Hope's Imperfection

Chapter 9: Three Forks

As we approached Montana, Sarah and I began to shake off our slumber and open our eyes to the beauty of our surroundings. It is difficult to believe that two hundred years ago a family could blaze a new trail across the county from the east coast to the foot of the Rocky Mountains.

As we were entering Bozeman, Sarah read from a pamphlet she had borrowed from the church in St. Ignace. It recounted the life of St. Ignatius of Loyola, a Spanish noble and founder of the Jesuits, whose members were among the first missionaries to the new world.  It seems the charismatic young Ignatius was a ladies man and soldier in the early 1600s before a war injury confined him to bed rest and led to his conversion to Christianity. Later, at the University of Paris, Ignatius and a handful of ardent followers formed the “Society of Jesus” and took to the streets, helping those in need and informing the European countryside of the life of Jesus Christ and how his teachings were relevant to the present time. Almost as an aside, the society began to form gatherings of young men and, before long, they had unknowingly created a new institution: schools. It is this new body that has underpinned the work of the Jesuits ever since and today can be found in hundreds of universities and high schools across the world.

“I’ll be attending one of those schools in the fall,” I uttered.

“Are you sure that you still want to go there?” Sarah asked.

“Sure. Why not?” I replied. “Got any better ideas?”

“Chicago is a lovely city, and they even have a Jesuit school there if you are such a devotee,” Sarah remarked.

I smiled.

Sarah was the de facto tour guide for our adventure. Every time we encountered a new destination, there was Sarah with the facts and history of the territory we were about to explore.

We arrived at Bozeman which presents as a massive valley in the midst of several impressive mountain ranges. It would be difficult to run away in Bozeman, as from a high spot you can see the entire comings and goings of the town. It is the outskirts of the city that are interesting, and Sarah and I had our sights on three forks about thirty miles outside of town.

As with Chicago, our first stop in Bozeman was at a local museum. And just like in Chicago, we could find no history for the city that predated the early 1860s. There was no evidence of a claim where Richard’s friend (young Miss Sarah) and her family were to build a ranch and a hospital. The early history of this land had been all but lost. I had a hard time contemplating this complete lack of information. Clearly there were people in Bozeman for many years prior to the 1860s and, indeed, indigenous people have lived in the region for generations, but an organized history wasn’t present. It made me a little sad that the contributions of early settlers to the region had been ignored.

Our next job was to attempt to find transportation from the train station in Bozeman to the three forks of the Missouri River. The little town is just off Route 90 and we contemplated hitchhiking the thirty miles to our destination. At a visitor center just down the road from the train station we realized that there was an opportunity to camp close to the three forks area, presumably not far from George Stanhope’s final resting place. We purchased a tiny tent and a few measly provisions and headed to the road to catch a ride.