Westby Montana

Oasis on the Prairie
Brush Lake. Cool and clear water, sandy beaches, picnic facilities, and more—the new Brush Lake State Park may be the greatest thing to hit Northeastern Montana since the invention of air conditioning.
From the air, Brush Lake looks like a piece of turquoise tossed on a sand dune. The intense blue of the lake is entirely out of place in the caramel-colored monotony of wheat stubble that marches to all horizons in this Northeastern corner of Montana.

From the ground, 280-acre Brush Lake is no less striking. In an area of the state where the glaciated landscape is pocked with shallow, alkaline prairie potholes, Brush is a deep, clear lake with white, sandy beaches surrounded by grass fields and linear stands of spring wheat.

Recently Brush Lake became Montana’s 50th state park (and the only one in the state’s Northeastern region), providing public access to what Elliott Jensen of nearby Dagmar calls “Montana’s best swimming hole east of the mountains.”

Jensen likely knows this swimming hole better than anyone. His family once owned the entire lake and last year sold the Northern two-thirds to Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks to develop as a state park. The Jensens have long worked to sell the property to a public agency with the hope the site would be preserved for public use. You can go to Here to read the full article from Montana Outdoors Magazine about Brush Lake State Park.

Writing Rock State Historical Site, located twelve miles (19 km) Northeast of Grenora, North Dakota in Divide County near the Montana border, is the site of two large granite boulders, carved with petroglyphs featuring thunderbirds, mythological creatures, that are of importance in the culture of Plains Indian tribes. The age of the carvings has not been determined, but they could date from 1000 to about 1700, according to the North Dakota Historical Society.

While the meaning of many of the images is lost to history, both Sioux and Assiniboine peoples considered the site sacred. One oral tradition describes how members of a particular band could foretell the future by how the pictures on the rocks changed. According to tradition, this supernatural power vanished around 1919 when whites moved the smaller rock.

For many years, that smaller boulder was kept at the University of North Dakota, but in 1965, it was returned to what had by then become the Writing Rock State Historic Site. You can go Here and read more on Writing Rock.

Hiking on the prairie There are miles of open prairie to explore. Imagine walking across a prairie and viewing scenery similar to that seen by early pioneers in the 1890s. Such landscapes can be seen for miles where you can view one of the best examples of mixed-grass prairie in the United States.

Nortern Pike: you can catch Northern Pike 10 miles out of town or go up to Canada one hour away to catch monster Pike.

Wallye: is the fish of choice around here. It seems like everyone has a frezzer full, and alot of people have annual fish fries and invite their friends and family. There are alot of top notch lakes close by in Montana, North Dakota and Canada, for excellent Wallye fishing.

Snowmobile Riding: is a popular winter sport on the praire.There is a lot of open country to see and explore