Montana Land Reliance - Passion and Commitment

When the Montana Land Reliance hired Amy Royer nearly 20 years ago, they gave her an enormous geographical area, a lot of responsibility, and minimum supervision.

“Basically,” she says, “they provided me with a car and a list of names. Apart from that, I was pretty much on my own.”

Two decades later, Amy is moving on to other things, but the impact she has had on northwest Montana will last forever. Before she left the Land Reliance she completed her 188th conservation easement, a staggering number that reflects not only a lot of land protected, but a lot of relationships forged.

“It’s the landowners,” says Amy, “that have made this work meaningful. Each of them has been different, but all are united in their attachment to their land. Each family,” she says, “each individual, each piece of land has presented unique challenges. I always tried to find solutions that resonated in my heart, and at the same time achieved commonality with landowners.”

One of those landowners is the remarkable Jessie Clemans. We tagged along with Amy on a recent visit to Jessie’s Mission Valley property, and came away inspired.

Jessie lives a stone’s throw from the homestead where she was born in 1925, on the edge of a forest of tamarack and pine and fir. Everywhere in her house and on her property is the evidence of her creativity, ingenuity, perseverance, and independence. There are buildings she fashioned herself of stone and hand-hewn timber; hand-sewn quilts of museum-quality; and a collection of 19th century antiques and artifacts that by itself constitutes a museum.

“I’d have liked to live a hundred and fifty years ago,” says Jessie. “Things were slower. I could have ridden a horse everywhere instead of a dang car. There was more space and fewer people. And I believe people were more independent back then. That’s something we’ve lost. Now we expect someone to do things for us.”

Jessie’s father died when she was young, and her family survived by working together, she says. They milked cows and split wood and cut hay. They raised chickens and pigs. Her brothers killed game for the table. They made everything they wore, and it was a shock to Jessie when she learned that some people bought ‘ready made clothes.’

“My mom had one of those women’s magazines one time,” she says. “And at first I couldn’t believe the pictures. Then I thought: ‘Holy moly, who would want to look like that?”

Jessie and her siblings had no trouble amusing themselves. When they slaughtered a pig, they’d save the bladder to make a balloon. If they finished their chores early, they would take their horses and ride into the mountains.

“Sometimes we’d be gone for a couple of days,” she says. “We didn’t know what a sleeping bag was. We’d each take a blanket, and a couple of potatoes to throw into the fire, and my brothers might kill a grouse or two. The finest restaurant in the world can’t compare to that.”

Jessie had a long career as a nurse before retiring to devote more time to projects at home. But as beautiful and peaceful as her home and property are, she could not ignore the development happening around her.

“I started to think about this place,” she says, “with its three creeks and its trees, and I realized that it’s a subdivider’s dream. And I said to myself, ‘that ain’t gonna happen here!’”

Jessie had heard of the Montana Land Reliance, and so she contacted Amy to talk about the possibility of a conservation easement.

“At the Land Reliance,” says Amy, “we don’t have cookie-cutter solutions. Each easement is tailored to the individual and to the specific property. With Jessie, we crafted an easement that works for her, that takes into account everything she might want to do on this place, while still protecting the integrity of her land.”

“This is darn good country,” says Jessie. “You’ve got timber, and critters, and mountains, and water. This country is too nice to be careless with. But some people don’t get it,” she says. “They fear being told what to do. They don’t realize that you can’t keep chopping up land without consequences. They don’t see that what one person does affects other people. They don’t see the big picture.”