Clear rivers and one’s right to wade them in search of swirling trout have always been, in the great state of Montana, prerogatives worth fighting to keep. Now more than forty of Montana’s best writers have unholstered their pens to bring original essays and testimonials to the battle, advocating for the protection of public lands and endorsing Democratic House of Representatives candidate Rob Quist’s position on an issue of indispensable value to anglers.
The “We Take Our Stand” anthology was put together to support Quist’s May 25 bid for the open seat vacated when former congressman Ryan Zinke was appointed Interior Secretary earlier this year. Contributing writers include names familiar to Drake readers, such as Tom McGuane, Miles Nolte, and Chris Dombrowski—and more.
“Many of us who care about the fate and future of our land, particularly public land, have been doing a lot of fruitless hand-wringing lately, and laying awake feeling powerless to stop, or even mildly slow the frightening direction that political winds are blowing,” Nolte says. “Over the past century, writers have engaged issues of important public concern and demonstrated the power of literature: the ‘I’ll Take My Stand’ movement of Southern agrarians in the 1930s, and the push to save Echo Park on the Colorado River that made the Sierra Club a national lobbying force. We hope to once again harness the power of written language and marshal that power toward preserving the future of our shared undeveloped spaces.”
Produced by author Rick Bass and edited by Seabring Davis and Brian Schott, the anthology will be inserted into three Montana newspapers as a 24-page tabloid that’ll be distributed to 35,000 subscribers on Sunday. Copies will also be distributed at upcoming Quist events with Sen. Bernie Sanders in Missoula and Bozeman.
Tom Bie is the founder, editor, and publisher of The Drake. He started the magazine in 1998 as an annual newsprint publication based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He then moved it to Steamboat, Colorado (1999), Boulder, Colorado (2001), and San Clemente, California (2004), as he took jobs as managing editor at Paddler, Senior Editor at Skiing, and Editor-in-Chief at Powder, respectively. Tom and The Drake are now both based in Denver, Colorado, where The Drake is finally all grows up(Swingers, 1996) to a quarterly magazine.