On the road: Fermentation journey to Montana

Trees, a mining town, interesting microbes, a happy fermentation festival, and link to necrobiome

This started out as a post about how to store fermented vegetables, because that was a question in a class that I taught over the weekend, but I started writing. And in that writing I took you along to Montana, where I was for the past week, instead. I hope you enjoy the ride. (How to store your fermented veggies will come soon. I promise.) I went to teach the magic of fermentation at Bacteria Bazaar, a fermentation festival in Hamilton. Because my brother lives on the other side of the Sapphire Mountains that separate Hamilton and his town of Philipsburg, I had a great reason to take some extra time to visit and explore the area with him.

When I flew into Missoula, face nearly pressed to the window, the sun was setting, and the mountains were aglow. As we descended and details came into focus, the larches stood out from the crowd, each golden in the sea of evergreens; these deciduous conifers seemed to be calling out, “Look at me,” and I sure did.

Sunrise near Philipsburg, MT

The next morning, it was crisp and clear, and when I drove out of the city, I could barely be called a safe driver. Too much golden. Luckily, the traffic was light. The deep colored forested hillsides were dotted with bright yellow flames. It reminded me of the sparkle of lighters lit in a concert crowd, back when we used lighters, not cell phones. While we have larches in Oregon, they are not in our mountains, nor within driving distance. I was smitten. But that wasn’t the only, or even the boldest, distraction; the Clark Fork River’s banks burned in gold-orange, the birches and cottonwood trees also dressed for autumn’s last dance. The water braided in and out of view, sparkling silver, in the few places that the sun had risen enough to touch it.

Larch grove at Seeley Lake, MT

By this time I was obsessed with the trees. I talked my brother into taking me to a larch grove. He picked a great one. We went to an old-growth grove of Western Larch (Larix occidentalis), also called tamarack, along Seeley Lake. In this grove there is a particular larch that is 1000 years old, locals call it “Gus.” I said hi to Gus and his grove mates. It was cold. Mist rolled in and out of the grove as we walked. It was both ethereal and grounding to be among these vivid yellow needled beings who were getting ready for their winter sleep. I was in my happy place.

Visiting Butte, USA

My brother also took me high up into the mountains and over the Continental Divide. We drove through quaking aspen, also glittering. Wetland willows had already lost their leaves, the deep red stems coloring the bottom lands. There were beaver dams. We walked among sage. We peaked into long abandoned log barns. We drank water from a spring. We looped back to his home through Butte.

I can’t quite name the feeling that I had in Butte. Was it a nostalgic familiarity? I have never been in Montana, let alone Butte, but I still felt like I was meeting up with an old friend. I spent many of my formative years in Arizona, where copper (mining) was also king. The nearby “ghost” town of Jerome, whose abandoned homes hugged the steep sides of Mingus Mountain, was a regular haunt. In fact, it was the first town we drove into when moving to the area. I was twelve, my mom, grandmother, brother, and sister, and I, were traveling in an old Chrysler with no air conditioning. Windblown and road weary we came over the mountain and stopped in Jerome. My mother and grandmother remembered visiting years earlier when it had truly been a ghost town. Jerome was largely abandoned in the early 1950s when the mines closed. In the late 1960s, and by the 1970s, it was half-ghost. Derelict buildings and homes slumped next to homes reinhabited by artists and hippies. It was a modest destination for its history, grit, ghosts, and art.

We piled out of the car and marveled at the view of distant red rocks that my grandmother declared was the Grand Canyon. Later, I would learn her geography was a little off, and we were looking at Oak Creek Canyon. Later still, Christopher and I enjoyed visiting Bisbee, a copper town with a similar trajectory, but instead of homes precariously balanced on the side of a mountain, over the top of a Swiss cheese matrix of underground tunnels, Bisbee has a gentler setting. It not only had the deep tunnels, but also a defunct hard rock mine gaping open maw. Somehow, I think my fond memories of my childhood of 1970s and 80s that includes these two towns, came flooding back to me in Butte. Plus, I was with my brother, with whom I share a childhood history.

Butte, MT at sunset.

But I could also feel that the town had a heart. It pulsed with something good and positive despite the toxic calamity that the industrial revolution era mining left. In the days following my brief visit to Butte, I listened to a fascinating podcast called Richest Hill, about Butte—past and present—with a focus on the challenges the community faces with its big toxic mess.

As I listened to this and drove under the big sky, I wondered if anybody had studied remediation with microbes or fungi over the years. A quick search revealed—not much. I found a proposal submitted in 2015 to “Let(ting) Microbes do the cleanup…” but it wasn’t clear that it had been tried. As it is with rabbit holes, and in this case, sorry, I can’t help it, mining tunnels. I found myself on an interesting path that was not quite remediation but interesting nonetheless, in how resilient and adaptive microbial life is. I always find wonder and hope in this.

Microbe detour

Don and Andrea Stierle were looking for undiscovered microorganisms that would produce metabolites that could lead to new drugs, and antibiotics were the main goal. They ended up looking in the highly acidic waters of the Berkeley Pit and found microbial life, which they have been studying for over 20 years. One was a yeast, Hansenula anomala, that absorbs metal from water.

Today, as I was working on this, a study popped into my inbox that showed that some winemaking yeast strains have the capacity to detoxify copper and pesticides from the musts. What timing. The study looked at 13 yeast strains and found that many yeasts can remove copper from the must in around 48 hours. Pesticides did slow down fermentation but, while less efficient, some detoxification of those pesticides did take place. None of the strains tested was Hansenula anomala, even though the Davis link does show it plays a role in wine.

Back to the main road

My fall leaf frolic continued when I arrived in Hamilton. I met Angi and Erin at the charming Rocky Mountain Grange Hall early in the afternoon. The sun was shining and they suggested I take a walk in a green belt along the Bitterroot River, starting at Skalkaho Bend. I did this, not once but three times over the next three days. The stunning birches and cottonwoods, the wide meandering river, with a backdrop of snow-capped Bitterroot Mountains, drew me in like a bear to honey. On that first walk, I did not know that a local moose family had been hanging out regularly. I should have their favorite food is birch and willow, both of which were in abundance. The next evening, I went to a different point on the trail to see the assembling of women on bicycles dressed as witches, after I was told The Witches Brigade is a fun local tradition. As I walked, there was a sign warning people to keep an eye out for “Bruce the Moose” and the advice to back up slowly if you meet. The rest of the weekend, when people heard I’d been walking, they asked if I’d seen the moose. By the time I walked on Sunday afternoon, it seemed everyone asked about moose. Nope. I did have a nice encounter with a pileated woodpecker, though.

At Bacteria Bazaar

I heard a saying once that there are as many kinds of kimchi in Korea as there are mothers. In a way, there are as many kinds of fermentation festivals as there are places and people that put them on. The constant is the passion that goes into organizing one, and an absolute love for fermentation goes without saying. From that point on I never know how things will roll. Many have an education component, some festivals feel like a party and some feel like markets to highlight local producers. Some are all about booze, some all about taste. Bacteria Bazaar was a party with the strongest emphasis being a steady stream of classes by people sharing their passion and knowledge on a subject. People sharing community and space excited about learning. It doesn’t get better than that. All the participating students were a delight full of passion and great questions. (Yes, and I promise to answer some here soon. You can leave yours in comments.)

I learned a lot of things but I am going to say Skizzle wine might have been at the top. Thank you, Jamie and Yona. It was a wine made, I kid you not, out of Skittles. Taste was dominated by the grape flavored ones.

On the left: Skizzle wine. On the right: Ferment forward dinner salad.

Big delights were that I met a woman and we realized we had the same first and middle name! Oh and there was square dancing!

Erin and Angi in the back, Kirsten and Sandor in the foreground.

Parting Shots

And because many of you are new here, thank you! Here is a halloween post. I write about fermentation and life, but for this one I went to the dark side. Enjoy.