BCJ_SUMMER17 Digital Edition

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IMMIGRANT SONG
Riley and I howl along with Robert Plant as we roll over a cattle-guarded highway off-ramp near where Montana turns into Wyoming.
We come from the land of the ice and snow
Fly rods rattle in their bungee sling along the ceiling. We’ve been driving for five hours and the excitement is near fever pitch.
My Lab, Moose, crawls up from the back seat to see what’s going on.
From the midnight sun, where the hot springs flow.
We weave through a ghost town, over another cattle guard, and the road turns to dirt. The driver of a flatbed pickup headed the other
direction nods and raises one finger off his steering wheel.
The hammer of the Gods will drive our ships to new lands
This is the type of place you speak of only in pseudonym, share photos sparingly and occasionally misdirect.
Some places can handle only so much love.
To fight the hordes,
I step on the gas as white mountains break above crinkled foothills, Led Zeppelin at full volume.
Singing and crying:
Twenty eight miles of ruts and washboards lie between us and a willow-lined, meadow creek home to forearm-sized cutthroat trout.
Valhalla, I am coming.
-Sam Lungren, editor
62 | BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL SUMMER 2017
LEUPOLD | AMERICAN TO THE CORE
SUMMER 2017 BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL | 63