Blaine County Wildlife Museum Preparing to Expand

CHINOOK, Mont. (NMB) – Thanks to a $250,000 grant from a private donor and a $34,000 grant from the Montana Department of Commerce, the Blaine County Wildlife Museum is preparing to expand this summer.

Museum Board Treasurer Bill Harbolt says they have been trying to fund this project for years, and it allow them to expand by about 4,500 square feet.

“To utilize for exhibits and educational purposes. It will just about double the space that we have currently as exhibit space.”

The large grant was provided by John Monson, an Attorney based out of New Hampshire who has a ranch south of Chinook, and Harbolt says he will be providing more taxidermies for the Museum.

“He also has some animals from farther north in North America that he would like to have exhibited. So we will have an exhibit of, I think he has a musk ox, he has an arctic grizzly, those types of animals will be shown with his name on them. We would also like to do a spring scene because we are getting a good collection of baby animals, but we have not put them in exhibits yet. It would be kind of nice for young kids to come in, they are very excited when they see the baby animals.”

Harbolt says this expansion will improve the educational opportunities for children, and wants to thank Bear Paw Development for their help securing the funds.

“They come into non-profits and help them out, help the tourist industry. Anything that helps Chinook will also help Harlem, it will help Havre, it will help the whole Hi-Line with the chain of museums from Malta all the way to west of Chester.”

The Museum will not have to close during the project, which will take a few months to complete.

Although the Museum is closed for walk-in visits during the winter, tours can still be arranged by contacting them at by phone at 406-357-3102.

“We’ll open up any time if there’s a family coming to town. All they have to do is get ahold of one of the board members and we’ll give them a private tour. And we do that quite often,” says Board Vice President Ken Schubert.