Book reading and talk at history museum will touch on the urban-rural divide

Author Donna Erickson grew up working, riding and exploring her family’s 1,000-acre ranch in the North Hills, which served as a bucolic backdrop to the city of Missoula.  

In her 2025 narrative nonfiction book, “Rooted at the Edge: Ranching Where the Old West and New West Collide” published by University of Nebraska Press, Erickson describes ranch life and examines its future through her connection to the landscape of her youth and young adult life. 

At 6:30 p.m. Oct. 8, the Northwest Montana History Museum will host a reading by Erickson, who will speak on the issues and ideas her book raises, describing a variety of outcomes for “land squeezed between settlement and wilderness,” according to a press release. 

Erickson's family sank deep roots in the North Hills, becoming a vital part of the economy, from supplying food to running the busy Stockyard Cafe in town as well as assorted side hustles. 

Later, as an author and a professor of landscape architecture and planning at the University of Michigan, Erickson developed a wide-ranging perspective about how land evolves, taking into account the many pressures on historic ranch acreage — from development to wildfire and economic forces to curious hikers. 

The Flathead Valley experiences similar tensions of the urban-rural divide as ranchland becomes platted subdivisions, families shrink in numbers and heirs face the cost and challenges of inheriting and working large parcels of land. 

The history museum is located at 124 Second Ave. E., Kalispell. For more information, visit nwmthistory.org or call 756-8381. 

    The early days on Skyline Ranch in the North Hills in Missoula. (Courtesy photo)