Montana is the fourth-largest state in the nation, yet it is home to just over 1 million residents. Big Sky Country has about 30 million acres of public lands—roughly one-third of the state. From the mountains, along the rivers, to the vast plains, here are a few glimpses of the landscape of Montana, and some of the wildlife and people calling it home.This photo story is part of Fifty, a collection of images from each of the United States.

In Jersey’s Pine Barrens crickets rub their saw-toothed wings and I’m a child.
A city child now a city man with woods between my ears behind my eyes.
Swarms, throngs, populist masses, agglomerationists, millionings.
Louisiana katydids of a wet summer night beep inside my brains.
Live theater. Intermissions. Who programmed that siren test pattern?
You cicadas and your washboard jingle bells and what’s that boing-ing?
Mississippi mosquitoes. Maine black flies. Vermont hornets.

SpaceX’s first attempt to fly astronauts to space and back was, from start to finish, a success. The launch into orbit—seamless. The spacecraft’s arrival at the International Space Station—smoothly done. On return, the capsule, buffeted by billowy parachutes, coasted through the sky, toward the waters off the coast of Florida—a vision of a new era of American spaceflight.

A Japanese mother and daughter, farmworkers in California, photographed in 1937 by Dorothea Lange (Library of Congress)Quick, name one iconic Depression-era portrait each by Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, and Russell Lee. My guess is that you’d choose Lange’s Migrant Mother, a portrait of Florence Owens Thompson and her children taken in Nipomo, California, in 1936.