A town for sale!

These words perplexed me through the night. How can a town be for sale? How can Polebridge, Montana be for sale? On the one hand it saddens me to think about the small, remote town that I was so inspired by, being abandoned by its once devoted caretakers. On the other hand I laugh at the irrational absurdity of anthropomorphizing it synonymously to an orphaned child. For there is nothing sad, or weak about Polebridge, whose inhabitants drop to something like 25 people each winter.

There are two very different ways of traveling the earth. There is scheduled, planned travel, distant lands to check off your list before you die, and then there is an alternative approach. Well, not really an approach, or method at all. There is Polebridge. To say it simply, Polebridge is an experience, a subjective, perspective-altering experience. You spend five minutes there, and you realize with calm, unpretentious clarity that “this is living.” You are living, your own authentic life in fact, creating your story as you go along. It is a story, your story, that happens also to be entwined with the bearded stranger that ordered his second cup of tea at the table behind you and the loud middle-aged woman from Boston that makes a two day hike through Glacier every year, ending with lunch in Polebridge. And although it seems young and romantic to think, going against the heavy realist coat you have now been wearing uncomfortably for the last few years, you know somehow that this old man’s beard represents his wisdom, and that you are all here for some larger reason, if only to sit together in silence. This is perhaps the last real place. It is a place of natural human gathering, humbled by the size of the surrounding mountains, and aligned with a larger natural rhythm. It is the kind of true place that intentional communities now try to replicate. You know you are here instantly, it is that same feeling you got when you read Jack Karouac for the first time, when his writing changed your life, if even for just that single moment when you read the last sentence and closed the book. You know you are in Polebridge by the hand-painted sign that says, “slow down, animals and children breathe here”.

A long, bumpy dirt road leads you to the official wooden sign that points the way to Polebridge, or if you are in a more adventurous mood, you can hike in from Glacier National Park. In the winter months, I have heard that if you are able to get to Polebridge in the first place, you can rent snow shoes and/or cross country skis and reversibly hike back into Glacier where you are more likely to run into a Grizzly bear than another human being. There are two main buildings in Polebridge: the Polebridge Mercantile and the Northern Lights Saloon and Café, both for sale. There is also a hostel that claims to have sheltered many international wanderers throughout the years. The Mercantile is famous, or at least to this second type of traveler, for its dough wrapped/baked sandwiches, pastries, and cookies. The Northern Lights Saloon, where Chuck and I spent our time in Polebridge, is literally steps away from the Mercantile, where dogs lazily wait for their owners who are happily engulfed in conversations with other people inside, those who can actually use words. The dogs don't seem to mind, since it is also rare that they get to be around other dogs. The café menu is based on two things: the supply of food that they happen to have on hand that day and what the cook that morning is inspired to do with it. I love how there really is no planning in this town. Even meals seem to take on this “everyday is an opportunity to create, connect, and live with nature” lifestyle. Wine and beer are served out of a mason jars, filled lovingly and carefully to the rim by the beautiful pregnant woman behind the bar whose long untamed curls flow at the same sway as her broom skirt. I found that she was also the town artist, and looking back on it now, she probably painted the colorful northern lights piece that hung slightly off centered on the wall behind her. Hand-knitted stocking caps were hung casually with clothespins. I assumed at the time that these were made locally and were for sale, but who knows, perhaps it was some type of drifters’ lost and found for Glacier weather. A sign that says, “our patrons are beautiful people from all walks of life” reminds visitors that this is a welcoming place, and you shouldn’t feel intimidated if you no longer carry substantial amounts of cash, only debit cards that you realize, once you have already been seated, that they probably have no way of accepting. They work with whatever you have in your pocket, trying to come up with a suitable meal or beverage. There is no electricity in Polebridge, which makes running a café seem like quite a feat, although you wouldn’t know it by the two female workers who drift in and out of the saloon slowly to change the music, boil water, or answer your questions with smiles and soft voices. Underneath your plate are the old invoices for the area, sealed under a semi-protective glaze, protected mostly except for scratches on the surface from knives and forks by some lonely old drunk with eyes fixed downwards or by the hands of children who here are given a respect and autonomy to do freely as they please. When reading these one hundred year old receipts for log cabin supplies, you realize that these women in 2007, living without electricity don’t really have it so hard, they at least have shelter and water and other like-minds who have chosen this place specifically. Time isn’t a concern here, only seasons; and somehow this kind/gentle and different breed of people have learned how to survive the winters here. And then you want to retract you last thought about them not having it so hard, and realize that although it is a beautiful thought to live here in this remote wilderness, you yourself do not have the psychological toughness to survive the first winter. These women do however. They have that toughness that is takes, that toughness that is, in their case, strangely soft at the same time. It will come in handy when the bartender births her child in the middle of nowhere, this “nowhere” that so many people throughout the years have happened to come across and found so important.

Polebridge is not a "town". It is a community whose alluring landscape and inspiring people attract many seekers, hikers, bikers, lonesome travelers, children, and dogs. Polebridge is also a larger community comprised of those who are pulled by the peace and enlightenment it offers. So finally, the essence of Polebridge is not for sale, money has no value to the people that love this place anyhow. Yes, charming it is, but charm is not the most fitting word to describe it. Polebridge is energy, humanity at its simplest and finest. At Polebridge you find a real, natural, vital collective energy that has no price tag. The people that live there, the locals, are strong, patient, and determined to live their life the most genuine way. They have to be, it would be impossible to live that far north, in those majestic mountains, if one wasn’t mentally and physically prepared and committed. Polebridge is definitely not an orphan, and will remain, no matter whom the owner, a refuge instead, a home for the wanderers, the wearied, the once idealistic travelers that have a worn old copy of Dharma Bums in their backpacks, tucked tightly between a can of beans and a naglene of glacier water.

But if I have failed to convince you that it is a state of mind rather than an economic opportunity, and you just so happen to have a million dollars in your sock drawer, the whole town, along 22 acres of pristine wilderness, can be yours for the great steal of deal- 980,000 bucks!