Nick Bennett is a VISTA serving with Opportunity Link in Havre, MT.

I haven’t slept all that well lately. I blame the railroad. Since I arrived here in Havre, the “Crown Jewel of the Hi-line”, I’ve listened to the trains roar through town nearly every night. I live near the train station which serves as the hub for the town’s primary industry. Havre has always been a railroad town, owing its title to the Hi-Line railway, the United States’ northernmost transcontinental railroad which starts in Saint Paul, Minnesota and runs all the way to Seattle, Washington. Thus Havre, in the center of this span, sits as the “crown jewel”. The history of the town, positioned in the midst of more than a century of commercial transit, tells me that I’m far from the first to find no sleep here. Beneath the streets lies an underground city that, in times long past, was home to the darker proclivities of the sleepless. Vices of every manner were indulged in the late hours of the night and under the cover of the earth. From brothels and opium dens to the practice of feats of frontier dentistry, Havre seemingly never slept. This tradition of being a sleepless night-zombie continues with me. However, rather than using the wee hours to pursue vice and depravity, I lie awake thinking about service and the choice I made to serve as a VISTA in Montana.

I came to Havre to serve with the non-profit Opportunity Link as their Food Systems Coordinator. Opportunity Link does a lot of different things, from running a regional transit system to working on solutions for housing issues, the lack of internet access on the Hi-Line and providing opportunities for upward mobility within the local communities. My role here revolves around helping to build capacity for the food sovereignty efforts of the Fort Belknap and Rocky Boy’s Reservations which lie to the east and southwest of Havre. On paper, my job is to help promote and empower local agri-business, facilitate workshops and training relevant to food security initiatives, collect and disseminate research and resources within the community, and work to mitigate barriers in food production and acquisition. All of that is easy to memorize for an elevator pitch, but endlessly challenging to put into practice. My own desire to meet these expectations and produce real results is matched only by the intense anxiety I feel when I contemplate whether I’m capable of pulling it all off. So, I lie awake at night wondering if my invitation to this position was a mistake.

Among the challenges I’m facing in this endeavor, the most intimidating is self-motivation. It’s not like I haven’t had to be self-motivated before, that’s part of being an adult and a key factor in supporting yourself, earning a college degree, and even getting through the AmeriCorps application process. This time around however, it feels completely different as I work to build Opportunity Link’s food sovereignty program up as a solo act. That’s not to say I don’t have the support of my organization, I absolutely do. The Opportunity Link staff are an amazing and unique group of people who seem to teach me something new every day. My supervisor has become a mentor to me in a short span of time and I am in awe of her experience and wisdom. However, with the organization working for our communities on so many avenues, this project is my own. I don’t have a team to help me day to day other than my trusty Ford, which carries me across North-Central Montana, and my cat Gary, who serves as my emotional support specialist. As a result of this independence, I find myself riddled with self-doubt, the dreaded imposter syndrome, and the frustration of wondering if I am doing enough. So, I lie awake at night worrying about my ability to do something of value with my year of service.

Despite this propensity for stepping on my own feet, my efforts here have been far from fruitless. Although things got off to a slow start, I find myself busier and busier with each passing month. Working to build up food sovereignty efforts for two unique communities has taken on a variety of forms. In the case of the Rocky Boy’s community, I have worked to provide research and resources to support their burgeoning community food cooperative in efforts to create a center for the acquisition and distribution of locally sourced food that helps to build agri-business and put food on the shelves of community members. Opportunity Link has also petitioned the First Nations Developmental Institute for expert assistance in helping the community organize and further develop this initiative.

To the east at Fort Belknap, I represent Opportunity Link as a member of the Fort Belknap Food Coalition, a recently formed union of various tribal health agencies, instructors and students from Aaniiih Nakoda College, agents from the MSU extension service, leaders from the community gardens, non-profits, and local food producers that are dedicated to building food sovereignty through collaboration. In our meetings, we discuss and brainstorm initiatives, plan events for the community, share research and resources, and strategize on how to tackle food insecurity on the reservation. Some of the interesting things I’ve gotten to assist with include planting and seed saving classes, working with students in the tribal college’s greenhouse, planning for plant and seed swapping events, and working with Tribal Nutrition to develop a foraging and recipe guide for the native plant life found on the reservation. The tribal college has also recently established a heritage seed library program that I’m excited to help promote and expand.

In addition to my collaborative efforts with these communities, I have also been hard at work trying to establish a portfolio of research and a record of my project for the organization’s food sovereignty program once I’m gone and another VISTA takes over. A major part of this is my “research garden”. In my office, I have set up an indoor garden with the intent of gathering data for potential workshops and educational materials for my communities. The focus of this garden is low-cost, DIY indoor gardening methods to help work towards food sovereignty on the domestic level. The way I see it, teaching people easy and adaptable methods to grow food at home is just as valuable as building community wide projects. I’ve had mixed luck so far. Sunflowers and basil are easy to grow while mint and rosemary feel near impossible! Mint has especially been frustrating as it has a reputation for being an invasive herb that grows like wildfire, but my experience suggests otherwise! Additionally, I have built a compost pile to research and promote methods for reducing food waste. Managing all these efforts has been simultaneously rewarding and exhausting. So, I lie awake at night, as the trains roll on through, thinking about my communities and wondering why my mint won’t grow.

It’s not all work and anxiety though, North Central Montana offers many opportunities to relax and enjoy the scenery and culture. As someone who loves being outside, I’ve taken every opportunity to hike and explore the local Bear’s Paw and Little Rocky Mountain ranges. Although the ranges here aren’t as large and popular as the mountains to the west, they have a unique charm. The Bear’s Paws are peaceful and offer breathtaking views of the sprawling northern border. The Little Rockies have a mystical appeal about them and, even on sunny days, seemed to be cloaked in mist like mountains out of a fantasy novel. The culture here is also quite rich. Events on the reservations are happy and vibrant with everyone sharing food and cracking jokes. I went to my first pow-wow recently and was floored by the atmospheric blast of drums, bells, and sweetgrass smoke. Here in town, there is always something happening, from poetry readings by the State’s poet laureate Chris La Tray to random archery classes and bingo fundraisers (Montanans love bingo). My experience off the clock has been awesome. So sometimes I lie awake and think about island mountains, smoldering braids of sweetgrass, and how I almost had BINGO!

I suppose I failed to mention my reasons for signing up for VISTA and journeying up to Montana in the first place. There were a variety of factors that drove my decision, but the most prominent is that I had become bored with my life, and I felt as if it didn’t bring any value to the world around me. I had an itch for new and fulfilling experiences. Despite all the anxiety, and sleepless nights, I would argue that so far…. mission accomplished! I’m being challenged and I have endless opportunities to grow and contribute to something bigger than myself. It hasn’t been easy, but it has been an experience unlike any other. Something that I was starving for. So, I lie awake, listening to my cat trying to purr over the trains crushing through the Hi-Line, and I feel grateful.