Mountain West Voices

In this episode of "Mountain West Voices:" A Montana couple talks about wind, sustainable energy, and their (mostly) successful attempt to live off grid.

Curtis Brien is principal and athletic director of Lodge Grass High School on Montana's Crow Indian Reservation. But his path to that position was long and difficult. In this episode of Mountain West Voices, he talks about the emotional and physical scars left by his four years at Indian boarding schools, and what he learned from the experience.

This week on Mountain West Voices: A visit with singer/songwriter Martha Scanlan on the remote ranch in southeastern Montana that inspired Tongue River Stories - her album about landscape, tradition and community.

In this episode of "Mountain West Voices," Elvia Stockton talks about her romance with American painter Bill Stockton at the end of WWII, and her transition from Paris to the isolated Montana sheep ranch where she lived with her husband for more than 50 years.

In this episode of "Mountain West Voices," Montana rancher Ellen Pfister talks about the impact of longwall coal mining on the ranching communities of central Montana. (Broadcast: " Mountain West Voices ," 2/22/16, Mondays, 4:53 p.m., or via podcast .)

In this episode of Mountain West Voices, Patricia Netherland tells of the journey that took her from a successful career as an MMA (mixed martial arts) fighter - " Little Patricia Vidonic " - to her life as a single mother and successful entrepreneur in Billings, Montana.

This week on "Mountain West Voices:" The remarkable story of Flora Wong , a Chinese-American woman who survived the Sino-Japanese war and came to Montana as a "Picture Bride."

In this episode of Mountain West Voices, we hear from Dulcie May Klusmann, who, as a teenager, worked as a code breaker at Bletchley Park, Britain's top secret center for breaking German codes and ciphers.

In this episode of Mountain West Voices, Lorraine Rivers Tucker recalls the journey that took her from the rough Montana copper mining town of her childhood, to a Dominican convent in Wisconsin, to Mobile, Alabama in the early 1960s.

In this episode of Mountain West Voices, we visit a remarkable language teacher at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Dorothy Thunder grew up at Little Pine First Nations Reserve in Saskatchewan, surrounded by the Plains Cree language. Today, the number of young people who speak the language is dwindling. Dorothy has dedicated her life to reversing that trend.

In this exciting episode of Mountain West Voices, producer Clay Scott recounts the rescue of an orphaned black bear cub on the Montana prairies, miles from suitable bear habitat.

Pronghorn antelope make the second longest migration of any North American land animal. But their ancient migration routes are threatened by livestock fencing.

If you live in Montana, you might have seen John Dendy playing guitar in a cafe, or club, or bar. A big tall guy with an upright bass or guitar, playing songs that are a little bit out of the ordinary.

A visit with the band Scatter Their Own from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Pine Ridge is a vast, sparsely populated reservation with the highest poverty and unemployment rates in the nation. But for Scotti, Scotti Junior and Julianna Clifford, their land and their Oglala Lakota culture are things of profound beauty to be celebrated in song.

Guss Yellow Hair , a Lakota and Northern Cheyenne artist from South Dakota's Pine Ridge Reservation, talks about his role as "culture bearer," and about the importance of passing on tradition through language and music. (Broadcast: " Mountain West Voices ," 8/31/15 and 1/4/16, Monday afternoons, 4:53 p.m., or via podcast .)

A visit with award-winning environmentalist cowboy poet Wally McRae on his ranch in southeast Montana.

This week on Mountain West Voices, we visit the class of award-winning biology teacher Jim Schulz, of Helena, Montana, on his last day of teaching before he retires. (Broadcast: " Mountain West Voices ," 8/3/15, Monday afternoons, 4:53 p.m., or via podcast .)

Cory Caswell has worked as a hired hand on Wyoming and Montana ranches since he came west as a teenager, not staying in any one place longer than a few months. He talks about his hard, unpredictable, but satisfying life as itinerant ranch hand.

A visit with Pauline Berekoff at the Sons of Freedom Gilpin Settlement , a little known community near Grand Forks, British Columbia. The Sons of Freedom are descended from the Russian Doukhobors who came to Canada in the late 1800's, and Pauline talks about the fight to maintain her beliefs, and about her community's conflict with the Canadian government. (Broadcast: " Mountain West Voices ," 7/6/15, Monday afternoons, 4:53 p.m., or via podcast .)

Four exchange students - from China, Thailand, Korea and Mexico - spend a year in tiny Judith Gap, Montana. All four students are from cities of several million, and attended schools with thousands of students. Judith Gap has 120 inhabitants, and before the exchange students arrived, the high school had an enrollment of only two.