Artists & Activists Gather for Ancient Forests at the Black Ram Guitar Festival
By Intermountain West Regional Manager, Ashley Martens
The lobby of the Wilson Auditorium in Bozeman, Montana buzzed in preparation - MFA students from Maine sat in a circle and wrapped pretty packages of seedling trees to distribute after the show, pinprick-pupiled musicians stumbled out of the dark sound check, writers stacked beautifully-covered books on tables, and conservation groups hung posters to catch the eyes of of the audience as they trickled in before the performance. A ‘visual guide to old-growth forest features’ poster hung proudly above the Old-Growth Forest Network’s table.
A big part of OGFN’s mission in creating a national network of protected, publicly-accessible old-growth or future old-growth forest across the United States is to communicate the value and unique ecology of old-growth forests. This visual guide poster aims to help with that. These values, though, are not simply understood with the mind - massive carbon capture, rich biodiversity, rare species, and water and air filtration - but also felt with the human body and heart.
We gathered in this auditorium to do just that: to feel and to be inspired by artists whose muse is an ancient forest in the remote Yaak Valley in northwest Montana. Musicians played the Black Ram Guitar, hand-built from a fallen 315-year-old Engelmann spruce, salvaged from the edge of clearcut in this forest. Finger-picked melodies, sweetly-sung refrains, and fiercely-strummed rhythms stirred our hearts to feel the forest’s power. Authors read stories that captured our attention and our breath. Artists displayed paintings and films that made us fall in love with a place that most of us have never seen with our own eyes.
At the center of this event is a man who loves this forest intimately. Rick Bass, iconic Montana author, has lived in the Yaak Valley for 40 years, and will spend the rest of his fighting to protect it. He works with The Montana Project and Forest Refuge Alliance, who seek to designate it as the nation’s first Climate Refuge. Rick transports us into the deep heart of this living, breathing forest community as he writes of sleeping on her mossy floor, of falling ”... tumbling through the centuries, caught and supported by the arms of hemlock, fronds of cedars. I become, in my ten-minute nap, one of the rotting bodies myself.”
That night, we rested back into our velvet-padded seats and enjoyed the show.
OGFN continues to be an ally in the community-effort to raise awareness about and protect this ancient forest in the Yaak Valley. You can track the status of threatened forests like this one on our website. You can contribute to the Black Ram Climate Refuge campaign here.
