MEET STEVE GUNDERSON

VISION FOR THE FUTURE BY UNDERSTANDING THE PAST 

Pioneers, Communities and Harvesting the Treasures that Surround Us

My mission is and has always been, to foster a Montana where opportunity meets the road. It's not just rhetoric it is fact. We need to rebuild a Montana where every voice is heard, and every individual has the chance to thrive and pursue the American Dream. Through unwavering dedication and a commitment to service, I seek to bring about positive change, uphold our traditional values, and create a brighter, more prosperous future for Lincoln County and Montana.

With that rebuild needs to come a reevaluation of how we take care of the environment around us. That environment was once the economic engine that fed prosperity for Lincoln County. Currently that environment is a huge liability, primed and ready to ignite in a firestorm of biblical proportions not seen since the 3 million acre Great Burn, the fire of 1910.

Mountain Men, fur traders and miners that explored and mapped the pristine wilderness of the West and Northwest found Lincoln County to be a Great deposit of Natural Resources. Miners, migrated to the area with the allure of Gold, Silver and other precious metals built many of the cities and towns spread across the landscape. Without the true grit and resourcefulness of these people, Lincoln County would not be on the map or have the rich heritage that epitomizes life in Northwest Montana.

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Our current Public Lands were once the economic and cultural backbone of our Northwestern Montana home. Mining once prospered, the mineral wealth that we toiled to extract required a cost in human life. Mine tunnels and structures were held open by the massive timbers harvested from our forests, one Natural Resource used to allowthe extraction of the riches that the earth sheltered. Lincoln County was once the most prosperous county in Montana. Not only due to the Natural Resource Treasures that surrounded us but by the sheer human will, sweat and blood put forth to harvest those treasures. 

Today those treasures are forbidden. Our once prosperous Natural Resource Extraction Economy has been destroyed by a small faction that gives voice to out of staters and that small minority that wish to conserve all resources in our backyard. We have been forced to recover a top tier predator, the Grizzly Bear, whose mere presence stops all natural resource extraction and motorized recreation. Junk science has been elevated to "Best Practices" that stop all resource extraction and curtail recreational use to "Save" a "Rare and Threatened" species that after 40 years of recovery has surpassed many times over, the goals set forth for the recovery. This "one size fits all" recovery goal does not take into account the variables found in individual ecosystems. Road closures on Public Land on the Kootenai National Forest, yet roads are allowed through the heart of our National Parks. The hypocrisy is only compounded from there.

Our KNF is being "Saved" by the environmental movement to "Protect" the Grizzly, yet the surrounding Forest is allowed to grow without historical human harvesting of overgrowth timber. KNF is no longer a forest. It has become a fuels factory that will fuel the return of a 1910 catastrophe that will remove those fuels by fire. The 3 million acres and 87 lives lost in 1910 will pale in comparison to the loss of private property, Timber resources and the habit and biology that lives there. Mother Nature always cleans up mismanaged forests. What price will be paid for this mismanagement? Utter devastation that will destroy the very habitat that the environmentalists are "Saving". The people living in the area will pay a heavy price as well. Homes on private property will be lost. Lives will needlessly be lost as well. Who will be responsible and culpable for those lost in the coming catastrophic fires?

I would hope it is the very people that created and set the stage for this catastrophic event that could be stopped by properly managing our Forest.