By David Stalling

Last spring, on a typically snowy April morning, Steve Page arrived at the Realty Title Company in Lewistown-the geographical center and chokecherry capital of Montana--with a lawyer and two real estate brokers, to finalize several land transactions with the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. Stout, with graying hair, red-faced from sun and wind, the 53-year-old rancher maintained a stoic demeanor throughout the closing, quietly conferring with his lawyer and brokers on questions relating to appraisals, insurance, taxes, deeds, grazing rights and a cooperative range management plan. Deliberate and inquisitive, he struck me as someone who would be as confident in a Wall Street business meeting as he is handling stock in a Montana corral.

When he signed his name to the last document in several stacks of paperwork, Page sat back in his chair, crossed his arms and, for the first time since the two-hour meeting began, smiled. He seemed cautiously pleased. He has just acquired a 5,000-acre portion of the Two Crow Ranch from the Elk Foundation, traded 4,280 acres of separate lands to the Elk Foundation, and given the Foundation first option to purchase another 640 acres. For the Elk Foundation, the closing concluded one phase of a complex and sometimes contentious effort to protect a tremendous spread of prime wildlife habitat along Montana’s Missouri River Breaks.

Involving ranchers, county government, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks and the Elk Foundation, the Two Crow acquisition has seen its share of divisiveness, debate and hearsay, yet probably typifies the intricacies of habitat conservation at the close of the millennium.

As conservation writer for the Elk Foundation the past five years, I’ve had the chance to see quite a few land transactions come together (or fall apart). Nearly all of them had their share of complications, but none compare to Two Crow’s puzzle-like swirl of people, agencies, interests and opinions. Like solving a Rubic’s Cube, piecing the segments into sensible order proved frustrating and difficult for everyone involved. But such complexity is growing commonplace. The Two Crow project serves as a metaphor, of sorts, for the challenges of protecting habitat throughout elk country.

At the center of the puzzle is the 18,000-acre Two Crow Ranch, situated among arid, fragmented hills and ravines south of the Missouri River in Petroleum County, about 30 miles north of the small town of Winnett. Split into several parcels, the ranch intermingles with BLM and private land adjacent to the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge (commonly referred to as the "CMR"). Two pieces of the ranch, totaling 840 acres, are "inholdings" within refuge boundaries.

Two Crow’s abundant grasslands, sage, juniper and scattered stands of ponderosa pine sustain elk, mule deer, pronghorns, sharp-tailed grouse, prairie dogs, burrowing owls, ferruginous hawks, coyotes, badgers and a host of other wildlife. Dirt roads through the ranch provide access to other public lands, including the popular Crooked Creek Recreation Area on Fort Peck Reservoir. Until recently, the Two Crow Ranch was owned by Elixir Industries, a California-based company which managed the land as a cattle ranch. When Elixir put the land up for sale, the company went first to the BLM.

"The owners wanted the land to become public," said Chuck Otto, area manager for the BLM’s Judith Resource Area based in Lewistown." And we wanted to acquire the ranch to consolidate and simplify our land, protect wildlife habitat and protect public access."

But the BLM could not purchase the land outright. The agency has agreements with local county governments to maintain the current balance of public and private lands within county boundaries—a "no-net-gain" of federal lands so as to not disrupt county tax incomes derived from private lands.

"We manage lands that were left after the National Forest System and National Parks were created," Otto said. "After the Homestead Act, people took the best agricultural lands. The BLM got the parcels of rough lands that nobody wanted. So we’re left with this real rag-tag collection of isolated lands. We don’t have a nice boundary you can point to."

Land ownership in the area makes for a kaleidoscopic map. A large chunk of green, surrounding the Missouri River and the jagged arms of Fort Peck Reservoir denotes the CMR. Orderly squares of blue represent state land, administered by the Montana Department of Natural Resources. Then a huge scattering of yellow, in every imaginable shape and size, shows BLM holdings, entwined with an equally large dispersal of white for private lands. Driving out to a 40-acre parcel of BLM land to fix a section of fence could take most of a day. And a manager must often get permission to cross private lands to get there. Some secluded sections are visited so infrequently, Otto said, that managers occasionally find them fenced, farmed and treated as de facto private property.

"If we’re going to effectively manage our land, it’s much easier to manage one big block of land," Otto said. "It saves time, money and guarantees public access."

To acquire Two Crow, though, the BLM first had to sell an equal amount of acreage which was spread throughout the county in small, isolated parcels. In the bureaucracies of federal agencies, this sort of thing can consume small woodlot worth of paper and many long months. So Otto called the Elk Foundation.

"One of our greatest strengths is that we can buy critical parcels of wildlife habitat and hold them until state and federal agencies can acquire them from us," said Alan Christensen, the Elk Foundation’s vice president of conservation programs." We can help with the complex negotiations and bridge financing to protect key lands."

In the summer of 1997, the Elk Foundation purchased the Two Crow Ranch, with plans to sell the 840-acare CMR inholdings to the Fish and Wildlife Service, then sell most of the property to the BLM within two or three years, as the agency sells off the lands necessary to fulfill its no-net-gain agreement. The Clearwater Land Exchange, a private group which specializes in negotiating complex land transactions, served as intermediaries, overseeing the various land sales. Everything seemed pretty straightforward. Then discontent spread across Petroleum County like horned larks on a prairie wind.

I first heard concerns during a meeting at the old Dovetail Schoolhouse just a few miles southwest of the Two Crow Ranch headquarters and about 40 miles from the nearest paved road. Here, on May 12, 1997, a dozen or so local ranchers met with staff from the Elk Foundation and the Clearwater Land Exchange to discuss the acquisition. These ranchers knew nothing of the Elk Foundation and were suspicious of the organization’s intent. The BLM seemed as popular with them as leafy spurge.

Throughout the evening, the ranchers spoke candidly, sometimes angrily, of their concerns: Will Petroleum County lose its tax base? Will cattle still graze the ranch and associated leases? Will ranchers be forced to buy the smaller, isolated parcels of land the BLM plans to sell? Is the federal government trying to "block up" lands and phase out cattle grazing? What will be the fate of Two Crow Ranch manager, Dick Marshall, and his family?

These were good folks living in an isolated part of the Great Plains that had been spared most of the modern-day impacts of expanding human population and development. Roughly 550 people live in the 940 square miles that make up Petroleum County. But now outsiders were peeking in, times were beginning to change, and long-time locals didn’t like it.

During the meeting, Alan Christensen spoke directly and honestly, expressing the Elk Foundation’s goal of protecting wildlife habitat and public access while helping maintain traditional uses of the land such as cattle grazing. Many of the ranchers scoffed at the notion of possible "threats" to this expansive land so far from major cities. Wildlife populations (at least large hunted species like elk) seemed healthy. Hunters were welcome on many of the ranches. Open country extended as far as the eyes can see.

But several miles east of the Dovetail Schoolhouse, along the Musselshell River, a large ranch has already been subdivided, development of homes has begun, and "No Trespassing" signs now border the property. Christensen explained that fragmented land dotted with homes does little good for wildlife or cattle ranching, so the Elk Foundation hoped to protect both by helping the BLM consolidate its lands.

He earned the trust of some, but not all. Later, there were more public meetings in Winnett and Lewistown. But misconceptions fused with legitimate concerns to create a volatile mix. Most of the discontent derived from a deep-seated mistrust of government. Wrote one rancher in the local paper: "When the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation says they want to be a good neighbor, don’t be fooled…when the deal is all finished the RMEF will be long gone and the people in the community will be left with the BLM and some very restrictive conservation easements."

Resentment toward change and government is hardly uncommon in this part of the country. At the extreme, it was reflected in a tense 81-day standoff two years ago between "Freemen" and the FBI near the town of Jordan, 70 miles east of the Two Crow. More often, it pours out at public meetings from ranchers angered over reductions in cattle grazing on public rangelands. But change and conflict reach back even before the days when Lewis and Clark passed through the Missouri Breaks with the Corps of Discovery.

Not far from what is now the Two Crow Ranch, on May 26, 1805, Meriwether Lewis climbed the steep, "sufficiently fortiegueing" hills above the Missouri and "beheld the Rocky Mountains for the first time." So he thought. We now know he mistook one of several small "island" mountain ranges rising above the plains for the Rockies, which were still hundreds of miles upriver. While Lewis described the breaks as "truly a desert barren country," he also noted that " the whole face of the country was covered with herds of Buffalo, Elk, and Antelopes; deer are also abundant, but keep themselves more concentrated in the woodland."

The Missouri River is the core of this rugged country, sustaining life in an arid land of extremes, where summer temperatures commonly reach 90 degrees and winters plummet to minus 40. Conceived from thousands of tributaries at the spine of the Rockies, the Missouri officially begins at the confluence of the Madison, Gallatin and Jefferson rivers and runs more than 2,500 miles to the Mississippi, draining more than half-a-million square miles of country where a sparse population of people produce an abundance of wheat and beef.

The river sculpted the abrupt ridges, precipitous cliffs and fertile valleys of the breaks, carving out more than 200 million years of history along its banks, revealing a past of rising and receding inland seas, uplifting mountain ranges and a period of lakes, marshes, lush vegetation and dinosaurs. In 1979, a rancher found the remains of a triceratops exposed by the river’s current. As the river occasionally changes course, chiseling away layers of various soils deposited by receding seas, it left behind table-top rocks and arches, white spires, shale, sandstone, opal-colored cliffs and grey, syrupy mud called gumbo. (Which, on a rainy day, will absolutely immobilize a 4-wheel-drive truck.)

When the Corps of Discovery came through, the river divided the hunting grounds which had nourished the Crow and Blackfeet for centuries. Once Europeans came to the Breaks, trapping, trading and market hunting rapidly diminished or extinguished populations of beaver, ducks, geese, pelicans, rattlesnakes, prairie dogs, eagles, hawks, deer, the now-extinct Audubon bighorn sheep, elk, grizzlies and vast herds of bison. Then in 1909, the Homestead Act brought swarms of settlers eager to transform native prairie to cattle ranches and wheat farms.

Not everyone was enthralled by agrarian notions of manifest destiny. At a 1923 chamber of commerce meeting to celebrate the pioneer heritage in Great Falls, Montana, Charlie Russell—the wrangler-turned-artist whose paintings capture the rugged grandeur of the Missouri River Breaks—angrily tore up a prepared speech and instead admonished the group:

Twelve years after Charlie Russell spoke his mind, visionary wildlife biologist Olaus J. Murie—who later conducted extensive research on the National Elk Refuge and wrote the original Elk of North America—arrived in the Missouri Breaks, on orders from the U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey (now the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service), to "size up the wildlife possibilities on the Fort Peck Dam Project lands."

Built for flood control and to improve river navigation, the dam stopped and stilled more than 180 miles of what had once been free-flowing river and inundated a quarter-million acres of bottomlands. As compensation, the Bureau of Biological Survey sought to establish a wildlife refuge on lands abandoned by homesteaders who—in an arid country mostly inhospitable to cattle and crops—give it up when dry times returned in 1934.

Murie spent weeks visiting with local ranchers and found surprisingly little opposition to the refuge concept. His recommendation: create a refuge and reduce cattle grazing, contingent "on the supposition that we wish to introduce elk into the refuge." In 1936, the Fort Peck Game Range was established for "the conservation and development of natural wildlife resources and the protection and improvement of public grazing and natural forage resources." By then, not much wildlife remained. In 1951, elk were shipped in from Yellowstone and restored to the prairie. Today, the herd thrives, along with deer, bighorns, black bears, mountain lions, bobcats, coyotes, sage grouse and beavers. All in all, 40 species of mammals, 200 species of birds, 16 species of amphibians and reptiles and 17 species of fish live in and around the refuge. In 1976, the game range was renamed in honor of Charles M. Russell.

From the onset, the refuge provoked at least as much strife between government agencies as it did between ranchers and the feds. Congress gave jurisdiction over the game range to two agencies with opposing objectives—the Bureau of Biological Survey was charged with managing the wildlife resources while the Grazing Service (now the Bureau of Land Management) was responsible for livestock grazing. To further complicate things, some homesteaders remained, holding on to lands within the refuge boundaries. Said one refuge manager: "The only ranchers or farmers to survive during the period were the best managers and the most persistent."

Among those persistent ranchers was Anthony "Tony" Weingart who, in 1913, homesteaded what is now a portion of the Two Crow Ranch and established the Swinging H Cattle Company. His son, Bob Weingart, 64, now runs the company, raising beef cattle on 20,000 acres of his own land, and another 20,000 he leases from the BLM, the state of Montana and the Chain Buttes Grazing District. He now shares a fenceline with Steve Page, who told me, "If you were to pick the 10 best ranchers in Montana, Bob Weingart would have to be on that list." Page not only extolled the health of Weingart’s land, but the organization and cleanliness of the ranch.

"Everything’s in its place," he said. "Even the junkyard is organized."

I, too, was impressed the next morning, when I rolled down the long drive to Weingart’s immaculate ranch headquarters a mile southeast of the old Dovetail Schoolhouse. Bob, a lanky, healthy-looking man, wearing a crumpled white cowboy hat and wire-rimmed glasses, greeted me outside his home and invited me in for coffee. His single-story house, part wood and part brick, is clean and new-looking. I was surprised when Bob said he built it back in 1951, when he was 17, soon after his dad had given him 5,000 acres and some cattle. Other than a short interlude of schooling in Lewistown, Weingart has been here all his life, ranching and raising three children with his wife Pat. He spoke with a crafty grin, seeming slightly amused about most things. But he was not at all amused by government attempts to acquire private lands, particularly on the Two Crow Ranch.

"My biggest concern is the government ending up with all the productive land, rangeland and cropland," he said. "I wish Steve Page had acquired all of it."

Weingart was not consoled by the conversion of an equal acreage of BLM land to private. "The lands the BLM is selling," he said, "are lands that were not successfully homesteaded because they were too rocky or dry to produce crops or good grass. Two Crow might be of benefit to the BLM, but I think the government already owns enough land. The BLM should sell its isolated parcels, and use that money to improve the bigger blocks of land they already own."

I had listened to complaints in Lewistown about ranchers being "forced" to buy the small tracts of BLM land adjacent to or within the boundaries of their own land holdings. But Weingart was pleased to acquire 900 acres from the BLM, adjacent to his property.

"They’re not going to force me to buy it, but they will sell it to someone," he said. "I don’t think anyone wants somebody owning land in the middle of their place. I’m tickled by the chance to buy it."

Weingart has also acquired 760 acres of the Two Crow, adjacent to his ranch, from the Elk Foundation, with covenants to ensure the protection of wildlife habitat and public access. The purchase allows him to move his fence line along an existing road and simplify the management of his ranch.

Other ranchers I talked to also seemed glad to acquire BLM lands to consolidate their ranches, but chagrined by the BLM’s attempts to do the same. They feared the government might gain too much control, and curtail cattle grazing on BLM lands as has happened on Fish and Wildlife Service lands. Some even perceived a concerted, if not covert, government effort to convert all private land into a "Buffalo Commons."

If that sounds like paranoid rural rantings, consider the crusade of Rutger University Professors Frank and Deborah Popper. Referring to the Homestead Act as, "the largest, longest running agricultural and environmental mistake in United States history," the Popper’s propose that the government acquire all lands in the Missouri Breaks and other semi-arid Western lands, rid the country of cattle, tear down fences, restore native prairie grass, restock wild bison and create the world’s largest nation park. While the Popper’s ideas aren’t likely to come to fruition anytime soon, they continue to attract converts.

After meeting with Chuck Otto, I would not suspect him of championing a Buffalo Commons. Derided by environmentalists as too cattle friendly, and denounced by ranchers as the cattleman’s foe, Otto is caught in the role of today’s beleaguered federal land manager, he resolutely backs his agency’s multiple-use mandate, overseeing not only grazing programs, but oil-leasing, timber-cutting and recreation. By acquiring the Two Crow Ranch, he’s trying to improve management efficiency. Ranchers understand the value of consolidating lands, so why the opposition to the BLM doing the same?

"What it really boils down to, I think, "Otto said, " is who controls what goes on out there. Is it going to be a public agency like the BLM, or is it going to be some private landowner?"

One of those landowners, Steve Page, was recently named "Conservationist of the Year" by the Montana-based Hunter’s Alliance.

"I enjoy observing healthy populations of wildlife," Page says," and I enjoy doing some of the things tat contribute to healthier habitats."

While Page may be a new landowner on the south side of the river, he’s no upstart in the Missouri River Breaks. As a partner in the Page-Whitham Land and Cattle Company, he’s been ranching for more than 30 years, running cattle on nearly 200,000 acres of deeded and leased land north of the Missouri, near his home in Glasgow.

Page has worked with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks to secure conservation easements on much of his land north of the river. As part of the Two Crow purchase, Page agreed to pursue a conservation easement on that property as well. The easement also with the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, will restrict future subdivision and development, protecting wildlife habitat and ensuring public access.

"But more important than the conservation easement-and what I think is the real key to meeting the goals of the Elk Foundation--is for us to cooperatively develop a good grazing system which will improve or enhance wildlife habitat while at the same time enhance our cattle operation," Page said.

With that in mind, Page and the Elk Foundation are working to develop a collaborative, coordinated resource management plan with the BLM, Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, and, he hopes, other conservation organizations.

A day after I met Page in Lewistown, we drove around the hills and coulees of his newly acquired Two Crow land, discussing his plans and the interwoven complexities of ranching and conservation.

"When I learned the Elk Foundation had acquired Two Crow, and I learned the details of what they intended to do, I felt there might be some opportunities to exchange our Harper Ridge property for a part of Two Crow," he said.

The 4,280 acres he owned in the Harper Ridge area, southwest of Glasgow and north of Fort Peck Reservoir, are in several distinct parcels all within the borders of the CMR. While the properties provide excellent forage for cattle, it’s not enough to sustain a viable livestock operation without the associated allotment leased from the refuge. But the Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages the CMR, is gradually cutting back on grazing and raising the price of leased grass.

The Fish and Wildlife Service bases grazing fees on "fair market value." Rooted in the 54-year-old Taylor Grazing Act, BLM fees hover around $1.50 per AUM (Animal Unit Month, based on the forage required by a cow and calf in one month). The CMR currently charges $8.50 per AUM and will raise the price $1 each year until it reaches $11.23. With grazing fees on the CMR six times as high as on BLM land and rising, Page said he recognized that cattle were no longer the "highest and best use" of his land "from an economic point of view." So he looked at other options.

The Page-Whitham Cattle Company created a glossy real-estate prospectus on the Harper Ridge Ranch, platted for subdivision, replete with scenic photos depicting the rugged county, idyllic western ranch life, ponderous bighorn rams and heavy-racked elk and mule deer. They advertised the land as "extremely well suited for reversion to natural buffalo range or for the establishment of a private wildlife reserve."

Page quickly sold several parcels near Harper Ridge to recreational buyers, one 80-acre tract and another 420-acre tract. Other folks were very interested in purchasing 640-acre sections, which, in Montana, would give them landowner preference for drawing elk tags.

By acquiring the Two Crow Ranch, Page can continue running a profitable cattle operation. By acquiring the Harper Ridge Ranch, the Elk Foundation can help conserve additional wildlife habitat with the CMR. So the deal was done, with the Elk Foundation also securing first option to purchase another 640-acre section of Page’s land within the proposed BLM Burnt Fork Wilderness west of the Harper Ridge. For their part, the Fish and Wildlife Service is delighted by the deal.

"Steve Page chose to go to the Elk Foundation, and it came as a really welcome surprise to us," said CMR manager Mike Hedrick. "It meets Steve’s needs and gives us an opportunity that we’ve been hoping for. The public will benefit, wildlife will benefit and the county will benefit."

Hedrick emphasized that national wildlife refuges are not multiple-use lands like the BLM.

"Refuges allow multiple uses, but they have one dominant purpose—and that’s the preservation of, and management of, wildlife habitat and wildlife populations."

Hedrick said the refuge is slowly shifting grazing from annual leases to "prescription" grazing. "We still want to use grazing to manipulate and enhance habitat," he said. "But in an arid environment like the Breaks, it’s intermittent and seasonal, not annual and consistent.""

The remote ruggedness of the CMR provides security for elk, where motorized traffic is restricted to a few roads. The rest is open to foot and horse traffic only. But in hot, dry summers, when native forage cures, elk often abandon the refuge for private, irrigated alfalfa fields. During harsh winters, they raid haystacks.

"We could have a lot more elk in the Breaks than we currently have," said Hedrick. "But the herd size we have is calculated to provide significant benefits to recreationists while keeping the impacts of elk on private lands to tolerable levels."

Rifle hunting for elk is already restricted to just 55 either-sex permits and 200 anterless permits for the hunting unit around Two Crow. But bowhunter numbers remain unlimited. Hedrick would prefer more restrictions.

"The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks and the BLM tend to operate under the philosophy that more use is better," Hedrick says. "But in national wildlife refuges, maximum human use is not a goal of ours. We are not in the recreation business. We are into compatible recreation consistent with what can be allowed and still achieve the wildlife objectives."

When the Fish and Wildlife Service purchases private lands within a refuge, they make annual payments to the county where the land resides. The payments, according to Hedrick "bring in substantially more revenue for the county, in terms of taxes, than the private landowners have been paying." The payments are also significantly higher than the "payment in lieu of taxes" counties receive from BLM lands within their boarders. The boost in tax income doused some local opposition to the Elk Foundation’s efforts, but not all.

When I stopped by the double-wide trailer that serves as Two Crow Ranch headquarters to visit with Dick and Jan Marshall, who managed the ranch for Elixir Industries for more than 20 years, I was greeted by an angry blue heeler who barely broke skin when he bit through my pant leg. After Jan Marshall called off the dog and apologized, I introduced myself as an Elk Foundation employee. She was no more pleased to see me than her dog had been. Her husband had already begun a new ranching job in Saco, Montana. She was preparing to move their belongings.

"It’s because of your and your people that I have to pack and leave my home," she shouted. "The Elk Foundation says it cares about protecting elk, but all it cares about is letting people kill elk. We kept this place nice, and now it will be overrun with people on ATVs, going where they damn please, with no restrictions."

An hour later, just a few miles down the road, I watched a man abroad an all-terrain-vehicle careen across the countryside, carving deep ruts in the fragile wet red clay of the Breaks. He was looking for shed antlers, I later learned, an increasing popular and competitive venture in the Missouri Breaks and elsewhere. The West is full of places being loved to death by the public. I heard over and over that the Breaks become a veritable circus when hordes of fall hunters arrive.

"The hills are full of them," said Bob Weingart. "I had 38 hunters head for one section of my land one day. Two came back mad, and said I allowed too many hunters in there. I told them, ‘I’m not here to control the hunters. But if you two leave, there’d be two less.’"

Steve Page told of seeing haggard elk swimming across Fort Peck Reservoir in a dire attempt to escape a line of hunters sweeping down one of the lake’s peninsulas. But the Missouri River Breaks beckon to more than just hunters in the fall and horn-hunters in the spring. With interest in Lewis and Clark’s journey booming as its bicentennial approaches, new hordes of discoverers are on the rise. Some folks would just as soon the Breaks remain undiscovered.

In a land of multifarious landowners, each with differing goals and objectives, there is often as much rift between various state and federal agencies as there is between ranchers and bureaucrats. As the agency responsible for wild elk, regardless of whose land they roam. The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks bears the primary burden of balance.

Tom Stivers, regional wildlife biologist for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, is charged with balancing populations of elk and other wildlife in nearly 10,000 square miles of central Montana. When I met with him one evening, I was surprised by, but sympathetic to, his slightly antagonistic bearing.

"One threat to this country is you writing about it, and attracting more attention to it," Stivers said. "There could be even more abuse if you write a glitzy article."

Despite his concerns about yet another glossy magazine feature on the Missouri Breaks, he was grudgingly supportive of the Two Crow and Harper Ridge acquisitions.

"We’ve prevented future bad scenarios, but now what? Did we streamline BLM management to the detriment of some antelope habitat or sage grouse on the lands the BLM is selling? All those lands have different values to different wildlife," Stivers says. "If when the dust all settles, all we’ve done is change the land from white to yellow on the map, then what have we done? Will the new grazing system be an improvement? Will an easement improve wildlife habitat? Whether or not the project makes things better for wildlife is yet to be seen."

As chairman of the Petroleum County Commission, Jim Brady had to listen to and weigh dozens of such doubts and concerns, and grapple with a few of his own. It took me several days to catch up to Brady, whose grandfather homesteaded a few miles south of Two Crow, as he was constantly busy calving, branding, fixing fences or dealing with county issues. When I finally met him at his home late one evening, about five miles north of Winnett, he excitedly whisked me out to a newly built cabin beside his home, where his wife Dianna paints portraits and still lifes. But he didn’t lead me out to show off her art. Instead, he pointed proudly to two handsome, heavy elk racks, mounted European style, from bulls he killed locally.

At 45, tall and slim, Brady looks and acts 10 years younger. Other than a short stint in the Army, he has spent his whole life raising cattle on this land and wants ranching to remain a part of the landscape. "We can maintain the wildlife resource while maintaining a viable livestock industry," he said.

When Two Crow came up for sale, Brady’s first concern was that it would be bought by wealthy outsiders who might turn the ranch into a private hunting preserve or resort. "The previous owners could have sold it to anyone," he said. "At least, now, it will remain a working ranch."

Brady has taken a lot of heat from neighbors and fellow county commissioners for not speaking out against the Two Crow project.

"I’m neutral," he says. "I can see both sides. I’ve been trying to get people to cooperate and communicate, and I get frustrated when people don’t want to compromise or see both sides of the issue."

He said the project has divided the community and strained friendships.

"When you have ranch families that have been here for several generations, and then you have change, it’s a big deal, not jut economically, but because people here share labor" Brady said. "Changes like this impact communities. I can understand why the BLM wants to block up its land. We try to do the same on our own ranch. But the families that lived on the Two Crow Ranch were an important part of our community."

Though keenly aware of the scars that change has brought to this sparsely populated land, he remained evenhanded about the sale of the ranch. "What kind of impacts would we have had if the Elk Foundation didn’t buy Two Crow?" he asked. "Anybody could have bought the land."

Watching change wrench a close-knit community of good people was disheartening in many ways, but in the end I found myself asking the same question Jim Brady did. What would have become of this wildlife-rich land if the Elk Foundation hadn’t bought it? With Two Crow and Harper Ridge combined, the Foundation helped conserve nearly 23,000 acres of wildlife habitat—land that could easily have been split into ranchettes and hunting resorts. Most will soon be public land, open to hunting, fishing, hiking and other activities. Some will remain private, but protected by conservation convenants.

"When we entered into this deal, we set out to accomplish three goals," says Alan Christensen, the Elk Foundation’s vice president of conservation programs. "We wanted to protect wildlife habitat, protect public access and maintain traditional uses of the land such as grazing. In the end, we will have accomplished all that and more."

Before I ended my visit to the Breaks, I climbed deep down into the CMR to the Missouri, far from roads, irrigated pasture and fences. While sitting on a bluff overlooking the river, I spotted a small herd of cow elk grazing on lush grass among stunted ponderosas below me. With river and buttes as a backdrop, it could have been the same view beheld by Meriwether Lewis, or painted by Charlie Russell. Tony Weingart would no doubt still recognize this county and the nearby ranch he homesteaded. In times of rapid change, the Missouri Breaks remain amazingly intact.

I felt good knowing that despite the contention, the Two Crow and Harper Ridge acquisitions protect wildness, open space and a heritage of public hunting. "It’s difficult to accept change," a local rancher told me. Ironically, I thought, the project helps fend off change—keeping things, I hope, very much the same.