I'm Wolf Fulton, and this is thrill Est Explorers. When I landed in Montana, it was zero degrees faarrey night, and it only got colder. This bank sign says it is a crisp negative four degrees, which I definitely believe. From the Bozeman Yellowstone Airport, the drive to Livingston, Montana, my first stop, should have taken about thirty minutes, but the area got about a foot of snow the night before, and the entire road was covered by alternating snow dress and sheets of black ice. It was not an easy drive, but when I got to my destination, I started feeling better almost immediately. But there's several great little bars with meon lights on this strip, so I'm feeling okay about it. The only personel right now the whole town to myself, So that wasn't true. As it turns out a lot of people were in town, but they were inside drinking. This is what it sounds like to go out in negative degree weather in Livingstone, Montana while making some new friends. Do you know my brother Kurt, I remember it. Mom was surprised. She talked to he was a man of right now, and honestly, like I probably wouldn't have known it was Jeff Bridges, but it was like right after I had seen Starman and he was looking up at the sky like he was Starman. I got his autograph a few different times, and at the end he like knew, He's like what are you doing with this? But like, um still is Carnies Grouper Games. So he signed me another autograph and I thought it was amazing. My sister, who is much younger than me, she's like, Mr. Mom is sitting behind us and like yeah, Michael Keaton was right behind him, like oh yeah, okay, yeah, no, I'm it was weird. My grandfather's family, UM immigrated over from Norway. They we're supposed to come over on the Titanic to look at the roles, got rheumatic fever or some some illness to where they were not able to travel, so they didn't end up. They came over a month later on the Sister ship. We were drinking the Owl out. It has vintaged Neon signed extremely cheap drinks and it's been open for about fifty years. Apparently it used to have shag carpet, but the owner at that time I'm sure smoke Stokey that he was bartender, went to Stoke and his mouth time likes cigars. Livingston is known as the Northern Gateway. It's a Yellowstone National Park. Numerous people here called it verbatim, a real cowboy town. Celebrities like the aforementioned Jeff Bridges and Michael Keaton have homes in the area, and writers like Russell Chatham and Jim Harrison lived and drank here. Okay, so this was the writer's bar. And when they would publish a book, Dana Latch was the bartender, yes, and he would. They would come in and they give him their book that was published and it would go there. And so you have to look up all the authors and the writers in Livingston. There's great energy, new energy that is coming in and UH is bringing new stuff. But it's a poor community and it always has been, and we make most of it. But it's an old town. The buildings are old, the signs are old, a lot of the stories are old. The businesses in all these buildings have changed hundreds of times. But all the buildings, well except for the ones that burned down famously, which is I think it's pretty typical of a town of this Age incorporated in eighty three. It was really built around the Northern Pacific Railway, and some forms of gambling are actually legal here in Montana. So at bars you'll find video slot or video poker machines, or even shak a day, which is like yachtzi but with the cash produce. Fallo, How does this work? Roles? And you have to roll five of a kind in one shape because if you roll four of a guy and did you get a free drink? But five of a kind is what you're trying to get in one role? All right, I don't do this a lot. Oh, I've never heard of it. I know how to do it, all right? Again, pretty close though, how often do people win? It sounds very lame, But there is just something special in the air here. And it wasn't just a wind chill freezing my nose hair. This is the type of quote unquote hidden jam destination. Publications like thrillists are always writing about. We have written about livings, much to the chagrin of some locals. You know what, we don't want you to come here. We don't want you to change our life. You know, we don't want your money. We just want to be what we are. Okay. So when people like us like throw this cover and they're like, little is a great place to go, I mean that doesn't doesn't it's a great place to go, but go and visit. Don't say don't freaking make it so the people who have been living here an entire life can't afford to live. Yeah, like, be passionate about Livingston, bring us money, or the people who are living here don't. Yeah, and then go hume. It's a different type of cold honestly, all right. Oh, this area of Montana, Livingston and especially nearby Bozeman are some of the most rapidly growing cities in the country. Housing prices are skyrock getting and tourism, with so many people seeking out rural adventures in the age of COVID, is absolutely booming. At one point, people came to these towns for their close proximity to numerous natural wonders. Now they're coming here just to hang out at the bars, at the art galleries, or at the Murray Hotel, where I happen to be staying for the night. Lit by a neon sign that towers over the town's main drag, the lobby of the hotel is filled with taxidermy animals, marble counters, vintage furniture. It looks like a set dressed as a historic mountain hotel, which, of course it is. My name is Malcolm Cox. I am the general manager at the Murray Hotel and living in Montano. One of the things that I really love is that it was first opened by a woman hurting with Chosephine Klein. They were constructing in nineteen o three, open in nineteen o four. The first two floors are the original original hotel. A lot of people find us just by accident, you know, at the sap upon here, and they love it, you know, like I have. Despite the remote location, the hotel is frequented by a slew of politicians and celebrities. Anthony Bourdain named it one of his ten favorite hotels in the entire world, and much of the intrigue is focused around the hotel's notorious Peck and Pass suite. So originally it was three or four separate rooms, and in the nineteen twenties, this wealthy young man, you know, Party Gore, decided to purchase the room and combine three of them together. In the late seventies, the director Sam Peck and Paul, who made a lot of Westerns. He decided to take up presidence here. Essentially him and his something of like six or eight cats. Yeah, he was a party or smoker, and he was just a life of the town and he would spend his days in the bar global stairs and sleep in this apartment. So we named it after him, Sam Peck and Paul. And he said that there's still bullets in there, not anymore because I was letting in water. Well, you know that did have to be patched. But Sam would sit onto his back and shoot at the ceiling in the morning, you know, one of the um Yes, we're checking in. Oh yeah, we were just talking about the packing pas set. Yeah. The hotel is also famous for its in house bar and two very celebrated restaurants. Bryan Mingez came in and he really revitalized the area. He originally got the bistro called Us at the Street Bistro, and then he got the Murray Bar, and in two thousand nine he bought Gils Goods, which used to be a gift shop here. He's really helped put us on the map because you know, he's the chef and does a great job. We're experiencing the boom of some sort. You know, like Postman, which is just thirty minutes from Livingston, is is growing really really fast, and that is running over and spilling over into the valley into Livingston here. A big problem is that we do have a lot of people coming here and buying houses and just having them be airbnbs. So we just really want people to invest in local, Like if you're gonna stay in living since day in the historic place like this, you know, eat at our restaurants, shop at our shops. You know, like we took a long time to get to this point, so if you're gonna come here, please respect that and please just invest in our local businesses like you know, um, like just everyone's personality is very welcoming and we like to share our little place with people. Awesome is that the world stalls? Yeah, he stayed here in when he was like late teens or early twenties. He was so told he had to sit down in our elevator, which is still the original elevator of the hotel. You know, when I woke up, the bank signed across from the Murray Hotel confirmed what I already felt to my bones. It was literally negative ten degrees at nine, but still I got into my rental jeep and drove about forty five minutes south the Chico Hot Springs, a resort famous amongst locals for its bars, restaurants, hotel, and obviously Hot Springs. Despite fearing for my life every time I needed to turn, break or push the accelerator, it was probably one of the most gorgeous drives of my life. We're half an hour from the Yellowston National Park and it's thirty miles south of Livingston. But it's a river. It's a glacial river valley, so um, the Elstone River flows down the heart of it. It's a really wide open valley with mountains on both sides. And I mean, for me, every day driving to work is an adventure. There's always something to look as a herd of elk. There's an eagle or two every day. I mean, it's truly truly idyllic. What is the history here? How did this place kind of, for lack of a better word, spring up, spring up? That's good, have to they might have to steal that. It's all yours. This is Colin Davis. He owns the Chico Hot Springs with his Wife's sea bring so um. The genesis was people coming into the Gults looking for gold, and that was prior the hot springs existed. The Native Americans used to come through and it was sort of a sacred spot for them. But when when miners came looking for gold, this became a place where they would come to their laundry, come swim, come clean, come so come grab water. And there was a camp cook named Chico who did their laundry and cook for them, and they just nicknamed this place Chico based on him. In nineteen hundred, the land was bought by a local couple who turned it into a twenty room hotel. Since then, the property has grown to a full blown mountain resort. It's been iconic in Montana. It's the locals haunt and people people come to get away. It's, you know, it's old school in a lot of respects. They have one of the oldest saloons in the state. Their dining room, run by head chef Dave Wells, has earned to aimes beard dominations. But still the main draw of Chico is their hot springs. But it's your thermal activity out of Yellowston National Park because you know, it comes out of the ground at about a hundred and eight, and by the time it hits the small pool it's about a hundred and three. There's a lot of hot springs across the state, you know, in almost every corner of it. But I think it's really the fact that it's organic, that it's nature. It's just an experience. It's open air. And right now, what is it eight degrees and eight below or whatever? And yeah, and there's a few there's a few people in the pool of the Brave Ones and it's over now. Okay, I think kind of when I deal there, there you go, where where is it exactly? I can help you with that. So it's right out the windows you sell that steam coming up. The steam. I was just out there with some guys. The steam is so thick you can you can't see across the pool where you can keep your head on. It's not a bad idea, be silly to come as far right. I resisted the urge to snag a PBR in the saloon and instead headed to the men's locker room to prep for a sub zero dip. Since our sons been three, we've been coming here on President's Day weekend on usually Wednesday, but today was a little different for today sixteen now, so thirteen years. What do you like at that? I'm not sure because it's frigid, cold and it's alarm. I usually drive with the kids here. We always come here. We have to come here, so that's why we're here today. If it was nice, we'd be here no problem. But the kids got us here today. I'm from Bloomington, Minnesota, just outside of Minneapolis. Oh yeah. Dipping into the hot springs, I could not see more than two feet in front of my face. It reminded me of hot boxing cars in high school, or I mean seeing other people on TV hot boxing cars in high school. Obviously, but every so often a cold wind come through and reveal the mountaintops, and even though it hurts like hell to get out of that water, I would definitely do it again, probably every day if I could. Antana on the whole was looking for other forms of revenue besides agriculture, besides mining, right so, but Montana was looking to increase its tourism base. It's got, it's got. It has a very strong and very successful tourism department that's done their job really well. But but now in the last five years, and I think COVID really um added steroids to it, you know. Right after COVID and as we started to back down on it, the flood of tourism was something like none of us had ever seen. Everybody was had been pent up for years one to get out. They also want to get out of the city and get to the most rural place they can. So yeah, it's um. The interest in Montana is ramped up to a to a really crazy level. But the tourism is is it Is it welcome? For sure? I mean it's um. It's just responsible tourism. I guess that's what we're all looking for. But we're seeing it. We're definitely seeing more chursen than we've ever seen. It's becoming very obvious why people like to come to Montana. And it wasn't because every time I breathed in it felt like I was snorting a York peppermint patty. After I dried off and warmed up, I traced my path back to Livingston and got on the highway to Bozeman, where I'd be staying for the rest of my trip, where we will hear about some of the area's most Precious Natural Wonders, one of its best bars and one of its more prominent meme pages for real. But first, sadly, we need to take a quick break. Stick around. Hi. My name is Dr Shane Doyle, and I'm an educational and cultural consultant member of the Crown Nation, liveing here in Bozeman, Montana, a member of the Upsolia Nation. And so we are located in south central Montana along the Little Big Horn and Big Horn rivers, and our original reservation stretched to the Yellowstone River all the way and included all the Yellowstone Park. So this valley here has been inhabited by people for over twelve thousand years. We have archaeological evidence of that, and many different tribes that still live in this region called this place their homeland. So this was a well known valley by Native people for a very long time. And um, it's kind of cool to think about it. Well, you know, any direction you go from Embozement is going to be phenomenal. You can head south into the mountains, or you can head north where it's a little more open, pretty desolate. You can head to the east where the Great Plains are and Yellowstone River, and you know, you can make your way to the Yellowstone Park, or you can head to the west again and deep into the Rocky mountains, and there's hot springs. In all directions, there's hiking. If you like to fish, uh, there's rivers, blue ribbon trout fishing streams anywhere you go. I personally like to go to areas that are less frequently traveled by the typical tourists and um even local people. So I tend to gravitate north of Bozeman. Um the valley out towards Mode though, and going out towards White Sulfur Springs is another amazing spot near the headwaters of the Smith River. If you're gonna make your way to Bozeman this summer, there's a great exhibit at the Museum of the Rockies. The Museum of the Rockies is located up by the University Montana State University, and in the museum this summer is going to be an exhibit that was curated at the Field Museum in Chicago, and it's all about the Crow tribe. Our real name for ourselves is Uppsali Gap, but we're known popularly, I guess as the Crow Nation, the Crow people. And so this exhibit is going to include a lot of amazing artwork can um really uh phenomenal historical artifacts. Dr Doyle works with the Museum of the Rockies, which also features one of the most extensive and for lack of a better word, coolest dinosaur fossil collections anywhere. They've got one of the best dinosaur exhibits in the world. They've got incredible real fossils that there's working on. You can actually see people working on those fossils. You know, you could spend hours in just one little section and just learned so much about dinosaurs. And Dr Doyle, like everyone in the area, definitely had some thoughts on the well established but still rapidly growing tourism industry in town. So I've been in Bozeman for about thirty years off and on, and I'm seeing the town change a lot. Come to Bozeman, have a great time, enjoy the outdoors, but just make sure that you always clean up after yourself. Pack it in, pack it out. Think about the ancient history of this place too. You know, it's not very well known, but I think we're starting to publish more of it as we go, and it's someday in the future. When people come to visit Bozeman and go to the mountains and rivers, they'll they'll know a lot more about the people who lived here for thousands of years. There's a special energy here. It's a it's a youthful energy, but there's also a sense of sophistication that comes along with it. And it's a type of energy that loves sunshine and cold weather. You know, on a day like today where it's way below zero and it's sunny and clear, there's a special beauty here in Bozeman. I was staying at the Lark Hotel, which is essentially located in the downtown area, walking distance to dozens of art galleries, bookstores, vintage clothing shops, restaurants and bars. We like to think of ourselves as kind of the base camp for people for their downtown experience. Tell you to come in and park your car and we'll take care of everything else so that you can just walk downtown explore. This is Tasha Starr. She's a hotel manager. What I would say about the style of the hotel is very boutique and independent feeling. You know, our motto is kind of everything you need and nothing you don't, so you won't have your typical coffee pots or you know, refrigerators in the room because those end up really being the things in a hotel that you know, don't really do well for the environment. And being in Bozeman, we really, we really care. I mean, like part of the Bozeman experience is that it goes hand in hand with things that you can do inside the town, but part of that experiences doing things outside the town as well. And this is Jesse Matthew, guest services supervisor and a born and raised Bozeman night or Bozo or bos and you get what I mean. Bozeman is like the perfect based camp. Just like twenty minutes away north of US is a ski resorty called Bridgard Bull. It's super close by, so it's like a local nonprofit co op, so it's super cheap. The barrier to entry is just really really low. It's super affordable. And then on like south of us, just like an hour away is Big Sky, which is like the second largest ski resort in the country. Ice climbing right now is just going on. It's huge right now. I mean everything's frozen, so obviously, yeah, but it's doing great right now. And unlike a lot of other hotels in towns like Bozeman, the Lark wants you to stay there, of course, but they don't want you to actually stay there. We could milk people for money as much as we want, but it's not quite what we're looking for here. You're not going to experience that in the hotel. You're going to experience that outside of the hotel in Bozeman. We're very proud of Bozeman. We're very proud of what we can do out here. And if you're stopping by and you're looking for something for and we know where it is. I mean, Bozeman is growing so incredibly quickly and that does bring changes. One thing that would absolutely destroy your reputation in this town would be for any kind of disrespect for the outdoor environment, for the city itself. I think that if you're in Yellowstone, you have to have that kind of respect and reverence around the area. It's such a beautiful nature preserve, and we kind of expect the same kind of attitude towards all nature. It's people's homes, both in city and out of the city. The mountains are our livelihood. And speaking of livelihoods, I was ready to go out there and support some local businesses, namely the Kimate Serve alcohol Um. Right around the corner here we have blend Um, which is a local winery, and then down the way we have Plunk. So those are good for people just going out to get a gosp wine or a cocktail pre dinner, post dinner. Naturally, Plunk was my next stop. So Plank is kind of elizabethan Um old school term that means cheap, shitty table one. It's just kind of the irony of we have the best wine list in the state and um, we're calling ourselves shitty and cheap. This is bred f g, one of the owners of Plank. According to him, the better owner. We have a really fantastic food program and really our mainstay is craft cocktails and the focus on the boodist spirit side. Within the walls of the restaurant, we have a bunch of different experiences from a casual allowance section to a high end dining area. Um, we have a fully stocked wine cellar, one of the best in the state, and we have private parties down there. But really the cool part about Plank, I think is that is that you can come in and have a different experience every time that that you walk in the door over and over and over again. You don't have a host um and so really it's just walk in and choose your poison for the night. You know, there's nowhere else where you can have a private wine celler, dinner or anything. To the other end of the spectrum. When we do a special wide production of Rocky Horror Picture Show on Halloween. And this is Sam Crutch, the general manager, who has seen the culinary scene in Bozeman changed radically in the past half decade. You know, I think probably back in two thousand three when they open, people would come out here and think I can get steak and then I can get steaken eggs for breakfast and maybe a steak sandwich for lunch or something like that. The town and the entire area have so many small, independent, audaciously fun bars and restaurants. You could come here and just eat and drink and do nothing else for an entire week and still have a great vacation. Blackbird is a low lit Italian restaurant seemingly plucked out of the trendiest neighborhood in Brooklyn, whatever that would be right now. Jam is a brightly colored breakfast nook with drag brunch the weekends, and the food of Plank was so fresh it made me consider why I even want to live in my own stupid, trendy Berkeley neighborhood. Anyway, Well, I think the last five years specifically, we've seen such an influx of of people moving into this area, in the Gallus and Valley specifically, and really since COVID really seen a lot of growth. In two thousand three when this open, I think there was a lot of people thinking wine bar and bowsman, this will never fly, will make it a year. But we we certainly were ahead of the curve when we first opened this place, and it did take some time for people to really fully embrace it as far as we changed the dining and drinking scene in this town. And in some ways, the fellows that Plank consider the hourison problem to be an offshoot of a general people problem happening everywhere. Let me just back up and say, in some ways, you know, for the most part, there's always the outliers of assholes that are to come into a restaurant, and those are people that you have to deal with. That the strain of the last two years has been unbelievable, and we are seeing it seriously reflected in everybody. I'm fit generation from the state, and I'm being more of an asshole than I used to be. So when I do hear that people are complaining about tourists being assholes, yes, of course they're being assoles and um, but the most of them are are gracious and and I think we're willing to, you know, partake and be good people around here. You know, we've had to pick out way more locals than we have than we have if we have tourists, I'll tell yeah, yeah, I think most tourists come here without expectations and they're curious. And I think those two things are if you're looking for a rubric of how to be a good tourist, don't come with any expectations and just be curious about where you are. You know, the town is changing, of course, like the country is changing. In my attitude, at least personally towards it. As you know, we can sit here and be cynical, or we could be a part of that change. Maybe try to influence a little bit of it and get our little piece of the pie too, Because there's you know, with all this growth comes a ton of opportunity. You know, we're we're kind of at a cool place with this town, and certain things are being rewritten, and so if we take advantage of that and do it the right way, the future can be cool for you know, pretty much everybody. And that's why I'm running for office. And so when you're working on something like this, a travel show or a travel article, it is so hard to balance your job of telling people about this admittedly amazing place, while also hearing locals gripe about you telling everyone about this amazing place, and also hearing from business owners who want to celebrate and share their town. So before I came to Montana, I was just going through some internet rabbit holes and I found this Instagram account, good Old Bowsman. They make memes about the influx of riss and new homeowners in the town, which are actually pretty funny. We have a link to them in our description. It is not so different from some locals back in Livingstone. On my first night, they jokingly referred to the city as bos Angeles. But there's a lot of truth behind these memes and people are genuinely frustrated. Yeah, so my name is Leota Calcy and I just kind of I lived here in Bozeman. I'm born and raised here. I am a seventh generation Montanan. My daughter is an as from a single mother, and so like my family has really been in this community, I'm super immersed in it for like past fifty years. I met Leota through the good Old Bozeman account who put out a blast on my behalf asking if anyone in the area would be willing to talk to some dumb reporter guy looking for a local perspective. She was nice enough to give me a call at the housing number one housing is it took a very long time for a way just to catch up, and wages so aren't catching out because the rents just keep getting higher and higher, Like the average two bedroom is anywhere from months to two thousand dollars a month within like Bozeman and Belgrade area, which is like double, if not triple, what it was about five years ago. And as locals, a lot of them are living in campers, and it's a very sad sight to see because like I was in that situation at one point as well, Like I've based homelessness several times, uh in the last few years, even with my daughter. While locals a lot of us may seem like bitter, it's they're not mad at the people who are moving here. It's they're more angry at the situation around us. And so it's it's not really when they're not mad at the tourists or the people coming to visit or those moving here. And that's one thing I feel like a lot of Montana's it's hard for them to find like the difference between like the people moving here and the people causing the problems for the locals. We can do a lot of handwringing about being a responsible tourists or what our responsibility is when we cover a place like Boseman, like I did you know just a few minutes ago, But really the most important thing in my mind at least, is to be what we've been calling a responsible tourists, and that starts with doing the blatantly obvious thing. Listening to the people who actually live in the places you're visiting, be conscious of the wildlife. That is a number one thing that for me, it breaks my heart when I see tourists that they just don't care. If that's the number one thing that, like at least hurt me is like watching people not like respects the wildlife. And then like the number two things would be like supporting local businesses, then finding the small Montana shops even doing your research and like finding the ones that have been locally owned for years and years. Don't like try not to shop at Target or try to find like the smaller moms and top grocery stores. And also the third thing is like be conscious of everybody else around you too, Like, um, make sure you're parking properly. It's like just don't be a jerk in general. You know, if you see somebody waiting for five minutes that I'll like just let them go in front of you. Like it's stuff like that that just like really it keeps Montana like the big little town that it is. It's just like the little acts of kindness that everybody can do is like what I see is like being the most respectful as you can beat. And one other quick piece of advice for me, don't go in the middle of February. Just wait like a month or two. This week is an yeah, usually it's not the great experience. Usually got a couple of weeks of the year and then you came during those couple of weeks. This show was produced by myself and me a fast, edited and mixed by the other worldly Dean White and Abbey Austria. Special thanks to all of my boss is, Jim Demiko, Megan cursed, Brett Kushner, and Emily felt that's it for us. Put your trade tables up, leave your shoes on, and we'll see you next week. Bye.

I'm Wolf Fulton, and this is thrill Est Explorers. When I landed in Montana, it was zero degrees faarrey night, and it only got colder. This bank sign says it is a crisp negative four degrees, which I definitely believe. From the Bozeman Yellowstone Airport, the drive to Livingston, Montana, my first stop, should have taken about thirty minutes, but the area got about a foot of snow the night before, and the entire road was covered by alternating snow dress and sheets of black ice. It was not an easy drive, but when I got to my destination, I started feeling better almost immediately. But there's several great little bars with meon lights on this strip, so I'm feeling okay about it. The only personel right now the whole town to myself, So that wasn't true. As it turns out a lot of people were in town, but they were inside drinking. This is what it sounds like to go out in negative degree weather in Livingstone, Montana while making some new friends. Do you know my brother Kurt, I remember it. Mom was surprised. She talked to he was a man of right now, and honestly, like I probably wouldn't have known it was Jeff Bridges, but it was like right after I had seen Starman and he was looking up at the sky like he was Starman. I got his autograph a few different times, and at the end he like knew, He's like what are you doing with this? But like, um still is Carnies Grouper Games. So he signed me another autograph and I thought it was amazing. My sister, who is much younger than me, she's like, Mr. Mom is sitting behind us and like yeah, Michael Keaton was right behind him, like oh yeah, okay, yeah, no, I'm it was weird. My grandfather's family, UM immigrated over from Norway. They we're supposed to come over on the Titanic to look at the roles, got rheumatic fever or some some illness to where they were not able to travel, so they didn't end up. They came over a month later on the Sister ship. We were drinking the Owl out. It has vintaged Neon signed extremely cheap drinks and it's been open for about fifty years. Apparently it used to have shag carpet, but the owner at that time I'm sure smoke Stokey that he was bartender, went to Stoke and his mouth time likes cigars. Livingston is known as the Northern Gateway. It's a Yellowstone National Park. Numerous people here called it verbatim, a real cowboy town. Celebrities like the aforementioned Jeff Bridges and Michael Keaton have homes in the area, and writers like Russell Chatham and Jim Harrison lived and drank here. Okay, so this was the writer's bar. And when they would publish a book, Dana Latch was the bartender, yes, and he would. They would come in and they give him their book that was published and it would go there. And so you have to look up all the authors and the writers in Livingston. There's great energy, new energy that is coming in and UH is bringing new stuff. But it's a poor community and it always has been, and we make most of it. But it's an old town. The buildings are old, the signs are old, a lot of the stories are old. The businesses in all these buildings have changed hundreds of times. But all the buildings, well except for the ones that burned down famously, which is I think it's pretty typical of a town of this Age incorporated in eighty three. It was really built around the Northern Pacific Railway, and some forms of gambling are actually legal here in Montana. So at bars you'll find video slot or video poker machines, or even shak a day, which is like yachtzi but with the cash produce. Fallo, How does this work? Roles? And you have to roll five of a kind in one shape because if you roll four of a guy and did you get a free drink? But five of a kind is what you're trying to get in one role? All right, I don't do this a lot. Oh, I've never heard of it. I know how to do it, all right? Again, pretty close though, how often do people win? It sounds very lame, But there is just something special in the air here. And it wasn't just a wind chill freezing my nose hair. This is the type of quote unquote hidden jam destination. Publications like thrillists are always writing about. We have written about livings, much to the chagrin of some locals. You know what, we don't want you to come here. We don't want you to change our life. You know, we don't want your money. We just want to be what we are. Okay. So when people like us like throw this cover and they're like, little is a great place to go, I mean that doesn't doesn't it's a great place to go, but go and visit. Don't say don't freaking make it so the people who have been living here an entire life can't afford to live. Yeah, like, be passionate about Livingston, bring us money, or the people who are living here don't. Yeah, and then go hume. It's a different type of cold honestly, all right. Oh, this area of Montana, Livingston and especially nearby Bozeman are some of the most rapidly growing cities in the country. Housing prices are skyrock getting and tourism, with so many people seeking out rural adventures in the age of COVID, is absolutely booming. At one point, people came to these towns for their close proximity to numerous natural wonders. Now they're coming here just to hang out at the bars, at the art galleries, or at the Murray Hotel, where I happen to be staying for the night. Lit by a neon sign that towers over the town's main drag, the lobby of the hotel is filled with taxidermy animals, marble counters, vintage furniture. It looks like a set dressed as a historic mountain hotel, which, of course it is. My name is Malcolm Cox. I am the general manager at the Murray Hotel and living in Montano. One of the things that I really love is that it was first opened by a woman hurting with Chosephine Klein. They were constructing in nineteen o three, open in nineteen o four. The first two floors are the original original hotel. A lot of people find us just by accident, you know, at the sap upon here, and they love it, you know, like I have. Despite the remote location, the hotel is frequented by a slew of politicians and celebrities. Anthony Bourdain named it one of his ten favorite hotels in the entire world, and much of the intrigue is focused around the hotel's notorious Peck and Pass suite. So originally it was three or four separate rooms, and in the nineteen twenties, this wealthy young man, you know, Party Gore, decided to purchase the room and combine three of them together. In the late seventies, the director Sam Peck and Paul, who made a lot of Westerns. He decided to take up presidence here. Essentially him and his something of like six or eight cats. Yeah, he was a party or smoker, and he was just a life of the town and he would spend his days in the bar global stairs and sleep in this apartment. So we named it after him, Sam Peck and Paul. And he said that there's still bullets in there, not anymore because I was letting in water. Well, you know that did have to be patched. But Sam would sit onto his back and shoot at the ceiling in the morning, you know, one of the um Yes, we're checking in. Oh yeah, we were just talking about the packing pas set. Yeah. The hotel is also famous for its in house bar and two very celebrated restaurants. Bryan Mingez came in and he really revitalized the area. He originally got the bistro called Us at the Street Bistro, and then he got the Murray Bar, and in two thousand nine he bought Gils Goods, which used to be a gift shop here. He's really helped put us on the map because you know, he's the chef and does a great job. We're experiencing the boom of some sort. You know, like Postman, which is just thirty minutes from Livingston, is is growing really really fast, and that is running over and spilling over into the valley into Livingston here. A big problem is that we do have a lot of people coming here and buying houses and just having them be airbnbs. So we just really want people to invest in local, Like if you're gonna stay in living since day in the historic place like this, you know, eat at our restaurants, shop at our shops. You know, like we took a long time to get to this point, so if you're gonna come here, please respect that and please just invest in our local businesses like you know, um, like just everyone's personality is very welcoming and we like to share our little place with people. Awesome is that the world stalls? Yeah, he stayed here in when he was like late teens or early twenties. He was so told he had to sit down in our elevator, which is still the original elevator of the hotel. You know, when I woke up, the bank signed across from the Murray Hotel confirmed what I already felt to my bones. It was literally negative ten degrees at nine, but still I got into my rental jeep and drove about forty five minutes south the Chico Hot Springs, a resort famous amongst locals for its bars, restaurants, hotel, and obviously Hot Springs. Despite fearing for my life every time I needed to turn, break or push the accelerator, it was probably one of the most gorgeous drives of my life. We're half an hour from the Yellowston National Park and it's thirty miles south of Livingston. But it's a river. It's a glacial river valley, so um, the Elstone River flows down the heart of it. It's a really wide open valley with mountains on both sides. And I mean, for me, every day driving to work is an adventure. There's always something to look as a herd of elk. There's an eagle or two every day. I mean, it's truly truly idyllic. What is the history here? How did this place kind of, for lack of a better word, spring up, spring up? That's good, have to they might have to steal that. It's all yours. This is Colin Davis. He owns the Chico Hot Springs with his Wife's sea bring so um. The genesis was people coming into the Gults looking for gold, and that was prior the hot springs existed. The Native Americans used to come through and it was sort of a sacred spot for them. But when when miners came looking for gold, this became a place where they would come to their laundry, come swim, come clean, come so come grab water. And there was a camp cook named Chico who did their laundry and cook for them, and they just nicknamed this place Chico based on him. In nineteen hundred, the land was bought by a local couple who turned it into a twenty room hotel. Since then, the property has grown to a full blown mountain resort. It's been iconic in Montana. It's the locals haunt and people people come to get away. It's, you know, it's old school in a lot of respects. They have one of the oldest saloons in the state. Their dining room, run by head chef Dave Wells, has earned to aimes beard dominations. But still the main draw of Chico is their hot springs. But it's your thermal activity out of Yellowston National Park because you know, it comes out of the ground at about a hundred and eight, and by the time it hits the small pool it's about a hundred and three. There's a lot of hot springs across the state, you know, in almost every corner of it. But I think it's really the fact that it's organic, that it's nature. It's just an experience. It's open air. And right now, what is it eight degrees and eight below or whatever? And yeah, and there's a few there's a few people in the pool of the Brave Ones and it's over now. Okay, I think kind of when I deal there, there you go, where where is it exactly? I can help you with that. So it's right out the windows you sell that steam coming up. The steam. I was just out there with some guys. The steam is so thick you can you can't see across the pool where you can keep your head on. It's not a bad idea, be silly to come as far right. I resisted the urge to snag a PBR in the saloon and instead headed to the men's locker room to prep for a sub zero dip. Since our sons been three, we've been coming here on President's Day weekend on usually Wednesday, but today was a little different for today sixteen now, so thirteen years. What do you like at that? I'm not sure because it's frigid, cold and it's alarm. I usually drive with the kids here. We always come here. We have to come here, so that's why we're here today. If it was nice, we'd be here no problem. But the kids got us here today. I'm from Bloomington, Minnesota, just outside of Minneapolis. Oh yeah. Dipping into the hot springs, I could not see more than two feet in front of my face. It reminded me of hot boxing cars in high school, or I mean seeing other people on TV hot boxing cars in high school. Obviously, but every so often a cold wind come through and reveal the mountaintops, and even though it hurts like hell to get out of that water, I would definitely do it again, probably every day if I could. Antana on the whole was looking for other forms of revenue besides agriculture, besides mining, right so, but Montana was looking to increase its tourism base. It's got, it's got. It has a very strong and very successful tourism department that's done their job really well. But but now in the last five years, and I think COVID really um added steroids to it, you know. Right after COVID and as we started to back down on it, the flood of tourism was something like none of us had ever seen. Everybody was had been pent up for years one to get out. They also want to get out of the city and get to the most rural place they can. So yeah, it's um. The interest in Montana is ramped up to a to a really crazy level. But the tourism is is it Is it welcome? For sure? I mean it's um. It's just responsible tourism. I guess that's what we're all looking for. But we're seeing it. We're definitely seeing more chursen than we've ever seen. It's becoming very obvious why people like to come to Montana. And it wasn't because every time I breathed in it felt like I was snorting a York peppermint patty. After I dried off and warmed up, I traced my path back to Livingston and got on the highway to Bozeman, where I'd be staying for the rest of my trip, where we will hear about some of the area's most Precious Natural Wonders, one of its best bars and one of its more prominent meme pages for real. But first, sadly, we need to take a quick break. Stick around. Hi. My name is Dr Shane Doyle, and I'm an educational and cultural consultant member of the Crown Nation, liveing here in Bozeman, Montana, a member of the Upsolia Nation. And so we are located in south central Montana along the Little Big Horn and Big Horn rivers, and our original reservation stretched to the Yellowstone River all the way and included all the Yellowstone Park. So this valley here has been inhabited by people for over twelve thousand years. We have archaeological evidence of that, and many different tribes that still live in this region called this place their homeland. So this was a well known valley by Native people for a very long time. And um, it's kind of cool to think about it. Well, you know, any direction you go from Embozement is going to be phenomenal. You can head south into the mountains, or you can head north where it's a little more open, pretty desolate. You can head to the east where the Great Plains are and Yellowstone River, and you know, you can make your way to the Yellowstone Park, or you can head to the west again and deep into the Rocky mountains, and there's hot springs. In all directions, there's hiking. If you like to fish, uh, there's rivers, blue ribbon trout fishing streams anywhere you go. I personally like to go to areas that are less frequently traveled by the typical tourists and um even local people. So I tend to gravitate north of Bozeman. Um the valley out towards Mode though, and going out towards White Sulfur Springs is another amazing spot near the headwaters of the Smith River. If you're gonna make your way to Bozeman this summer, there's a great exhibit at the Museum of the Rockies. The Museum of the Rockies is located up by the University Montana State University, and in the museum this summer is going to be an exhibit that was curated at the Field Museum in Chicago, and it's all about the Crow tribe. Our real name for ourselves is Uppsali Gap, but we're known popularly, I guess as the Crow Nation, the Crow people. And so this exhibit is going to include a lot of amazing artwork can um really uh phenomenal historical artifacts. Dr Doyle works with the Museum of the Rockies, which also features one of the most extensive and for lack of a better word, coolest dinosaur fossil collections anywhere. They've got one of the best dinosaur exhibits in the world. They've got incredible real fossils that there's working on. You can actually see people working on those fossils. You know, you could spend hours in just one little section and just learned so much about dinosaurs. And Dr Doyle, like everyone in the area, definitely had some thoughts on the well established but still rapidly growing tourism industry in town. So I've been in Bozeman for about thirty years off and on, and I'm seeing the town change a lot. Come to Bozeman, have a great time, enjoy the outdoors, but just make sure that you always clean up after yourself. Pack it in, pack it out. Think about the ancient history of this place too. You know, it's not very well known, but I think we're starting to publish more of it as we go, and it's someday in the future. When people come to visit Bozeman and go to the mountains and rivers, they'll they'll know a lot more about the people who lived here for thousands of years. There's a special energy here. It's a it's a youthful energy, but there's also a sense of sophistication that comes along with it. And it's a type of energy that loves sunshine and cold weather. You know, on a day like today where it's way below zero and it's sunny and clear, there's a special beauty here in Bozeman. I was staying at the Lark Hotel, which is essentially located in the downtown area, walking distance to dozens of art galleries, bookstores, vintage clothing shops, restaurants and bars. We like to think of ourselves as kind of the base camp for people for their downtown experience. Tell you to come in and park your car and we'll take care of everything else so that you can just walk downtown explore. This is Tasha Starr. She's a hotel manager. What I would say about the style of the hotel is very boutique and independent feeling. You know, our motto is kind of everything you need and nothing you don't, so you won't have your typical coffee pots or you know, refrigerators in the room because those end up really being the things in a hotel that you know, don't really do well for the environment. And being in Bozeman, we really, we really care. I mean, like part of the Bozeman experience is that it goes hand in hand with things that you can do inside the town, but part of that experiences doing things outside the town as well. And this is Jesse Matthew, guest services supervisor and a born and raised Bozeman night or Bozo or bos and you get what I mean. Bozeman is like the perfect based camp. Just like twenty minutes away north of US is a ski resorty called Bridgard Bull. It's super close by, so it's like a local nonprofit co op, so it's super cheap. The barrier to entry is just really really low. It's super affordable. And then on like south of us, just like an hour away is Big Sky, which is like the second largest ski resort in the country. Ice climbing right now is just going on. It's huge right now. I mean everything's frozen, so obviously, yeah, but it's doing great right now. And unlike a lot of other hotels in towns like Bozeman, the Lark wants you to stay there, of course, but they don't want you to actually stay there. We could milk people for money as much as we want, but it's not quite what we're looking for here. You're not going to experience that in the hotel. You're going to experience that outside of the hotel in Bozeman. We're very proud of Bozeman. We're very proud of what we can do out here. And if you're stopping by and you're looking for something for and we know where it is. I mean, Bozeman is growing so incredibly quickly and that does bring changes. One thing that would absolutely destroy your reputation in this town would be for any kind of disrespect for the outdoor environment, for the city itself. I think that if you're in Yellowstone, you have to have that kind of respect and reverence around the area. It's such a beautiful nature preserve, and we kind of expect the same kind of attitude towards all nature. It's people's homes, both in city and out of the city. The mountains are our livelihood. And speaking of livelihoods, I was ready to go out there and support some local businesses, namely the Kimate Serve alcohol Um. Right around the corner here we have blend Um, which is a local winery, and then down the way we have Plunk. So those are good for people just going out to get a gosp wine or a cocktail pre dinner, post dinner. Naturally, Plunk was my next stop. So Plank is kind of elizabethan Um old school term that means cheap, shitty table one. It's just kind of the irony of we have the best wine list in the state and um, we're calling ourselves shitty and cheap. This is bred f g, one of the owners of Plank. According to him, the better owner. We have a really fantastic food program and really our mainstay is craft cocktails and the focus on the boodist spirit side. Within the walls of the restaurant, we have a bunch of different experiences from a casual allowance section to a high end dining area. Um, we have a fully stocked wine cellar, one of the best in the state, and we have private parties down there. But really the cool part about Plank, I think is that is that you can come in and have a different experience every time that that you walk in the door over and over and over again. You don't have a host um and so really it's just walk in and choose your poison for the night. You know, there's nowhere else where you can have a private wine celler, dinner or anything. To the other end of the spectrum. When we do a special wide production of Rocky Horror Picture Show on Halloween. And this is Sam Crutch, the general manager, who has seen the culinary scene in Bozeman changed radically in the past half decade. You know, I think probably back in two thousand three when they open, people would come out here and think I can get steak and then I can get steaken eggs for breakfast and maybe a steak sandwich for lunch or something like that. The town and the entire area have so many small, independent, audaciously fun bars and restaurants. You could come here and just eat and drink and do nothing else for an entire week and still have a great vacation. Blackbird is a low lit Italian restaurant seemingly plucked out of the trendiest neighborhood in Brooklyn, whatever that would be right now. Jam is a brightly colored breakfast nook with drag brunch the weekends, and the food of Plank was so fresh it made me consider why I even want to live in my own stupid, trendy Berkeley neighborhood. Anyway, Well, I think the last five years specifically, we've seen such an influx of of people moving into this area, in the Gallus and Valley specifically, and really since COVID really seen a lot of growth. In two thousand three when this open, I think there was a lot of people thinking wine bar and bowsman, this will never fly, will make it a year. But we we certainly were ahead of the curve when we first opened this place, and it did take some time for people to really fully embrace it as far as we changed the dining and drinking scene in this town. And in some ways, the fellows that Plank consider the hourison problem to be an offshoot of a general people problem happening everywhere. Let me just back up and say, in some ways, you know, for the most part, there's always the outliers of assholes that are to come into a restaurant, and those are people that you have to deal with. That the strain of the last two years has been unbelievable, and we are seeing it seriously reflected in everybody. I'm fit generation from the state, and I'm being more of an asshole than I used to be. So when I do hear that people are complaining about tourists being assholes, yes, of course they're being assoles and um, but the most of them are are gracious and and I think we're willing to, you know, partake and be good people around here. You know, we've had to pick out way more locals than we have than we have if we have tourists, I'll tell yeah, yeah, I think most tourists come here without expectations and they're curious. And I think those two things are if you're looking for a rubric of how to be a good tourist, don't come with any expectations and just be curious about where you are. You know, the town is changing, of course, like the country is changing. In my attitude, at least personally towards it. As you know, we can sit here and be cynical, or we could be a part of that change. Maybe try to influence a little bit of it and get our little piece of the pie too, Because there's you know, with all this growth comes a ton of opportunity. You know, we're we're kind of at a cool place with this town, and certain things are being rewritten, and so if we take advantage of that and do it the right way, the future can be cool for you know, pretty much everybody. And that's why I'm running for office. And so when you're working on something like this, a travel show or a travel article, it is so hard to balance your job of telling people about this admittedly amazing place, while also hearing locals gripe about you telling everyone about this amazing place, and also hearing from business owners who want to celebrate and share their town. So before I came to Montana, I was just going through some internet rabbit holes and I found this Instagram account, good Old Bowsman. They make memes about the influx of riss and new homeowners in the town, which are actually pretty funny. We have a link to them in our description. It is not so different from some locals back in Livingstone. On my first night, they jokingly referred to the city as bos Angeles. But there's a lot of truth behind these memes and people are genuinely frustrated. Yeah, so my name is Leota Calcy and I just kind of I lived here in Bozeman. I'm born and raised here. I am a seventh generation Montanan. My daughter is an as from a single mother, and so like my family has really been in this community, I'm super immersed in it for like past fifty years. I met Leota through the good Old Bozeman account who put out a blast on my behalf asking if anyone in the area would be willing to talk to some dumb reporter guy looking for a local perspective. She was nice enough to give me a call at the housing number one housing is it took a very long time for a way just to catch up, and wages so aren't catching out because the rents just keep getting higher and higher, Like the average two bedroom is anywhere from months to two thousand dollars a month within like Bozeman and Belgrade area, which is like double, if not triple, what it was about five years ago. And as locals, a lot of them are living in campers, and it's a very sad sight to see because like I was in that situation at one point as well, Like I've based homelessness several times, uh in the last few years, even with my daughter. While locals a lot of us may seem like bitter, it's they're not mad at the people who are moving here. It's they're more angry at the situation around us. And so it's it's not really when they're not mad at the tourists or the people coming to visit or those moving here. And that's one thing I feel like a lot of Montana's it's hard for them to find like the difference between like the people moving here and the people causing the problems for the locals. We can do a lot of handwringing about being a responsible tourists or what our responsibility is when we cover a place like Boseman, like I did you know just a few minutes ago, But really the most important thing in my mind at least, is to be what we've been calling a responsible tourists, and that starts with doing the blatantly obvious thing. Listening to the people who actually live in the places you're visiting, be conscious of the wildlife. That is a number one thing that for me, it breaks my heart when I see tourists that they just don't care. If that's the number one thing that, like at least hurt me is like watching people not like respects the wildlife. And then like the number two things would be like supporting local businesses, then finding the small Montana shops even doing your research and like finding the ones that have been locally owned for years and years. Don't like try not to shop at Target or try to find like the smaller moms and top grocery stores. And also the third thing is like be conscious of everybody else around you too, Like, um, make sure you're parking properly. It's like just don't be a jerk in general. You know, if you see somebody waiting for five minutes that I'll like just let them go in front of you. Like it's stuff like that that just like really it keeps Montana like the big little town that it is. It's just like the little acts of kindness that everybody can do is like what I see is like being the most respectful as you can beat. And one other quick piece of advice for me, don't go in the middle of February. Just wait like a month or two. This week is an yeah, usually it's not the great experience. Usually got a couple of weeks of the year and then you came during those couple of weeks. This show was produced by myself and me a fast, edited and mixed by the other worldly Dean White and Abbey Austria. Special thanks to all of my boss is, Jim Demiko, Megan cursed, Brett Kushner, and Emily felt that's it for us. Put your trade tables up, leave your shoes on, and we'll see you next week. Bye.