View From Our Place
Moving to Big Sky Country was a dream come true and a chance to raise our children in harmony with the land.
See why contest winner Monica Spencer loves her Montana home.
The rugged beauty of Montana’s Bitterroot Valley is simply unfathomable. Photographers and writers dream about it. Romantics long for it and adventurers crave it. The scenery whispers of the past and reminds us that a brighter future is on the horizon for those who aren’t afraid to work for it.
The call to move out west came four years ago when my husband, John, who is a physical therapist assistant, got a job offer. At the time we were living in Missouri. John had always wanted to be a mountain man, and I grew up in Washington state, surrounded by peaks. The move made sense.
Our home in Victor lies between the rolling tops of the Sapphire Mountains to the east and the jagged peaks of the Bitterroot Mountains to the west, with a patchwork of farms and ranches mixed along the foothills and the banks of the Bitterroot River. A few towns are scattered along the way.
The valley is roughly 25 miles at its widest point and 96 miles long, stretching from Lolo in the north to Lost Trail Pass on the border with
Idaho in the south. Our valley is overflowing with big sky views, jagged and rolling mountain landscapes, and the wild and scenic Bitterroot River, which cuts the valley in half.
We Montanans call our home “The Last Best Place,” after an anthology of stories by the state’s best writers. To live in such a beautiful region is a blessing.
We rent our humble home and have amazing and generous landowners who let us treat this place as if it were our very own.
The 50-plus acres we live on yield bountiful fruit and vast fields of grass. Our family gets to enjoy the landscape, gardens, livestock, hunting and so much more. We’re surrounded by vivid culture, a rich and deep history, wildlife, and tightknit communities.
The horses share farm fields with the local herd of elk and the abundant deer. Occasionally we are lucky enough to spot a stray moose looking for willows to forage through. We even had a black bear break one of our van’s windows when it was nosing around a while back!
In addition to my part-time work as a youth pastor at a local church, I home-school our five children: Alexander, 14, Abigaile, 12, Madison, 10, Gabriella, 8, and Amelia, 4. Raising them here is a privilege. This place provides a solid foundation upon which our children can grow and have the freedom to roam. The mountains stand strong as if to protect them from the outside world. It is a haven for the weary soul, a place of refuge for the wanderer.
Montanans call our home “The Last Best Place.”
Our view of the mountains invites us to explore their beauty, mysteries and wild spirit. In the summer, the cool stillness of the night and the rhythmic sounds of crickets refresh our spirits, making us ready for whatever we face in the days ahead.
The remnants of the hard work of past generations are visible all around us. We relish it today and work to make the land better for future generations.
Our children learn firsthand the importance of hard work when they help haul hay in the summer, work in the garden, or butcher a deer or elk they have harvested from this land. It gives them the understanding that nothing comes free and that sometimes living well requires blood, sweat and tears. They’re learning to appreciate the feeling of success that comes with a hard day’s work.
And, as a reward, we can sit on our porch and watch the sun paint the mountains and sky with vivid pinks, purples, blues and oranges as day gives way to night.
In his 1962 book Travels with Charley: In Search of America,
John Steinbeck wrote, “I am in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection, but with Montana it is love, and it’s difficult to analyze love when you are in it.”
We wholeheartedly agree.