Cort Conley, Prankster 

 Draft 2.0 (work in progress)   
July 31, 2025

 

 Cort Conley is my kind of an enigma. He earns a law degree from the University of California and even spent time working for the famous attorney Melvin Belli... yet commits himself to the life of a river runner and guide.

He’s a serious man who has rubbed shoulders with renowned western writers like Wallace Stegner and Barry Lopez... yet he will go to great lengths to pull pranks on friends and others when he wants to make a point.

He keeps up on local, national and international news... yet doesn’t own a television set.

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One of the many serendipitous events that made a difference to Outdoor Idaho was when Cort mailed me a copy of his Idaho for the Curious.  I remember opening the package, thinking, who is expecting me to read a 700-page hardcover book organized by highways?  It took only a few pages to realize that I had in my hands the best, most entertaining, and thorough book about Idaho I had ever read.

 His book became required reading for the Outdoor Idaho crew, especially in the early years.   Cort had made curiosity a commendable commodity.

You’ll discover, however, that the book won’t help you find a motel or a good restaurant. “Idaho for the Querulous” -- my title for his tome – is instead a history and travel book, but with a bite.

His description of Dworshak Dam, the third tallest dam in the United States, on the North Fork Clearwater River, is a serious indictment:

“Unfortunately, there have always been more politicians than suitable dam sites,” he wrote. “Building the highest straight axis gravity dam in the Western Hemisphere, on a river with a mean flow of 5,000 cubic feet per second, at a cost of $312 million, in the name of flood control, is the second-funniest joke in Idaho. The funniest joke is inside the visitor center: a government sign entreats: ‘... help protect this delicate environment for future generations.’”

I once suggested to Cort, half in jest, that one day we should team up and try our hand at a podcast. Cort’s response: Really? What’s a podcast?

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 Several years ago, I had returned from Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique and was headed to a Boise coffee shop to meet Cort for our monthly coffee gathering.

I had forgotten Cort is not like other kids. There he was, sitting at an outside table, wearing a khaki safari hat, a camouflage shirt and sunglasses, with a leopard skin draped over one chair and a cheetah skin over the other. My mocha was waiting for me, on a tablecloth featuring Africa’s largest charismatic animals.

My colorful African print short-sleeved shirt that I had purchased just before boarding the plane in Johannesburg, Africa, was unworthy for the occasion.

Once again Cort had outdone me. In fact, I think he always outdoes me, except maybe when mutual friend Hope Benedict and I jokingly threatened to create a Facebook page for this most private of individuals. "Meet you in Court" was his short, written retort. I suspect he meant it. Of course, how would he even know?

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Cort is a book guy through and through. He was formerly the Literature Director for the Idaho Commission of the Arts and has been a judge at National Outdoor Book Awards contests. When he sends me a book or an article, I feel obligated to read it, because it’s not just an email attachment. He mails it, often without a note explaining why he thinks I should read it. He knows I will.

He may live in the book world, but Cort seemed peeved when I told him that John Freemuth still held the record for most appearances in an Outdoor Idaho show. He could still win the honor with a few more interviews, I suggested. But after I retired, Cort's interest in pursuing that record faded like a sego lily in August.

Still, I appreciated Cort because he seldom criticized my prose. In fact, he was the one who suggested that I write something akin to a book, using Outdoor Idaho as the hook. “There will be nothing else like it out there,” he told me. I said I could hardly remember what I had for breakfast. “No one cares what you had for breakfast,” he replied.

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One day Cort presented us with a large film reel that he told us we would want to watch. We quickly had it transferred to a digital format that we could use. What we saw was a black and white film, from 1926, the first documented trip on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River.

Henry Weidner had two canoes on that trip. He used a 16mm hand-cranked camera. One of the canoes overturned and Henry lost some of the film reels they had shot. Still, he edited a movie film of that trip, which was shown in theaters with subtitles about the adventure. That film was what we got from Cort.

We also received color film from Cort, of a 1939 trip, with men in wooden boats, also rafting the tumultuous Middle Fork. Cort claimed it was the first documented footage of the first men to challenge the river from Dagger Falls to the main Salmon River and beyond, all the way to the town of Salmon. The trip featured Charlie the raft, the first inflatable rubber raft on the Middle Fork. Three world famous boatmen road that expedition down the river. Amos Burg was in the Charlie raft. Doc Frazier and Buzz Holmstrom were in the wooden boats.

Doc and Buzz developed the technique of going down the river backwards. No doubt it worked, but not always. We have great footage of one of the boats flipping in an unnamed rapid. The film also featured guys gigging four-foot salmon and walking around with the fish on poles.

The film had no audio, but it did have Earl Parrott, the Hermit of Impassable Canyon, who used a series of wood ladders to climb up to his dwelling place above the cliff, where he also had a garden. Earl would climb back down when he wanted to pan for gold.

For those films we put Cort in the audio booth, so he could explain who and what we were seeing as we watched the film together. Later Cort dropped off other films that he had procured from various out-of-state archives.

We realized what a treasure we had received from Cort. It determined some of the topics we chose to tackle.  Cort’s contention was that Outdoor Idaho was becoming a repository of important moments in the state's history, and that we needed to have the films in our digital library. Outdoor Idaho still uses that footage – and other films he and other boatmen have given the show – to make some of our most enjoyable programs.

 When Cort ventured into the edit bay, he was like a kid in a candy store, watching Pat tweak the lighting and take out the “ums” and “ahs” to make our interviewees sound as smooth as possible.

It was always fun to joke with Cort about how I had butchered his latest interview, making him say things he never would have said. Cort would study my face to see if I was serious, because he sure as hell wasn't going to buy a TV set to find out. 

Sometimes Cort would regale us in the edit bay with stories – usually pranks -- he thought we’d appreciate.

Like when the city of Boise cut down six healthy silver maple trees alongside Sixth Street in Boise. Cort used two pieces of rebar in the form of a cross and a ¼ drill to plant the cross into the stump. Then for added measure, he added blood-red paint next to the cross. He did that to each of the six stumps.

Or the time he dressed up in a German Nazi uniform from the 1940's, and without saying anything, just stood in the back of the room, during the governor's annual economic address to business and political leaders.

His face was sufficiently covered so that no one knew who he was, but soon a discernible discomfort permeated the room, even though Cort hadn’t uttered a word.

Or the time he brought to Kathryn Albertson Park his mounted sage hen with its wings outstretched. He knew his friend, another birder like Cort, would be taking his morning constitution through the park with his camera. Cort was hiding in the bushes, with a string around the bird’s leg so it could seem to be moving. Cort knew they'd have a good laugh about it afterwards.

I was the recipient of one of his pranks. 

He had written a full-page letter directed to “Whom it may concern,” suggesting Bruce “had betrayed the public trust and the emoluments clauses by trading on his public podium-pulpit and public name, thereby lining his already deeply green pockets.”

His wrath was directed at a forward I had written for a biography of a Forest Service official, Harry Shellworth, entitled Idaho’s Wilderness Visionary. Shellworth was crucial to the creation of “wilderness” in Idaho.

“His forward itself should be called a ‘backward,’” Cort wrote. “Once again, this ‘producer’ who always takes dead aim at mediocrity and never misses, has scored a bull’s eye... His loopy syntax and rapturous egotism and hyperkinetic and analytical-less prose on behalf of a tree-hugging clotpole of yesteryear is inexcusable, unforgivable, no?”

“What next? Are we to allow state employees to pen endorsements for Lorissa’s Turkey Jerky? Little Debbie Snack Cakes?”

He signed it H.C. Earwicker, an “every man” name from James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake.

 

I showed it to our Development folks at Idaho Public Television. They were used to hearing praise from our viewers, and they were concerned. I told them it’s not anything to worry about, that it was Cort Conley. The likelihood of him donating money to our Pledge Drive was as likely as Highway 55 ever being considered worthy of the state’s main north-south roadway.

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But our favorite prank, which Cort told us in the edit bay with such gusto and laughter that we couldn’t help but be sucked into the humor of it, occurred on the banks of the Salmon River.

Cort’s friend, Doug Tims, had been the CEO of the raft-building Maravia Corporation and had a 27-year career as an outfitter on the Middle Fork of the Salmon, so he was familiar with the river.

Doug was having a celebration, with many dignitaries, at Campell’s Ferry, one of the isolated private home steads on the Salmon River, where Doug and Phyllis had lived for  – years.

Doug had just finished his book Merciless Eden. The book was about the many ‘characters’ along the river, including the colorful Frances Zaunmiller, the previous resident of Campbell’s Ferry.

It had been rumored for many years that Frances and a miner, Jim Moore, had a secret liaison, and to show his affection he had buried gold for Frances to recover. After their deaths, many had looked for that gold, but no one had ever found it.

 

Cort and mutual friend Richard Holm were invited to the celebration. Richard was author of “Bound for the Backcountry,” a history of Idaho’s remote airstrips.

“I had casually mentioned to Cort that, wouldn’t it be fun to “discover” the gold rumored to have been buried by placer miner Jim Moore, just as Doug was entertaining his guests,” said Richard. “I thought nothing more about it, but Cort saw a prank in the making.”

He found an old can from the 1940’s and added some silver dollars and other small items from that time period. He had tracked down one of Jim Moore’s letters, so he knew his handwriting style. He found some parchment paper and composed the letter. An expert calligrapher penned the letter in the old miner’s handwriting. Cort then had the letter antiqued. All this was neatly layered in the old can, which was then sealed with black tar. At the bottom of all the items was a note that said, “Got you.” (check?)

“The letter was priceless,” said Richard. “It involved Frances having an illegitimate child with Moore.”     

“Since Doug would have immediately suspected his friend Cort was up to something, my wife Amy was the one who excitedly brought the old container right into the gathering at Campbell’s Ferry. It immediately got the attention of everyone at the event.”

“I’ll never forget outfitter Wayne Johnson. He bought into it so hard,” recalled Richard. “He said something like ‘Hang on. Before you open it, you have to think about the Antiquities Act of 1906. Do you or we have the authority to open this container?’  It was unbelievable, Bruce, and he was being honest!”

Nevertheless, Doug excitedly tore off the tar and the suspense grew with each item pulled out of the old can.

“When Doug came to the letter, some of Frances' family were also in the room," said Richard, "and you could feel the tension when they found out they might have a cousin they had never met. The timing and how it all came together was unreal as I look back on it. Unreal!”

As Cort was telling Pat Metzler and me about his prank in the edit bay, he took particular delight in telling us that Wayne Johnson, himself an author, exclaimed, “Doug, now you’re going to have to rewrite your book!”

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But, as they say, revenge is a dish best served cold. There is a little museum at Campbell’s Ferry, where river rafters can stop and tour the ranch. It’s one of the favorite stops along the river for outfitters with guests. Each year ten thousand people enjoy the splendor of the grounds.

In a glass case in the museum are Cort’s books, “The River of No Return” and “The Middle Fork” and "Idaho Loners." (?)  Next to them Doug Tims penned a note that everyone could read: “Don’t believe a word this man writes. He lies.” (get this quote and rewrite)

I’ve come to believe, pulling pranks is one of the common features of most outfitters.

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I consider Cort one of my dear friends. There are few people I know who are as many-sided and who can make me laugh like Cort can. If you want to know something about birds, he’s your man. If you want to know something about famous Western writers, Cort seemingly knows or knew them all, and is featured in the “Thank You” part of many of their books. He gave Outdoor Idaho a dimension that would have been lacking without his intelligence and his wisdom about Idaho history. And he just knew a lot about Idaho.

But I suspect he’s going to hate that I’ve written about him in this book. And I imagine our regular coffee gatherings are going to be a thing of the past. A real pity.