In 1964 Annick Smith came to Montana with her husband Dave and their boys. In a fertile valley where meadows tip downward toward the Big Blackfoot River, they found what they had dreamed of: 163 acres of ranch land with a view of creek, hills, and the Rattlesnake Mountains. The Montana of which Annick Smith writes in this spirited and generous book is the not-so-distant West of outlaws and pioneers, Indians and soldiers, range inspectors and cattle thieves. Smith writes of her friendship with Norman Maclean, who memorialized the Big Blackfoot in A River Runs Through It, and she eloquently makes the case for preserving the fragile wild environments that are our sacred places.