Hi-Line Living: The Blaine County Wildlife Museum

The Blaine County Wildlife Museum has showcased the natural beauties of the state for years now, and looks to capture even more of Montana.

Tammy Edwards has been manager of the wildlife museum for four years. She maintains the museum during the summer and teaches while it's closed. She said it's a fine summer gig.

After a local theater closed in the late 1980s, a Chinook group decided they didn't want the building to decay.

"They came up with this idea about starting this museum," Edwards said. The first annual banquet they held for the museum was in 1993. The funds raised from the first couple banquets were used to fix up the building - take the theater seats out and bring the building back up to par.

Many of the large animals in the museum came from a museum that closed down in Livingston. They were purchased at an auction and the first exhibit was the buffalo jump in 2001. When they realized it was a big attraction, the board decided the museum was worth the time and money it needed as a start-up investment.

Now, the museum has multiple exhibits which the museum board payed for with money from fundraisers and grants. The animals in the exhibit can be adopted, or paid for, by donors, though prospective donors will have to wait for new exhibits.

"Every little bird, every big animal - they're all adopted," Edwards said.

The swift fox exhibit sets the scene for people visiting the museum. From there, they can visit the wetlands, peaks to plains, moose and grizzly encounter, geese in flight, nocturnal and foothills exhibits. A spring exhibit is under construction now.

The peaks to plains exhibit shows animals found at various elevations. Bighorn sheep climb the mock mountain and pronghorn roam the plains, along with many other species. All the animals in the museum are taxidermied. There are more than 250 animals.

The museum is open from June 1 to Aug. 31, but opens for special occasions throughout the year, like school field trips, town festivals and special tours. Edwards said if anyone wants to go through the museum, they just have to contact her.

"A lot of schools bring kids in May for field trips and stuff," Edwards said. "One of the board members will take them through. We also have a lot of art classes here and watch the muralist work."

She said the second graders are the best advertisers. They always bring their family back to the museum.

Tuesday, a group of children from the Blaine County Library visited the museum to look at the animals and listen to a story from Blaine County superintendent Terry Brockie. They gathered at the buffalo jump exhibit to listen to the story of Chief Mountain's Medicine.

"It's representative of the actual world around here," Brockie said. "A lot of the animals are native to this area."

He said he thinks it's good for the children to hear stories like the one he told.

"It's good to hear things from a different perspective," he said, adding that the stories are from the same place the animals are from. People can go to those places in the story.

But, if people so choose, they may explore Montana within the walls of the wildlife museum.