After endless hours of flat land stretching into the cosmos, Browning, Montana gave me something I hadn’t seen in a while: Land formation! Mountains rose in the distance, and I managed to snap a photo of the sun setting behind them. Absolutely breathtaking. Turns out, those are the Rocky Mountains, marking the eastern edge of Glacier National Park. A much-needed change of scenery.
Browning is the headquarters of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation and was the only incorporated town on the reservation until 2018, when its local government collapsed and it was disincorporated. Ouch. As of the 2020 census, the population stood at 1,018.
It gets cold here. Really cold (not just my definition of cold). Temperatures drop below freezing an average of 196 days a year, and below zero on 32 of those. On the flip side, anything above 90 °F is considered an event. Basically, it’s coat weather. Always coat weather.
From October through April, Amtrak’s Empire Builder stops just south of town. That’s right, this remote little spot connects all the way from Chicago to Portland and Seattle.
In 1916, Browning holds the record for the largest 24-hour temperature drop in U.S. history: 100 degrees! It went from 44°F to -56°F overnight. And we complain when it drops 10. (Rightfully so, IMHO.)
