MOR plays host to timely talks, NEW exhibits & some much-needed Brews
Museum of the Rockies is welcoming the new academic year with a full calendar of its own! Here’s a look at some upcoming happenings at your neighborhood museum.
Smithsonian Museum Day returns on Saturday, September 22nd from 9am–5pm. Museum Day is an annual celebration of boundless curiosity hosted by Smithsonian magazine. Participating museums, including MOR, and cultural institutions across the country provide FREE entry to anyone presenting a Museum Day ticket. Museum Day tickets provide free admission for two people per household. Visitors must present the paper/printed ticket or digital version from a mobile device to receive free admission. Tickets are available at www.smithsonianmag.com/museumday.
Museum of the Rockies’ popular series Brews & the Big Sky: Montana Made, Montana Brewed returns with The Hope and Despair of Homesteading in Montana featuring Flathead Lake Brewing Co. on Tuesday, September 25th from 5:30–7:30pm. There is a $12 admission including beer tasting, gallery talks, exhibits, and light appetizers for those 21 and older.
Homesteading was a complicated way of life. In 1862, President Lincoln signed the first homestead act that eventually transferred nearly 10% of federal lands to more than 1.6 million homesteaders. Take a look at MOR’s homesteader tarpaper shack and learn about the difficulties and triumphs that homesteaders saw from the 1860s through the dustbowl era of the 1930s.
Additional Brews evenings this season will include Historical Firearms with Neptune’s Brewery on Oct. 30th; Charlie Bair of Martinsdale, the Wool King with Bayern Brewing on Nov. 27th; Big Teams in the Big Sky with Great Northern Brewing Company on Feb. 26th; Silver City to the Copper Kingdom with Muddy Creek Brewery on March 26th; and Crow Fair with featured brewer TBA closing out the series on April 30th.
On Wednesday, September 26th, Dr. Paul West will give a talk titled “Sustainably Feeding a Growing Population on a Warming Planet” as part of the Institute on Ecosystems’ Distinguished Visiting Lecturer Series.
How we grow food and what we eat have profound impacts on health, water, biodiversity, and climate. Challenges from increasing population, stagnating yields, changing diets, and degrading the environment are all exacerbated by a warmer, more variable climate. Sustainably feeding a growing population on a warming planet requires transforming the global food system. Fortunately, there are key leverage points for increasing food security and reducing agriculture’s impact. Targeting policies and management practices will provide a focus for growing more food, improving the environment, and adapting to a changing climate.
Dr. West is the co-director and lead scientist of the Global Landscapes Initiative at the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment. His MOR lecture begins at 7pm, with light refreshments served beforehand. It is free and open to the public.
MOR is pleased to host the Extreme History Project Lecture Series, encouraging public understanding of the way our history has shaped our present. Speakers take a fresh look at interesting historical topics. Alcohol, Corsets & the Vote: A Conversation with Mary Long Alderson by Anne Foster is next up on Thursday, September 27th at 6pm. Sponsored by Humanities Montana, the lecture will be held in Hager Auditorium and is open to the public.
In celebration of the Montana women’s suffrage centennial, join suffragette, temperance worker, dress reformer, and journalist Mary Long Alderson for a conversation. Chairwoman of the Montana Floral Emblem campaign, president of the Montana Christian Temperance Union, and a leader in the Montana Woman Suffrage Association, Mrs. Alderson is an eloquent and passionate speaker. Drawing from her own editorials and other writings, she explains the benefits of votes for women as well as the evils of drink and tight lacing.
GUITAR’s departure makes way for two NEW exhibits in time for fall! Polar Obsession and Into the Arctic open to the general public on Saturday, September 22nd. Both exhibits are included with Museum admission and will be on display through January.
Polar Obsession is a photography exhibition featuring striking images of the world’s polar regions from National Geographic photographer Paul Nicklen. The images will take visitors underwater and across the ice, delivering a unique close-up of wildlife in the Arctic and Antarctic.
Into the Arctic showcases over fifty original oil paintings plus three feature-length films documenting painter and filmmaker Cory Trépanier’s expeditions to the furthest reaches of the Canadian Arctic, a biosphere so remote and untouched, that most of its vast landscape has never been painted before.
Finally, dive deeper into the Into the Arctic exhibit during a screening of Trépanier’s adventure film Into the Arctic II at 1:30pm on Sat., Sept. 22nd at MSU’s Procrastinator Theater. Learn more about his experiences with a Q&A session following the screening. Tickets are FREE but must be reserved in advance.
For more information about these events and other Museum exhibits, visit www.museumoftherockies.org or call (406) 994-5257. •
