Rick Bass explains why he lives in Missoula, Montana.
More than any city or town I’ve known, Missoula balances out-of-door attractions and the arts. Missoula has hundreds, maybe thousands, of artists and writers, in part—but by no means exclusively—because of the university. It’s got a great library and great bookstores: Fact & Fiction, Shakespeare & Co., the Book Exchange, to name but a few. There’s a symphony, a children’s theater and numerous art galleries. And yet there’s healthy dirt between the cracks. The nightly river-rushing winds of Hellgate Canyon keep most things scoured clean.
