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Share your land interaction experiences and learn from others. By sharing your story and engaging with others, you’ll gain valuable insights and expertise to help you achieve your land management goals.
Make a Post:
1. Share your property’s history, including any experiences with flooding, drought, fire, beaver activity, or other relevant events. You can also share concerns about the resiliency of your land to these events in the future.
2. Describe the improvements you’d like to see in this area. What are your goals for this land? This is a draft, a brainstorming. You will have many opportunities to revise your ideas.Respond to Others:
– Engage with fellow landowners, share your expertise, and learn from others. This online community is a unique opportunity to tap into the collective knowledge and experience of landowners who face similar challenges and opportunities.
– By sharing your insights and experiences, you’ll:
– Help others solve problems and overcome challenges
– Gain new perspectives and approaches to managing your own land
– Develop valuable connections with others who understand the complexities of land managementLet’s learn from each other and support one another in our land management journeys!
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1. Archaeological research that we conducted on our land revealed that this location has been used by people for over ~10,500 years—probably longer once the excavations and research has been completed. Those excavations showed multiple flooding events over the course of probably thousands of years. These events are represented by higher energy sand deposits, and some lower energy silt deposits. The reason people were spending time on these muddy/sandy banks is as yet unknown, but we have also found evidence of fishing-related artifacts such as net weights (large rocks with a carved groove) and a crescent-like biface, which tends to be used by fishing populations.
In more recent times, we know that Lewis and Clark passed by our property as they traveled along this arm of the Jefferson river on their voyage. Jumping forward at least a hundred years, I know that the flow rate for the Jefferson slough is managed, as old-timers have told me that it was impassable on foot or horse during spring runoff. I could go on about the history of our place, but I’ll jump to the more recent years.
We purchased the property in 2020 and the previous owners placed an electric fence on the edge of the steep banks, I think in part to deter fishermen. We have noticed beaver activity. We occasionally have small willows gnawed down, and our biggest cotton wood was munched heavily by beavers before we bought the place (and somehow it’s still standing!).
No one seems to remember the last time this place flooded, and my guess is that it hasn’t happened in living memory. Nevertheless, it is a major concern for us. We know that our soils are compacted, lacking the pour spaces to be able to act as a sponge if a flooding event did happen. The banks are very steep, and we would like to see them restored and having a better relationship with the river.
2). My goals for the land are extensive. I would like to see our land become a food forest / silvopasture, and I would like the land to make friends with the river rather than just being acquaintances. This will require rejuvenating the soil biology and multiplying the microorganisms that will support these later-succession plant species.
All plants require aerobic soil microorganisms to extract the nutrients from the minerals in soil and convert them to a bioavailable form. Weedy plants tend to like soils that are dominant in bacteria because bacteria produce nitrate. Later-succession plants such as shrubs and trees need a fungal-dominated soil because they require more ammonium. A soil that is fungal dominated cannot support weeds. I plan on creating “biocomplete” compost loaded with beneficial, aerobic fungi to multiply the LOCALLY adapted microorganisms so I can achieve this goal much faster than nature could do by herself. These organisms will not only benefit the plants, but also open up pore spaces in the soil to eliminate runoff, increase water retention, and many more benefits.
I would love to see whether I can introduce some of techniques introduced in this course to start repairing the stream banks. I need to figure out whether that’s possible since I know this stretch of the river is designated as a canoe trail.
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Hi Sari, Great to see you back in the area! I think I am replying to your post, but I have zero confidence that I’m doing this correctly. I live on McKeown these days in Cardwell (not on the river)– where are you on the Jeff?
It will be fun to learn more about the way you are approaching your land restoration with the archeology overlay. Very cool!
~Holly Harper
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Hi Holly!
Sorry if this is a duplicate. It doesn’t seem to want to post my reply today! Sam, are we not allowed to post links?
It looks like you were successful replying, but I haven’t been yet, haha!
We are south of Whitehall where Kountz Rd intersects the Jefferson Slough. So far, we haven’t seen any archaeological evidence in the bank, but I am excited to get it stabilized to minimize risk to the arch site.
You can learn more about our research and educational outreach through our nonprofit, Alpine Ecosystems Research Institute (AERI), if you go to alpine research dot org. I just added a bunch of information about soil biology and restoration under About > The Present: Soil Biology Research. If you have time, I’d love to hear your thoughts and questions. It’s hard to remember what it was like to not know about these topics.
I also remembered your questions about moving willows out of their bioregion. The folks at Ripple both did a great job explaining the general principles of moving plants, but I can augment their answer to this question in terms of soil biology. Plants require aerobic microbiological partners to provide them nutrients from the soil and also to provide protection from diseases. A healthy plant will have root surfaces and above-ground surfaces coated in a glue-like layer of beneficial microorganisms. If you move the plant to a different bioregion with different climate, different substrate, etc., the beneficial microorganisms that came with it may not survive and the plant will be more susceptible to disease. Additionally, you run the risk of introducing a foreign microorganism, which will have unknown consequences down the line.
Finally, I’m not sure if they mentioned that willows evolved to get “torn up” by flooding events and have their missing limbs and pieces become trees down river. If we are really trying to mimic mother nature, we can think about sourcing our willows from upstream, or within the same river basin as our own.
Those are my 3 cents!
Best,
Sari -
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Hi Sari and Scott,
It sounds like you have a lot of history on your land! And your goals for your soil and landscape are so admirable. For my professional paper I was focused on mixed-grass prairie restoration on wheat farms and improving soil health and crop yield by introducing arbuscular mycorrhizae. Researching for that paper was a lot of fun as I got to look at fungal/plant relationships and think about the soil as a living thing instead of just a medium to grow plants in.
Your comment about the river being designated as a canoe trail reminded me of a question as I was going through the modules. Some of the techniques could span the entire channel, and I can imagine that installing multiple structures could make navigation more challenging. I’m curious how often that’s actually been an issue, and whether it’s ever created obstacles (literally!ha!) for restoration projects.
Also, where is your land located? Just curious for context!
-Stephanie
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Stephanie, where can I find your paper? I have been desperate to find local examples of people doing this work.
Yes, I’ve been reaching out to some folks who might know more about historic trails. I do know a bit about history, but historic trails are not my specialty, haha.
We are south of Whitehall on the Jefferson Slough 🙂
Please email me the link to your storymap! info@alpineresearch.org
Cheers,
Sari
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My goals are to restore the ponds and vegetation on our property. I bought the property in 2005 and saw aerial photos from the mid 60s that showed 4-5 ponds. At that time there were beavers on the property but was told they were trapped out. I would like to reestablish the ponds by fixing the old beaver dams. The other goal of mine is to reestablish the willows and Aspen. The willows and aspen were burnt from a fire and never really had a good start again due to the browsing of elk and moose. I have started this through a program lead by Amy Chatman. In that program we tried natural material to fix the dams, however this has not been very successful. As far as the enclosures we have put in for the willows and aspen have done well. I believe it may be time to relocate the enclosures. I think the hardest part of this project is to restore the ponds.
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Hi Rod! I am intrigued by your project. I’m curious if you have thought about putting up electric fencing around your aspen/willow stands when you move the permanent fencing? I think there are ways to configure it so deer and elk are less likely to jump in. It would at least be a mild deterrent!
I’d be interested in doing a small case study of your property about the soil microbiology in the various plots, if you are willing. It am curious to know how the various plots differ and to see how they might change through time.
My goal is to get a network of landowners interested in regeneration to allow either 1) public engagement in the restoration process or 2) access to the soil biology data and results that are noted during the restoration process. Let me know if this is something you might be interested in!
Best,
Sari
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I would like to make my land more drought proof in general… I have property in the Bull Mountains with several creeks and springs and through the years I have seen boggy areas dry up. We are implementing a conifer mitigation plan and would like to improve the health of our water resources using BDS’s and other appropriate management techniques (including grazing plans). I also rely on our river in the Boulder Valley to flood the hay meadows each spring and rejuvenate the sloughs/subirrigation, and also store stock water through the summer. Due to low snow pack, drought, and increasing demands on our watershed each year the river has not flooded for the last 2 years and may not this spring as well. I am hoping there may be projects or ideas out there to help with this. I know the river is incised and overwidened in areas.
I am very exciting to learn all I can about different techniques and how to implement them properly! -
I work for a natural resource consulting (ranch management) company so the scope of my projects are spread out across different properties which each have their own unique approach. Typically we are looking at degraded and incised stream channels due to over-grazing and poor management practices. Overall, my goal with this course is to offer a different approach to heavy dirt work/completely restructuring stream channels for a cost effective way to use materials on site and store water for improved wildlife habitat and increase native vegetation.
For now, I will focus on one particular project located east of Sheridan, MT. The area is quality habitat for elk, deer, and antelope. It is a coulee that flows ephemerally during spring runoff, and it’s voracity depends on snowpack levels. The channel is mild to moderately incised the entire length, with scattered areas of moderate to severe head-cuts. Many of the smaller head cuts have already been reinforced with non-living rock structures, but there is one particularly large head cut (think sedan-sized) near the top of the coulee that we cannot manually haul enough rocks in to reinforce. The slope is too great for me to have high hopes of creating a wetland oasis, rather my goal is to build BDA to withstand the spring runoff so we can reduce further erosion, and store some modicum of water for the critters and plants. This area was treated extensively for conifer encroachment and although we are seeing a higher number of native plants repopulate, there are still the ever-present noxious weeds. So, if we could store enough water to drown the weeds along the channel or give the native plants enough water to compete, that would be a bonus! -
Hi everyone!
I am thrilled to have the opportunity to take this course with all of you. My name is Stephanie Espinoza and I am the Watershed Coordinator for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes on the Flathead Indian Reservation. I started in my role in September, and both the position and program are new. My primary goal is to work with landowners on water conservation strategies at the ranch and farm scale.
The Tribes co-own the Milltown water rights with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and our work focuses on protecting instream flow levels in the Blackfoot and Upper Clark Fork Rivers for fisheries. While meeting instream flow targets at the Turah and Bonner gages is the key objective, our broader goal is to improve watershed health and flows throughout the Upper Clark Fork tributaries. If you would like to know more, here is an excellent story map that covers the Tribes’ aboriginal history in these watersheds and provides more detail on the Milltown water rights.
A little about me: I was born and raised in Great Falls, MT and I am the fifth generation of dryland wheat farmers in the Golden Triangle near Carter/Fort Benton area. My brother is training to take over for my dad, and my sister and I will help with accounting and harvest when we can. I earned my Bachelor’s in Environmental Science from the University of Montana and my Masters in Land Resources and Environmental Science from Montana State University.
For the past 14 years, I worked as a fish culture specialist for MT Fish, Wildlife and Parks raising Arlee Rainbow Trout for stocking and helped managed the Arlee broodstock for egg production for the state. While I miss working outside and working hands-on with fish, I am excited to grow in this new role and focus more broadly on watershed health.
I’m especially excited about this course because I’ve always had a passion for environmental restoration. My hope is to apply what I learn here in partnership with landowners of the Upper Clark Fork and see the positive impacts of landscape improvement, water retention, and improving flows in our streams and river. I am really looking forward to learning from all of you and hearing about your land, its history, and the projects you’re working on.
-Stephanie -
My land experience in this area is as a former seasonal range worker for the USFS, mainly spraying weeds & fencing. Currently, I spend as many days as possible on my horse, ostensibly looking for errant cows on private, BLM, and USFS land. Too many waterways need attention.
I work with/for two others in the class and intend to be a chainsaw-wielding cheerleader in muck boots and grant-writer as needed.
Timing-wise, this class is aligning with the writing of the “Draft Boulder Watershed Restoration Plan,” and they are interested in including the course participation and any resultant projects in the plan, which is cool and might free up some resources for more projects within the boundaries of the plan.
Sari– nice website & thank you for the bonus willow info!
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Hello, everyone!
Thank you for the heads up that links are preventing posts. I’ve had a chance to test this forum plugin, but it’s new. So, there will inevitably be some hiccups!
Looks like we had the link count per post set too low for spam prevention on blog post comments. I didn’t notice because this account is for moderators. So, all of your old comments with links in them are just being held for review. I’ve upped the limit to 5 per post, and that should solve the issue.
For anyone who’s looking for the links unwittingly sentenced to forum purgatory, you can find them below:
- Stephanie’s Milltown Water Rights Story Map
- Sari’s Link to the AERI Website
- Sari’s Soil Biology and Education Resources
I’ve also made some upgrades to the user controls, please let me know if they’re working for you or not!
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Hello, Everyone!
Happy New Year to all of you! We apologize for being late in completing this assignment. We are Dave and Judy Boyle, and we live in the Toll Mountain/Upper Rader Creek area west of Whitehall in the Boulder Batholith. We do not have surface water flowing through our property. However, we do have signs of past surface water. Our focus is to restore an area on Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest land. I have included an attachment so you are able to see the area which is on the North Fork of the Little Pipestone Creek near its headwaters in a beautiful drainage. It is a 1 tributary to the Jefferson River.
The human history of the area does include indigenous visitors for hunting. Later, mining and logging practices took place. Below the area is a group of privately owned cabin on FS leased land around Mullin Lake which, from my understanding, was part of the logging operation. Above the pond and in our area of concentration, are a series of dams. I am presently doing research to find out the exact history of the area and if those dams are man-made or beaver-made. The creek meanders through the series of dams.
During the 19 Mile Fire and Blacktail Fire, the helicopters used this pond for water.
The year that we were graced with much snow (2019?), the forest service closed the road from the junction of the FS240 road to the lake because they were afraid the integrity of the causeway on the lake was unsafe and would flood Toll Mountain Campground. The owners of the cabins contracted Jeffrey’s Construction to rebuild the causeway to FS specifications. During this time, a family of beavers began building a lodge below the lake on the creek. Sadly, the beavers have disappeared.
Ultimately, we would like permission from the FS, etc. to open the dams to allow more water to collect, leaving and possibly building up the last dam as a bank to eventually become a pond. I was speaking with one of the cabin owners who remembers, as a child, that the area was once a pond. We would love to restore this pond to improve habitat for mammals, birds, and fish along with a second source of water for firefighting efforts. The cabin owner was very excited to hear about this.
One last note…if anyone needs help with the physical work of your project, I would be happy to help!
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Hi Judy and Dave! Sounds like an interesting project! I would also be interested in helping with any of the physical labor for your project (and anyone else’s), if I can get notice far enough in advance to work it into my schedule.
I am also curious to see how the Forest Service will respond to your requests. We have active research agreements with the Custer-Gallatin and we’re in the process of creating active research agreements with the Beaverhead-Deerlodge. This could be a really interesting case study that could demonstrate a restoration project with multiple stakeholders.
Looking forward to hearing more from you in future discussions!
Cheers,
Sari
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Hi, Sari,
Thank you so much for your interest. Sam is in the process of talking with the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest folks, so we are keeping our fingers crossed. In the meantime, I am researching the area. I spoke to one of the cabin owners on the pond who remembers that area as a child. I am hoping to collect more information to support our cause. I will definitely let you know how things are going.
Judy
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Hello, I am coming in late, but am trying to catch up! This is Sue Pullman, my husband and I own about 2000 acres in the north Boulder River Valley, which includes about a mile of the Boulder. I think we have every type of erosion that is pictured in these modules, but not sure how effective some of the offered solutions would turn out. I do understand that some of the problems are caused because we don’t want half of our hay pastures to end up on the opposite side of the river. We have fenced off the river bottom, allowing cattle only to water from water “gaps”. There has been remarkable improvement in the riparian area, many more moose, but some erosion still takes place. We tried a soft fix a number of years ago, with the NRCS, using cottonwood root balls, etc, but it failed after a year or two and we ended up putting in rip rap. It is frustrating to loose fence into the river and have rebuild it. We have a hard time with beavers damming up our irrigation ditch. I do think that there is all kinds of potential, just can’t see how to do it. My project would be to try to get Conrow Creek to run all the way to the Boulder River, as it did many years ago. This creek starts up on Bull Mountain in Mud Springs and continues down through our BLM grazing permit, and then through Section 9, which is owned by my brother-in-law. From there, it is about 2 miles to the Boulder. A number of years ago the Conrow Creek fire burned all of Section 9 and outwards. That next spring, Conrow Creek ran all the way down. It has not since, but I think there is so much opportunity to create BDAs all the way down from Mud Springs. Access is difficult right now, the wind storm earlier this year took down so many burned trees that it is impossible to come up from below.
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The benefits to having Conrow Creek extend its flow is beneficial in a number of ways. It would provide water to stock and wildlife. It could help mitigate fire potential, provide good habitat for birds. This creek runs, is then underground, and then reappears numerous times down the mountain. There is great potential for many BDAs, there is a large amount of downed trees, good aspen growth, etc.
The costs would be mostly sweat equity. Chainsaws, fuel, and time.
To implement this project, it would probably take several summers of building BDAs, studying their effects, and possibly looking into beaver relocation.
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Torrey Ritter the FWP Beaver Guy will visit Sue Pullman, Trudy Dawson, and Holly Harper’s project areas in the Cardwell area on Mar 4. He is coming from Missoula, so if other people around here want to hitch on this visit, maybe contact him and ask. torrey.ritter@mt.gov
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