Small town attracts young entrepreneurs

There’s a big appeal to living in a small town for some of Bigfork’s newest transplants.

Young entrepreneurs are starting a new wave of migration into the town that has long been home to families, retirees and second-residence owners.

“I grew up in central Kansas, in a small town environment,” said Josh Schukman, who is in the process of moving to Bigfork with his wife, Brittain Kovac.

When the couple first visited Bigfork over the summer, it felt like home.

The connection was so strong, in fact, the couple decided to put down roots in Bigfork after four years of living on the road in an Airstream camper. Within 30 days of visiting, they sold their Kansas City condo and made plans to establish Bigfork as the base of operations for their camper rental business.

They found networking surprisingly easy and quickly made a deal to become co-owners of Flathead Lake Resort, where they’ll also offer stays in their campers.

“We got connected right away because people are so friendly,” Shukman raved.

In the next few weeks, they’ll travel across the country with their four campers to settle onto the property at the resort, where they plan to live full-time for the foreseeable future.

But even though job opportunities like theirs seem to be on the rise, they’re not necessarily a fit for everyone.

Shukman and Kovac will likely rely on Shukman’s income from writing for outdoor publications to sustain them during the resort’s off-season.

He predicted Bigfork might see more newcomers moving in as employers switch to a remote work model, but that setup isn’t likely to work for just anyone.

Bigfork might not be on the radar for a lot of people just yet, but Shukman and Kovac are far from the only ones who have recently discovered the small town.

Markie Parks, owner of the new Swan Highway General Store & Barber Shop, had never been to Bigfork before she started her business at the start of winter.

Although she’d always dreamed of living in Montana, she said she had to look Bigfork up on a map when she heard there was business space available outside the tiny town.

The 32-year-old barber had reached a point in life where she was ready to “find her spot,” and in Bigfork, she said, “I just feel like it found me.”

She, too, praised the intimate community: “I wanted a rural environment where you’re going to get local people who live down the road.”

And just as Shukman was reminded of his upbringing in Kansas, Parks feels a local connection to her childhood raising rodeo bulls in Texas.

“There’s so much shared interest, in the rodeo community especially, farming and ranching,” she noticed.

She feels kinship, too, with the many veterans who frequent her barber shop near the Echo Lake Café. It’s another connection she shares with many locals as she waits for her boyfriend, currently serving in the military in Japan, to return to the U.S.

Overall, Parks said she’s found Bigfork a far better place to start her business than Washington State, where she received her barber training.

“It pretty much fulfills all of my interests,” she gushed.

Like Shukman and Kovac, Parks sold her home in Washington to pursue her business in Bigfork, but she’s still on the lookout for lodging. Right now, she’s living with her parents in Dayton and commuting to the barbershop every day.

Finding housing in and around Bigfork seems to be more challenging than finding work for the town’s young transplants.

Taryn Strong, for instance, creates luxury living spaces with her interior design business, Stronghold Design, while she shares a rental home with three other people.

After establishing the business in her home state of Colorado, Strong and her boyfriend moved north in search of a more down-to-earth lifestyle.

“We’re small-town people,” Strong said. They found more of their ilk when they left their flagship Colorado showroom in September and relocated to Bigfork.

“I love that I’m able to wear my boots from the ranch to the gas station and not be looked at sideways,” Strong laughed.

But she admitted the move has had its challenges, too.

Their rental home is a far cry from the upscale residences Strong works with as an interior designer. “We don’t love it,” she said candidly.

The couple hopes to eventually find land and build their own house, but first Strong needs to get a stronger hold with her business expansion.

She’s still waiting on her first Montana client, and she’s keeping an eye out for a nearby showroom. In the meantime, she picked up a part-time job, and her boyfriend found work at Jesco Marine and Power Sports after the job he had lined up fell short of his expectations.

Strong thinks it’ll be worth it to persevere through the challenges that come with expanding into new territory, but she admitted being in Bigfork isn’t for everyone.

“I think it’s really hard to make it,” Strong observed.

But she insisted she’d rather tough it out than watch Bigfork be transformed into a different kind of community like the one where she built her business in Colorado.

“We want to do everything we can to keep Bigfork the way it is,” she promised.

Reporter Bret Anne Serbin may be reached at (406)-758-4459 or bserbin@dailyinterlake.com.