The Earth's Blood Flows Past You

By editor

Paradise, Sanders County, Montana, July 2011

The Clark Fork River is the largest river by volume in Montana, which is saying something in a state that seems to consist entirely of mountains trying to empty themselves into the sea. It begins as a modest creek near Butte, gathers strength from the Blackfoot and the Bitterroot, and by the time it reaches Paradise, it is a serious piece of water. The Salish called it "Ntx̣we," which translates roughly to "the river," a name that has the distinct advantage of being entirely accurate and impossible to misinterpret.

For thousands of years, the river was the only reliable highway through these mountains. The Salish and Kootenai used it to travel between their winter camps and their summer hunting grounds. When the white men arrived, they looked at the river and saw a different kind of utility. They saw a way to move logs, a way to generate electricity, and a way to carry away the toxic byproducts of the copper mines upstream. The river obliged them all, carrying the logs, turning the turbines, and absorbing the poison with the stoic indifference of a natural force that knows it will outlast the people who are currently abusing it.

Today, the Clark Fork is cleaner than it has been in a century, thanks to a massive Superfund cleanup effort that cost more money than the original miners ever pulled out of the ground. The river flows past Paradise with a deceptive calm, hiding the fact that it is still carrying the history of the state in its currents. It is the earth's blood, as the marker says, and like all blood, it carries both the nourishment and the toxins of the body it sustains.

See also

• The Earth's Blood Flows Past You at Paradise, Sanders County (Lolo National Forest, erected 2011)
• [Clark Fork River] for more on the river's history and ecology