Enviros: Crazy Mountain compromise slanted towards Yellowstone Club

Despite being sacred to the Apsáalooke the federal government has twice proposed the Awaxaawapìa Pìa or Crazy Woman Mountains sometimes called the Crazies as a location for a national park but half the land and every alternate section was owned by the Northern Pacific Railroad or was otherwise privately held. 

In 2014 two national forests based in Montana, one named for the Swiss guy who helped convince President Thomas Jefferson to use an executive order to buy land from a country that didn’t even own it and one named for a war criminal were merged into a single administrative unit. Now, Mary Erickson is the Forest Supervisor for the Custer Gallatin National Forest based in Bozeman and today most of the public land in the Crazies is shared by the Custer Gallatin and Lewis and Clark National Forests but even tribal access has been blocked by the descendants of European settlers.

Republicans aren't just fearful of government overreach; they're frightened public lands will be remanded to the First Nations. So, one solution to making America the Beautiful again and solving national forest and grasslands management woes is moving the US Forest Service from the US Department of Agriculture into Interior where tribal nations could more easily assume additional responsibilities for stewardship on public land, returning the resources to apply cultural fire to their own holdings and rewilding the West.

“Since the close of the comment period last December, the Forest Service has been working diligently to address concerns to put forth the best exchange possible,” Erickson said. “This release initiates a 45-day objection period for those who have standing based on previous involvement. I encourage people to take the time to review materials on the Forest [Service]’s website to understand the draft decision.” John Sullivan, chairman of the Montana Chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, said his group is still reviewing the proposal but is disappointed in its initial review, particularly given the loss of “historic legal public access to high-quality lands and waters.” He likened the Forest Service’s willingness to pursue the proposal to recent criticism that the Flathead National Forest has done the bidding of POWDR, a Utah-based group seeking to expand Holland Lake Lodge. [Forest Service tentatively approves Crazy Mountain land swap]

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