Nearing Hungry Horse

Bodil Strand returns home to Hungry Horse, Montana. The land has a rich history of miners and outlaws, artists and religious communities, proud people living in a beautiful and dangerous land.

But Bodil finds the town is slowly being crushed by the vicious practices of the local social worker, Walter Schultz, who breaks apart families and creates a ruthless cycle of poverty and dependence. As a reporter for the local paper, Bodil also acts as confessor for the townspeople's secrets, hopes, and fears. There's Tarra and Morgan, whose marriage is crumbling under financial strain; Rudy, a struggling veteran; Jane, depressed and in love with Rudy; Pastor Kiefer, too proud to provide for his disillusioned flock; and Owen Wells and his wife, whose grandchildren were taken away by the state on false abuse charges.

Bodil tries to write the truth in her articles, to capture the spirit of her beaten and broken neighbors as they try to live lives of freedom and hope. Epic in scope and intimate in scale, Nearing Hungry Horse reflects on the peril of supposed progress in a wild land.

About the Author

Carol Woster is a graduate of St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. Her first published piece in The New York Times Travel section, in February 1968, was on Glacier National Park. Photographs were by the renowned late Mel Ruder, founder of The Hungry Horse News in Columbia Falls, Montana. He won the Pulitzer Price in 1965.

Following a stint with the Associated Press, Carol wrote "Our European Correspondent" columns from Europe. A researched piece out of Plzen, four months after the occupation of Soviet troops, titled "Czechoslovakia at Christmas" ran worldwide with United Press International in December 1968. Besides writing, she has been Editor/Consultant at both The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, Washington D.C. During the latter part of an eleven-year stay in Norway (1983-1994), she translated the budget for the Ministry of the Environment, Oslo, from Norwegian to English.

The author now resides at Cut Bank, Montana.