High in the mountains along the Montana-Wyoming border sit the unincorporated communities of Cooke City and Silver Gate, Montana. These two small towns, with a year-round population of around ninety people, serve as the last stop before the endless mountain ranges and valleys of the North Absaroka Wilderness. During the middle months of summer, tourists come from around the globe as Silver Gate sits on the Northeast Entrance to Yellowstone National Park, with an estimated 270,991 visitors traveling through this entrance in the year 2023. The towns sit rugged, with elevations of 8,127 and 7,405 feet respectively, and are often referred to as the snowiest communities in all of Montana. Only two months of the year average above 50 °F (10 °C), and each year sees around 213.1 inches of snowfall. The communities sometimes see snow as late as June, with temperatures as low as 16 °F (-9 °C) recorded during this month. Even though the park draws a large number of tourists during the summer months, the communities remain extremely isolated. During the summer, the nearest grocery stores are a two-hour drive in nearby Cody, WY, and Red Lodge, MT. The cities remain disconnected from the rest of the world, off the grid, and remote. Both communities sit along U.S. Highway 212, with Silver Gate sitting between Cooke City and the park entrance. In the winter, the road between the park entrance and Cooke City is plowed, but this stops once you leave Cooke City. This is known as “the plug,” and it means that in the winter months, anywhere beyond Cooke City is only accessible via snowmobile.

 

Cooke City began as a mining community, having been removed from the Crow Reservation in 1882, with Silver Gate later founded as a tourist destination. However, Cooke City failed as its isolation made mining too difficult. Now the cities sit as the true last stop before the American frontier.

 

My family has existed in Silver Gate for generations, and I feel a deep personal tie to the town. In 1934, my great-great-great-grandparents, Azarias and Gertrude Vincelette, purchased a collection of cabins in Silver Gate, just as the town was being founded, even helping contribute to its eventual name. In 1946, they sold the cabins to Elmer Larson, the husband of their daughter Garnet Ruby Larson. My great-great-grandparents continued to run the now Larson’s Motel for many years. At this time, they adopted a daughter, Mary Kathleen Mahnke — my grandmother. They later sold the lodge, and it became the Grizzly Lodge. However, they maintained several cabins, including some that were part of the original lodge. My grandparents still spend the entirety of their summers in Silver Gate, and I have grown up visiting every summer. Here, I find peace in nature, completely off the grid with no cell phone service or internet. It is a place of both immense natural beauty and transformation, but also of stasis and isolation. It sits, trapped at the constant will of Mother Nature.

 

In Isolation dives into the experience of living in such a remote place, practically, physically, and psychologically. Much of my initial inspiration was drawn from a story about my dad’s first year of life. My grandparents had my father, Daus Mahnke, straight out of high school, and decided to spend his first winter in Silver Gate. It is experiences like this that truly give us a diverse perspective on the world. This piece is part of my attempt to understand this sort of isolation.