Lee Metcalf

At least monthly friends and I are tromping trails in the Lee Metcalf Wilderness. But I never knew much about its namesake, ‘cept he was once Montana’s US Senator — until now.

Turns out our spectacular wilderness area was well-named. Lee Metcalf’s legislative life is detailed in this Center for the Rocky Mountain West essay by Pat Williams (another fmr US congressman): “Montana’s Metcalf blazed his own trail.”

After Metcalf’s US Army service, including the Normandy invasion and the Battle of the Bulge, he helped design the first free elections in Germany. He introduced Medicare ten years before its passage. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act was originally the Murray-Metcalf Bill. The Peace Corps passed Congress under the leadership of Metcalf and Mike Mansfield — another amazing Montana Senator. Sez Williams:

“However, it was as a conservationist — environmentalist — that Metcalf made seminal change for the West and the nation.… From the initial Wilderness Act to landscape restoration, pesticide control to fish and wildlife refuges, Lee Metcalf moved doggedly and with success to preserve the best of the West and in doing so he not only created a whole body of conservation laws for the nation, but he also changed the way we envisioned ourselves on the land.”

Thanks, Lee.

Here’s Lava Lake in the Lee Metcalf Wilderness, site of a 2004 Hearing Voices high-level meeting (elevation 7106 feet):

Photo: Sam Gardner – USDA Forest Service, Aug 13, 2005 Gallatin National Forest