Ennis Main Street is essentially four blocks of low storefronts with angle parking out front, but it has more going on than its size suggests. The fly shops — there are several, including the Tackle Shop, Madison River Outfitters and Beartooth Flyfishing — are run by guides who know the river day by day, and walking into one to ask about hatches is the simplest way to get oriented. A handful of small galleries sell Western art and Native American work; the bookstore stocks the best collection of fly-fishing literature in the state.
Sit on the boardwalk outside the Continental Divide bar and watch the pickup trucks come and go for half an hour and you will have a fair picture of contemporary Montana — fishing guides, ranchers in cleaner clothes than they wear at home, tourists in newly bought cowboy hats, and the occasional millionaire from out of state.