Winter Storytelling Series Continues Through Mid-March at Travelers’ Rest State Park

February 3, 2026
5:40 am

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Imagine bundling up against the Montana chill at Travelers' Rest State Park near Lolo, where the ancient Séliš tradition of winter storytelling unfolds every Saturday through March 14. This isn't your typical park program—it's a living bridge to the Salish people's oral histories, featuring powerhouse speakers like Sophia Etier, Tim Ryan, Bruce Bugbee, Lee Silliman, Dan Hall, and Ramona Holt. For just $5 a head (free for kids under 18), you're not just listening to tales of survival, resilience, and the wild frontier; you're immersing in narratives forged in the same rugged landscapes where self-reliance was non-negotiable. Picture stories of tracking game through blizzards or defending hearth and home—echoes of a time when a steady rifle hand meant the difference between thriving and perishing. For the 2A community, this series hits like a chambered round: a raw reminder of America's indigenous roots in armed stewardship. The Séliš, like countless tribes before European contact, mastered firearms post-contact as tools for hunting, protection, and sovereignty, turning them into extensions of their warrior ethos. These tales aren't sanitized folklore; they're blueprints for the self-defense mindset that underpins our Second Amendment heritage—proving that the right to bear arms transcends modern politics, woven into the fabric of frontier survival from Native hunters to Lewis and Clark's corps, who camped right here at Travelers' Rest. In an era of urban detachment, attending sharpens that primal edge, connecting gun owners to the unyielding land ethic that demands proficiency with tools of liberty. Don't sleep on this—grab your family, your sidearm (check park rules, of course), and head out before mid-March. It's more than storytelling; it's a tactical download on resilience that fortifies the case for 2A as cultural inheritance, not just constitutional ink. Events like these quietly rally the community, blending heritage with the imperative to pass down marksmanship and vigilance to the next generation. Who's joining the circle?

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Imagine bundling up against the Montana chill at Travelers’ Rest State Park near Lolo, where the ancient Séliš tradition of winter storytelling unfolds every Saturday through March 14. This isn’t your typical park program—it’s a living bridge to the Salish people’s oral histories, featuring powerhouse speakers like Sophia Etier, Tim Ryan, Bruce Bugbee, Lee Silliman, Dan Hall, and Ramona Holt. For just $5 a head (free for kids under 18), you’re not just listening to tales of survival, resilience, and the wild frontier; you’re immersing in narratives forged in the same rugged landscapes where self-reliance was non-negotiable. Picture stories of tracking game through blizzards or defending hearth and home—echoes of a time when a steady rifle hand meant the difference between thriving and perishing.

For the 2A community, this series hits like a chambered round: a raw reminder of America’s indigenous roots in armed stewardship. The Séliš, like countless tribes before European contact, mastered firearms post-contact as tools for hunting, protection, and sovereignty, turning them into extensions of their warrior ethos. These tales aren’t sanitized folklore; they’re blueprints for the self-defense mindset that underpins our Second Amendment heritage—proving that the right to bear arms transcends modern politics, woven into the fabric of frontier survival from Native hunters to Lewis and Clark’s corps, who camped right here at Travelers’ Rest. In an era of urban detachment, attending sharpens that primal edge, connecting gun owners to the unyielding land ethic that demands proficiency with tools of liberty.

Don’t sleep on this—grab your family, your sidearm (check park rules, of course), and head out before mid-March. It’s more than storytelling; it’s a tactical download on resilience that fortifies the case for 2A as cultural inheritance, not just constitutional ink. Events like these quietly rally the community, blending heritage with the imperative to pass down marksmanship and vigilance to the next generation. Who’s joining the circle?

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