Chocolate brown bison kicked up puffs of snow under a pale winter sky, bouncing after each other like kids on a playground. They dug their grey stubby horns into the powder and tossed it up in a shower of snowflakes. 

Panting mouths released hot puffs of air in the 30-degree chill, with long blue tongues dangling out. Their burly winter coats shimmered with frozen icicles. 

Bison rancher Lenny Page sat still in his tractor, caught in a trance. The curtain of snowfall had lifted by the time he reached the herd with a bale of hay, large enough to feed about 160 bison. But instead of rolling out dinner, he froze in place. 

“You don’t dare move,” Lenny said, as he reminisced on the wintry memory five years later from a recliner in his living room. “If you do, it might change something.” 

His wife, Aurora, sat across from him on the floor as he spoke, knitting her latest project. Her dahlias and metal art sculptures line the path leading up to the front doorsteps outside their home. An attached garage houses a truck, freezer full of ground bison meat and Aurora's homemade kombucha.  

PAGE BISON Ranch sprawls roughly 650 acres along Montana 28, nestled between Hot Springs and Lone Pine in Sanders County. A red wooden sign at the edge of the property reads: “Open daily but call well ahead. ... I may be gone hunting, running or drinking beer.” 

A wood-paneled wall in the living room is covered from floor to ceiling with family photos. Black-and-white pictures hanging near the window feature Lenny's great-great-grandparents, Scottish immigrants who homesteaded on the Flathead Indian Reservation in 1910. 

“It’s been in the family,” Lenny remarked with a dry smile, "and I get brought into misery." 

It wasn't until the 1990s that his father purchased some bison from a rancher in Washington. There was a healthy demand for bison at the time, Lenny said, and his parents sold the meat at a farmers' market in Missoula on the weekends.  

Lenny took over the herd in 2014, a few years after he returned home from a short stint in college, where his dreams of playing collegiate basketball didn't pan out. 

"When I came back, I just didn't have any other interests," he said. 

Day-to-day life on the ranch depends on the season. The bison are turned out to graze on 300 acres of pasture over the summer and get checked on a few times a week. Lenny irrigates his hay fields on the other 350 acres.  

The old cliché about saving for a rainy day is verbatim advice in the ranching world. 

His current herd of nearly 130 bison eats roughly 120 tons of hay over the winter. But his crops took a hard hit in 2024 and 2025 when a severe drought drastically reduced his harvest.  

"The only thing that saved us was that I had left over hay from a year or two prior," Lenny said. 

The 2025 irrigation season produced less than 100 tons of hay, or about 30 bales. In 2024, Lenny said he couldn't even make a second cut. Montana hay farmers typically make two to three cuts of hay per irrigation season.  

“We scraped with what we could get in the first cutting,” he said. “It was pitiful.” 

Luckily, an unusual wet winter increased water availability for irrigation this summer, and he harvested more than 700 tons of hay by the end of the season. Weather is critical in the ranching world, he noted.  

"If you don't have hay in the bank, you might be in some trouble," he said. 

WHEN HIS herd grew to more than 200 head by 2022, Lenny figured it was time to start a meat depot. The lean, tasty bison meat has attracted customers from all over the county and provides his main source of income. 

Two bison are loaded in a trailer and driven to Helena for slaughter, but it's a dangerous trek. Lenny typically visits the depot during the winter months. He white-knuckles the steering wheel as he drives over ice-covered roads, with a couple of 2,000-pound animals in tow. 

He's also organized hunting parties on his property in the colder months, especially after word of his bison meat business started to spread. Hunters paid $1,800 to shoot a cow and occasionally could shoot a bull for about $3,500.  

But after a dozen or two hunting parties over the course of three months, the bison started to spook and break through the fences. 

"I got burned out," Lenny admitted, and he hopes to coast on his current meat stores this winter and take a break from the hunting parties.  

Life as a bison rancher is hazardous work. The 1,000- to 2,000-pound beasts are known to wreak havoc on fences and farm equipment, and occasionally charge if you're not careful.  

Aurora, who met Page in 2022, finds herself still adjusting to life on the ranch. One night in particular burns in her memory.  

Lenny officiates high school basketball games in the winter, and the bison still needed dinner when they got back late from a game. They tied a bale to the tractor and rode out to the field after dark.  

Aurora recalled debating with her husband whether the field gate should be closed. Deciding it was for the best, she hopped out of the tractor seat and walked up to shut the metal gate.  

That was when she heard a crescendo of thundering hooves. With a cry of panic, Aurora raced back to the trailer and scrambled in as the herd of bison swarmed around them.  

"I'm better at it now," Aurora said, "but they still scare me occasionally." 

One of the perks of bison ranching, however, is driving out in the summer fields and watching the herd lazily munch through the pasture.  

Lenny and Aurora spent a day in mid-August visiting the bison, parked close as possible without spooking them. Most paid no attention to the strangers in their midst.  

A few curious bison raised their heads, intrigued by the metal object parked a dozen feet away. Dark eyes peered unblinking through the tall yellow grass.  

"Don't move," Lenny whispered from the driver's seat. "They just might come up." 

Report for America Reporter Hannah Shields can be reached at 406-758-4439 or [email protected]. If you value local journalism, pledge your support at dailyinterlake.com/support.  

    Page Bison Ranch at 2472 Montana 28 near Hot Springs on Aug. 10, 2026. (Hannah Shields/Daily Inter Lake)
  

    Bison rancher Lenny Page drives up on his four-wheeler at Page Bison Ranch at 2472 Montana 28 near Hot Springs on Aug. 10, 2026. (Hannah Shields/Daily Inter Lake)
  

    Bison graze on pastures at the Page Bison Ranch near Hot Springs on Aug. 10, 2026. (Hannah Shields/Daily Inter Lake)
  

    A herd of nearly 130 bison graze on pastures at the Page Bison Ranch near Hot Springs on Aug. 10, 2026. (Hannah Shields/Daily Inter Lake)
  

    Round bales of hay line the gravel road at Page Bison Ranch at 2472 Montana 28 near Hot Springs on Aug. 10, 2026. (Hannah Shields/Daily Inter Lake)
  

    A long stretch of gravel road runs along the chute where bison are herded to the pens at Page Bison Ranch near Hot Springs on Aug. 10, 2026. (Hannah Shields/Daily Inter Lake)