Where We Live

The story of Glacial Lake, Missoula and the ancient flood that forever changed the landscape of the Pacific Northwest has always intrigued me. This landscape feature is in one of the areas we serve at North 40 Outfitters, so I figured I'd go learn about it, and see for myself. Several thousand years ago, a finger of glacial ice moved through near present day Lake Pend Oreille damming the Clark Fork River and creating Glacial Lake Missoula. Imagine a giant buildup of ice creating a glacial lake the size of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario combined. The pressure on the ice continued to rise until the water level reached its maximum elevation of 4,200 feet causing the ice dam to fail, exploding the water downstream at a rate of 10 times the combined flow of all the current rivers in the world, moving at speeds up to 50 mph on its 430 mile journey... Read more

What's better than American grown wheat straight from the field to your table? When that wheat becomes a cookie, of course. Now that our name is out there, (when we wrote this, we'd just changed our name... learn about that here) I've had some extra time in the evenings and have found myself anxious to bake now that fall is settling in. ...Cool weather + fresh baked goods = yes, please. As I was browsing Pinterest after dinner, I realized it would be the perfect night to bake something. My husband was out of town working, the cat was sleeping on the chair and I was still hungry. Given my track record with the bread machine, I knew that if I attempted to bake bread- it would be just that: an attempt. I remembered seeing a recipe on the back of the Wheat Montana flour bag so I decided to give it a shot and see if their "Family Farm F... Read more

I remember when I moved to Great Falls and first felt our company's passion for fly fishing. Not everyone was doing it, but you could definitely tell it was there and that it would grow into something important. Though an old college roommate taught me the fundamentals of casting many years ago and I was comfortable with a rod, I really never had the time or had yet met a person with a passion to push me. I began to grow comfortable with the idea that it was a good fit for me. I got over my previously formed opinion of fly fishing when I finally accepted my new opinion of fly fishing being equally important to my own beliefs of what makes Montana really cool. So I immersed myself into knowing all things fly fishing in normal fashion my wife refers to as "being bored." But I wasn't bored...I was genuinely interested because it was my way... Read more