The best that can be said about the United States’ relationship with its closest allies and its neighbors to the north, with whom America shares the world’s largest unguarded border, might be summed up as such:

We’re in a weird place.

It wasn’t one of those windstorms that made the news last summer in central Montana. TV coverage might have included the weatherman on the local Helena ABC affiliate remarking about how “it sure was windy today,” although seemingly minor events can make the news on a slow day. Just this week, a squirrel got zapped in an electrical substation, cutting power to thousands in Helena. But, as I said, it wasn’t a windstorm that made me rush to social media after I got off the Missouri with Craig DeMark just to let the rest of the world know I was safe from the Missouri River Gale of 2024.

May’s been a weird month for those who have worked in the conservation field for any length of time. Not only has it seen an unprecedented attack on America’s public lands by right-wing federal lawmakers who want to help the Trump administration use the country’s unique inventory of publicly owned acreage to fund tax cuts for the wealthiest among us, it’s seen some previously unexpected pushback from other Republicans who really don’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to their conservation record.

Growing up on the fringes of the Deep South, in the East Texas piney woods region, there was always a tricky summer ballet we had to perform. It was a careful balance between wandering down to the local pond — where we’d sneak through the woods after carefully climbing through a barbed-wire fence erected to keep us out — to chase bass and bream on sticky summer days and handling the “chores” that came with living on three-quarters of a pine-tree pocked acre.

That first ominous little tickle in the back of my throat came on the morning after a fairly raucous evening of hand-rolled cigars, butter-smooth rum and, of all things, the hideous mixture of vodka and Red Bull. It was one of those nights that, at my age, you only endure on a far-flung fishing trip away from the steady influence of someone who has your best interests at heart. I remember looking around the dark balcony of the flashy, noisy and generally chaotic nightclub and thinking to myself, “What the hell am I doing here?”

As I get ready for an upcoming saltwater trip, I’ve been enduring the challenges most right-brained thinkers deal with when it comes to organization and preparation. For me, it generally starts with unpacking my duffle from my last big trip. That means I have several notable organizational obstacles. First, I need to remove everything “trouty” from my bag. Yes, I’m a procrastinator — I’ve embraced this trait and have come to grips with the fact that I tend to work best in short bursts and on a deadline.

Years ago, when I was working to protect public lands in the West from any number of extractive industrial activities, I was fond of telling the generally conservative hunters and anglers that I came into contact with on a daily basis, “You don’t have to be a left-wing radical to engage thoughtfully in conservation. You just have to be pragmatic and understand what it is you’re fighting for.”

Oh Lord, my God
When I, in awesome wonder
Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder
Thy power throughout the universe displayed
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee
How great Thou art, how great Thou art
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee
How great Thou art, how great Thou art

— Carl Boberg, 1886

This creek and I go way back. When I first moved to Idaho 25 years ago, it was one of the first blue lines on the map that I searched out. I found its subtle course through a lodgepole forest in what was then a crisp new copy of DeLorme's Atlas and Gazetteer for the Gem State. That same collection of maps is now a dog-eared, faded compilation of a quarter century’s worth of adventure. The adventure started here. On this modest little willow-shrouded, beaver-dammed trickle through the Targhee National Forest, just outside of Yellowstone National Park.

It’s possible we’ve taken our passion for native trout a bit too far. Not that North America’s native fish should be held in disdain. Far from it.

In putting the notion of Manifest Destiny into practice — first by identifying it as the inevitable future for European Americans in the mid-1800s and then by actively pursuing it as an ideal — our predecessors doomed more than just the Indigenous people of our continent.