LIVING INDUCTEE
HAROLD ARVIK
DISTRICT 3 - YEAR 2025
Harold Arvik was born in Park Rapids, Minnesota in 1943, and is well known for being half Norwegian and half Swede and all that those titles entail! He grew up on a small dairy farm near Park Rapids and dreamed of being a real cowboy in Montana. As soon as he graduated high school, he and a buddy headed west to see about that dream.
The friends landed in Custer, Montana, and Harold took a harvest job on a sugar beet farm. On that farm Harold met his future wife, Belva, who was still a schoolgirl at the time.
Next Harold found work on the Horace & Ethel White Ranch north of Custer, where he lived in the bunkhouse and started colts. He fondly remembers his time spent with Horace and Ethel, who took him in, taught him to play cards, and kept him well fed.
In 1964 Harold hired on with J.B. Grierson Co., a large spread nearby owned by the Grierson family. It was the start to his lifelong career. He took up residence at Griersons’ “Butte Camp,” overseeing the cows grazing the surrounding pastures. Those early years of working as a cowboy nurtured within him deep respect for the cow foreman, Dan Blackman, and the owner/manager, John Grierson.
In 1967 Harold brought home to Butte Camp that little gal from the beet farm, Belva (Kuntz) Arvik. The pair settled into camp life and welcomed a daughter, Sue, in 1969, and a son, Will, in 1971.
One day in 1978 Harold’s horse blew up with him, and Harold’s pelvis was broken in the saddle. Doctors advised that rest was in order if that pelvis was to heal, but rest is hard to come by at a cow camp. This part of Eastern Montana experienced terrible winters back to back in 1977-78 and ’78-79, and Harold knew he couldn’t do the work it would take to get the Grierson cattle through the next winter. He accepted his father-in-law’s offer that the young family move to Custer to help on the beet farm.
Farming was not really what Harold wanted to be doing, but they all made the best of it. He remembers that those farm fields felt endless as he sat in the tractor.
In 1981 Harold received a phone call from John Grierson. John told Harold that his foreman, Dan Blackman, had died unexpectedly, and asked Harold if he would consider moving to ranch headquarters to take the job Dan had left behind. Harold agreed.
The family moved to Grierson Ranch headquarters in the Yellowstone Valley outside Hysham, and Harold started building a 35-year legacy as ranch foreman and eventual manager. At first his pelvis kept him on the ground; he sent crews out to work but often found the results to be unsatisfactory. After a couple years he was convinced he needed to be onsite to make sure things were done right, and so returned to ranching horseback, though for the rest of his career he was mindful of that fitful pelvis — always on the lookout for a narrow horse, a narrow saddle, and he rode standing in his stirrups and braced against the horn.
Harold was in charge of coordinating the cowboy crew — employees who lived at three remote cow camps plus those in the bunkhouse at headquarters — through annual works with the cattle. The ranch summered on two grazing districts with neighboring ranches: the Fort Pease and the Froze-to-Death. Harold worked with hired district riders May to November to oversee herd health. It was always a favorite time of year when big crews of neighbors got together in the fall to gather and sort.
Harold valued his relationships with employers and coworkers. As an employee he was extremely respectful of his employers’ wishes and careful not to outstep his bounds. As a cowboss he was a servant leader who never asked anyone to do any worse job than he himself was doing. He did not fit the stereotypical, rough ’n' tough “cowboy” image that most of the public would conjure up. Instead, he was a professional stockman. He never swore, never yelled at crew or critters, and hardly ever got flustered by a cow because he figured it was his job to figure out how to outsmart her. His leadership set the pace for an excellent cowboy crew, and many of the men who worked for him stayed longer than they had at any other jobs. When Harold was in his heyday in the ‘90s, his cowboy dream team was made up of the likes of Joe Fox, Jack Blankenship, and Scott Grosskopf.
In 2002 the Grierson family, after 100 years of ranching, made the decision to sell. Harold worked with cousins and owners J.R. Grierson and Jim Almond to help the family through the transition. The ranch was purchased by investor Stan Kroenke, under the oversight of general manager Sam Connolly, and Harold and Belva were asked to stay on in a management position. The Griersons had always branded cattle with a PV on the left hip. The brand sold too, and from then on the ranch was known as the PV.
Under this new ownership Harold and Belva became thoroughly involved in every aspect of ranch management. Sam Connolly encouraged Harold to slow down on physical labor and call the shots from the driver’s seat of a pickup… but Harold continued to work with the crew until he was no longer physically able, both because he enjoyed the work and because he’d done that before and found it to be unsatisfactory.
Harold has had almost every kind of wreck a cowboy could have. Belva figures he’s broken his right collar bone at least four times. In 1992 a mad mama cow fractured his ankle as he tried to scramble over a fence. In 2008 he was bit by a rattlesnake. In 2015 he was bucked off at a branding, resulting in a head injury that brought his career to a close sooner than he’d expected… though it’s safe to say Harold never planned on retiring!
These days Harold and Belva live near PV Ranch headquarters. They enjoy a slower pace of life, though are still involved in the rhythms of the ranch as son-in-law Beau and daughter Tam oversee a new generation of ranch activity. Four grandkids now saddle in the barn Harold loved, and they are reminded that they are heirs to a cowboy legacy.
Harold hired scores of cowboys through the years, and many have told the family that Harold was the best cowboss they ever worked for. He had many skills and character traits that probably contributed to these opinions, but his kindness, self-control, and professionalism all stand out in conversation. He never won a buckle… but in almost 50 years of riding for one brand, he sure did win a lot of friends.