“Two roads diverged in a wood…..and I took the one less traveled by…and that has made all the difference.” Robert Frost, 1874 – 1963.
“Traveling leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller”. Ibn Battuta, 1304-1369.
In 2015, crowds gathered up and down the Main Street in Fort Benton. They turned out to watch the Summer Celebration Parade as they do every year. That year there was a new float in the mix – A Viking ship adorned with shields and a dragon’s head at the bow. Nearly a dozen warriors rode in it through town carrying fearsome weapons. Each Viking wearing a helmet and some clothed in furs. When the Viking ship won first place, people asked who they were and what they stood for. And they said, “We’re the Explorers Club and we stand for a good time.” Those men are older now and four of them have moved on to “Valhalla.”
The Explorers Club was more or less the brainchild of Dennis Mack, a veteran, history buff, and gun collector. At that time he was the owner of the Great Falls Gun Show. It was in his garage that many hours were spent building the Viking ship. According to Dennis, the club provides men with similar interests “an excuse to grill ribeyes and drink” and to an extent encourages them to explore the world around them. Ultimately, it gives them a reason to have fun.
As fans of “Hagar the Horrible” from the comics, the group decided to loosely theme their club around Viking culture. In fact, the club is named after a specific Hagar comic. In it, Hagar leaves his wife at home to attend a meeting of the “Explorers Club”. A couple frames later he is seen standing before a group of men saying, “Tonight we are going to explore the contents of this bottle of 10-year old scotch”.
Since that Summer day in 2015, Dennis, usually accompanied by a few friends, has explored the world. In the US, he spent a month visiting Colonial and Civil War sites along the East Coast including Ft. Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas. He visited the Trinity Site and the Very Large Array in New Mexico, the Museum of the Fur Trade and “Carhenge” in Nebraska, Bent’s Fort and Pikes Peak in Colorado, and the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, where Pluto was discovered. There, they let him look at the rings of Saturn through a huge telescope. He watched two guys try to eat 72 ounce steak dinners in Amarillo and fail. Then on to South Arkansas to dig for diamonds at the only diamond mine in North America open to the public. After a visit to Bill Clinton’s birthplace he fished a primitive, alligator infested bayou for catfish followed by a genuine redneck Memorial Day catfish cookout complete with a lengthy prayer and hymn singing, no alcohol allowed, and a translator required to decipher the language.
Overseas, he visited Machu Picchu, Samoa, the Galapagos Islands, the Island of Malta, Sicily, Pompeii, Paris, Pisa, Florence, Rome, Normandy, Ecuador, the Panama Canal, and the Amazon Jungle. Never one to miss a photo opportunity, Dennis has the evidence. One of his photos shows him in a small outdoor amphitheater in Sicily sitting on a stone seat where some other guy sat 2200 years before. He is a fan of history.
Dennis says he is not through yet. Membership in the Explorers Club was closed in 2008 but he plans to continue Exploring as there is still a lot of the world to see.
Author: Staff
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