“I’m in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, and even some affection. But with Montana it is love.”
— John Steinbeck, “Travels with Charley: In Search of America” (1962)

If Virginia is for lovers (as its travel slogan claims), then Montana is for lovers of wildlife, landscapes and Western history.

One hour into a mid-June Montana trip, on Route 87 north of Billings, my brother and I exhausted our list of superlatives. Montana’s landscape is stunning. Majestic. Spectacular. Glorious. Grand. Picture a lush, green June hayfield in Maine — one that stretches from horizon to horizon — and you’ll have an inkling of Montana’s prairie. Picture four Maines inside Montana, then add a couple of hundred-thousand square miles, and you’ll have an idea of its immense size.

Most of the Treasure State’s native shortgrass prairie, though, has been altered by multi-thousand-acre ranches with colorful names like “Seven Hangings Ranch” and “Boot Print Ranch.” Over 2 million cattle, mostly black angus, have replaced the millions of bison. In Montana, cattle outnumber residents 2:1.

A badger is shown in Montana. On a recent trip to the state, Ron Joseph saw a badger and her three pups cross a gravel road. Photo courtesy of Kent Keller

On Day One, we lunched and stretched our legs on the prairie at the edge of a small cemetery in Grass Range, population 114. As our rental vehicle weaved its way back to Route 87, a badger and her three pups crossed a gravel road in front of us. I stopped the vehicle, and with the window down, scanned the tall ditch grasses for the hidden animals. As I restarted the vehicle, a badger pup dashed out from the ditch, growled, and bit my front left tire. Its mother raced up the bank, grabbed the pup’s nape with her jaws, and hauled it back into the ditch. Badgers, regardless of age, are fearless.

Several hours later, we saw wild bison at Sun Prairie section of the American Prairie Reserve, part of a network of conservation lands dedicated to re-wilding parts of Montana’s prairies.

It was breathtaking to hear and watch bison grunt while grazing on blue grama grass amid the cheery, whistling songs of western meadowlarks.

A bison is shown on a Montana prairie. Ron Joseph says he found bison breathtaking to hear. Photo courtesy of National Park Service

On June 3, 1805, Captains Meriwether Lewis & William Clark were equally awestruck by bison. That evening, Lewis wrote: “Capt. C & myself stroled out to the top of the hights in the fork of these rivers (Marias and Missouri Rivers in today’s Montana) from whence we had an extensive and most enchanting view; the country in every derection around us was one vast plain in which unnumerable herds of Buffalow were seen attended by their shepperds the wolves … ”

When Lewis & Clark led the Corps of Discovery across the Great Plains from 1804 to 1806, bison dominated the landscape from Montana to Texas, and as far east as western New York. In the 1840s, up tp 60 million bison roamed the Great Plains. But by 1890, all but a remnant population — fewer than 1,000 — had been exterminated by Euro-Americans. With the prairies vacant of bison and Native Americans (forcibly removed to reservations), the grasslands became the domain of cattle barons, most notably the XIT Ranch, whose cowboys drove thousands of longhorns from the Texas Panhandle to Montana. The heyday of the cattle barons was romanticized in Lonesome Dove, a Pulitzer Prize-winning 1985 novel by Larry McMurtry.

Day Two produced another ecological gem: The Nature Conservancy’s 60,000-acre Matador Ranch. Located within North America’s best remaining northern prairie, the dual-purpose ranch protects wildlife and family ranching. In addition to horses and cattle, we saw long-billed curlews, upland sandpipers, Sprague’s pipits, yellow-breasted chats, golden eagles, burrowing owls, prairie dogs, pronghorn antelope, white-tailed deer and mule deer. Forewarned by TNC staff to be cautious walking near prairie dog towns because “that’s where rattlesnakes hang out,” we lucked into encountering a mating pair of prairie rattlesnakes.

A prairie rattlesnake is shown in Montana. On a recent trip to the state, Ron Joseph encountered a mating pair of prairie rattlesnakes. Photo courtesy of Kent Keller

The ranch is home to the longest-migrating antelope on Earth, with many traveling 200 miles or more each way between their summer grounds in Canada and their wintering grounds in Montana. Pronghorns can reach speeds of 60 mph, making them the world’s second-fastest land animal (cheetahs are faster). But unlike cheetahs, which tire quickly, pronghorns can sustain top speeds for a mile before throttling down to 30 mph for 20 miles. Lewis & Clark struggled to identify their first antelope, calling it a “wild goat,” then “goat-antelope,” before settling on antelope. On Sept. 14, 1804, Lewis wrote: “They appear to run with more ease and to bound with greater agility than any animal I ever saw.”

Each summer, history buffs visit Montana’s Lewis & Clark historical sites. One of our favorites is Pompey’s Pillar National Monument on the banks of the Yellowstone River. The 120-foot sandstone outcrop has attracted humans for 11,000 years. For millennia, herds of bison crossed a nearby natural ford in the river. The pillar features Native American petroglyphs and William Clark’s signature, dated July 25, 1806. It’s the only remaining physical evidence of the expedition’s nearly 8,000-mile roundtrip from St. Louis to the Pacific Ocean.

In his journal, Clark wrote: “This rock I ascended and from its top had a most extensive view in every direction.” He named the outcropping “Pompey’s Tower.” (In 1814, editor Nicholas Biddle changed the name to Pompey’s Pillar.) Pompey was Clark’s nickname for Sacagawea’s son, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau.

No trip to Montana is complete without visiting the hallowed grounds of Little Bighorn Battlefield, which memorializes the U.S. Army’s 7th Cavalry. The site, one of Native Americans’ last armed battles to preserve their way of life, also honors the Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho. On June 25, 1876, 268 soldiers, including the controversial Lt. Col. George A. Custer, died fighting an estimated 2,000 Native warriors. At least four Mainers of the 7th Calvary died that day, including Lt. James E. Porter, who was born in Strong, Maine, in 1846, and had attended Bates College.

A western meadowlark is shown in Montana. Photo courtesy of Kent Keller

Here are a few colorful field notes from my Montana trip:

• In Roundup, sign on sliding glass door of Picchioni’s IGA reads: “Live Bait: Pink Maggots and Crawlers.” I ask a cashier about the maggots. She says, “They’re in a container in the cooler, next to the milk and butter.”

• At a grocery store on the Crow reservation, a Crow asks where I’m headed. I reply, “To visit Fort Phil Kearny and the site of the Fetterman massacre in 1866.” He says his great-great grandfather, a Lakota, participated in the fight, and that Crazy Horse and 10 other warriors lured Fetterman and 80 soldiers into a trap by mooning them.

• Met a ranching couple at a gas station in the town of Circle. Responding to my comment about my rental car nearly running out of gasoline, the man said, “Gas stations in this part of Montana are about as common as hair on a trout.”

• Café sidewalk sign in Missoula reads, “Soup of the day: Whiskey.”

• At the Panther Café in Valier, a cattle rancher wearing well-worn cowboy boots, dusty clothes, and a sweat-stained cowboy hat sat on a stool next to me. I said, “This seems like a quiet little town.” He replied, “Yessiree, but it was much quieter 65 years ago when I was a youngin. Back then, I could take a two-hour noon nap on Main Street and never get run over.”

There’s a lot to love about Montana, including the 118 bird species we added to our wildlife trip list.

Ron Joseph, of Sidney, is author of “Bald Eagles, Bear Cubs, and Hermit Bill: Memories of a Maine Wildlife Biologist.” His column appears monthly.