Earlier this month, our Heart of the Rockies team visited Choteau, Montana for a few days to learn and connect. Located in north central Montana, on the Rocky Mountain Front, Choteau is a vibrant rural community deeply committed to the landscape that has sustained ranching and farming families for generations and to growing economic development efforts that will benefit the region and its residents for the long-term.
Heart of the Rockies Initiative has been working with community members and partners in Choteau since 2021 in various capacities. Most recently, in 2025, the Rural Initiatives program provided capacity support and technical assistance to the Choteau Area Port Authority (CAPA) for their successful application for Montana Department of Commerce’s Pilot Community Tourism Grant Program, which secured $2.75-million to support community tourism assets and infrastructure projects. The Keep It Connected program has provided funding for Vital Ground and The Nature Conservancy – Montana conservation easement projects in the area. And, our Carnivore Conflict Reduction program works closely with area landowners, NGO partners, and agency staff to provide resources for producers and communities sharing the landscape with carnivores.
The visit to Choteau provided an invaluable opportunity to meet community members, landowners, and partners. We toured a wide range of community organizations benefiting from the CAPA grant in the area — from the Roxy nonprofit community theater to the Weather Beater indoor agricultural arena to the Old Trail Museum — and met the folks behind these efforts. The collaborative energy driving of these community-led projects and the shared commitment to ensuring the area continues to sustain rural residents’ quality of life and economic opportunity was inspiring.
We also had a chance to visit several local conservation easement projects, alongside member staff from Vital Ground, The Nature Conservancy – Montana, and Montana Land Reliance. A highlight of that field tour was a visit with a landowner who described the motivations behind his family’s decision to protect a portion of their ranch from future development through an easement. Hearing firsthand from the landowner about his and his siblings’ commitment to the agricultural legacy of these working lands and to the wildlife that share the landscape was a privilege. Conversations like these are such powerful reminders of the why behind our work to support private land protection in the region.
Spending those days immersed in the town and touring the landscape with the rural residents, producers, and partners who are doing critical community-level work to ensure livelihoods, wildlife, and economic development in the region thrive brought our Heart of the Rockies programs to life in an entirely new way. As a staff, it was a valuable opportunity to appreciate one another’s efforts across programmatic work in this one place and to see the organization’s holistic impact in one geography.
Oh — and we had some fun! We dug for dinosaur bones with The Montana Dinosaur Center in the shadow of Ear Mountain, tested our bear spray skills with our partners at Fish, Wildlife, and Parks (and our bear smarts in a trivia session), ate delicious meals, and hiked to take in some stunning views. As a remote team, the chance to be together in-person was a treat. We’re incredibly grateful to the community members in Choteau who made us feel so welcome, shared so much of their time and energy with us, and continue to work tirelessly to ensure the vitality of their community. We can’t wait to visit again.
Photo in header courtesy of Choteau Area Port Authority.
