Spreading along the banks of the Clark Fork of the Columbia River at the mouth of Hell Gate Canyon, Missoula (pop. 57,053) is an engaging mix of college-town sophistication and blue-collar grit. The two industries that built the city, railroads and lumber mills, have both diminished considerably since their turn-of-the-20th-century heyday, but still form the foundation of the local economy. The University of Montana campus has given Missoula a literate and left-leaning air not usually found in this neck of the woods.

  The mountains, rivers, and canyons around Missoula are Montana at its best, and downtown Missoula, stretching along the north bank of the river, contains a large number of elegant turn-of-the-20th-century brick buildings housing a buoyant range of businesses, from department stores to bike shops. Missoula’s other social nexus, the University of Montana campus, spreads south of the river at the foot of dusty brown Mt. Sentinel (the one marked with the large “M”) and the Sapphire Mountains. It’s a pleasant place to walk around—in summer at least, when cyclists and inline skaters outnumber pedestrians on the many paths—keeping an eye out for posters advertising local events.

  Missoula’s number one attraction, the Smokejumpers Aerial Fire Depot (Mon.–Fri. in summer; donations; 406/329-4934), is seven miles west of town at the end of Broadway. Displays include dioramas, old photographs, and antique fire-fighting gear; hourly guided tours are led by the very people who jump out of airplanes to battle raging forest fires.