It may take years to get back to Cooke City again

Cooke City felt like a very long ways from anywhere when I arrived there 52 years ago.

I had driven over the Beartooth Pass from Red Lodge, and was still awestruck when I rolled into town. I had never seen such magnificent country.

I rented a cabin from Olive Nordquist who used to own a ranch on the Clark Fork where Ernest Hemingway stayed. There were saddle horses to rent tied to hitching posts at each end of town, and bears were frequent visitors after dark.

I got a job there with an outfitter and thought I had died and gone to heaven.

Later, I bought a cabin in Cooke where I was living w...