Join author Donna Erickson on Second Saturday, June 13 at 1pm for a presentation on her latest book, Rooted at the Edge: Ranching Where the Old West and New West Collide.

Rooted at the Edge paints a portrait of a ranching community steeped in history, conflict, and beauty. In this narrative nonfiction work, Donna Erickson explores the hilly skirt of ground at the northern boundary of Missoula, Montana, separating the town from the wilderness beyond, seen in the opening credits of A River Runs Through It. The North Hills region represents the critical—and often highly personal—issues at play at the edge of many western towns.

The urban-rural fringe is both valuable and vulnerable. Across the West, ranchland is cherished by families yet coveted for open space or development. Complex ecological relationships can be bulldozed in a single afternoon. Rooted at the Edge conveys, in a way that statistics cannot, what’s at stake when ranches at the urban fringe are threatened.

Donna Erickson is the author of Rooted at the Edge: Ranching Where the Old West and New West Collide, published by the University of Nebraska Press in 2025. Erickson grew up on a ranch in Missoula’s North Hills and was a professor of landscape architecture and planning at the University of Michigan for 17 years. Since leaving academia, she has consulted with land conservation groups across the west from her home in Missoula. Donna’s previous book is MetroGreen: Connecting Open Space in North American Cities.