The Belgrade Bull 3: Sunday School Girls Meet The Threshing Crew Riders
Lou’s pants caught on the saddled horn. They were badly torn so he had to make for the tall grass to keep out of sight of the Sunday School crowd.”
Monthly Archives: October 2010
A Tale: Gilmann Sawtell, First Yellowstone Park Guide
In 1871 Sawtell guided a group of businessmen from Deer Lodge and Virginia City on a tour that covered the geyser basins, Yellowstone Lake, and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.
The Belgrade Bull 2: A Local Legend Goes National
“This here Belgrade bull had throwed an average of two to ten cowpunchers every day of the week, not barrin’ Sundays.”
News and Views: Tom McGuane and a Mind Adrift
“. . . his writing always strikes me as something written by a guy who moved to Montana 30 years ago and never bothered to learn the history of the place. “
A Tale: Yellowstone’s First Tourists Seek “First Blood”
“Old hunters say a bear can be successfully handled (in an emergency) by waiting till he rises on his hind feet, and then smiting him under the fifth rib till he dies. They never tell how the bear amuses himself in the meantime.”
News and Views: Meeting Ivan Doig Was Great!
Classic Doig: precise colorful phrases that stick in the skull and move the narrative.
News and Views: I’m Eager To Meet Ivan Doig
I’ll tell him why my Mom wasn’t impressed with his novel, English Creek, even though he painted an accurate picture of rural Montana during the Great Depression.
The Belgrade Bull 1: That Bucking Son of a Milk Cow
I became interested in the Belgrade Bull when Ann Butterfield showed me a letter she found in the research collections …
When Versions Collide
George Cowan’s ordeal waking up alone in the wilderness with a bullet in his head makes for a great story, but getting the fact straight is tough.
A Tale: A Million Billion Barrels of Hot Water — 1871
All that hot water prompts experiments and hijinx.
