Though geographically the fourth-largest state at just over 140,000 square miles, in 1951, Montana’s population was less than 600,000. Thus, when Donal reaches the twin cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, he was in a metropolitan area with a population 200,000 people larger than the entire state of Montana. About 6% of Montanans in the 1950s were members of Indigenous American nations, as described by Donal, representing 12 distinct Indigenous tribal groups. Before colonization, these and other Indigenous groups moved freely about the area, trading with northwestern coastal nations, accounting for the pre-Columbian obsidian arrowhead Donal discovers.

Though only about half of the citizens had indoor plumbing or electrical service in 1950, things were changing in mid-20th-century Montana. As Donal describes it, a heavy equipment operator like his father would have found lots of work on infrastructure projects. As he notes, there were new mining ventures commencing, particularly around Butte. The area that draws the attention of Donal and Herman, the Big Hole, is a vast valley in northwestern Montana ringed by mountain ranges where mining and foresting industries predominate, along with large cattle ranches and agricultural interests that attracted migrant workers like the Johnson family.