The four-hour drive from Idaho Falls to Helena, Montana, driving up Interstate 15, didn’t promise to be that picturesque. I could have taken a more scenic route, but I had a stop to make at the grave of a person I’d never met.
When I left Idaho Falls, I drove into dark skies with forming clouds and a light sprinkle. I sighed heavily at the thought of navigating through the Montana rain. Just the week before, I’d driven to Bozeman, Montana, to get to the north Yellowstone National Park entrance, and it rained heavily. But the first few hours of the route through northeast Idaho was flat, with only a few farms peppered here and there. No scary roads to distract me and no sights to miss.
As I neared the end of Idaho and the beginning of Montana, lightning started to crack around me. This lightning didn’t go across the sky in a pretty display; instead, it shot straight from the sky to the Earth before giving out a loud crack! It seemed dangerous, which was fitting since I was going to visit Evel Knievel.
Evel in Butte, Montana
The stop I made was in Butte, Montana, which was the first significant city I’d passed after three hours of driving. I’d planned to stop at the Mountain View Cemetery there.
Butte’s claim to fame is having, or that it had, the “richest hill on Earth.” In its glory days during the mining boom in the late 19th century, it was one of the largest mining towns in the West. There are a few other interesting tidbits about the place, but I was only interested in one. Evel Knievel.
Evel Knievel in Montana
In reading about Montana, I stumbled upon the fact that Evel’s grave was in Butte, Montana. As a taphophile (someone interested in cemeteries and graves), I was keen to visit this one. But then, in mapping my now non-scenic route, I started to wonder why.
The route I had to pass through Butte was the less scenic of my options, but still, I was adamant I needed to do it. But, other than familiarity with the name as meaning “daredevil,” I didn’t even know who Evel Knievel was. So, I did my research, and as I did, memories came back.
What did Evel do?
Evel Knievel, born Robert Craig Knievel (1938 –2007), was a motorcycle stunt performer who attempted over 75 insane motorcycle jumps – and landed most of them. He used to jump rows of cars and bodies of water and once had planned to jump the Grand Canyon before being thwarted by the government. He has a long list of crazy stunts that he performed and attempted and many broken bones to go with it.
Fun Fact: Evel broke 433 bones in his lifetime – a Guinness Book of World Records.
I learned that he’d been many things in life before becoming a stunt performer. He worked in the copper mines and was a rodeo rider, pole vaulter, hockey coach, hunting guide, motocross rider, motorcycle dealer, and insurance salesman. Eventually, he realized people loved watching him do stunts and that they’d even pay for the privilege. So, he put together a show and over the years, his stunts escalated from wheelies to 50-car jumps and drew crowds and sponsorship.
How to be a Daredevil
But, as a girl, the only thing I knew about Evel Knievel was that my brothers and cousins wanted to be him.
Even as a boy, Bryan was jumping his BMX bike from ramps and completing complex courses while competing for trophies – many of which he won. He even once had a motorcycle with a long bar on the back to assist in doing extended wheelies.
“Who do you think you are, Evel Knievel?”
“Evel Knievel wishes he could do this.” he said.
To constantly raise the bar on each other and be like Evel, my brothers were also going faster, further, and harder than anyone else.
As a tween, David modified a minibike that all his friends spoke about with fear years later. It was the fastest bike they’d ever encountered and was uncontrollable. They’d shudder recalling it. I carried a burn on my leg from its vicious hot motor for years. The bike was known to keep accelerating and didn’t want to stop.
Both David and Bryan would get in trouble for performing public stunts on their motorcycles as adults. But it wasn’t just motorcycles. It was everything. They’d competed to be the fastest, biggest, or most daring in all things. They were constantly pushing the proverbial envelope, and I watched. Learning.
Inspiring generations
I don’t know if it weren’t for Evel if my brothers would have been inspired to be such risk-takers. If they might have instead been cautious people. I doubt it. Stemming from a family of immigrants, taking risks is in their blood, but he taught them to love risk and cherish it.
So, as I pulled into the Mountain View Cemetery in Butte, it was not to visit a celebrity’s grave but to see someone who changed my life’s course. He inspired my brothers, and through them, my character was also shaped.
Risk-taking and adventure have been ingrained in me, for better or worse. This man may play a small of that. Whether I should thank him or “cuss him out,” as Mom would have said, I don’t know. But my life has never been boring. And there’s something to be said for that.
“A man can fall many times in life but he’s never a failure if he tries to get up.”
Evel Knievel Memorial stone
When I learned about all the jobs he’d had and the ways he’d struggled but never gave up, I became inspired anew. This man had broken hundreds of bones and suffered so much, but he kept going. He found a passion and he stuck with it, against the odds and despite what others thought. His determination to be his own person and live a life that made him happy, even if unconventional, is something to aspire to.
That’s the legacy that we all hope to leave, isn’t it? That our presence on earth might be strong enough to live on after we are gone. That one day, someone might stumble upon our works and there will be a spark that will light others. In this way, we live forever.
Read more stories about Montana here.
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