The Big Sandy Mountaineer -

Anyone who knows me, knows I love books. I collect them like a little kid collects baseball cards. Whenever my family travels, I find myself plotting our path based on the bookstores we will be able to visit. A few weeks ago, my wife and I took our daughter to Missoula for a doctor’s appointment. While we were there, we visited an independent bookstore, and I found something exciting: the Montana Bookstore Trail. The trail was put together by independent bookstore owners in an effort to promote independently owned bookstores in Montana.

The trail is a simple concept. Each participating bookstore has copies of a passport, which is the traveler’s guide to the trail. Each location has its own page, with a description and fun information. When a visitor stops in, they receive a stamp in their passport. At the end of the summer, those who have visited every location are put into a drawing for prizes, though I would argue that the real prize is the treasure hunt you embark on investigating the shelves in these shops. The trail and passports were organized by Rachel Elliott Brooks, who owns the Reading Leaves bookshop in Townsend. She contacted bookstores in Montana belonging to the American Booksellers Association about the idea of the passports and prizes. She found sponsorships for the passports, which were completely paid for by Visit Southwest Montana, Farcountry Press, and Arcadia Publishing.

The passport, and accompanying website (mtbookstoretrail.com) explain that Montana is home to the most independent bookstores per capita than any other state. The trail covers shops as far east as Fairview on the Montana-North Dakota Border. It also extends to the extreme in every other direction, with Chapter One in Hamilton and Book Peddler in West Yellowstone. The journey to visit all of the shops in the trail could easily fill several weekends of trips during the summer months.

I visited Cassiopeia Books in Great Falls, MT to check in on the closest stop in my journey down the trail and spoke to the owner, Millie Whalen about the trail and her shop. Millie came to own Cassiopeia books 3 years ago. “I moved here to buy the bookstore. And sadly, it all happened during COVID. But it worked out well in the end.”

She explained that though owning an independent bookstore is difficult, particularly in the era of internet book buying options, “I have found that the Great Falls really wants an independent bookstore. So they really support this bookstore. I think the challenge nationwide, especially with new books, is that they’re expensive. People can buy them from the name-that-shall-not-be-mentioned. They undercut the prices of books and in my opinion, make it an unfair selling situation, because they can buy in volumes that are much, much larger than what your average small town bookstore can buy, and so they’re able to undercut the prices.” Despite the challenge of competing with massive online bookstores, Millie explained that there is still a market for local independent retailers. “That being said, lots of people really want this bookstore to stay open. They recognize the importance of local businesses, so they’re willing to come in and pay the extra cost. I don’t add a charge to it. I just charged the retail price. But a lot of times, that is a lot more than what the mail order internet companies charge.”

Millie explained some of the advantages for consumers when it comes to visiting a brick and mortar bookstore. “The algorithms they set for you don’t necessarily allow you to explore the way you can when you walk into a bookstore. The way booksellers put certain titles together or just going through the shelves.” She went on to point out that the exploration that you can embark on, when browsing the shelves in a physical location, expose you to titles that the algorithm would not.

She explained that the “It’s great when you’re in a bigger community. The bookstore can focus on mysteries or focus on nonfiction. Here, we sell a little bit of everything. I also think that the great point to this store is that we run the book exchange so people can bring us their used books and they’ll get $1 off of any other used book in the store. That really keeps the inventory fresh. It also keeps the inventory Great Falls centered.” This means that their shop sells books in Great Falls that readers in Great Falls are reading and would likely recommend to their neighbors.

For those who have not visited Cassiopeia Books, I recommend stopping in. The selection of books is excellent. In addition, because of their used book selection, it is possible to find some rare gems mixed in with more familiar titles. The atmosphere of the shop is also worth stopping in for, with a large collection of antique typewriters on display and a 9 foot tall, 40 year old cactus in the front, which a customer donated after it outgrew her ceiling space at home.

Throughout the summer, I will be sharing more more articles about the independent bookstore trail as I attempt to visit as many stops as I can to fill my passport. My hope is to support these independent bookstores, but also to offer readers some recommended and reviewed stops to their vacation travels.