LOLO — Spirits and kites were flying high on Sunday for opening day of the “Visions of Lewis And Clark Kite Exhibit” at Travelers’ Rest State Park on Sunday.
“I’m here because it’s a sunny day and it’s a good day to fly kites,” said Lucas, who came to fly kites with his family.
Families were out for more than just the sunshine.
Read the full story:
The event opening featured kite making stations, tips on flying technique and even some help from local mascots, Monte of the Grizzlies and Paxton of the Paddleheads.
The exhibition brings more than 30 kites to spots all across Missoula County for the summer. Each was inspired by the Lewis and Clark expedition and carefully crafted by an artist.
Back in the early 2000s, Terry Zee Lee wanted to merge her love of kites with the story of Lewis and Clark, ahead of the expedition’s bicentennial.
“I really wanted to figure out some way to connect the two, so I did it through the journals,” she said. “I picked out 30 quotes from the journals.”
The quotes were pulled from three categories, the nature the crew encountered, the events that happened to them and the Indigenous people involved in the expedition.
The quotes were then given to artists to creatively work into a kite.
“30 of America's greatest kite builders that participated in this, every one of them took one of the quotes, learned all they could about it and then made the kites that you see all over town,” she said.
With kite making and flying, Sunday’s event was a breezy way to start off the exhibition; it also aimed to inspire the next generation to learn about the past and about the kites themselves.
“Today is just having the kids come out here and get some kites in the air and get excited about it so that they can learn that all they have to do really is scale up the exact same things that they are doing today,” Zee Lee said.
In addition to Travelers’ Rest State Park, the kites are on display at the University of Montana’s University Center, the Missoula Butterfly House and Insectarium, the Missoula Public Library and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Region 2 Headquarters.
Several will also hang at the Missoula Montana Airport's new terminal when it opens later this spring.
“Everybody loves kites. They fill you with joy when they get into the air,” Zee Lee said. “I always tell the kids, when I go into the schools, to remember that joy that they will feel when their kite goes up in the air, because that, it's pure joy.”
