Newcomers’ guide to arts

CORY WALSH cory.walsh@missoulian.com

Located at the base of the mountains and along a river, Missoula is a college town whose small geographic size works in your favor.

If you wanted, you could start a Saturday by grabbing some locally roasted coffee, head up into a national forest or wilderness area, cool off in the water and then hit a brewery, concert or art show without leaving a radius of five miles or so. Granted you don’t have to do all that in one day, but you could if you wanted.

Part of the reason there are so many options is that it’s home to the University of Montana, the state’s liberal arts flagship, and so the city has for decades cultivated a culture of 56 Missoula NewcoMers’ Guide 2021

local makers, whether that means art, crafts, vegetables, beer or baguettes. And Missoulians love to get together to share their wares — the city has a prolific number of festivals for a city its size.

They’re fun in and of themselves, but they’re an easy way to key yourself into the character and local issues.

For documentary fans, there are two big calendar items: the International Wildlife Film Festival, the first and oldest of its kind, which screens movies about the natural world every spring (typically at its home base, the Roxy Theater). The Big Sky Documentary Film Festival likewise attracts premieres of veteran and upcoming nonfiction directors each February.

Those two long-running events successfully moved online during COVID. It’s yet to be determined for other events, for whom adapting is trickier. The River City Roots Festival brings rootsy (in a broad sense of the word) bands from around the country to two stages in downtown each August. For jazz fans, there are two: The Buddy DeFranco Jazz Festival at UM and the community-based Jazzoula festival. For readers, there’s the Montana Book Festival and the Norman Maclean Festival.

Caras Park in downtown is usually home to myriad events like the Garden City BrewFest and weekly food-and-music offerings Out to Lunch and Downtown ToNight, during the warm months. Those will likely be trimmed down affairs this summer, such as weekly food truck pods.

FooD AND DRiNk

Missoula’s restaurant scene has grown in the past years, with newer waves of restaurants

alongside staples, such as the Montana Club, Charlie B’s Dinosaur Cafe, and Depot.

For a fresh pizza, there are two locally owned spots: Bridge and Biga. For a creative brunch or lunch, check out Burns St. Bistro or Golden Yolk Griddle, or snag a breakfast burrito to go at Market on Front.

Some newer places have diversified the lunch and dinner palate. Michi Ramen Bar finally brought noodles to downtown. Gild Brewing and The Camino have their own take on Mexican food, joining classic burrito joints like Taco Del Sol, Taco Sano and El Diablo, and veteran restaurant El Cazador.

Food trucks, such as Ragheef and Kamoon, have recently begun offering Arabic cuisine. Food trucks in general have grown in number in recent years, often as a way for aspiring restaurant owners to cultivate a fan base before they try a permanent location. (See Wally & Buck, a downtown burger joint with hand-cut fries.)

Locally roasted coffee is available through Black Coffee Roasting and Drum Coffee at their shops, plus newcomer Big Creek Coffee on Russell Street.

Dessert, too, is here for you. Big Dipper, the city’s original ice cream shop, serves up custom flavors year-round that are so popular people wait in line, outside, in winter at its original Higgins location. Sweet Peaks on North Higgins has its own spin. Local chocolatier Posh Chocolat never fails to provide tasty truffles and bars.

There are so many breweries in western Montana that you might need a map (more on that later). Missoula County alone is home to 13, not counting cideries, distilleries and taprooms. Some of the oldest brewers are going strong, such as Bayern Brewing — popular for its European style that sets it apart from American ones — and well-known outfits like Big Sky Brewing and KettleHouse Brewing Co.

For those who make a sport out of trying new breweries, check the Montana Brewers Association trail map at montanabrewers. org/trail-map. Or head to a tap room, such as the Dram Shop, which brings in a variety of Montana and outside beers, or shops like Worden’s Market or Big Head’s Bottle Shop that offer a fine selection of classics and new entries. For something sweeter, Western Cider produces a variety of tasty drinks at its space near the California Street Footbridge.

The cocktail menu is growing, too. Plonk mixes creative drinks and stocks a large wine menu. The deck at Finn has a good selection, too, and as a bonus, you can look out on the banks of the Clark Fork.

ART AND ATTRACTioNS

The first Friday of each month is, in normal times, when crowds descend on the downtown district to see art openings in galleries and museums. Those are naturally different these days, but many arts organizations are open and sharing new work.

The longest-running gallery, the Dana, hosts impressionistic takes on landscape painting. The Radius Gallery features contemporary art and ceramics with an emphasis on a community

Photo by Tom Bauer, MISSOULIAN

feel and local and regional makers, in a brandnew two-story building. The Zootown Arts Community Center, a nonprofit, moved into a new two-story facility that boasts galleries, paint-your-own pottery studio, an event space, recording studios and more.

The Missoula Art Museum’s home is a historic Carnegie Library, expanded in the 2000s, that now has four levels of space all dedicated to contemporary art from Montana and the region (occasionally beyond). One gallery upstairs is dedicated exclusively for modern Indigenous work. It, too, is open yearround and doesn’t have an admission charge. During the warmer months, the Missoula Art Park just outside the door exhibits sculptures.

On campus, the Montana Museum of Art and Culture, a statewide museum with thousands of artifacts, hosts year-round exhibitions in its two galleries in the PAR/TV Center.

If science and history are your niche, there are museums for you. The Historical Museum at Fort Missoula has indoors exhibits delving into the area’s past, and outdoor features such as a historic fire watch tower. It also preserves the memories of dark periods in the area’s history, such as the Alien Detention Center, where Italian-Americans and Japanese-Americans were incarcerated during World War II. To familiarize yourself with all the plants and animals of your new environment, go to the Montana Natural History Center, which has exhibits on the particulars of the landscape.

While the opening has been delayed due to COVID, the new building for the Missoula Public Library reflects the re-imagining of a library into a community center, with activities such as a climbing wall and MakerSpace.

The city’s nonprofit independent cinema, the Roxy Theater, has moved its programs outdoors during the warmer months. It hosts outdoor screenings behind its building on Higgins Avenue during the warmer months, along with plans for screenings of summer classics at Ogren-Allegiance Park. (No timeline is available yet for the return of public screenings in its indoor theaters.)

Besides museums, the city has cultivated some novel attractions. The Giggle Box, an interactive and Instagram-ready museum at Southgate Mall, consists of artist-created installations in 25 rooms. If you’re keen on escape rooms, Big Sky Breakout will happily lock you inside and let you puzzle your way out.

Sports fans have their year-round attractions, too. On campus, there’s Montana Griz football and its home at Washington-Grizzly Stadium, plus Lady Griz and Griz basketball and other collegiate athletics. During the summer, the Missoula Paddleheads baseball team hosts at the Ogren-Allegiance Field, located just along the Clark Fork River.

MuSiC, THEATER AND MoViES

The city has as many musicians, actors and dancers as you’d expect, but keep in mind that offerings may vary or be limited or on pause as these organizations have been severely affected by COVID.

The city is stocked with musicians, although it’s difficult to tell when and where gigs will return to normal. It’s likely to be a slow transition including many outdoor performances. When you are looking to go see something live, keep in mind that there’s less of a scene tied to a specific genre than an assortment of talented people doing very different things who all

choose to live here. You can hear accomplished jazz artists, singer-songwriters, country bands or indie rock, psych, metal, or whatever UM students are into.

There are some handsome venues to see music in, too. The historic Wilma Theatre, located on the north end of Higgins Avenue, is an opera house turned movie theater turned modern venue with high-end sound and acts that span interests — singer-songwriters, indierock, EDM, jam. The venue’s owner, Logjam Presents, also operates the Top Hat, a relatively smaller historic music mainstay that also draws national acts along with presenting locals. Out in Bonner, they built the KettleHouse Amphitheater, situated along the banks of the Blackfoot River, that presents roots, metal, you name it, and can fit upward of 5,000 people in normal times.

The ZACC also has a space for live performances — music, theater, readings, comedy, you name it — in its Show Room venue.

For drama, there are many outlets that span from family fare and musicals (Missoula Children’s and Community Theatre) to contemporary adult productions (the Montana Repertory Theatre) to somewhere between, depending on the show (the University of Montana School of Theatre and Dance). They all typically provide programming through the year (not the summer for UM), although “remote delivery” has been the standard.

Classical fans will appreciate the Missoula Symphony and Chorale, which produces a season of masterworks concerts, interspersed with specialty shows for the holidays and the families. The String Orchestra of the Rockies, a professional ensemble, produces a full season of performances on campus.

Photo by Ben Allan Smith, MISSOULIAN

Photo by Parker Seibold, MISSOULIAN

GETTiNG ouTSiDE

Missoula’s a desirable place to live not just because there’s access to the outdoors, but because it’s so readily accessible in all four seasons. You can get off work and hit a hiking or mountain bike trail, a frisbee golf (folf) course, golf course, or get on the water to float, swim, or, in wintertime, get out your skis.

Those interested in getting into hiking have some great starting points for all skill levels. Mount Sentinel (the one with the “M”), has multiple trails of relative difficulty, as does Mount Jumbo (the one with the “L”). Or head to Waterworks (the one with the peace sign) or Blue Mountain, where there are moderate looping trails with fantastic views — perfect for a weekend afternoon or a quick hike after work.

The surrounding area, meanwhile, has more than you could hope to explore in a lifetime. Once you’ve whetted your appetite, go find a guidebook at a shop like the Trailhead, Bob Ward’s or REI — a few of the many shops that sell gear for all four seasons.

To find new places to hike, apps like AllTrails and REI’s Hiking Project are a good quick resource, but if you use them, be sure to check the comments sections on a particular trail — they’ll cue you in on the relative accuracy of distances, difficulty or current conditions. Paid apps like Missoula-based OnX Maps and Gaia have detailed, offline maps with GPS capability. Also check out apps like PeakFinder, which can pinpoint specific mountains with your phone’s camera.

Skiers and snowboarders can hit dedicated ski areas like SnowBowl or Discovery. If you’re into cross-country, the Rattlesnake and Pattee Canyon offer plenty of exploration without a long drive.

If you’re looking for a place to relax or play, the city has a network of parks and rec services that serve all needs. Currents Aquatics Center and Splash Montana let folks get their fix without going on the river. At more than 150 acres, Fort Missoula Regional Park has space for softball, tennis, pickleball and more.

BuyiNG LoCAL

People here talk about “buying local” a lot, and they mean it. Depending on what you’re looking for, there’s likely a local purveyor, whether it’s clothes (Betty’s Divine), music (Ear Candy, Rockin’ Rudy’s), bread (Le Petit), or whatever you have in mind.

Montana has a prodigious number of writers working in most any genre you like with local flavor: literary crime, fiction, nonfiction, poetry. There are three local bookstores to help you get started: Fact & Fiction Downtown, Shakespeare & Co., and the Book Exchange all keep Montana writers in stock. Tea fans have multiple options (Butterfly Herbs, Montana Tea & Spice, Lake Missoula Tea Co.), as do coffee aficionados (the Break, Le Petit, Butterfly, Drum, Black Coffee and Clyde).

Missoula’s a hub for outlying communities, so national retailers are on tap: Target, Walmart, Costco, Lowe’s, Best Buy, Cabela’s, plus the many stores in the Southgate Mall, located in the reviving Brooks Street corridor. N