(cows mooing) - [William] Coming up on this edition of "Backroads", retired smokejumpers spruce up a historic guard station near Ovando.

- Giving back to the organization that gave me so much.

- [William] Drive through the gumbo of central Montana.

- It's the slipperiest stuff I've ever driven on.

- [William] We visited a unique church in Southwest Montana and we'll meet a Northeastern Montana woman who appreciates the value of hard work.

- And I'd like to do it as long as I can, as far as that goes.

- [William] This "Backroads", will sniff out the details.

- [Narrator] "Backroads of Montana" is made possible with production support from The Greater Montana Foundation, encouraging communication on issues, trends, and values of importance to Montanans, The Big Sky Film Grant and the University of Montana.

♪ Home is where Montana is, Montana is my home ♪ ♪ From mountain peaks to prairie lands ♪ ♪ The places I have known ♪ And I'm bound to ramble ♪ Yes, I'm bound to roam ♪ And when I'm in off the road now, boys ♪ ♪ Montana is my home (acoustic guitar music) - Hello, I'm William Marcus.

Welcome to another "Backroads of Montana."

Since 1991, we've traveled Big Sky Country to tell the stories of interesting people or share special places we think you'd like to visit, like this place, the Blackfoot pathways sculptures in the wild park, just outside Lincoln.

The large sculptures and installations like this old teepee burner combine, and re-imagine the culture, the environment, and the industrial history of the Blackfoot Valley.

We'll explore the 26-acre park throughout the show and watch the creation of new art and music.

But our first story is about restoration, of a bit of Montana history, just outside the town of Ovando.

- Y'all come in and let's talk about what we're gonna do, today.

- [William] Early June is an appropriate time for smokejumpers to assemble.

- I'd say, we ought to wait until the sun gets up and starts warming the building up a little bit.

- [William] And even though these ones are a bit past their jumping days, there's still reporting for U.S. Forest Service duty.

(indistinct) - My work boots are boots that I've been wearin' for 20 years, that still fit.

- [William] Because, it turns out, the skills they learned years ago can still serve society.

- And we've been on the end of the Pulaski and a shovel, and we know how to work and know all the safety stuff.

So things pop up and we know how to, most of the time, follow instructions, you know?

(man laughing) - [William] In addition to digging line, cutting trees and fighting fire on the ground, these mid to later century smokejumpers were experienced getting to remote wildfires the fastest way possible, by jumping out of airplanes.

- I still remember, when I first came to new man training, one of the trainers, telling us that, you know, if we make it through and we become smokejumpers, that it'll keep you young, and I think this is proof right here that it does that.

- [William] Together, they're sawing, sanding and scraping their way through six days, working on a property so old, Gary Lawley remembers giving it a facelift in the fifties during his second year as a smokejumper.

- It has some good memories since I was here, so many years ago, in 1958, on a project that it's like coming and visiting my old home.

- [William] The log cabin and a barn were built in the late 1920s to become the Monture Guard Station located in the mountains, seven miles north of Ovando.

Rangers called it home as it became an outpost for the Seeley Lake Ranger District.

But time takes a toll on things, and as the decades passed, Forest Service facilities required more maintenance and as smokejumpers aged, they had more time, and they also still had more stamina than most of us.

- Smokejumpers are workers and they work hard and fast.

Nobody tells us what to do.

We do it, and we just go and do it and get it done.

And usually, it's pretty good high-quality work.

- [William] So through, the National Smokejumper Association, they formed the trails program in 1999, retired smokejumpers returned to their old stomping grounds to help the forest service fix up facilities.

- Probably, the most important thing is that we try to take care of the trails and these old cabins, but it's really nice to make friends with these guys, I didn't get to work with and 'cause we're smokejumpers, you do it when you're young and you just become almost brothers forever.

- [William] The Monture revamp is one of about 20 projects across seven states this year.

- We are spending three days now in a full hazmat suit with a respirator on, with this hot conditions, it's not the most comfortable job, but seeing these buildings preserved and being with these guys, that makes it worthwhile.

- [William] As the smokejumpers carry out the guard station restoration, the reason for it is realized as a trail crew appears out of the backcountry and begins to unload.

- We store our animals here, our stock horses and mules.

We have all our tools in the barn over there: chainsaws, crosscuts, axes.

We still, you know, live out of it.

Last season, this was my house.

I lived here the entire season.

It's still really important to all of us and we need it to survive.

Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to do our job.

- [William] Nestled next to the Bob Marshall Wilderness, Monture is the ideal base for the trail crew.

And it's even more ideal, now.

- The trail crew likes to think of it as they're a little like a hideaway jewel, but it is so awesome to see folks come out and see it and pay attention and care for it too.

- Driving up from the gate and looking upon it and all its splendor was a grand sight.

- [William] The trail crew sparks more memories for the smokejumpers.

- You feel pumped up and strong, like you've really accomplished something.

(indistinct) - I can relate to that feeling and when I saw them come out and as happy as they were.

I just felt that, yeah they're, you know, the next generation feels that.

- It's cool to see like they're not checked out.

They still care about the organization and helping out and giving back to this place.

- It's a giving back to the organization that gave me so much.

- [William] Like the memory of past fires, the spirit of the smokejumpers hasn't aged at all, but preserving the old is about more than nostalgia at the Monture Guard Station near Ovando, it's a functional necessity.

Old and new, form and function, are the inspiration for the art at the sculptures in the wild, near Lincoln.

This installation recalls a pioneer cabin, but it's made up of elements that look like cross-cut saws.

A tribute to the sawyers of old who worked in these forests.

Other sculptures seem to frame the forest or guide your eye upwards toward the house of sky.

Some go below ground level to seek new pathways or the swirling vantage point from a Ponderosa whirlpool.

(chainsaw revs) This work in progress will provide new places for visitors to rest, but with a twist.

A Montana winter, or two, will weather its newly carved surface.

Weather follows us wherever we go on a back road strip.

Our next destination is a vast area between the Missouri and the Yellowstone rivers, where we're always aware of changing weather and road conditions.

In case we encounter the subject of our next story, calling it mud is only half right.

This is gumbo.

Dried out, gumbo is as heavy as concrete and just as hard, but that can change in an instant and like anything instant, you just add water.

- Boy, gumbo is...

It'd be like if you took a hockey rink and covered in axle grease.

Driving on gumbo, you feel like it's, you're like a pig on roller skates or something.

You know, every end of the vehicle feels like it's going a different direction.

- [William] Locals call that kind of driving prairie surfing, and they've been riding those waves for years.

- Yeah, it was Frank MacArthur.

Mud was so thick on the pickup and plugged in the fenders there.

He couldn't go and he stopped there and pickup wasn't, but maybe six months old.

He had to chop the fenders off to bust them off and left them lay there in the ditch and went on and kept on gumming back into town.

Mud flew all over, but he made it.

- [William] Slogging through gumbo has been going on forever.

The Northern Cheyenne included it in their sign talk.

And in 1805, Meriwether Lewis entered this in his journal, "I attempted to walk on shore, soon found it very laborious as the mud stuck to my moccasins and was very slippery."

- Walking in it, you'll often grow four to six inches in height.

- [William] And along with height, there's a significant weight gain.

The Range Riders Museum in Miles City features, this 80-pound ball of gumbo that formed around a cow's foot, Even larger things that never get stuck in regular mud, fall victim to gumbo like this tractor that got stuck pulling out this excavator that got stuck pulling out this sprayer.

So how can gumbo be so slippery and sticky at the same time?

- If it weren't for a rock called bentonite and the principal clay mineral that's in bentonite something called montmorillonite, there would be no such thing as gumbo and gumbo has to have a certain level of montmorillonite, or it's not going to exhibit the properties that we all really dislike.

- [William] Dinosaurs were the first to dislike bentonite.

100 million years ago, it rained down on them in the form of ash from volcanoes in Idaho.

That ash drifted east, settling on the bed of a vast inland sea.

Eons later, the sea retreated, leaving extensive sedimentary clay deposits that stretched through seven states.

The first was discovered near Fort Benton, hence its name bentonite.

- It is called the clay of a thousand uses, and there's a lot more than that.

- [William] You'll find bentonite in everything from cosmetics to crayons, spark plugs to stucco.

80% of the bentonite produced is used for foundry sand in oil and gas drilling and... - It is clumping cat litter.

Bentonite, when it comes in contact with water, absorbs the water, pulls it in through a chemical reaction, and in the process of doing that, it swells and swells significantly.

This shows why gumbo in Montana is a real nasty thing to have if you're out in the field.

- Several years ago, it was late in the fall and a FedEx guy was out Northeast on these gumbo roads and he slid off the road and we had to pull him probably a mile and a half up the gravel.

His FedEx van was so covered in mud it was just completely brown and it looked like a UPS van then.

- [William] Most folks in central and Eastern Montana have at least one good gumbo story to tell, but few are more sobering than the one recounted by Judy Blunt in her memoir "Breaking Clean."

It had been raining all day, that night, Judy and her husband John, desperately needed to get their infant daughter to the hospital, an hour's drive over gumbo roads.

- "Tonight, the road would not be greasy, tonight would be tough roads, somewhere between damn tough and pretty damn tough, like driving on a 12-inch layer of cold lard, A trip would mean nearly 50 miles of grinding and sliding, fighting the wheel to keep the side to side slew within the narrow range of road top.

With the window rolled down a few inches I opened Jeanette's blanket to let the damp chill fan the heat from her face as we pulled away, lurching in mudslinging rhythm to the right, to the left, to the right.

Cornering from our lane onto the raised county road, the tires grilled against the fender wells, kicking out boulders of packed gumbo.

Dried in the sun, they could tear out an oil pan.

I leaned my face against the door into the breeze that smelled of wet roots and sweetgrass of spring."

- Thankfully, Judy's daughter survived, but should you have a serious tango with gumbo, and when either direction seems like the wrong choice, be cautious and willing to change your travel plans.

- On the other side of the river, at the top of the hill, there's a sign that says the impassable when wet, we had two people ignore the sign side off and they walked four and a half miles to get to here.

And I asked them both why they didn't stop?

And they said, "Well, the road was really good where that sign was."

And I says, "That's the point!

You still have time to turn around."

- [William] So until that sloppy road firms up and the gray sky clears, here's mud in your eye.

(harmonica music fades) During my driver's education class, at Wibaux County High School, we took a county road out north and I was driving when the road quickly turned to gumbo.

The teacher said just one thing, "Whatever you do, don't stop."

When the economy of Lincoln began to bog down the community looked for ways to promote and build interest in the region, to add character to Lincoln's identity and while wooden and metal sculptures scattered among the pine trees east of town wasn't top of mind it just so happened that an Irish sculptor was spending time in the area.

- So in 2002, I founded a sculpture park in Ireland.

When I came here, I said to them, I said, you know, you could do this here as well.

And it's all about celebrating.

We celebrated the harvesting of peat used for electricity production, etc.

You could celebrate the logging culture and the mining culture here.

And so for this community, as well, it's been great to actually be part of this, and I feel very much part of this community.

It's my second home.

- [William] Many Montana towns are defined by a unique building.

We found an example in Southwestern Montana, that's been a spiritual home to Alder Gulch and Ruby River families for more than a century.

It's in one of those Montana towns where the pronunciation doesn't match the spelling, "La-ray."

(enchanted piano music) This unique church is in a uniquely named community.

- St. Mary's of the Assumption, Laurin, Montana.

A lot of people call it Lauren if you're not from here.

We can tell you're a tourist by your mispronunciation of the words.

- [William] The town was named, after Frenchman, Jean-Baptiste Laurin, who became wealthy selling goods to early Montana miners, and later funded the construction of the Catholic church.

The Gothic Revival style of architecture makes this building stand out from most churches in Montana.

The rough-cut sandstone bricks came from a quarry in the nearby Laurin canyon, since it first opened in 1901, five generations of Bill Maloney's family have worshiped here yet.

- It's such a unique structure, is part of it, but this was our social function when I was young, The church is still kind of the hub of the Catholic community.

- [William] The inside of the church has decorative woodwork and an elaborate altar.

Roseanne Troyer and her family have attended since 1950.

- And it was all altar in front and on the sides.

It was more ornate.

I guess more regal.

- [William] Beautiful stained glass windows give a colorful globe to the inside of the church.

- [Roseanne] And I really liked it when the sun came through the windows.

- They have these metal supports in because all the glasses leaded together and they needed the extra support.

- [William] One window pays tribute to the family who used their wealth to build the church.

About three dozen folks attend mass at St. Mary's each week.

The church also sees a number of tourists stopping by, as well.

- [Bill] They just marvel that a little tiny community like this would have such a unique building.

- [William] The church continues to mean so much to the Madison County Catholic community.

- I think that it's a foundation.

I think that it's a rock and I think it's a symbol to them about the hope for mankind.

- I've never tried to put words to it.

I don't think there's any words you can put to it.

It's just something that's part of our hearts.

- [William] St. Mary of the Assumption still holds weekly mass for locals and many summer tourists.

About 50,000 visitors pull off busy Highway 200, near Lincoln, to spend time at the sculpture and the wild park each year.

The sculpture park also provides learning opportunities for more than 350 school children through hands-on participation in art and music.

Today, Montana musician Philip Aaberg is helping these Lincoln school kids create an audio installation made up of sounds they recorded in the park.

Our final story shows us Montanans appreciation for an honest day's work.

We met a fascinating woman in Northeastern Montana who's relied on one constant throughout her life.

(upbeat guitar music) There's work to be done on the ranch - Out of my way.

(horn beeps) - [William] and Pearl Nickels has no time to waste.

It's a 21st-century cattle drive.

Pearl is in the pickup.

Her hired man, Robert, drives the side-by-side.

Together, they're moving cattle to a new pasture.

- It don't sound to me like they're very cooperative this morning.

- [William] Now in her 90s, Pearl knows all about a full day's work.

She's held a variety of jobs in her lifetime, but this one is still her favorite.

- She really does.

She likes being a rancher.

You can see that, but to describe her, she's very unique.

- [Pearl] Having trouble with the gate?

- [Robert] She's got a heart of gold and, you know, she's a worker.

- You run the rope, I'll run this.

I know how to run these.

- [Robert] But she's stubborn too.

You know, I mean... - Ain't going to get much more.

Take a look at the wire!

- So can you put three or four things all together to describe Pearl?

And that's what you got, you know?

- [William] That stubborn streak and never backing down from a fight helped Pearl pull herself and friends out of some sticky spots.

As Pearl tackles the next chore, those same friends and family worry about her, and have tried to talk her out of running this 13,000-acre ranch, with more than 300 head of cattle.

- [Pearl] Come here, Boots!

(Pearl whistles) - [William] But Pearl keeps working with one hired man and her trusty sidekick Boots.

How Pearl got here is a colorful and complicated tale, but it starts with her passion for one animal.

- I mean, my mother loves cows.

She really does.

- My dad always said the first word I ever said was "cow."

- [Narrator] Pearl, here, on the left with her twin sister Ruby, with two brothers, grew up on a place just outside of Sydney.

Her parents were strict, but she still found a way to carve out her own personality, during her teenage years.

She worked with her father and learned farming and ranching, always on her own path.

Pearl went off to college in Billings and earned a teaching certificate and later taught in one-room schoolhouses in Eastern Montana.

- [Pearl] And actually, I was probably at the end of an era because they were just starting to bus the country kids to school.

- By the 1950s, Pearl was married and had the first of her four boys.

She quit teaching and started working on the ranch, the couple owned near Circle.

During the 1960s, she was trying to keep up on the latest in agriculture.

When she read about a new technique called artificial insemination, she took a class in Bozeman and started working on her own herd.

- Then, they asked if I'd like to be a field rep for them.

And I said, "Well sure, I mean, never done it, but give it a try."

- [William] Pearl became one of the few women in the entire profession.

She traveled across Montana and Wyoming, surprising a lot of ranchers when she showed up.

- Montana wasn't too bad, but when they sent me down to Wyoming, there was a lot of resistance there.

They just couldn't, hardly feature somebody, a woman, being in that job.

As time progressed, more women went into it because their hands were smaller.

They had a little better sense of touch.

- [Announcer] Now, let's all play, "What's My Line?"

- [Pearl] Boss, he said, "I think I'll get you on 'What's My Line?'"

I said, "Well, what do you mean?"

He says, "I'll bet you nobody could guess your occupation."

- [William] Pearl never made it on the show.

And the next years were anything, but fun and games.

She had two difficult marriages that ended in divorce.

The fighting and the court cases took a toll on everyone.

Pearl was left to start over.

- I've been homeless twice and stone-broke twice at the same time, but if you keep your faith and a sense of humor, I think you're going to be alright.

(foreboding music) - [William] No matter how bad it got, there was always solace in the work.

(harmonica music) - You get her on one of those tractors, you can't get her out.

- [William] It turns out there's another motivation for the hard work on the sprawling ranch near Fort Peck.

Pearl had long known the Nickels family.

Pearl and Jack Nickels reconnected when both of their spouses passed away.

They eventually got married in 1997 and lived on Jack's place.

Jack and his late wife Peggy put years of sweat equity into the ranch and turned scrub brush into fertile irrigated farm ground, next to the Missouri River.

As he was turning 100 years old, Jack was moved into a nursing home.

Pearl was the last one standing on his place.

- [Pearl] So this was Jack's deal, you know.

I think I'm keeping it going for him.

He used to look out the window and make comments about what was going on, until still he went to the nursing home.

And I think that's why I'm here, but I always enjoyed the work.

- [William] Another full day begins after breakfast and checking the weather... - Where'd they say at Two o'clock today it's supposed to come in?

- [William] It's back to the field.

To the outsider, it seems like an endless amount of work to Pearl, it's a never-ending source of satisfaction.

- [Todd] It's part of her and thinks she's a little scared if she'd quit, then what?

- [Pearl] What would I do if I retired?

You know, some people just like to work.

- [William] Shortly after our visit, Jack Nickels passed away at age 100.

Pearl isn't certain what her next chapter will be, but one thing's for sure, it'll include a regular schedule of chores.

Well, our work is done here.

Before we leave the sculpture park I'm going to explore this place.

It's called "Tree Circus."

We have a special thanks to Becky Garland for her help on today's show.

Becky and her family members have been behind the sculpture park from the very beginning.

The sculpture park is just east of Lincoln on highway 200.

It's open from dawn to dusk.

Admission is free.

Look for the Teepee burner in the trees.

Tell us what back roads we should head down next!

Leave a story idea on our Facebook page or write us at Backroads of Montana, University of Montana, Missoula, MT 59812.

You can watch previous episodes of our show at Montanapbs.org, or pick up a DVD at your local library.

As long as you keep watching, we'll keep covering the Backroads of Montana.

I'm William Marcus.

See you next time.

♪ And it's a land of waters coming down ♪ - [Narrator] "Backroads of Montana" is made possible with production support from The Greater Montana Foundation, encouraging communication on issues, trends, and values of importance to Montanans, The Big Sky Film Grant and the University of Montana.

♪ And the folks out here have the time a day ♪ ♪ And a helping hand to share ♪ Home is where Montana is, Montana is my home ♪ ♪ From mountain peaks to prairie lands ♪ ♪ The places I have known ♪ And I'm bound to ramble ♪ Yes, I'm bound to roam ♪ And when I'm in off the road now, boys ♪ ♪ Montana is my home ♪ Coming in off the road now, boys ♪ ♪ You know I'm heading home