narrow gorge. At the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, you instantly are transported. There is an expansive, almost lonely feeling in places like these along the trail. Animals, such as the grizzly bear, still find safe haven not only in Montana’s high country, but also on the plains east of the Rocky Mountain Front – the only place where grizzlies still come out on the plains in the lower 48 states.
Attracted by its natural beauty, more people are moving into western Montana, changing this landscape. Development threatens to fragment the region, making it difficult for wildlife to migrate and disturbing natural plant communities. One of the ways the Conservancy is working to preserve Montana's last great, open places is by working with and supporting good ranching stewards of the land. | 
