The ad on the front page of the March 9, 2000, edition of the Mountain Trader read: "TEN ACRES: Log home & guest cabin, creek, mountain views, borders Forest Service. Cash!"

My husband and I had spent the previous fall and winter planning the construction of a cabin on the back ten acres of our Swan Valley property that would serve as a guest house and writing studio. We bought a log shell, consulted an architect, interviewed various local builders, and reached a dead end. Though we wanted a simple, modest cabin, the project was becoming more and more complicated, and the estimated cost was nudging six figures. This prompted us to look at other options. We checked out North Fork real estate and found decaying cabins jostled cheek to jowl with similar cabins on .3 acre scraps of land, also priced near six figures. This was not what we wanted, either.

We had almost given up making our dream a reality, when one Friday morning my husband was relaxing with a cup of coffee and the latest issue of the Mountain Trader and found the fateful ad. He called right away, and it sounded too good to be true. Not one cabin, but two, and one of them a genuine homestead, to boot; not one stream, but three, and two of them stocked with native cutthroat trout; abundant wildlife; end of the road privacy--all for way under six figures. There were drawbacks. No plumbing or electricity (but there was a two-seater, deluxe outhouse), and the homestead was still "under construction." Even so, it sounded like a great deal, so we drove north to look at it the next morning.

We went past Whitefish on Highway 93 to the tiny logging town of Olney, then west, into the mountains, into an area where only 1% of the land is privately owned, and the rest is National or State Forest. The minute we walked into the plain-built homestead, we knew it was home. It needed work, and so did the guest cabin and outbuildings, but there was nothing wrong with it that couldn't be fixed with elbow grease. So we struck a deal with the owner and took possession of the place two months later.

Like most homesteads, it has a story. Among the paperwork on the property is a deed worded in language from an earlier era. The deed states that on May 13, 1968, the property was sold by a Washington logging company to "Printer L. Bowler (a single man)" for the astonishing sum of "$10.00 and other good and valuable consideration." Two years later Printer sold the property to a hermit.

It was early spring when the hermit chose a site for the homestead and proceeded to chop down lodgepole pines for the construction of the walls. He toiled in the summer sun, refusing the advice and help of neighbors.

Homestead in Moosewillow

View of the meadow from the homestead.

The walls went up at a halting pace, because this fellow was an alcoholic, and he worked on the homestead between binges. Soon winter was upon him, but the walls weren't finished. He continued to refuse the help of neighbors, and when the walls barely reached six feet, left well enough alone.

The roof went on, and he weathered that first winter in the bare bones of the log shell. During subsequent years the construction continued, and so did his drinking. He added windows that were a tad cockeyed, and a plywood floor that was cockeyed, too. His daughter moved in to help, but that arrangement didnÕt last. Eventually the construction came to a halt, and the hermit lived in his unfinished cabin until he was too old and impaired for the rigors of homestead living.

In 1993 a couple bought the homestead. She was a forty-something Montana beauty, fine-boned and fair, whose ancestors homesteaded east of the divide a century ago; he was a darkly handsome young drifter from another state, a mountain man wanna-be two decades her junior, whom she met in a bar. He captured her heart and triggered her reformation instinct. She got him to accept Jesus and forsake alcohol, and they bought the homestead and got to work. They put in a kitchen, crafting the cabinets themselves, and built a cozy loft under the peaked roof. It was when they began construction of a one-room guest cabin that things went bad. He resumed drinking, started womanizing, and began to beat her. Just before winter, he packed his things and left.

She was alone in the primitive homestead her sweetheart had yearned for, on the wrong side of fifty, physically handicapped from the abuse she had endured. She fancied herself a wildlife painter and loved nature, so she remained there, painting birds and talking to them, for they were her only companions. Life was hard. For water in winter she walked 300 yards down to the creek and chopped a hole in the ice through which she lowered a bucket. She had a clawfoot tub, which she had painted pink, but the paint was cracked and peeling, like her dreams. In order to take a bath she would haul buckets of water from the creek and heat it in a big pot on the stove until she had enough to fill the tub. In time she discovered her husbandÕs beatings had broken more than her bones; a year after he left she put the place on the market.

She was desperate, and we paid her the full asking price. She was grateful and relieved to discover we loved nature as much as she did. While we waited for escrow to close, she walked with us all over the property and showed us secret places: where to find huckleberries in August and where the moose cows calve in late spring. She gave us a list of the birds she had seen on the property; it is an impressive list that comprises almost a hundred species. And when we signed the final papers in a Bigfork lawyer's office, there were warm hugs and bittersweet tears.

We worked hard on the homestead. We plugged gaps between logs that had been stuffed with rags to keep out the cold, replaced the chinking and windows and doors, put in plumbing and electricity, installed a beautiful wormwood pine floor on the main floor, and tongue and groove blue pine paneling in the loft; I sanded the tub and painted it deep violet. Then we filled the homestead with comfortable furniture and good books and dogs and children and friends and love. And we named it Moosewillow for the moose and willows that are so abundant there.

Quite simply, it is paradise. In summer fat cutthroat trout jump in the creeks. One June afternoon I sat in the shade of a yellow willow next to one of the creeks and wrote poetry. There was rustling in the willows and cattails and I assumed it was a moose. But when I looked up, I saw it was no moose; it was a large silvertip grizzly, not twenty feet away, coming to the creek to fish. He looked at me; I looked at him; we both calmly and slowly walked away in opposite directions. But for a moment, before the mutual instinctive aversion response kicked in, I knew what that bear was thinking, and he knew what I was thinking, and we were kindred spirits. In autumn a herd of elk passes through, the bulls chasing the cows, bugling and pawing the ground, tearing up the trees with their antlers; predatory mountain lions follow the elk, and we keep our daughters close to the cabin during this wild season. In winter friends come up for weekends filled with cross-country skiing and snowshoeing and hearty home-cooked meals. On a recent foray, the snow held the story of a lynx chasing a snowshoe hare, and we found two bear dens and a huge, fearsome aspen scarred by many, many ursine claws. Yes, there is magic in this place.

There is still much work to be done at Moosewillow; the guest cabin needs to be finished, the outbuildings need to be repaired, and non-native weeds need to be eliminated from the broad meadow in front of the homestead. But there are many seasons ahead of us in this place of our dreams, and weÕre in no rush.