Every December, a few hundred people in Blaine County, Montana, raise money to fix up their fairgrounds — and they do it in the most gloriously local way imaginable. The Fourth Annual Blaine County Fur Fest runs December 4–6 in Chinook: three days of coyote (and more!) hunting, a Friday-night calcutta, and a raffle table stocked with thermal scopes, suppressors and knives. Teams with names like Team Busch Light and Auntie Slayers spread across the prairie, and by Sunday’s check-in the ledger reads like a wildlife census — last year, 50 teams and 165 hunters brought in 286 coyotes, 637 rabbits and 41 porcupines, with $19,795 paid back out in prizes.
No gala, no grant application, no consultant. Just a county that found the one fundraiser its residents would actually get out of bed for — and a wall of local sponsors who step up every year, because they know the money stays home: fairgrounds improvements, plus real support for the local 4-H and FFA kids. There’s even an interactive sponsor list in the works where you can click straight through to each business’s website or Facebook page, which is the organizers’ polite way of saying: please support the businesses that support us.
This year comes with a few updates worth reading before you load the truck: the rules have changed, and online registration (link coming soon) is now how teams sign up, so the smart move is to check the rule sheet and get your group in early rather than sorting it out at the door. What hasn’t changed is the smallness of it — the scoring that reads like a video game box (coyote five points, badger four, rabbit one), side pots for whoever brings in the most porcupines, the Biggest Dog and Smallest Dog weigh-ins. Every dollar lands somewhere deeply unglamorous and deeply necessary — fencing, pens, the load-bearing bones of a county fair. Community doesn’t always look like a potluck and a ribbon cutting.
Sometimes it looks like 50+ pickups idling in the cold before sunrise, a bunch of sponsor banners flapping over the registration tables, and a town that decided its youth, its fairgrounds, and its neighbors were worth it!! Round up your hunting buddies and spread the word for an event that is proud of “Supporting our youth, our fairgrounds, and our community.”
See you in Chinook, Montana, December 4–6, 2026!
Sources: Blaine County Journal · Event page · Organizer’s announcement post
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