Dubois Winters: If They Only Knew …

Dodging brutal New York weather in the Wyoming wilderness? You betcha.

wintertrail.With a vigilant eye on the weather apps, we made it back to Dubois from New York City last Friday by car, dodging the storms by many miles and barely seeing a snowflake. It’s wonderful to be back.

The following day, as you may have read, the city experienced a historic snowstorm.

Here’s today’s dispatch from the New York Times: “The slush continues: mostly sunny today, with a high of 43 … Especially in a large pile of nasty snow-dirt, you wouldn’t want to ruin your Sunday (or Wednesday) best. But most snow boots, even attractive ones, don’t exactly go with a power suit.”

Oh, my.

Meanwhile, I took the photo above during my mid-afternoon walk yesterday. I wasn’t wearing either snowboots or a “power suit,” needless to say.

“All our weekend plans are ruined,” our 30-year-old son, who lives in Brooklyn, moaned in a text message on Friday evening.

Dear, dear. They had to watch old movies on Netflix last Saturday and eat something made at home for a change (probably microwave popcorn), rather than going out.

BrooklynSnowWhile not denying that a few people in the city truly suffered as a result of the storm (and tragically three died), we know what it was like for our neighbors back there. Streets were closed to traffic and the dogs could run around off leash. Shovels and salt came out of the basement.

Here’s what they face, beginning now: Crusty snowbanks stained yellow and peppered with soot, impassably slushy crosswalks, trash cans obstructing sidewalks narrowed by snow, because the garbage trucks are busy plowing elsewhere.

Here’s today’s forecast for Dubois, Wyoming:

weather012716

It can be brutally, even subzero cold overnight and in the early morning this time of year. But as the wind is usually calm until mid-day, the morning walk around the property with the dog is seldom unpleasant, because layering up really works in this dry climate.

A few hundred feet higher in elevation, a short drive to the west, there’s plenty of base for snow-shoeing (and I’m eager to get out there). Two days ago, a sudden white-out forced Karen and me to turn back from our drive toward the mountain pass for our mid-day hike. But within a half hour, while trudging the back roads near my house, it was sunny again. A few miles downhill in town, it’s almost bare and dry

I’m told the original natives called this “the valley of the warm winds.” They’re not all that mild this time of year, but it is the truth that daytime temperatures in Dubois aren’t much different (setting aside the vagaries of weather) from those back in Brooklyn–as you see above, 40 versus 43.

It may snow sideways for three or four days–and we hope it soon does, because that moisture will be needed in a few months. But at least where we are, the wind always blows most of that blizzard away in short order.

When I consider the blessings of geology here, most often I’m thinking of the beauty of majestic mountain peaks and the cathedral walls of the Pinnacles. But being cradled within this mountain fortress, between the Absarokas and the Winds, also blesses us with protection in winter.

Here’s how I show it to friends out east, using my hand:

MapAndHandOff to the left of the image there, beyond my thumb, is Jackson and the Tetons, which famously get the bulk of the snow (and the downhill skiing industry, with its rowdy crowds).

Yellowstone Park is covered by my hand, off-screen, and my index finger points down the Absaroka range toward Dubois.

The hump of my hand, representing the top of Togwotee Pass and the Continental Divide, shields us from the bulk of the precipitation and cold temperatures. Yet again, this town and this lovely valley reap benefits from our unique situation.

Enough time at the desk! I want to get out there.

@ Lois Wingerson, 2016

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Remotely and Wildly True: Of Dubois and Distance

Did National Geographic really call Dubois WY the most remote town in the lower 48? How remote is it, actually?

HighwayGoogle “Dubois WY” and you’ll soon encounter a statement that it has been designated the most remote town (or sometimes the second remotest town) in the lower 48 states. Often this distinction is attributed to National Geographic.

When we moved to Dubois, my husband and I quickly took up calling it one of the most remote towns in the lower 48 when we described it to friends. We even trotted out some criteria, whose origin I no longer recall: Farthest from the nearest Interstate, fewest traffic lights (none), fewest number of highways that run through it (one), distance to the nearest large town (about 70 miles), or proportion of land within a 360-degree radius that is publicly owned (who knows, but lots).

But is this distinction actually deserved? How remote is Dubois, and compared to what and by which criteria? Last summer I began to study the question, with interesting results.

First, I couldn’t find any such statement about Dubois in the archives of National Geographic. And many other towns lay claim to the distinction of being most remote.

I turned to local sources, Dubois town hall and the library. Sandy Hurst at town hall offered up text from a 2011 press release about Dubois:

“A place considered by National Geographic as the most remote town in the lower 48 states…  it perches on the edge of several wilderness areas and is surrounded by national forests.”

This traced back to a strategic plan for Dubois by the Foundation for Urban & Neighborhood Development of Denver, Colorado, dated 1986. The report said that Dubois had been “recently identified in national news media coverage” as the most remote location in the lower 48–the same unconfirmed designation that I was already seeing, albeit even older.

Anna Moscicki at the library turned up a wonderful quote from the memoir of Ethel Waxham, mother of the geologist David Love who defined the geological history of the Yellowstone region. Waxham wrote about her arrival in Wyoming by stagecoach in 1905:

“The other passenger beside myself was a woman of fifty or sixty, white-haired, face weather worn, bright brown eyes, Mrs. Welty. She was post mistress at Dubois, the post office farthest from the railroad of any in the U.S.”

Delightful, written when the railroads were still expanding, and perhaps an insight into the town’s perception of isolation. But not that relevant today.

In the course of promoting Living Dubois on Twitter, I was fortunate to gain the interest of Marilyn Terrell, chief researcher for National Geographic, who has also been unable to find any source for that attribution of Dubois’ remoteness by her publication (so we ought to stop using it). But she did point me to an article in Smithsonian magazine describing what truly may be the most remote settlement in the lower 48: the community of Supai, Arizona, located at the base of the Grand Canyon. At the bottom of that 3,000-foot crevasse, it is reachable only by mule train, which is how they get their mail.

But Supai isn’t really a town: It’s designated by the US Census Bureau as a “census-designated place,” which is the Bureau’s term for a populated place that is not an incorporated village and has no municipal government. So does Dubois still qualify?

Overlook7Author Henry Grabar on the website citylab.com looked into which towns were most remote by the criterion of being farthest from the nearest Interstate highway, honoring Key West, Florida, as being farthest as the crow flies, and Copper Harbor and Eagle Harbor, Michigan, (251 and 238 driving miles from the nearest Interstate), with an honorable mention to Paisley, Oregon (209 miles) due to the sheer difficulty of driving to the big highway.

Dubois is “only” about 173 miles from the nearest Interstate, at Idaho Falls, and is interestingly equidistant from Interstates at Rawlins, Casper, and Livingston MT (200, 199, and 199 miles, respectively). But considering only towns that are completely surrounded by Interstates (rather than having a national border or large body of water on at least one side), I do wonder whether Dubois might qualify as having the largest average distance to the Interstate in all 4 directions (193 miles).

If you aren’t familiar with Dubois, please be assured that you can buy plenty of groceries and hardware supplies in town, and it’s even easy to find a cafe latte. And by that other criterion of remoteness, Internet access, Dubois is marvellously well-connected. You feel the remoteness mostly by your proximity to all that wilderness.

Speaking of which, there is one remoteness criterion Dubois can legitimately claim without dispute: It is TwoOceanPasscloser than any other town in the United States to the spot in the lower 48 that is most remote from any road, and therefore reachable only on foot or by horseback. This is Two Ocean Plateau in the southeastern corner of Yellowstone Park.

This spot has been designated by the United States Geological Service as the location in the “coterminous” United States that is most distant from any road (the trailhead is at Moran, an unincorporated community). Dubois is 44.1 miles from Two Ocean Pass as the crow flies, and the plateau is farther north. Jackson is 48.8 miles away.

There is one criterion for remoteness by which Dubois fails miserably. The residents are hardly remote in their behavior toward other people. It’s one of the friendliest places I’ve ever encountered, which is one reason we go all that way to get there.

@ Lois Wingerson, 2016

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Midwinter News from the Dubois Home Front

Beyond visible plans for reviving main street, there’s so much else that’s new in town this New Year.

As we begin to pack for the great return trek westward, news from Dubois in the “bleak midwinter” is anything but bleak. Not only have we seen the plans for the revival of our main street, there’s plenty more that’s new about town.

I guess when winter sets in and short-term visitors are largely confined to the mountain passes (with their snowmobiles), Dubois can take a deep

DuboisRising
The motto on the town’s float in the last July 4 parade: Dubois rising. Everyone from town knew what that was about.

breath and get down to business in earnest.

This time last year, we heard the distressing news that the county was planning to exclude Dubois from ambulance service, having chosen to install a professional EMT operation that wasn’t breaking even. Dubois’ indomitable Mayor Twila Blakeman leaped into action. Within a few months, 18 residents had completed training and qualified as EMTs. (Note that! 18, in a population of only 1,000.) She had also found funding for air ambulance service when ground service isn’t feasible. Just try to kill this town off, literally or figuratively! The story isn’t over, but my bet is that the outlook is hopeful.

Back to 2016: I’ve been gone from town for only a few weeks now, and there’s plenty of news from friends:

Pizza’s back! After the closure of the main-street restaurant Paya, which served better pizza than any we can get in Brooklyn, I suffered pizza withdrawal all last summer. Paya has been reborn under different ownership as Hooper’s, I’m told, and the pizza there is also said to be great. (Rumor has it that a former Paya chef has been sighted at the brick oven lately.) Meanwhile Cobbler, the riverside restaurant just behind and across the parking lot from Hooper’s, will reopen under the same management as a bakery and deli-style sandwich shop. Great call: We’ve also been missing a good bakery for some time, and visitors will appreciate the made-to-order sandwich option.

Flume1
Remains of a flume used to float milled logs toward the river

Tie hack history brought to life? Former Mayor Bob Baker has been hatching plans to found a “living museum” devoted to the legendary lumbermen who worked in our mountains cutting and milling ties for the railroads, early in the last century. Although there are museums dedicated to the topic of lumbering in Arkansas, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Texas, evidently none specifically honors the tie hacks who were so important to our nation’s history. At present, all Dubois can offer for that purpose is a stone obelisk on a hill above the highway west of town (yawn … ). It has taken me years to begin to appreciate this particular history, perhaps because it wasn’t presented vividly enough. I think this is a terrific idea, especially for the next generation, and I hope it succeeds.

Brighter future for the town website. Developers are about to begin testing an update to the town’s Internet face to the world, the website www.duboiswyoming.org. (Full disclosure: I have provided the text for the new pages.) As you see it today, the website has an old-fashioned, rustic look and feel, puts cowboys front and center, and begins its description with “In Dubois time seems to move at a slower pace.” I’m hoping the new version will gymgrab prospective visitors with breathtaking images and text that compels them to pack their bags and come see for themselves.

Way better than elliptical: My hiking buddy says she’s started a snowshoe club. What great news! This is the kind of venture that keeps me going to the gym every morning back in Brooklyn, where I listen to John Denver on my headphones, look at visions of the mountains in my head rather than the yobbos on the flat screen TVs, and try to focus on more important goals than optimizing my appearance.

©Lois Wingerson, 2016

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The Great Migration: Why Bother?

Once Dubois WY was the place we went in the summer to avoid heat and humidity. Now it’s the place we leave and return to, even in the winter.

RidgelineRearEnd “Did you decide when you’re coming back?” my good friend Karen texted yesterday.

“Oh good!” she responded  after my reply, adding a smiley face. “Everyone keeps on asking when you are coming home.”

She’s got it right: home. At first, we viewed Dubois as the place we could go in the summer, to avoid the city heat and humidity. Now it’s the place we leave and return to.

Here in Brooklyn, our Wyoming plates no longer attract much attention from neighbors. People may comment on our absence, but rarely with as much fondness as my Dubois friends like Karen express.

None of them has responded to our repeated invitations to visit us out West. (All it takes is a flight to Jackson. We’ll take care of the rest. There’s so much to do and see!) It’s a tough sell here in Brooklyn, which considers itself the coolest place on earth.

Do they think we’re nuts to keep going back and forth like this?

Quite often, despite what’s clearly visible on our license plate, neighbors ask when we’re planning to go back to Montana.

I continue to wonder why Wyoming has such a low profile. After all, last year the financial planning website bankrate.com declared Wyoming the best state in the nation for retirement, not just for its uniquely low cost of living, but also for its natural beauty and low crime rates.

highway2The long commute to and from Dubois takes three and a half days in the summer when days are long, if we’re in a hurry. If we’re not, we mosey. Once we stretched it to 10 days with a detour to Austin and New Orleans.

En route, we’re totally wired with broadband, with 3 or 4 devices (phones, tablets, a laptop) to consult. Often it feels I spend the entire trip looking at a screen to check the weather (most importantly in winter) or the price of gas, or to look for a good restaurant or motel.

Why do we drive rather than fly? Partly because we always seem to be transporting stuff back to Dubois (much of it donations for the Opportunity Shop) but also, importantly, because of the dog. I never wanted to put him on a plane in the first place, and now I definitely won’t, after a Dubois friend told me at happy hour that her dog became lost luggage. (It survived.)

My husband and I like each other’s company, and we truly enjoy the trip. It’s a privilege to watch the nation unfold before us, to see the well-kept farms of the Midwest (or the sad abandoned clapboard farmhouses) giving way to huge skies and broad prairies, and them being gradually overtaken by outrageously huge natural sculptures of rock.

To answer the first question: Why bother (especially in winter)? We have needed to return east to check on our rented house and to visit family. Now we absolutely must go home to Dubois.

By why in the winter?

For one thing, because it’s home. Also, we will leave the view at left for the one at right. Any other questions?

WinterinBrooklyn

RamshornInSnow

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

© Lois Wingerson 2016

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Dubois One Year After the Fire: Busy Re-storing

Last year this time, fire devastated downtown Dubois WY. Something beautiful is about to rise from the ashes.

DuboisFire
Thanks to Joe Brandl for picture.

Prepare yourself when you turn that corner, a friend warned me last January as we neared Dubois on our return from the holidays.

Her words didn’t do much to dampen the shock. On the main street, it looked as if someone had neglected to remove a ghastly and elaborate Halloween display. Beyond the safety barricades, you couldn’t miss the sagging and crumbling black beams, the broken and charred window frames.

As many across the nation heard on the news last December 31, a huge fire had broken out in the center of Dubois the previous evening. It burned on into the wee hours. While volunteers tried to battle the flames, water kept freezing inside the hoses.

“I am certain that this most remote and greatest little town in the lower 48 will turn this disaster into a new start of something even better,” I wrote on Facebook. “The community spirit there is beyond describing. Just watch what will rise from these ashes!”

DuboisMercantileSite1215
Photo: Karen McCullough

I’m no prophet. But I know our town.

All this year, the view out the front window of the Rustic Pine Tavern has looked all wrong, empty and gaping, as if the hardware store parking lot was trespassing southward. What’s going to materialize there? I wondered, and so did everyone else.

One day in the spring, I saw the property owner Jeff Sussman huddled in a corner at the Rustic with realtor Leon Sanderson. But we didn’t hear any public news, other than a promise that the site would be redeveloped.

As soon as humanly possible (given the time needed for insurance investigations, demolition, planning approval, construction contracts, and un-freezing of the ground), construction will commence on this:

DuboisDevelopment3.
Image: Wind River Land & Bldg. Co/Belkin Architects

Last summer, Mayor Twila Blakeman told me that Jeff had raised the issue of holding a town meeting about the project. She recalled telling him, “Everyone liked what you did with the rest of the buildings [in that block]. Just do what you think best.”

Jeff recalls the conversation differently. He says Twila told him to go the usual route, via the planning commission (which no doubt she also did, and he proceeded to do).

“No one in the town has been anything but positive,” he said. “Everyone wanted it to be sort of Western, but when you asked someone what do you mean: Western 1905? Western 1940? … We understood what we wanted to do.”

But this isn’t the Wild West. Anyone who says it’s wide open and you can do whatever you want to do, he hastened to add, is talking “nonsense.”

A Carl Hiaasen or God forbid Annie Proulx would have a high time with the Sussman character: A high-profile New York commercial real-estate developer who moved to Dubois to set up a cattle ranch and bought up the best property downtown. But I see him more in a Wallace Stegner novel: A man from the East captivated by and ultimately committed to the West.

Jeff and his wife, the painter Susan Sussman, found Dubois almost by accident. They were looking in Montana, but ended up dividing the Rocking Chair ranch property in Dubois with another couple who wanted only a small part of the land for a guest ranch.

Their part became the Diamond D Cattle company, which two years ago won the distinction “Landowners of the Year” from Wyoming Game & Fish for its innovative wildlife conservation efforts, largely implemented by manager Reg Phillips, in dealing with threats from wolves and bears.

“It was a great leap of faith, and we just fell in love with the place,” Jeff told me. “It was an amazing learning experience, and I’m glad we did it.” He said they were especially fortunate to have found Reg and Aline Phillips, who had been with the ranch before and made the learning experience “terrific”.

These are no absentee landlords. When they’re in town, they’re visibly in town, and they have plenty of friends. I first met Jeff when he and Susan sponsored an open bar at the Rustic on his birthday several years ago.

So what will become of the empty lot? It’s described as a mix of retail and offices. “It’s 3 buildings, but from its appearance, you’ll think 5,” Jeff said. “We used altered facades and materials. We didn’t want people to just think ‘mall’.”

DuboisDevelopment2
Image: Wind River Land & Bldg. Co. /Belkin Architects

Jeff foresees an array of craftspeople in his shops: Saddlemakers, jewelry designers, people who make buckles, hats, and boots. “If we can get known as a place where there are lots of craftsmen, that would be great,” he said.

Reg Phillips, who is managing the construction effort, is energized by the potential to attract office tenants who will capitalize on one of the town’s best assets: Its status as a poster child for excellent Internet access in a remote area.

The plans will be out to bid next month or February latest, and ground will be broken in the spring, as soon as Nature allows.

“I’m not going to wait for tenants,” Jeff told me yesterday. “We’re going to build.”

© Lois Wingerson, 2015

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Dark Days in Dubois

It gets dark early this time of year everywhere on this side of the equator. How is this different in Dubois?

These are the gloomy days now, when there’s often just barely enough snow to be a nuisance. The darkness begins to descend in mid-afternoon and doesn’t lift until well into the morning, by rural standards anyway.

DuboisWebcam121715On the webcam that shows the center of town, I saw that it was snowing lightly this morning at 7:45 am. Only two vehicles approached the intersection on the one highway that passes through town. Soon after, someone crossed the highway on foot. I could see that it was slushy.

Of course, on this side of the equator it gets dark everywhere this time of the year. So how is Dubois different?

Because it’s so far from everywhere, in Dubois it is profoundly dark. This is not all bad, mind you: When it’s not actually snowing (which is often), the show of stars is beyond describing in the winter, biblical in brilliance and magnitude.

Just as unforgettable are the snowy nights with a full moon. I love to look across the valley at bedtime on such a night, when the light bouncing off the field of snow is almost as bright as day, but also eerie and ghostly. Features of the landscape show up vividly that I feel I’m not supposed to be seeing at night.

DuboisWinterMoonHow many people in the modern world ever see this? If you’ve been a city dweller all your life, the mere thought of it haunts you. On those bright and snowy nights I also think of the animals sleeping outdoors, and the ones that are awake and hunting.

Despite all that, and however many Christmas carols we may sing at church, this is not the time of year that makes the heart sing. How fondly I remember those days last July when I had to shield my eyes from the setting sun while driving home from the square dance or the rodeo at around 9 PM!

Long after dinner, while we were beginning the slow, calm slide toward the pillow, we would watch the moon rise to the east in the slow waning of that brilliant blue.

So what is there to do in a tiny, isolated village like Dubois on a day like today, when the sun will set at 4:43 PM and dark will fall at 5:16?

DuboisQuiltShow080815_2I wonder whether this season and this isolation play a large part in the creation of the splendors we enjoy in mid-summer at the annual quilt show. (I know you’re reading, Eileen. Do you think winter and the solstice create the desire–perhaps the need–to quilt?)

One of our master quilters, Eileen responded:

You’re correct, Lois. We get a lot of quilting done during these days. Every Thursday I have a group of from 8 to 12 women come to my house to quilt. Some even leave their second machine here so they don’t have to cart them each week. Many of us have been working on our 2016 raffle quilt part time (almost ready for the long-arm quilter!) while others work on their individual projects. We affectionately call ourselves the “TQers” (Thursday Quilters). We start around 9 a.m., go out to lunch together at noon, and then return to our projects until about 2:30 or 3 p.m. You can always count on free advice when you have a problem, learn the latest news and laugh a lot! No winter doldrums here!

dinnerJust the other day I learned that we missed a neighborhood dinner party held back home in Dubois during our absence for the holidays. I can’t recall when I’ve regretted missing an event more deeply, as I thought of those good friends enjoying each others’ company on a dark winter evening.

This brought back thoughts of the last potluck dinner we attended before leaving in November. That’s my foodie picture at right: Grilled salmon, grilled asparagus, pasta with fresh-made pesto (my contribution, having harvested the last of the basil from the indoor window box). The company was even more enjoyable than the cuisine.

CAM01090After we return to Dubois in a few weeks, I know these will be our times for jigsaw puzzles, popcorn and Scrabble, and old movies on TCM. But now I wonder: How do our neighbors in Dubois spend those long and perhaps lonely winter evenings?

Are there projects you save up for these winter evenings? Does this become the time you connect with friends you were too busy to see during the high season of summer?

Are there activities in town scheduled for winter evenings that you especially enjoy? Are there any that used to happen which you wish would be revived?

Especially if you’re a reader from the upper Wind River Valley, please enter a comment (be sure you’re on the page for this article, not the home page, and scroll to the bottom to find “Reply,” below the other comments).

I’d really like to know, and so would others.

© Lois Wingerson, 2015

Our local wildman and Scout master Joe Brandl responded, far more beautifully than I could ever have written:

Ahhhhh…the winter months of Dubois. It is these months that the Bighorns are easily observed banging heads along Torrey Creek, a large herd of elk can be spotted up on Windy Mtn, big browns are hungry in the Wind River which never freezes, for the adventuous souls, ice climbing at the Natural Bridge, the sun rises are the most colorful with ice crystals in the air, numerous mule deer does lead their fawns down to the river, the large bucks hang out together in the nearby hay fields, mergansers and golden eyes float the ice free river alway diving for a meal, some nights there is little wind and the snow falls so lightly, covering the streets and we know it will gone by noon the next day when the sun comes out, Christmas day sitting on Torrey Lake ice fishing……in a tee shirt, bald eagle hunt for ducks along the river, the smell of wood smoke from the logs cut in early fall, moon light snowshoeing or skiing on Two Ocean, no tourists to wait behind at the Bistro or crowd you out of a table at the Cowboy, we sweep our porches of snow, shovels only needed in May, hundreds of chickadees, pine siskins, rosy finches and a few remaining doves keep us refilling the bird feeders, more candlelight dinners with friends, the famous Claar Christmas Eve dinner which brings friends together and so much food they provide “to go plates” for you to take home, countless goodies left in your vehicle by someone just wanting to share with you, moonlit nights so bright you can read a newspaper and stars….wow, the stars, millions and millions of them and you can still see them downtown, but on the overlook or up on Togotwee Pass…..well, you just have to experience it! We love the winter because we know spring and summer however short is seems is just ahead. But, for now, we enjoy our winter!

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Missing Dubois at Christmas

Back in New York for the holidays, amid the clamor and energy, I long for what’s going on in my Wyoming home.

Selfie_1215Bklyn We’re back in New York City for the holidays. Because most of our family here has vanished (either deceased or otherwise departed), ours will be a quiet Christmas in a noisy city.

I discover that my new glasses, which looked so dorky in Dubois that I never wore them, are un-remarkably trendy here. I take a selfie on the street one evening, and surprise myself by what I see.

With a change of glasses, coat, and scarf (and facial expression) have I become someone else? Hardly.

Amid the clamor and the energy, I miss being in Dubois–even more so when friends let me know how much there is to miss. My friend and neighbor Karen McCullough sent these pictures, which make the loss all the more obvious.

She included the picture at left below, and I sent back the one at right. To be fair, she took hers first thing in the morning and I took mine at noon. I know that the temperature in Dubois often also gets near 50 at midday in the winter. It can be darn cold here too, especially around the holidays.

Back in Dubois, Karen told me, nearly all of the Christmoose cards are already gone from the little trees in Dubois’ two coffeehouses (the Perch and Kathy’s). For more than a decade, this has been the town’s version of “secret Santa.”

Christmoose1Each card contains a wish list for an anonymous needy child, identified only by age and gender. Forms to create a wish list are available at the food bank and the Opportunity Shop.

Donors take away a card, buy the gifts on the list, and return with the gifts to be distributed (also anonymously) on December 19.

Mary Ellen, who runs the program, told me today that 30 cards have been taken away. Can people guess the identities of the children from the lists? I wonder, but it doesn’t really matter. In a town as small as Dubois, it seems to me, even a secret Santa may feel quite personal.

She also reports that donations to the Salvation Army, which she and Mayor Twila Blakeman collect at the supermarket, are running particularly strong this year.

ChristmasConcert2015Speaking of Christmas spirit, here’s the scene at the Spirit of Christmas concert on Saturday evening at the Headwaters, sponsored by the Museum, the Library, and the Friends of the Library.

It shows one of the great facts about town: Given the opportunity, people actually dance together. And they donate tempting baked goods. Look at the spread they laid out for this event. I gain weight just thinking about it. Goodies

Imagine the bustle that must have preceded this scene, as Tammy worked with volunteers to set up the stage and reposition the furniture after the High Country Christmas Extravaganza on Friday.

There, I could have bought a Christmas tree already decorated by friends at the Kiwanis Club (at left, below), or one from the Chamber of Commerce with handmade ornaments showing some of the many ways you can amuse yourself in Dubois.

I would also have been tempted by the handmade toys, wreaths, and gingerbread houses. Of course there are craft fairs like this at many churches in the city, but not knowing the vendors or anyone else in the crowd, I’m rarely moved to stop by. Back in Dubois, I am always curious to see who’s been busy making what.

Naturally, I also have good friends in New York City, and it’s lovely to see them. But here the season brings traffic, bustle, incessant impersonal holiday music in the shops, noisy bars, over-hyped squalling children on the crowded sidewalks. The spirit? Entertain, or be lonely. Buy lots of stuff, or be square. Get down deep at the Christmas Eve service, but never set foot there the rest of the year.

This season is hardly a community event here. Seems in some ways it draws us apart rather than together. In my experience, the significant community events in the city are the disasters, like blackouts, big storms, or terrorist acts. Christmas is just yet another thing that turns up predictably every year, something else to amuse the children.

Tp be fair, you can’t blame the city for being a city. But at my stage in life, Christmas in Dubois seems to be much warmer, whatever the thermometer says.

© Lois Wingerson, 2015

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The Fabulous Dubois Photo Contest

Now’s your chance to show that your images can rival mine.

photo
Can you do better? Of course!

Wouldn’t you agree that Dubois is one of the most photogenic places on earth?

I’ve been having great fun trying to prove this, here on Living Dubois. Now’s your chance to show that your images can rival mine.

(I know they can. I look at Facebook.)

Please submit your own great digital pictures of the town and its spectacular surroundings to be considered for the forthcoming upgrade of the town website, at www.duboiswyoming.org.

LazyL&BHorsesThe old website is good as far as it goes. But the subtitle (“Where real cowboys work and play”) doesn’t begin to say it all. As this blog is demonstrating, there’s far, far more to tell about Dubois (and to attract those important tourist visitors) than just its cowboy heritage.

Let’s help to portray the rest of our unique story.

Sponsored by funding from tourism taxes, and coordinated by the Dubois Chamber of Commerce and the Destination Dubois committee, the image-rich new website will feature attractions including our diverse outdoor recreation opportunities, the many local art and artisan galleries, the exhibitions and performances that we enjoy so much, and a great deal more.

SquareDance3Winning images will be published on the new site, and your image can be credited with your name if you’d like. If the pictures include identifiable individuals, the developers will need permission to use their images.

There’s no compensation for winning–other than the satisfaction of showing the best of Dubois to a worldwide audience, in all its visual glory.

Please submit high-resolution (300 dpi or better) images (or questions) by e-mail to destinationdubois@gmail.com.

Winning entries will be chosen by the website developers at Wyoming Inc.

I’ve already entered. Won’t you join me?

Why the Best Doctor for Dubois is a Geek

Often, people find Dubois to be exactly the right place. Less often, exactly the right people find Dubois.

Tracy Baum
Tracy Baum, nurse practitioner

Often, people find Dubois to be exactly the right place. Less often, exactly the right people find Dubois.

The person at left is my primary care doctor, Tracy Baum. She’s not your typical doctor. Okay, in fact she’s not actually a doctor at all. But at least for me, and evidently for many of us in Dubois, she’s an even better option than the alternatives.

Tracy and her husband Marty (below, right) came to Dubois recently from a part of Alaska that’s even more remote than we are. As a board-certified nurse practitioner, Tracy was the family “doctor” out there, providing all kinds of primary care for people who live in places where there aren’t any highways at all. (At least Dubois has one.)

Marty has a plane and flies it, so the lifestyle worked.

MartyBaum
Marty Baum

Tracy and Marty loved Alaska, but they wanted to live closer to their children and grandchildren in the lower 48. So, like many others who eventually end up in Dubois, they embarked on a careful research project to find the right location for a couple with their particular life requirements to settle permanently. Lucky us.

Marty, who is a furniture builder by trade, has spent the past year converting a former bait and tackle shop to the Mountain Sage Holistic Clinic. Tracy took a part-time job at the Dubois Medical Clinic, while privately in her clinic offering her skills in integrative medicine, which her website describes as “looking at the interactions among genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors that can influence long-term health and complex, chronic disease.”

TracyWaitingRoom
Mountain Sage Holistic Clinic waiting room.

There’s the waiting room, at left. Maybe you can see how proficient Marty is at his own line of business, which had to take a break during the renovation process.

“Integrative medicine” may sound a bit flaky, but it began to make sense to me. This is something you simply can’t offer in an ordinary medical clinic.

Growing toward retirement age, I began to see different kinds of traditional doctors and physical therapists for my minor and ordinary health problems. All of them had different advice, and it was often conflicting and contradictory.

My first consultation with Tracy, which lasted about an hour, may have dug deeper into my pocket more than the hasty chats I can get for a cheap copay. But as a retired medical editor well familiar with reading clinical studies, I recognized quickly that Tracy knows a lot about a lot.

TracyDunoirRoom
Mountain Sage Holistic Clinic examination room

Putting all the pieces together carefully with her considerable knowledge on many medical fronts, she was able to create a picture that made a great deal of sense to me.

One day last spring I heard that that, in a shift of ownership at the main medical clinic, Tracy had been laid off. I quickly sent a text of condolence.

“I couldn’t be happier!” she texted back. “Now I can open full-time.”

TracyNewRoom
Future telemedicine center

And so she has. The clinic now accepts most kinds of medical insurance, offers a wide range of clinical testing and some medications (but not narcotics) as well as all kinds of basic primary care.

In a pinch, if a problem arises with plan #1, she can even deliver a baby.

“As a family nurse practitioner, my training does not include deliveries,” she told me. “But I spent considerable time with a family practice doctor who was aware of my plan to practice in remote areas. Her philosophy was, if you’re out in the boonies, at some point you will need to know how to catch a baby. And she was right – it has happened.”

That’s encouraging, yes. But what clearly excites Tracy is that she can now begin to lay the plans for telemedicine, online consultations with experts elsewhere in the country.

Of course!   In our small town, distant from major medical centers, with our incomparably good Internet service, our very smart and forward-thinking family “doctor” should be able consult with some of the best specialists in the country via teleconference and interactive online image sharing.

TracyStoreRoomMedicare has just changed the rules to encourage this innovative kind of medical practice for people with chronic conditions, and where the government goes private insurers often follow. Dubois is just the kind of rural area the new rules were created to serve, and yes, nurse practitioners do qualify.

Just beyond the back door at the clinic is Marty’s large workshop (shown at right). Alas, the woodworking business has continued to languish while he had to step in as business manager and temporary receptionist at Tracy’s end of this remarkable Mom and Pop shop.

Which will come first at the back end of the building: The sound of saws and hammers (beyond the door, at last), or the chirp and whirr of new electronic equipment on the clinic side?

© Lois Wingerson, 2015

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Sellouts Amid Vacancies: Autumn in Dubois

Leaves drop from aspens. Motels are vacant. Does Dubois go quiet? All is not as it may seem ….


DomekHere’s the center’s new director, Sara Domek, clearly delighted by the success of the event.

Dubois has one of the largest year-round populations of these rare sheep, she told me. The Bighorn Sheep Center, which supports research and education into the bighorn sheep, is one of the town’s main attractions for visitors.

Sara told me that events like this bring in about a fifth of the center’s funding. The rest comes from foundations.

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© Lois Wingerson 2015