Great Northern Ranch LLC

Springtime at Great Northern Ranch Part 3: VISITORS
From her home on the north side of our ranch, our daughter spotted 2 grizzlies grazing in the alfalfa field a few days ago. They pass through in spring and fall, on their way to the mountains, though we rarely get to see them except on our game cameras. When he's not busy showing off his huge fan tail and strutting for his hen harem, Tom Turkey has been coming to the aspen tree outside our kitchen window at about dinnertime every night. Woody, a great big pileated woodpecker, likes visiting the same tree to check for bugs. We also have llama fiber available on the tree for nest building. You can see claw marks in the bark from bears getting into the bird feeder if we forget to take it down before they arrive.

Kokoa's story: Our first cria this year was born to a first-time mom, GNLC Kokoa. Her name is special to us, connected as it is to both our personal history and Montana's.

Sue did a three-month performance tour in Europe in 1977, when the "iron curtain" still separated free nations from those under communist rule, including Poland. After her show in Warsaw, its capital city, she was thrilled to find an English-speaking couple in the audience. Leonard was an attaché at the U.S. Embassy. His wife, JoAn Baldwin, was from Kalispell, Montana–the very place Sue would soon be moving to after her year-long concert tour. There she would join Steve, her fiancé, who was already in Montana working for the U.S. Forest Service.

The two couples remained friends for decades and, until her passing, JoAn entertained many-a dinner party with stories of old Montana, beginning with her grandfather.

Maj. Marcus Baldwin was Indian Agent to the Piegan, Bloods and Blackfeet, and the first white man to learn from them how to cross the Continental Divide at Marias Pass in Glacier National Park.

Maj. Baldwin's daughter (JoAn's aunt) was the first white baby born on the Blackfeet Reservation. According to JoAn the tribal elders exclaimed "Kokoa!" (or "little girl") when they saw her, and the name stuck. Among them was John Two Guns White Calf, last chief of the Piegan Blackfeet, whose profile was used on the Indian head nickel and the Washington Redskin's team logo.

Those touring Kalispell's Conrad Mansion, where Victorian architectural elegance met mountain majesty in the 1890s, will hear about Kokoa. She married Charles Conrad Jr., whose father established the Kalispell townsite and built the fantastic mansion. The couple lived on the sprawling 72-acre family estate, complete with windows by L.C. Tiffany and a large bison herd, until they divorced and Kokoa moved for a time to Hollywood to appear in silent films.

We'll have to dig back into history for an equally interesting name for Kokoa's cria.

Mama Bear visited the ranch last night.