Great little place! Very neat and the price is great. The staff is very friendly and helpful…read more Would be a great place to take your kids if they are into nature and animals.

From the owner: The mission of the Montana Natural History Center (MNHC) is to promote and cultivate the…read moreunderstanding, appreciation and stewardship of nature through education. MNHC offers numerous programs for children, including week-long summer outdoor discovery day camps for pre-K through 5th grade, weekly pre-school programs, Saturday Kids' Activities, and Museum Tours. For adults we have an Evening Lecture Series, Sip & Sketch evenings taught by local artists, four-part classes on topics from nature writing to geology, as well as Naturalist Field Days on a variety of topics, from raptor migration to lichens to Glacial Lake Missoula. MNHC also offers several Montana Master Naturalist certification courses throughout the year. MNHC has a newly-renovated exhibit center filled with local animal specimens, information on Montana's ecosystems, a diverse fossil display, rotating exhibits in our Naturalist Field Station, and an exhibit on Glacial Lake Missoula. There is an interactive Kids' Discovery Room, an Environmental Education Library with books for both children and adults, a small native plant garden, and a Nature Adventure Garden for outdoor play. MNHC also provides a bi-annual publication, Montana Naturalist magazine, free to members and the public, with feature articles about the flora and fauna of Montana, their ecology, habitats and conservation issues.

Fascinating history and lovely quiet grounds you can roam freely at no charge. The small Museum…read moreitself is a $5 fee for visitors but I believe Missoula residents get free or reduced rates. The lady at the front desk was very knowledgeable of not only Fort Missoula but also many other sites in the whole region, we had a great conversation.

Exploring Beautiful and historical Fort Missoula. The history was pretty sad but the sunsets were…read moreabsolutely amazing.

This was an amazing, multi-story, well-organized museum. There's not a lot of merchandise but…read moredefinitely a lot of history. I took a lot more pictures, but wanted to highlight some favorites as well as one of my favorite features. The museum has interactive features like the scavenger hunt and create your own art. I feel like I learned a lot not just about Montana, but the United States as well. The staff were friendly enough, but not the most helpful. They are working on creating merchandise.

This museum is located downtown and there is parking on the street. The staff is very friendly and…read morehelpful. It is a small museum but I enjoyed the art exhibitions and the layout of the museum. If you're looking for a peaceful place to get your creative juices flowing, add this to your todo list.

Beautiful setting, love the walking museum. Can't wait to come to the new building and exhibits…read more The gift shop is also great!

Watched this grow over the years and add more displays -- always enjoy walking through.read more

Few professions go without acknowledgement or praise. These brave men and women needless to say are…read moresome of the top of that category. Smokejumpers have a perilous duty, to fight wildfires deep in the back country where little equipment or people can reach. That is to say unless you want to jump out of a plane that is! The Missoula Smokejumpers Visitor center gives you a brief history of what their profession entails, it's history, technological advancements and a glimpse at a firefighter that gets to experience fighting fires on a whole other level. Born from this location in 1939 (first tested in 1935) Missoula is the founding site of Smokejumpers in the US forestry service. Gwynn our tour guide showed us around the Region 1 center for Smokejumpers and fire center. Seeing how these brave souls live, practice and develop the needed skills to do the incredible things that they do was astounding. Mind you this is a very small visitor center at the tail end of the Missoula commuter airport runway (not attached to the terminal). The guided tour will last roughly 30min or so but you're more than welcome to tour the visitor center and explore and learn some interesting facts about the legacy of this profession. I am grateful to the brave men and women for all the work they do (which is more than just firefighting including search & rescue among other tasks) to get the job done. I commend you all and God bless the work you do.

Ensure you go on the tour. That makes the visit!! See and talk to the men and women who risk…read morethere lives --- fascinating!

Wow! This was a surprise to find in Missoula…read more We enjoyed how natural and comfortable the butterfly room is. It was fun to see the quail in there also. The educational displays in the front of the exhibit are interesting and fun. We found it good to spend time there. The gift shop is a gem. We got great help in choosing some fun gifts. Recommended!

Neat collection of bugs and butterflies! We visited the Missoula butterfly house and insectarium on…read morea Sunday afternoon and encountered about 30 people during our 1 hour visit. The insectarium hosts a rotating collection of insects and bugs from a round the world with a number of interesting facts for each exhibits. The butterfly house hosts about 30 species of butterflies and a few, cute button quail. If you find zoology interesting, then I would recommend the Missoula butterfly house and insectarium.

I have had the privilege of coming over here with a friend of mine after running the 2011 Missoula…read moremarathon in July. I wanted to see the tourist sites before returning home and my friend, who lives in Missoula, took me here and it was a good experience. It was on the Monday after, in the afternoon, and it felt like everything was deserted. Only a few cars that were parked in random places. I had a feeling that this place closed shop early. While I know it's just a historic site and tourist attraction, there could have been a bit more of a crowd, but sadly there wasn't. Probably it was due to being on a Monday during work hours. It was nice seeing Fort Missoula in its beauty. How the Fort was back in the 1800's and how modern day barracks crop up around the property really reflected the changing landscape of the old and the new. I got a kick out of seeing the log cabin and the old locomotive that was sitting out there in the sunshine day after day. There wasn't much to see, since majority of the original fort has been removed and retrofitted with the modern day fixes and amenities. I'm not really sure if this is currently a real life functioning military base of some sort, but it's great to bear witness to some bit of history while visiting Missoula, Montana. I spent about 3 hours waking around and the museum was closed for the day. I guess I just missed them. I felt the history through my eyes and it helped clarify stuff that I never thought of while reading the history books until now. Worth an hour of your afternoon to explore and rediscover history. A+ #Yelp flashback