Du personnage du cow-boy solitaire à celui du pêcheur à la mouche : la fiction au fondement de la mutation territoriale de l'ouest du Montana ?

摘要

This paper explores how fiction plays an important role in the sweeping change taking place in Western Montana, as a driving force and as a record of these trends. In fact amenity-rich regions of Western Montana have experienced significant growth over the recent decades, mainly due to the "get back to nature" movement. This article aims to highlight how this growth is nourished by new representations of the West as a place to escape to, mainly drawn by fiction (literature, cinema). This picture of Western Montana can be considered as a renewed identity, carried by new characters. If the Lonesome cowboy represented the West as a Frontier to conquest, now the Fly fisherman and the Amenity rancher embody that New West: these fictional characters shape appealing representations underlying amenity migrations, but in turn, show in the fiction the new dynamics that they help to create. What is the contribution of fiction in the sweeping change occurring in Western Montana? And how does fiction bring onto the stage new characters who instigate as well as endorse these dynamics typical of the New West?