Finding inspiration with outdoor writers

There’s no shortage of inspiration this time of year.

As we eclipse into spring from the short, gray days of winter in the Mission Valley, blue skies and tolerable temperatures are enough to make anyone drag the running shoes or fishing pole out. And while I’ve done my fair share of outdoor activity in desperate attempts to thaw out, I still needed a kick in the pants.

That’s when I stumbled upon the Northwest Outdoor Writers Association’s annual conference this weekend in Polson.

Yessir, the best in the outdoor media from Idaho to British Columbia assembled at the KwaTaqNuq, and you probably didn’t even know it. But don’t blame yourself; the NOWA crowd is a pretty unassuming bunch.

You probably couldn’t pick them out of the crowd of unfamiliar faces that drift to Polson every weekend of the spring for Mack Days. The only difference, really, is that when these folks go back to work on Monday, they do so to write about what they did Saturday and Sunday. And if the Mission Valley offers nothing else to its visitors, it’s chock full of outdoor opportunities.

“One thing we really try to do is have a conference in an outdoor-oriented place,” NOWA President Gary Lewis told me. “Sometimes it’s in town and sometimes it’s out of town, but we really felt that the Polson location rose to the top because the lake is right there, we’ve got mountains all around us, and it’s so close to get out and do the kinds of things that our members like to do and like to write about.”

NOWA has had their annual get-together in Whitefish and Seeley Lake before, Lewis said, so they’re no strangers to Western Montana, but this was the group’s first trip to an Indian reservation for the event.

“We’re really missing the mark when we don’t include stories that can be developed from areas like an Indian reservation,” Lewis said. “There’s so much there that we can draw from.”

So they did just that, inviting CSKT Fish, Wildlife, Recreation and Conservation Division Manager Tom McDonald to a panel discussion entitled “Conservation and the Marketplace”. McDonald’s role on the panel – along with other guests Wade Muelhof from the Flathead National Forest and Jill Alban of the Clark Fork Coalition – was to talk about his work in order to inspire questions and story ideas from the group.

“What I want to talk about it the connection to the landscape the tribes have,” McDonald told the room, and he did just that, tying in everything CSKT’s conservationists do, from bison management to Mack Days.

McDonald explained the importance of preserving the threatened bull trout in Flathead Lake – the inspiration for the bi-annual fishing tournament in the first place. The Salish tribe, returning to the shores of Flathead Lake for winter after hunting bison east of the mountains in the fall, could always count on the bull trout fishery in the lake to sustain them through the winter.

“There’s just thousands of years of owing your life and depending on this fishery,” McDonald said. “... It’s like one of your family members.”

McDonald presented the tribes’ thought processes on other invasive species management techniques, such as gill netting, under that same umbrella.

But I didn’t just sit in a conference room with these folks all weekend. Friday was the day to get out and see what the area had to offer. Some folks went on a cruise on the lake, others to the National Bison Range for a wildlife tour.

I decided to tag along with the contingent that was to trap shoot at Van Voast’s Big Sky Sporting Clays in Irvine Flats. You’d think that a bunch of outdoorsmen would be better shooters, but as the old adage goes, the pen is mightier than the sword, right? (I was by far the worst shot there.)

Then I jetted down to Lower Crow Reservoir where Lewis, fellow Oregonian Craig Schuhmann, Montana outdoorsman Chuck Robbins, Alpen Optics Marketing Director Vickie Gardner and her two grandsons, Austin Sixta from Kansas and Caleb Rizio from California, had decided to fish and spotting wildlife. We saw more osprey than we did fish, but it was still a good time.

That evening, the Polson Chamber of Commerce treated the conference to a farm-to-table-themed dinner at the Polson VFW, hosted by many of the south shore’s familiar faces and featuring a keynote address from University of Montana Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research’s Norma P. Nickerson, who encouraged the group to tackle controversial topics in their writing.

I’m always surprised at how much I learn in such a short time with people like NOWA’s membership. And it’s not all about writing. People like Lewis, Robbins and former Polsonite Chub Eastman – a respected shooting sports writer – are the ones who keep the outdoor media industry a respectable institution and pave the way for aspiring outdoor writers (or just plain outdoorsmen) like myself. People like Gardner and my new friend Mike Harrelson, of Bozeman and the Montana Office of Tourism, make that career possible.

But the biggest thing I understood from the weekend is that it takes people like you who like to get out and do this awesome stuff to allow any of us to do what we do.

I’d like to issue a huge thanks to NOWA for letting me tag along on the weekend and encouraging to make new friends, but most especially for inspiring me to kick off my outdoor season the right way.