Montana: Ennis says What?

Big sky can change your heartbeat. We head to Ennis, Montana—where the Madison River braids through a valley of ranchland, trout runs, and stories that outlast winter—and follow the thread from Native seasonal hunting to homesteads, gold dust, and a town that learned to thrive quietly. Along the way, we chase the Ringdokus, the so‑called Rocky Mountain hyena, into museum glass and older lore that echoes the shunka warak’in, asking why communities keep monsters and what those myths protect.

Our time on the ground is a study in simple abundance: prime steaks sealed with balsamic and black pepper, black garlic finishing salt, and Samuel Smith ales easing into mountain dusk; pronghorn families treating the driveway like a trail; Peter Tosh on the stereo shifting the room to a kinder tempo. We slip from river access to gallery walls filled with fish, landscape, and Native motifs, then to a brewery where the pizza wait nudges us toward a very Montana surprise—a bistro on one side and bowling on the other. It’s not perfection so much as permission to improvise, to let the day be shaped by what’s actually there.

The deeper pull is pace. Ennis isn’t chasing spectacle; it’s offering presence. Fly fishing on the Madison, rainbow and brown trout schooling your patience; Main Street humming without hurry; a view that quiets your inner noise. We connect the town’s history to that modern stillness and talk about how legends, museums, and small rituals hold communities together. If you’re craving a reset—the kind that trades notifications for river light—press play, subscribe, and leave us a note with your favorite small-town gem. And if the Ringdokus crossed your path, we definitely want to hear that story, too.

Chapters

• 0:00 Banter, Dogs, And Taffy
• 3:02 Ennis History And Homesteads
• 5:44 Gold, Ranching, And The 49ers
• 7:08 The Ringdokus Legend Emerges
• 9:23 Museums, Names, And Native Lore
• 11:11 Fishing, Festivals, And Quiet
• 12:51 Owen’s Trip Begins
• 16:06 Ed’s Place And Valley Views

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:48

Uh hoy hoy. Oh, hello there, my friend from uh oh wait, east of me out there in Montana. I hope it's uh sorry. I was trying to think of what to say there, my friend. It's been a minute. We've been a sorry.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04

No, let me go full disclosure. I was chewing on a watermelon taffy and knew I wasn't finished in time to answer, so the dog and hair didn't already partially chewed a watermelon taffy. Oh I'm sorry, that's disgusting, but we're all about keeping it real here at ITF.

SPEAKER_00: 1:29

Indeed. Yeah, uh the the eastern headquarters out there in the middle of Montana, middle of the map Montana. And I'm glad Boogie got a piece, alright? That that's what this is all about. Peace, loving dogs, okay? You know, our friend here owing the McMichael Podcast Land, you have people out there in this world. He just took a trip to a small little town in Montana uh by the name of Ennis.

SPEAKER_02: 1:54

Huh?

SPEAKER_00: 1:55

He you know, he he definitely explored it a little bit. I don't know how many people out there have actually heard of Ennis. And as a fun fact out there too, I like totally did not have my notes open right now, and I thought I did. So we're on the same page.

SPEAKER_01: 2:13

Must be. Yeah, well, before Whitey settled in the Madison Valley, uh, Flathead, Spanish, and Shoshone natives hunted the land, and the harsh winters made it uninhabitable during you know, during the winter, but every spring they'd come back and it's just lush and and then fast-forwarding Lewis and Clark actually passed through there in 1805, but that was uh many years before any settlements were out there.

SPEAKER_00: 2:40

Yeah. Uh you know, there's several towns named Ennis that are similarly interesting, but not. There's an Ennis in Ireland. I just wanted to point this out real quick. Uh there's an Ennis, Texas, of course. And then Ennis, Montana, yeah, for sure. Uh the early inhabitants that came after what Owen was talking about there uh were homesteaders. Uh now, you know, the the Shoshone, the Flathead, the Bannock. I don't know how to say that either. Um, the town itself was founded in the 1860s by William Ennis, an Irishman. All right, who homesteaded the site along the Madison River. So, you know, it that that's initially how this all how this all started in 1860, but it actually wasn't even really a town until the gold rush kind of came. And that that's it wasn't even incorporated, sorry, until 1956.

SPEAKER_01: 3:33

But yeah, that's when when structures started going up, and yeah, uh gold was discovered in Halder Gulch in 1863, and then folks started really floating the area.

SPEAKER_00: 3:45

Right, and then the location had access to to water and it had fertile ran land, so it attracted a lot of ranchers and farmers in the area too. So there was like a whole, you know, network of folks that could sustain a population of 49ers of sorts, you know, after 1849. Right. Yeah. Do you think they were looking like a little bit northeast? Yeah, exactly. Do you think they looked sort of like violent business hippies? But of the old era with the hat and uh that's kind of what I always imagined. Remember when we were talking about what a violent business hippie is for all the people out there that don't know?

SPEAKER_01: 4:23

They're like rednecks to the hills, I guess, that Dylan like Yosemite Sam, but a lot bigger, and maybe like he more heavily armed. Yeah, that sounds that probably checks out.

SPEAKER_00: 4:34

Right. And these are people who are like kind of live off the land type folks, but usually uh involved in some sort of illicit activity, right? That's a violent business hippie. Typically illegal marijuana grows or you know, stuff of that nature that you know turns into other things. Um fun fun. I don't know if there's any weed grown in uh Ennis, Montana people, so that's not what we're talking about. We don't wanna don't wanna, you know, put any shade on that city. So uh Ennis he died in the 1880s, I feel, is where I was at. Uh dang it, Owen. We got it, we got a got lost here. Oh, uh William Ennis died in 1898 from a gunshot wound received during an assault. The town also had a local legend about a mystery creature that preyed on livestock in 1886, around that same same era, and I think you know what that is. The ring doch. Yeah, there is. There's a vocaler out there, people. It was known to uh kill cattle. It's kind of like when I read about the ring Dokus, it is uh something that reminded me of possibly the Chuka Chupacabra-ish, sort of.

SPEAKER_01: 5:44

Oh yeah, kind of. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 5:46

It was like wolf-like too, right? Right, yeah. So like a harrier. Yeah, harrier chupacabra. You know, it's like the northern cousin or something. Uh indigenous folks around the area actually have a legend that goes back way, way, back, way back, further back than maybe even Peabody could get, okay, people. But uh they called it the Shunk of Rock Barakin. I did not say that well. Please feel free to roll right off the target. It does. It really does for us honkies. Uh but yeah, or the ringed dokus. Uh that it it used to steal their dogs from their their their little encampments and whatnot, or where they were staying for the season. And fun fact, people, did you know that dogs from dogs are all bred from European wolves, not our wolves that are native to the US. I found that out because they actually the the domestic dog actually crossed the land bridge with humans. So that means that Native Americans had domesticated dogs for god knows how long. Isn't that amazing? I thought it was. Sorry. It was unaware. Yeah, I'm a little more okay. Good. I'm glad you like that because I thought I was like I'm pro canine for sure. Yeah, for sure. Unless they're in the back of a cop car. Yeah, we don't I feel they use them for the wrong reasons, that's all. Anyway. Uh nothing against good dogs doing good dog work, like those bomb sniffing dogs. We need those guys for sure. Uh oh yeah. So this ring Dokus. Does that insert bomb rip noise? Yeah, where were we? I don't know. Uh there's there's another name for it. It's like Gaias de Kutis, and I think they're trying to be like on a roll. Yeah, I know. I am fucking banging them out here, Owen. We might as well speak in Swedish. Like, I I'm good at that too. So uh, but yeah, it's also called the beast uh and the Rocky Mountain hyena, which I thought was kind of cool because when I've seen images of this, which there is one on the internet if you look it up, from its time spent in a museum around Ennis that may still be over there. Uh I remember we were actually doing some research on the ring dokus at one point in time. And yeah, isn't it is it the museum that it's supposedly in is very close to Ennis, I think. I I think it was in the Madison Valley Museum, which I'm not sure uh where I would think it would be, but on the fly. On the fly, I found an article here. Uh and uh it's it's summarized, so it's from the Ennis website or whatever. So but uh um whatever they are, uh they are known to attack dogs and cows and sheep and anything else served up on a fence and platter. If only we had a carcass, we could figure out what this creature is and once and for all. Oh wait, turns out we do. It's on display at a museum in Montana. In 1886, in the Madison Valley of Montana, a settler named Israel uh Ayman. Hey, another Aemon out here. Uh uh Hutchins had a problem, like Amilcoefin. What's with these these these people must be from Nordic ranges, right? That's the only thing I could think of. So uh something was attacking his animals and he killed it. But apparently this is I'm gonna summarize this a little bit. So this guy started hunting the ringed ocus that was killing his animals. And uh on his first attempt at killing it, he accidentally shot one of his cows. So that happened. And then uh eventually he did kill the ringed okay, and at some point in time they uh decided to get somebody to stuff it, and then over whatever time here they uh put it in a museum somewhere there in Montana. Uh-huh. And the Madison Valley people. So there is uh proof of this ringdokus. I'm very interested in this. Why has this uh not been uh a topic that Donald Trump wants to bring up to to disguise whatever?

SPEAKER_01: 9:43

Don't ask him about stuffed ring Docus.

SPEAKER_00: 9:45

You might get an answer you didn't want to hear. I agree with that statement, my friend. I agree, what a creep. Um, so anyway, uh Lance Foster, uh a historic site preservationist, uh paranormal enthusiast, and a member of the Lower tribe, speculated that the beast could be the shrunk and wonkin. Let's again say that chunk of Rukin. Alright. Yeah. So there's actual legitimate, like, Native American uh people who believe that this is what uh the the ringokus is, is something that's been around for a very long time. Very ancient. I uh on as far as like Ennis Montana goes, people, I'm sorry. There's not like a ton of things beyond it's kind of an older uh touristy town, right? Like set it's in Montana. It's really known for its fishing. That is a thing. Uh near Ennis, Montana, the primary fish species caught are rainbow trout and brown trout. So those are pretty uh sought after for the fly fishing community, I feel. And um yeah, that's that's a big the major draw of that area.

SPEAKER_01: 10:51

Um right, because uh when I I just like to sit by the river and smoke weed, you know. But that's that's me.

SPEAKER_00: 10:58

Yeah, the other big draws for Ennis Montana are the Fourth of July parade and rodeo. And that's about it, guys. So if you're not gonna go there to go fishing or hunting ring dokus or and smoke weed by rivers, then uh this may not be the place for you. But if you enjoy all these things that we just spoke on, you may really like Ennis Montana people. And it does sound like a cool area. I did see a picture of where Owen was staying. It was beautiful. You could see the mountains and all sorts of stuff.

SPEAKER_01: 11:24

I was Yeah, it's worth it just for the views, I would say. Like if you enjoy being outdoors, it's and it's yeah, it's just gotta like I don't know. It's got a charm to it.

SPEAKER_00: 11:34

Yeah, no, there's nothing against Ennisphere people. It's just when you go to these kind of places, a lot of times you're not gonna, you know, there's no concerts or anything, okay? It's all about quiet time and just kind of chilling, maybe some small towny hokey fun, whatever you want to do there, and the views and such. Uh there's gonna be a lot more than what we talk about going on there. What what exactly let's hear about I want to hear about your experience, Mr. McMichael, when you went to Ennis, Montana recently on your summer uh trip.

SPEAKER_01: 12:03

Okay, yeah, I just kind of summarized it. So uh situated in the Madison Valley is a charming little town of Ennis, Montana. I'm unable to even guess how many times I've driven through on the way to or back from mom's cabin in Island Park, I don't know. I'd only stopped at a couple places. Emo's, which is an incredible butcher shop, and of course the Montana Staple Town Punk Gas Station. The views of the Madison Mountain Range and the river, the same name running along the edge of town, it always made me want to spend some time there. Well, on the weekend in mid-July 2025, my mom is staying with her friend Ed outside of Ennis and invites me to join her. I figured I can manage to drag myself away from buildings and all its magic for a couple days, so Boogie and I hit the road early Saturday. A quick stop at Thinks for delicious sandwiches in the soulless chasm that was once posed in Montana and it's off to Ennis. We arrive a little before Mahn walks down to the Madison to Boogie's will get his first drink from this incredible river. Ma and I walk to the nearly new shop, and I find some nice old dishes we'll use for the next time Boogie's entertaining at the shop. Realizing my platinum bracelet has fallen off, I'm almost ready to just say fuck it as I hate the clap on that fucking thing. I do walk back to the fifth shop, and the nice ladies there found it and set it aside for me. Pick up Prime New York strip steak from Demos and we begin to follow Maum to Ed. Apparently she hasn't been to his place for a while, and we drive a few miles past his turn off. And by the way, she stopped in the middle of the road to get out and inform me this. I was like, Mom, yep. Making it to the correct road, we arrive at a sign stating, private road, owners have guns and backhoes. Turn around. Good thing we've been invited. A mother Pronghorn and her twin babies are in the driveway as we pull in, and they don't even seem disturbed by a presence. Ed's house is beautiful with a garden in front and back and a pristine view of the entire Madison range. With the steak vacuum sealed and bulcamic vinegar and black pepper, and then the sous videos bath, I feel it's time for a beverage. Couple different Samuel Smith ales before the steak is ready to be seared, sprinkled with black garlic finishing salt and rested. Pasta, salad, and Pinot Noir to accompany the perfectly medium rare steak. Sitting outside looking over the valley at the mountains, the visual beauty is matched by the tranquil sound of almost nothing. An occasional bird chirping, but such a different world than the constant flow of traffic and yapping dogs I'm stuck with in buildings. Inside I put on some music and we discover Ma's a big fan of Peter Tosh. It's been a doctor. It's been a great first day for me in the NFA. The next morning we have some strawberries and grapes, and I have a rhubarb muffin mom made before we walk up the road away. Pronghorn are all over the hillside, and luckily we encountered none of the gun-toting back owners. A lazy day around the house, just enjoying the property and the views and the quiet before heading into town late afternoon. We stop at Burnt Tree River Access, a gorgeous spot on the Madison. A place to forget about everything and just enjoy the sound of the river and the sunlight reflecting off of it. Making our way to busy Main Street Dennis, we stop at Riverstone Gallery. There are great, mostly fishing, nature, Native American themed paintings and some lovely pottery and glasswork. Ready for a drink, we head to Burnt Tree Brewery. A great little spot with tasty beer and a nice shitty place to sit and enjoy. We go for a second round with the intent to order a pizza and take it back to Ed's. A good size line is formed, and I hear the cashier say something about an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes. Figuring that to be the wait time for a pizza, we decide to scrap that plan. The establishment we wind up at is not remotely similar to any I've seen or heard of. Alley Bistro serves bistro-style meals on one side of the building, and on the other side, one can go bowling. Montana. The smoked out gravioli mom gets was delicious, but could have been more plentiful and warmer. The pork shop I ordered was very good, though the green beans were beneath substandard. Overall, an amusing experience that my husband would never speak of again. She seriously did say that. Another peaceful evening at Edge, enjoying the views of the valley of the mountains, and the pronghorn and the hills. This simple trip has been good for me, and it's a great reminder to go somewhere you've never really been before. It strikes me what an effect these small towns like NF have on me. Being a suburban kid with a city mindset mindset constantly on the go, they remind me it's okay to slow down so fast. They allow me to momentarily stop being consumed by what's next and fully enjoy what's now. Much love, everybody.