LETTERS TO THE EDITOR:

January 21, 2025

Dear Editor:

The winter wind feels different way up here in northeastern Montana. Nothing wakes you up in the morning quite like stepping outside smack into a -60 degree wind chill. The infamous Alberta Clipper can come sweeping down from the northwest with no impediment of rock or tree and literally and figuratively stop life in its tracks. Ranchers fear it, especially those whose bulls or bucks may have escaped the corral a few weeks early. Nothing feels so miserable as seeing a new calf or lamb born too early and found too late.

In much the same way, the wind and snow of that same Clipper can halt the goings-on of even the most determinedfamilyonthehigh prairie. It’s rare, but school or visits to friends and family can get canceled and, horror of all horrors, high school basketball games can...