Nestled beneath the boughs of ancient larch trees a few miles outside Yaak, a one-room log hall serves as a talisman for days gone by.  

Hewn from the surrounding woods by early homesteaders in 1925, the Yaak Community Hall has served as the area’s premiere dance hall, theater, polling center and clubhouse for more than a century. In the process, the building has sunk itself deep into the heart of northwestern Montana — both literally and figuratively.

The building was constructed without a foundation, and many of the larch logs at the base have now rotted or burrowed deep into the soil, causing the hall’s floor to buckle and bow. 

“It was more than a ripple. It was hills and valleys,” said Larry Miller, one of the community members who first recognized the issue in 2019. 

Since then, the floor’s topography has only become more volatile, jeopardizing not only the community hall itself, but also the many functions it provides to the town of Yaak.  

“We still need a community hall just like we did 100 years ago,” explained Miller’s partner, Sandy Beder-Miller. 

The small community in Lincoln County near the Canada border is named for the Yaak River that meanders through the valley, not far from the community hall that, despite looming repair needs, still provides vital space for the community.  

The hall serves as the weekly staging grounds for the local food bank. A suite of freezers provides residents who live off-grid with rentable storage space. Fire officials sometimes host briefings in the hall, and the building is designated as an evacuation center during emergencies. 

There is simply nowhere else to house those essential services, said Beder-Miller. 

Many of the less critical events that used to take place at the community hall have been canceled in recent years due to concerns about the safety of the floor. When Beder-Miller and Miller first moved to Yaak in 2014, they often attended holiday parties and school events at the hall, but such gatherings are now sparse. 

That loss can hit especially hard in a place like the Yaak, where physical distance isolates many residents. Modern conveniences like cellphone service are often inconsistent, and nearly half of the town’s 310 residents are 65 years or older, an age class that the National Institute of Health indicates is more vulnerable to social isolation and loneliness. For many, social events at the community hall were a rare opportunity to connect with others. 

“It was a real meeting place, and we would like to see that return,” said Beder-Miller. 

The first step toward that goal was raising enough money to purchase and install a new floor. As members of the Yaak Community Hall Board’s fundraising subcommittee, Beder-Miller and Miller spearheaded numerous initiatives to secure donations, from online auctions to community breakfasts. The efforts ultimately raked in about $40,000 over the course of a year and a half. Several community members also promised to donate their time and labor to help install the floor once the project was underway. 

“I was stunned by how many people in the community showed up and participated,” said Robyn King, the treasurer of the Yaak Community Hall Board. 

Both monetary and temporal contributions will serve as the board’s match for a $168,000 Historic Preservation Grant that Lincoln County received from the Montana Chamber of Commerce earlier this year. The Yaak Community Hall Board worked with Lincoln County and the Heart of the Rockies Initiative on the submission, as the board is not a registered nonprofit, it was ineligible to apply for funding on its own. 

According to the grant application, the funds will be used to remove and replace rotted exterior logs, pour concrete footings and an 8-inch-thick concrete wall foundation, install floor joists and plywood decking and repair or replace any damaged floorboards.  

King said the board is ready to field construction bids on the project as soon as the county and state finalize the necessary paperwork. She anticipates the project could be complete as soon as next summer. 

In the meantime, there are plenty of other projects to undertake, including a solution to the hall’s outdated outhouses. The board is exploring different options for a new septic and waste system to replace the latrines. King and other board members have also been involved in preliminary discussions with the U.S. Forest Service to transfer the small section of land the community hall sits on to Lincoln County. If realized, King said the swap would streamline the permitting process for any future repairs. 

Beyond permits and plywood, King said the main goal is to continue to build kinship in and around the historic hall through community events. About 130 people attended a recent celebration held on the lawn outside the hall, jointly commemorating the Fourth of July and the building’s 100th birthday. Another fundraising event, in which volunteers cooked breakfast for attendees, drew about 80 people. 

While such large turnouts are no small feat for a small town like Yaak, King said it wasn’t the numbers that most impressed her. She was drawn in by the way people lingered underneath the larch trees for hours, sharing company and stories. 

“I think the highest compliment we received was, ‘Oh, this is just like the good old days,’” King said.  

Reporter Hailey Smalley can be reached at 758-4433 or [email protected].