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All Good Things Are Wild, Free: Billings Filmmakers Debut Prairie Land Documentary

(Photo courtesy of Pete Tolton)
(Photo courtesy of Pete Tolton)

Wild places can sometimes get overlooked; certainly by their very nature they're tough to reach, tough to experience.

That's why Billings-based filmmakers Pete Tolton and Charlie Smillie have teamed up with the Montana Wilderness Association to produce a documentary debuting tomorrow that offers viewers a chance to experience the elusive prairie lands of central Montana.

24-year-old Katie Jacobson carries the story through Montana's wildlands.

"She was a seasonal hire for us at MWA to do our inventory work and what that work looks like is going out to anonymous public lands that are throughout central and eastern Montana -- these big blocks of undeveloped high plains prairie," said Smillie, who also works as the Eastern Montana Field Director for MWA.

"And determine whether or not it might be suitable to be managed as wilderness; what that mean is just basically allowing wild nature to determine what happens on the landscape," Smillie said.


Director Pete Tolton says the 12-minute documentary is multi-layered. It documents MWA inventorying lands, assessing them for wilderness characteristics, but there's another story, too.

"There's a story of this young woman, enthusiastic experiencer of the outdoors, thirsty to learn about what this place is like," said Tolton. "And she goes out, and this is really her first foray into this kind of place, this untouched, rugged, and unforgiving landscape. And you see her and what it's like for her as a young person to take this all in."

Tolton says that unlike the fantastic state and national parks in Montana that curate pre-designated experiences for visitors, exploring prairie terrain is more like a choose-your-own-adventure.

"We found ourselves treading ground without any direction, and that was a really liberating and wonderful experience, just to go out and soak it up, and see where the game trail led us. That's something you don't get very often anywhere else," said Tolton.

The Bureau of Land Management will soon be considering a Resource Management Plan which will determine how to manage wildlands like those documented in Crooked Creek Chronicles.

Tolton and Smillie hope that this film will highlight how all good things are wild, free, and most of all, protected.

"It's really rare to have a big wide open prairie like this that is in it's natural condition. And this huge corridor that's protected in the Missouri, and so it's a really unique thing, and it's a really precious and rare thing," said Smillie.

"So that's why we think it deserves protection."

Crooked Creek Chronicles debuts Tuesday November 15, 2016 at 6:30 p.m. at the Art House Cinema and Pub in Billings during the Eastern Wildlands Chapter of the Montana Wilderness Association's annual meeting. Admission is free and open to the public.