This is an account of the half-million acre Big Prairie District of the Bob Marshall Wilderness in Montana's Flathead National Forest from the point of view of one seasonal employee, the headquarters guard, me, on that district in 1960 (the Big Prairie District no longer exists as a separate entity, having been incorporated into the Spotted Bear District, I think).

As with any other such account, however true it is, it provides only a partial truth. At best it has only one perspective, mine, along with a few attempts to provide the perspectives of others. Both literary requirements and the limitations on the accuracy of memory and on the accuracy of original observation must provide some distortion of whatever reality there was. Finally, for some readers, the tone of this piece may seem at one or another time (not too often, I hope) somewhat cynical or disgruntled or whiny or superior. The truth is, this was the most perfect season I ever spent with the United States Forest Service (and that includes three seasons in blister rust control on the St. Joe, one on a hotshot firefighting crew on the Bitterroot, one on an engineering crew on the Lolo and, much later [in the 90s], two as an archaeologist on the Medicine Bow National Forest). I have heard since, that headquarter's guard on the Bob Marshall was the best seasonal job in the entire Forest Service. I am happy to agree. I am indeed fortunate to have experienced it.

There was only one individual whom I strongly disliked and with whom, I feared, there might be a violent interaction. My fears came to naught. All but a couple of the rest of the crew were a great mix of people who otherwise were, or had been, for example, ranch hands, college students, high school drop outs, semi-pro hockey players, winos, veterans, Indians, loggers, construction workers, or guides. Most were in their early twenties, a few ranged up in age to their forties or fifties. All were residents, if not natives, of Montana. None were women, an absence which unfortunately afflicted the remoter parts of the realm of the Forest Service until later years.

Finally, this was a horse-dominated district. Backpackers were rare in the Bob in the early 1960s. Almost everybody who entered deep into the Big Prairie district came on horseback. And most came on hunting or fishing trips with outfitters and guides. Whatever one might think from what is written below, I found most of the outfitters and guides to be excellent people who loved the area and who could relate well to others with the same feelings, even those others were government (Forest Service) employees. It's just that it's part of my contrary nature, fueled by a few experiences, to be a bit anti horse, or anti horse-people (even though some of my best friends even own the damned beasts).

Cowboys Don't Ride Sidesaddle


... and neither am I, here!

Cowboys don't ride sidesaddle. I didn't want sore knees, certainly had no desire to be bowlegged, and wasn't a cowboy. I rode sidesaddle. Most of the time I rode sidesaddle only when no one else was around, but sometimes a party would appear around a bend in the trail before I heard the clatter of hoofbeats on rocks we hadn't yet kicked, pried, or dynamited out of the way. Then I tried to appear as cool and totally relaxed as possible--casually hunched over, one leg draped carelessly around the saddle horn, floppy grey felt hat pulled down over my steel-blue eyes, Bull Durham cigarette hanging in the corner of my half-opened mouth. Well, the truth is, my eyes were too obscured in shadow to look steely and I didn't smoke then.

Bill, a trail crew member on the district, and later a smokejumper, didn't smoke then or ever, but he could sure roll a Bull Durham. He was from Pennsylvania. WESTERN Pennsylvania. And having hopes of becoming a true westerner, he went to work in a Forest Service blister rust control camp in Idaho where I had first met him three years earlier and where he learned to roll cigarettes in the evenings after work in the ribe patches when we weren't playing pinochle. When we broke camp at the end of the season and pulled up the platform over which our four-man wall-tent had been erected there was a conical mound of unsmoked cigarettes three feet across, under a knot hole that had been at the edge of the bunk where he had sat learning to roll. Bill was my first connection to western Pennsylvania where my wife, whom I met in Ecuador, was born and where I later worked as a fitter-welder in a steel fabricating plant and where, still later, I lived in a Slippery Rock that does exist and was a teacher in a small Christian college for small Christians. Anyway, Bill never smoked a cigarette and he never rode sidesaddle in the Bob Marshall Wilderness, and I shouldn't have done so either. Now I am trying to quit smoking my own appropriate technology cigarettes (TOP) and then I should have had better sense than to ride sidesaddle when two loaded pack strings were passing on a narrow trail.

Bill clearing trail near the Chinese Wall
Spring, 1960

Horses and mules may shy at each other when passing on a narrow trail and this can have dramatic results in mountain country: bolting and falling animals and packs and riders can make for a rather interesting wilderness scene. But fortunately nothing more remarkable than strange looks ever occurred. People didn't know what to think of a sidesaddle-riding, short-string packer in the middle of the Bob Marshall Wilderness in the middle of the century. Well, they probably did have very definite ideas, but I didn't know what those ideas were other than that I probably did not figure favorably in them. Do I need to mention that not only cowboys, but outfitters and guides, packers and cooks, and their clients didn't ride sidesaddle either, then or ever?

Sometimes I didn't ride at all, especially when I had a saddle horse that would only amble down the trail no matter how hard and often I laid the heavy boots at the bottoms of what felt like rapidly bowing legs into its belly. Then I would dismount, take the reins forward, and become the lead animal in a pack train consisting of one pulling human, one resisting saddle horse, and three more or less indifferent mules. If a horse was slow when you were on it, I found, it was going to be about as slow when you weren't. Possibly some western Montana horses like to experience the scenery going by at a relatively constant rate, a pattern set, no doubt, in early colthood. Leading under such conditions was not very satisfactory. Trips therefore consisted of a repetitive, seemingly endless cycle of walking and pulling, followed by riding sidesaddle, followed by riding regular and kicking, followed by riding and pulling . . .

So when the load to be transported was pretty small, say fifty pounds or less, and the distance not too great (under twenty miles or so), I left all the stock behind and did the packing myself. It was easier, quicker and more pleasant that way, especially if there were not suitable pack-stock already in the corral by the ranger station.

Besides, wrangling loose stock was never my favorite way to spend the time when the sun was rising behind the Flathead Alps. They could be anywhere for several miles around, hidden in the lodgepole or ponderosa flats along the South Fork of the Flathead River.

In the Flathead Alps area

Speaking of the river which ran so beautifully through the Big Prairie District of the Flathead National Forest, there was nothing wrong with it that fish a little less hungry and foolish would not have cured. A well-known outdoor writer of the time, Ted Trueblood, once wrote (in Field & Stream, I think) that it was too easy to fish the South Fork. And he was right at least as far as rainbows or cutthroat under three pounds were concerned. It is the only place where I ever built a fire, put a buttered pan on it, and then caught the fish that was to be cooked. This happened early in the summer before we had any of the many Forest Service visitors from Washington and Missoula making official inspection trips.

Big Prairie had to be the most inspected district in the entire service. The main inspection tools brought in by our visitors were rods, and I don't mean surveyor's rods. Almost as soon as we had shooed any loose stock off the landing strip and the visitors had landed at Big Prairie (and they were the only people allowed to fly into this wilderness other than the regular crew and maybe a few researchers), they took their tools down to the river to inspect the fish. These inspections were invariably successful. The visitors would return to the station with the see-what-I-have-for-you looks on their faces that mothers of young boys have when presenting their sons with a new tie. In both cases the recipient is supposed to smile and give thanks. Small boys may avoid wearing their gift, but not eating that which is presented to one by happy bosses-bearing-gifts is another matter. The problem was that the only dead animals, or parts of them, we wanted to see after the first few weeks at the station was the quarter or two of beef that was flown in weekly, or maybe some ham. Rangers and packers and packer's assistants and trail crew members and vacationing smoke-jumpers and cowboys and sidesaddle-riding headquarter's guards survive on big chunks of red meat, not little slimy things that swim.

Anyway, when I followed the banks of the river to wrangle the herd I could usually see fish in the clear water, and in the fall these included gigantic Dolly Vardens--bull trout--on their spawning runs. I didn't see any fish the first time I wrangled the herd, however; part of the time I didn't see much of anything. Usually the horse kept in the corral by the station had some idea of where his or her buddies were hidden--a big help since being half-deaf I can't tell direction by sound, and the clanking of the bell-mare's bell was not enough to tell me where the herd was. So when we got anywhere near the rest of the herd, the wrangling horse would take over, hurrying to join them.

Now when I had been told, upon assuming my duties as headquarter's guard at Big Prairie Ranger Station, that one of my responsibilities would be to run a short-string of mules to help supply look-outs and trail-crews when the regular packer and his assistant were supplying some other part of the area, I was quite surprised. It's true that my favorite book as a kid had been Smokey the Cowhorse, but this fact was nowhere listed on my application. And that was almost as close as I had ever been to a horse other than the time the previous fall when I had ridden a pack mule from the Jenny Creek cabin up to Crimson Peak to help the ranger burn down the fire-lookout that was disturbing the wilderness values of the Bob. (By the way, that's how I found out about the job--meeting the ranger while I was on a three-week backpacking trip in the southern part of his district.) And I had ridden a few cows and bulls, for a few seconds each, on remote hillsides in Hong Kong. I think you get my point. I wasn't an experienced horseman. I wasn't even an inexperienced horseman.

Crimson Mountain fire lookout being burned
(to remove human traces from the wilderness)
late fall, 1959

So I had to learn to handle riding and pack animals and for that I had a couple of expert teachers. That is they were expert horsemen. Myself, I wouldn't give them high marks on various aspects of their teaching qualities. For one thing, the packer and his assistant had a very strong aversion to contributing to the world's information overload; their method was to say little and show little. They seemed to operate on the principle that unguided experience was the best teacher, (or perhaps killer), of easterners, southerners or, perhaps, Californians, with pretensions of doing what was best reserved for second or third (if not eighth or tenth) generation Montanans. It was expected that I would observe whatever I could, and then try something out very carefully and become a moderate failure, or not observe very carefully and become a total failure. Most of what I was told in clear, complete English sentences concerned how to make sure that the stock would be properly cared for. The only verbal contribution to my own well being as a horseman that I can remember was, "Don't rein in a horse too hard or he'll rare up and fall back on you."

I didn't remember having read that in Smokey the Cowhorse or even Black Beauty, but since it was the only thing I had been told for my very own good, I took it very seriously.

And I remembered it when I went on my first wrangling expedition. Things didn't go too bad getting to the herd. Sure enough, my horse knew what was going on and pretty much hunted down the loose herd himself. As he got closer to them, he began to trot. But he didn't go too fast when I pulled back gently on the reins. We rode around and among the other horses and mules and the trees and the rocks for a while until the whole herd suddenly seemed to get the idea that there was a wonderful banquet awaiting them back at the station, but (it must have been obvious to them) if they didn't get there in a hurry it would be all eaten up by locusts or grasshoppers or elk or something.

And so the heretofore placid, grazing animals created a voluntary, goal-driven dust-raising, seedling-smashing stampede, rushing hell-bent for the station. And my untrustworthy steed, determined not to be left behind, closely followed the blinding dust storm, closely passing under low hanging branches, closely whizzing past trees, boulders and fence posts. And remembering the only instructions I had been given, I didn't rein him in too hard but just hung on, and, rapidly reviewing my past life, hoped I wouldn't be too severely injured.

I was trememdously relieved to make it back somehow in no more than one (somewhat scratched up not to mention shaking) piece.

As the dust began to settle, I saw the packer and his assistant sitting on the fence, watching. Watching seemed to be an important part of the teaching game for them. The student had to take the iniative. Since I was still alive and still on the back of the horse, and since I was still too shaken up to think very straight, I asked them what at that moment was one of the more important questions of my life--the one about how, exactly, that reining in business worked.

Bunker looked at John. John looked at Bunker. "?#*&?! [mumble, mumble] ?&DÚ?%=@?! [mumble, mumble] [etc.]," John said. "?#*&?! [mumble, mumble] ?&DÚ?%=@?! [mumble, mumble] [etc.]," Bunker echoed.

They looked at the animals, the mountains, the fence--but never any closer to me than ten feet to the side. Nobody spat on the ground. Nobody turned their back and walked away. And nobody laughed.

So I did learn something. In the context of having others respond to one's incompetence, there's something worse than being laughed at. It's not being laughed at.

And of course that was of no more than the most trivial of considerations seeing that I had the best darn summer job in the Forest Service.

The relative shortage of rocks in the trails of the Bob Marshall Wilderness has nothing to do with geological processes (OK, esteemed back-country-loving fellow taxpayer, you might have failed to notice said shortage, so pay attention next time you're there); it has to do with horse owners. It happens that rocky trails are expensive for horse owners in about the same way potholed highways are expensive for the tire-buying public. Rocks, like potholes, have a tendency to damage the surface-contacting appurtences of the conveyances used by people: i.e. in the case of horses, the hooves and shoes. So in addition to such regular maintenance tasks as clearing dead-falls and constructing and repairing water-bars and bridges, trail crew members in the Bob Marshall were responsible for the provision of a smooth, soft surface upon which horses could place their hooves without fear of stubbing toes or throwing shoes.

Rock removal consisted of a complex set of techniques ranging from the use of unaided human muscle to the use of high-powered technology. At the low end of the scale, for example, one could approach a loose rock, stop, take aim, and kick it off the trail. This required minimal skills other than powers of observation sufficient to indicate that the rock to be kicked was not firmly attached to the rest of the world and therefore not likely to bring into effect, upon being kicked, some painful universal laws regarding mass, velocity and inertia. But this was, literally, a strictly tenderfoot method for the removal of apparently loose rock, shunned by all sophisticated and trained crew members--even by a life-long tenderfoot like myself (one of the world's tenderfoot experts, having peaked out at that level in both British and American branches of that organization devoted to the development of obedience and cleanliness and other features of good character and god-fearing patriotism).

The proper, low-tech, technique was to walk smoothly along the trails, never visibly breaking stride, and flick rocks off the trail with the side of the foot. To do this you would, as you were walking, place either side of the front of either the left or right boot against a loose rock. Then you stepped forward with the other foot, perhaps placing that foot also against another rock more or less one stride ahead. As the first foot, now behind you, was just being raised to begin its own forward stride, you would flick it against the rock next to which it had been planted. If all went right the rock would fly--rather than dribble or slide--off the trail. Another pain-in-the-hoof eliminated.

Of course, in addition to not breaking stride too much, the master rock remover never visibly glanced down at the rocks on the trail, but caught them in his (note: this is not sexist language--I am soooo politically correct, it couldn't possibly be--in the middle of the century all the trail crew members, unfortunately, were males) peripheral vision as he viewed the passing scenery, searched for giant bull trout in the creeks along the trails, or scanned the bushes for grizzly bears or huckleberries. An impressive sight it was indeed to see four or five trail crew veterans walking steadily down a rocky trail, a continuous shower of rocks cascading into the woods on either side of them.

Rock-flicking becomes so ingrained, so habitual, that you can sometimes spot an ex trail-crew member, years later, by his occasional tendency to flick rocks and pebbles off trails or roads.

So much for small, loose rocks. And I will skip over details on rock removal with crow bars, shovels, picks and sledge hammers and go right to the top--to the use of high-powered technology.

When all else failed, we blasted rocks out of the trail with dynamite. I was allergic to dynamite: carrying a box of dynamite more than a few feet gave me a dizzy spell--with nausea and vomiting--that lasted at least a day. This turned out to be a blessing, however, because I was eventually not required to carry the heavy things. At any rate, I spent several weeks in the fall with the trail crew blasting rocks out of the trail between Holland and Salmon Lakes.

I ran the rock drill most of the time. This was a Swedish machine, a self-contained unit (no air-hoses connected to a power source) that weighed about seventy pounds. I drilled one or more holes a foot or two deep into the bedrock or large rocks in the trail. Dynamite was placed in the holes and attached to a detonator. We made sure no tourists were passing through, took shelter ourselves, yelled, "FIRE IN THE HOLE!" and set it off.

Remember, this all happened in a wilderness area. Disgusting, no? But I must admit that running the rock drill for two weeks was great work. In the isolation of the wilderness, the obnoxious giant vibrator pounded all thoughts of time and place out of my head, providing an almost overwhelming environment of sensual overload. If you have experienced the psychedelic crackling and flashing of welding, you'll know what I mean.

Running the rock drill in the snow
just before the season ended (November)

We employees did all our own cooking on the Big Prairie District. All of us, that is, except for the packer, who lived in a separate cabin with his wife (who did their cooking), and the short-string packer who ate with them. Whoever cooked did not clean up or wash dishes. It worked out well enough; we rarely had problems with whose turn it was to do what.

Most of our food was pretty basic stuff: bacon and eggs, pancakes, steak and potatoes, bread, a few vegetables, some fruit and so on. It came from the GSA (General Services Administration) in Spokane and was flown in once a week along with other supplies and our mail. Since I ordered all our food I had an advantage over the others in deciding what we could eat. Under such management of the procurement process our diets stayed about as bland as possible; I ordered just enough garlic, onions and coconut to keep the grumbling down to a low roar. What can I say? I still may be obnoxious, but at least my tastes have improved.

We usually made simple deserts to go with our evening meals and some people, especially the ranger, often made pies. One slow afternoon, when working at the station (making out payrolls, feeding the pack-stock, ordering supplies, checking the fire danger, or whatever), I decided to bake a couple of cherry pies.

No problem. The recipe seemed simple enough. I quickly mixed the ingredients for the crust and then began to flatten out the dough with the rolling pin. Now keep in mind that had this rolling pin been able to reproduce itself 165,120 times over and then to lay its offspring out end-to-end, neither it nor any of its family would have encountered an unrelated rolling pin anywhere, in any direction--except for the one at the packer's cabin, 323 rolling-pin-lengths to the east. Not being able to reproduce itself, our rolling pin was of considerable local importance.

Problem. Nothing was simple any more. The dough wouldn't roll out without splitting. Over and over I rolled the splitting dough. Miserable stuff. One last time I rolled it out. It split again. I smashed the rolling pin against the counter. One of its wooden handles broke off. Normally cool under the pressure of frustration, I had lost control--but I was beginning to understand the stereotyped cartoons of women brandishing rolling pins.

OK, one more time--now with the one-handled implement, now with temporarily regained sanity--I tried it. It didn't work any better. So much for sanity--the kitchen became a pink, shaking blur. I smashed the rolling pin against the counter again. The other handle clattered into the dirty dishes in the sink. As the kitchen unblurred I jammed the leaky crusts into their pans, put the fillings in, and threw the pies into the oven. Then, for some reason yet unknown (probably related to my immature dislike of onions and garlic) I carefully replaced the handles into their splintered places of the rolling pin--without gluing them--and put it back into its drawer.

A few days later several smokejumpers (who had been assigned to Big Prairie until the forests of Region I started to burn again), and a trail crew, arrived together at the station. It being a special occasion, the ranger decided to bake some pies. As Dave reached for the flour sack I remembered the condition of the only rolling pin (but one) within forty-three miles. Unsure whether to laugh, to say something, or to run, I did nothing. The dough was mixed and laid out on the counter. Dave reached for the rolling pin. He put it on the mound of dough and pushed down while I clenched my jaws. Both handles detached themselves simultaneously.

Partly recovering from the initial shock of having his knuckles covered with sticky dough, the ranger roared out several traditional Forest Service comments that definitely broke the Third Commandment and suggested the possibility of violating several others. Finally calming down, he held up the remains of the rolling pin, glared around the room, and yelled, "WHO THE HELL DID THIS?"

Though tempted to raise my hand in the best school-boy manner, I managed instead to croak out a meek admission of my guilt.

Dave tolerated a lot of my quirks. He never commented about my sidesaddle riding style and only grumped a little about my Forest-Service-image-damaging beard and the scarcity of onions and garlic in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. But I'm not sure he ever quite forgave me for destroying his rolling pin.

background design from Pyramid Lake snow and trees, BMWA