How we think about home, land, and what it takes to stay. And why the Old Salt Festival is a place and time to dream together about making a long term home on this land, and how to leave it better for our children.
In my mid twenties, I was given a copy of Dan Kemmis’s This Sovereign Land by a professor named Julia Haggerty at Montana State, in which I discovered the following arresting quote:
“One cannot be pessimistic about the West. This is the native home of hope. When it fully learns that cooperation, not rugged individualism, is the quality that most characterizes and preserves it, then it will have achieved itself and outlived its origins. Then it has a chance to create a society to match its scenery.” - Wallace Stegner, The Sound of Mountain Water
A society to match its scenery! It struck me as one helluva worthy aspiration, one that I hope my two sons catch fire with. It spurred me to read Stegner for the first time, and I realized that it had been the agrarian writing of one of his students, Wendell Berry, that first drew me back to an interest in the Montana ranching I’d been raised in. I can still remember the restless feeling in graduate school of wanting to keep all my options open, but Berry wrote so beautifully and pragmatically on the importance of homecoming, and the personal freedom that can be found by giving yourself to a particular place, instead of constantly wondering about whatever is beyond the horizon.
Wendell’s main critique of American agriculture is the same as his critique of American culture, which is that we’ve been unable to make a long term home anywhere because we’re always focused elsewhere, wishing for shortcuts, inventing get-rich-quick schemes, wondering if the grass is greener on the other side, doing everything but building a nest right here where we are. I mention Stegner and Berry because they are both part of the inspiration for the Old Salt Festival, which is meant to be a place and time to dream together about making a long term home on this land, and to leave it better for our children. 
What’s In Store at Old Salt Festival 2026
Here’s a brief taste of what’s in store June 19-21 in the Big Blackfoot Valley:
-
Mary Berry (Wendell’s daughter) and author Sam Western in conversation with Meriwether Hardie (great, great, great … ancestor of Meriwether Lewis) about an American “Corps of Rediscovery.”
-
Kim Paul of Blackfeet Nation lifting up the multifaceted community-building work of Pikani Lodge in northern Montana.
-
Rancher, former USDA Farm Services Director, and former Intertribal Agriculture Council Executive Director, Zach Ducheneaux, speaking about what it means to lead with courage in agriculture.
-
Ranchers Dale and Janet Veseth, givers of the largest ranch donation in Montana history in 2025, in conversation with rancher-mystic (my words, not his!) Bill Milton about what it means to care for land and community.
-
Chris White Eagle and Annie Bachand, sharing how they’ve blended cultural revitalization with sustainable economic development for Lakota youth learning the meat processing craft near Rapid City.
-
Live fire cooking hosted by Eduardo Garcia and our own Andrew Mace - come taste the Tallow fried doughnuts, Montana Ryeberry Paella with fennel and grilled lemon, Slow Smoked Beef Short ribs with bacon chili crisp, Coal Roasted Baby Beets with fresh Mint and Dill, Local Blue Corn Grits with Birria, not to mention the cauldrons of bone broth.
-
Music by The Kitchen Dwellers, Summer Dean, and North Fork Crossing, among others.
-
Our Makers Tent once again includes incredible artists like Hells Canyon Bolo Co, Bellwether Handwoven, White Deer Apothecary and many more.
The full Festival schedule is linked here. Tickets are selling fast and we max out at 4,000 people so get ‘em while you can!
We can’t wait to stand around a fire and drink some whiskey with you come June. See you soon!
Cole
