Butte Beat: One of the Easiest Ways to Appreciate History

BUTTE, MT - Expanse.

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You can find it everywhere. You find expanse when you walk out in the crisp air of the night and look up, seeing the vast expanse of space with its unfathomable amount of mystery and splendor. You find expanse when you research the ways of the world; societies, governments, communities, all incredibly detailed, expansive and layered beyond belief. You can even find expanse when you look at my waist size before and after a Thanksgiving meal.

My point is: expanse is everywhere, and it is beautiful. Sometimes it's beautiful in the way it's presented, and sometimes it's beautiful in the way it makes you feel (though one rarely finds one without the other). That feeling of looking down into a lake or an ocean, not knowing what lies beneath, is nothing short of exhilarating. Or nothing short of outright terrifying. Depends on who you ask.

Either way, there's something powerful about the feeling of truly appreciating something massive in scale. Why? Because we, as Americans (whether Butte Americans or otherwise), are caught up in our own little worlds most—if not all—of the time, succumbing to the natural phenomenon of what the kids are calling "main character syndrome."

It makes sense: we are self-preserving creatures, no matter how altruistic and empathetic we are. We want what's best for us and our small community. So we get caught up in preserving that: working non-stop, going to church, picking up dinner at the grocery store, convincing ourselves that we use social media to "learn," all while focalizing one (or a few) of the hundreds of responsibilities we are endowed with.

This isn't a bad thing by any means. But it can definitely be dangerous, specifically because it can tear you away from the outer reality. Luckily, those of us living in Montana are surrounded by expanses to remind us that the world is bigger than us. That there is more to life than the stressful, anxiety-inducing nature of everyday existence. That is what makes an expanse, along with the feeling that comes with appreciating one, so special.

I have barely scratched the surface of what's possible with the properties of expanse, but I will share with you one that invokes that feeling times two. The Berkeley Pit Viewing Stand is one of the few places where a marriage of two very different types of expanse occurs, creating profound, one-of-a-kind experiences you have to do.

It starts with the outright mind-blowing nature of the expanse you're observing right in front of your eyes, sprinkled with notions of awe and wonder—the first type of expanse, spatial, setting in. "How did people make this?" is a natural first question that just seems to slip out. Then, you really see just how massive the Berkeley Pit really is when you look across and see the water treatment plant just about a mile away from you; a giant industrial complex that looks like a kid's playset from where you are.

But just as you're really appreciating the expanse laid out before you, another thought creeps up from behind and whispers, "People made this..." That's the second type of expanse, historical, making itself known. Historical expanse is realizing everything—the lives, the deaths, the knowledge, the experiences, the actions, the seemingly random events, and the interactions—that went into what you're looking at.

And there are very few things on Earth that provoke that experience. The Vatican, the Pantheon, the World Trade Center, the Eiffel Tower, the Great Mosque of Mecca, the Great Pyramid, the Berkeley Pit: all examples of historically significant and spatially massive expanses.

We are lucky to be here.