Poet, Professor, Prankster -- Our Go-To Guys one can
(Bill Studebaker basically done; John Freemuth almost done; Cort Conley yet to do)
Bill Studebaker, the Poet... John Freemuth, the Professor... Cort Conley, the Merry Prankster... At one time or another each of these three held the record for most appearances. And there's a reason for that. They brought. an authenticity that quickly came through, a personality that people could appreciate, a knowledge of the subject matter that few would question. And often they brought books and old films that were hidden away in other states' archives.
I could easily list a dozen others who belong in this chapter, but it's already too long. I just know that there are countless others who have helped the show and me over the course of four decades. I hope they realize how valuable they were. And I hope we treated them right.
Bill Studebaker the Poet...
Idaho had an inferiority complex. That’s what published poet and essayist Bill Studebaker informed me one day. He said it almost as an aside, as if everyone knew. I was surprised because I had come to Boise from North Dakota as a ten-year old, and I had seen the Sawtooth Mountains. Idaho was hardly inferior.
He explained it this way. “Look at the early writings about this area. The historical event of having had the region leaped over, having had the region written about poorly and badly in many diaries and journals. Idaho was a place you went through quickly. We’re kind of a backlash from the coast. The sense of historical apology permeates a lot of the locals, a lot of the mentality.”
I had to agree. We had included excerpts from those early diaries in our 2009 “Pathways of Pioneers, Idaho’s Oregon Trail Legacy.” They were the kind of reviews that would have shuttered a Broadway production in the first week.
There was a reason it was known as the nation’s longest cemetery. Nearly one in ten never reached their destination, buried in graves along Idaho’s part of the Trail, just deep enough that the coyotes wouldn’t dig them up.
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Bill was a prolific writer, a dozen published books, including a centennial anthology of Idaho poets. Being a fourth-generation Idahoan and a sixth-generation Westerner gave him special insight in understanding this state parceled from others.
I’m not sure I ever witnessed Bill laugh, at least around us, even when we did laughable things. When interviewing Bill, he was no-nonsense, knew the answers to our questions, and never stumbled. It was obvious he had thought about the bigger questions of Life and had come out the other side unscathed.
The first time Bill appeared in an Outdoor Idaho program was for our 1994 “A City Made of Stone.” I wanted something in the program that would contrast with the harsh granite of the City of Rocks National Reserve.
I had heard that Bill was a poet who taught at the College of Southern Idaho and wrote convincingly of desert landscapes. Maybe we could get him to read something for us. It would be the first time anyone had written a poem and read it aloud on Outdoor Idaho. Sometimes that can work. Usually it doesn’t.
We sat him on one of the million nearby rocks, and when he started to read from his book of poetry, I knew we had found our guy. (name the book of poetry)
“This is the city no one built. Each monolith and boulder is crafted by wind and water. For convenience, all the streets run downhill and disappear in the distance. Right now hawks are out tag-teaming your lunch. Raven, rabbit, and coyote are wandering, wherever you go. And the silence? The silence is the sound of flowers. Purple-eyed mariposa, penstemon, and paintbrush. Especially paintbrush, applying more color... If you get lost, just knock, and every door will open.”
Bill believed that some landscapes had a consciousness, and that it’s concentrated in locations like the City of Rocks. His goal, he told us, “was to translate that into poetry, for people who don’t have the opportunity to come here. Or don’t respond to that consciousness.”
Now when I watch “A City Made of Stone” from the perspective of 30 years, I know we found the right person.
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We turned to Bill again in 1998 for his thoughts on Deserts. His book, “Travelers in an Antique Land,” offered insight into the life of the high desert. Then, ten years later we featured a rollicking Bill Studebaker kayaking a snow-covered mountainside for our “Extremely Idaho” program. I never saw him smile, but he was having a blast.
I had assumed Bill would fit comfortably under the category of “enviro,” but he was not someone you could easily define. That was brought home to me when he compared the residents of his hometown to Native Americans on a reservation, for our one-hour program “Salmon River Country.”
Bill was born and raised in the town of Salmon, and its namesake river flowed past his house. He saw it every day. It was hard to avoid, whether it was over-flowing its banks in late Spring, or partially frozen during deep winter.
“Wilderness as a concept is wonderful,” he said, “but Locals feel like the Native Americans must have felt. Now they’re locked out, with no sensitivity given to their emotions, to the spiritual connections that locals have. That’s where the anger comes from. They feel they have a special right to it, because they have a special attachment to it.
“The locals and Native Americans now have something in common. They’re both on reservations. They don’t have access to the heart of the state.”
Bill made the case that the Salmon River was the spiritual heart of Idaho. “It’s undammed, it’s free, it’s a continuous watershed, in the center of the state. It’s kind of a river for all people at all times, unlike the Snake or the Clearwater, that are dammed and manipulated.”
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But it was for a creature under the waves that Bill showed his full humanity, and it’s frankly what drew us to him and separated this poet from the others.
“For me the salmon have been a symbol of a cycle of life, where you begin in a spot, you make a world journey, you return to that spot to give something back. It’s the ‘Hero’ cycle, the kind of thing that Joseph Campbell talked about, and Karl Jung talked about, where we begin, we journey, and we return.”
I remember my first encounter with a chinook salmon. My dad considered our family great adventurers, at least as adventurous as one can get in a Ford pickup with a camper on the back. So it was perhaps inevitable that one day we would journey to Bruce Meadows in Bear Valley. Hey, what’s not to love about that name!
And then I spotted it. My dog Gus began barking. He was obviously used to brook trout, and this fish clearly outweighed him, plus it looked like it had been in a cat fight. It was almost comical, as if someone had deposited the behemoth in a tiny stream for amusement, to watch it wiggle up the creek. Just one more proof that we weren’t in North Dakota anymore.
It was much later that I came to understand Bill’s perspective as I learned about the remarkable life story of this fish. Starting as an egg in a stream, one day the three inch smolt decides to head to the Pacific Ocean, tail first, using the currents to push it along.
It’s an 850-mile journey that once took less than two weeks. But the slack water from eight major dams along the way now seriously befuddles the vast majority of these world travelers who rely on current. The precious few who do survive the gauntlet have already begun the transformation to live entirely in salt water. That in itself is quite a feat! The Pacific Ocean will be its new home, as it travels a thousand miles in and around the Gulf of Alaska in search of food.
Then one day the urge to return home is overpowering. When she begins the journey back up the Columbia River toward Idaho, she’s now larger than a man’s leg, and ready to scatter her eggs for the next generation.
Heading back home, her body must adjust once more, to live in Idaho’s fresh unsalted water. That’s why scientists call salmon anadromous -- a fish who ascends rivers from the ocean to breed. If she does manage to survive all the death traps along the way – the eight dams, the warming water, the orca whales and the seals and the birds – this remarkable fish will arrive at the exact stream where it had begun life three to five years earlier.
Let’s face it, there aren’t too many life stories that can compare. And yet, most Westerners hardly know of the effort these fish go through, just to get back home.
“This is death, you know,” said Bill. “The instinct that drives the salmon out of the ocean and up the stream to a gravel bar, where she wiggles a nest for her redd. But she knows that she had to come, she had to spawn to continue the cycle, to continue her species.
“And at the end she finally struggles in that cycle, and she’s going to give up, and she’s going to die. She’s going to suffocate in that very water that gave her life, her death being the great hope.”
She has fulfilled her destiny in an Idaho stream. “In the Salmon area we know of this cycle of the salmon,” said Bill. “It’s very important to us. We’re fighting for it. We’re fighting to preserve it.
The Outdoor Idaho crew was so impressed with the passion of Bill’s words that we produced a three-minute segment for our 30th Anniversary program, joining his words with our video, showing the life cycle of the salmon. Thirty years later that segment still carries a punch.
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Bill drowned on July 4th in 2008, while kayaking near Yellow Pine, Idaho. “Spill,” as his friends called him, was an expert kayaker. He knew the Salmon River and the famous Middle Fork as well as anyone alive. He had also kayaked the rivers back east and in Colorado and Utah. According to friend Rick Ardinger, Bill had become fearless in a hardshell kayak.
On that fateful July day, Bill chose a Class V rapid on the East Fork of the South Fork of the Salmon River. “Flight Simulator” has a well-earned reputation as one of the ten biggest rapids for kayakers in the U.S., according to Zach Collier, owner of Northwest Rafting Company.
Very few would consider running that rapid even if they were fully healthy. And Bill was not healthy. He had been fighting a degenerative condition brought on by a severe car crash, and it was beginning to drain him of the strength of his limbs.
He had put in the hours working on strength-training machines, but like the Chinook salmon that he so revered, there was little he could do to change his fate, and he knew that. On Independence Day Bill and two friends entered the complex mile-long gauntlet of rocks and holes that stretches along six bends in the river.
Bill’s body was recovered three days later.
In Bill’s Obituary, written by his loved ones – and there were many who loved this man – were these words: “Even though he might have wanted a few more years in this world, he would not have wished for a more appropriate end to his life.”
John Freemuth, the Professor
Draft 3.7
John Freemuth and I had a special pact that served us well. He kept me from making a fool of myself whenever Outdoor Idaho tackled a major public policy issue.
And I made sure when interviewing him not to use his occasional rants during and after our on-camera interviews. Needless to say, we worked well together.
John was a passionate man with strong opinions, and when he was with us, he didn’t seem to care if the camera was rolling or not. He knew I wouldn’t use his venting about the “idiots” who were destroying the Republic, even though it would certainly have helped our ratings!
And he was correct. I had no desire to lessen his value to the state as an honest broker and bridge builder, as well as a respected academic. He brought people together to discuss their differences better than anyone I knew.
At one point there was talk of sending complete Outdoor Idaho video interviews of important people to the Idaho State Archives. The argument was that many of those interviews were special and needed to be saved for future generations. After all, in many cases, our interviews were often the last and perhaps the only lengthy discussions anyone had with them before they passed.
My response to turning John's various interviews over to be archived was an emphatic “Absolutely Not! At least not until we cleaned them up first." I believed the special pact between John and me extended beyond the grave.
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John's views were not so different from mine when it came to public lands. By the time I had met John, I had taken many trips into America's public lands. So it was not a stretch that my views mirrored his. In our 2000 Outdoor Idaho program, "The People's Land," John expressed his feelings this way: "I would argue to anybody that, by and large, the public lands of the United State have been a policy success over the last hundred years. Could things have been done differently or better? Of course. But to fed-bash all the time as if it's the federal government that's caused it all... this to me is nonsensical. Look at all the benefits this has provided people in quality of life, in production of commodities. It's been a success, and most people who look at it over 100 years would say so."
In other words, criticize how the land is being managed but accept that those lands help define Idaho and much of the West. John believed it would be shortsighted to have the state accept ownership. Even Governor Butch Otter, who railed against the federal government, realized that a transfer of federal lands to state ownership would not benefit Idaho in the long run. In his last term as Governor, he commented to various business groups that his administration had studied the numbers, and decided owning the federal lands could bankrupt the state.
The cost of one bad wildfire season would prove overwhelming. The cost of consecutive bad wildfire seasons would likely require the state to begin selling off public lands to the highest bidder. And wildfires are just one of many issues facing the nation's public lands.
Hunters and ATVers know what happened in south-central Idaho when two Texas billionaire brothers bought up more than 170,000 acres of former Boise Cascade and Potlatch land. Almost immediately big red gates began appearing on lands that before had been open to sportsmen.
Like many others, I lost access to some of my hunting and hiking and wood-cutting areas that were less than five miles from my cabin. It's not far-fetched to suggest that if public lands went to the highest bidder, sportsmen and sportswomen and the general public would again be the losers.
Fighting over public lands is in our make-up, John contended. "It's always been that way. People tried to blow up the Constitution when we were trying to write it. I'm biased towards the notion of people sitting down and talking and trying to find common ground."
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John was executive director of the Andrus Center for Public Policy at Boise State University, as well as a teacher and mentor to masters and doctoral students. He organized important conferences with the Andrus Center, where participants could attempt to find that common ground. The experts John brought together came from all parts of the West.
One of those all-day conferences was the 2017 symposium “Why Public Lands Matter.” There was already a full schedule for the day, but John wanted to put together a forum about the convoluted White Clouds story in central Idaho; namely, how a 1960's proposed open pit molybdenum mine managed to become the nation’s newest Wilderness area 50 years later.
John convinced former Governor and Interior Secretary Cecil Andrus and ten-term Congressman Mike Simpson to free up their evening before the Conference. That allowed our forum to become the kick-off to the next day’s events. John invited me to moderate the discussion, and he would gather questions from the audience. I thought that odd, since he usually did the moderating at these events. But I guess he just wanted to make sure Outdoor Idaho was tied to the event. But who knows, perhaps he also wanted a fall-guy in case things didn't go as planned. After all, what are friends for?
Joining Cece and Mike onstage were Idaho Conservation League executive director Rick Johnson and Rocky Barker, respected outdoor writer for the state’s largest newspaper, the Idaho Statesman.
All four of the men definitely knew how to play to a full house! The ensuing discussion was lively and informative and at times even joyous. Cecil Andrus talked about how in his 1970 campaign, he took up the mantle of saving Castle Peak in the White Cloud Mountains from an open pit mine, and how that one decision delivered him enough votes to catapult him into the Governor’s chair.
Mike Simpson described the importance of the word “Compromise” as he worked for more than fifteen years to secure Wilderness status for the Boulder-White Clouds area. Most of his friends and colleagues had come to accept that the best the Congressman would be able to deliver was National Monument status. But it was the Congressman's seventh attempt at Wilderness legislation that surprisingly prevailed, creating not one but three new Wilderness areas: a White Cloud Wildernss, a Boulder Wilderness, and a Jerry Peak Wilderness. These weren't as big as a National Monument might have been -- and some enviros tried to derail the compromise -- but Simpson's bill seemed to satisfy both the residents of left-leaning Sun Valley and of right-leaning Challis. Let's face it, that's a remarkable compromise.
Rick Johnson recounted how Interior Secretary Sally Jewell came up to him on the day that President Obama signed the Wilderness bills, wanting to know what this “Idaho story” was all about. Was there a secret sauce that allowed Idahoans to do what others could not? The answer, said Rick, was perseverance... and someone named Mike Simpson.
Rocky Barker described the twists and turns of Idaho Wilderness legislation, how it used to be a Democrat talking point, but that recent successes were the result of strong Republican support. The Owyhee Wilderness was a pet project of U.S. Senator Mike Crapo, and now Congressman Simpson with the White Clouds Wilderness.
To me, the highlight of the evening was a simple gesture. At one point in the discussion Cecil Andrus and Mike Simpson, who were sitting next to each other on the stage, reached over and gave each other a “fist bump.” The packed room erupted in applause. A Democrat and a Republican, sharing a symbol of respect and approval and companionship. When will that happen again?
I admit, it took a good ten seconds for me to gather my composure as the moderator.
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John loved to teach, and it was all in a day's work when he got a call from a national reporter from back east. She had heard that John was an expert about BLM. John explained to the reporter that there are two federal agencies that control the vast majority of public lands in Idaho: The Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. And that in Idaho and much of the west, BLM almost always refers to the federal agency... not to Black Lives Matter.
John told this story often. To him it was indicative of how dysfunctional America was becoming, and how important the job of teaching was to the well-being of the nation.
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One of the things that makes Idaho different from neighboring states is that we have no National Park. Oh, sure, there are National Monuments -- like Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument and Craters of the Moon National Monument -- but that's a far cry from a Yellowstone or Yosemite or Grand Canyon National Park. A Wilderness is congressionally approved legislation. Once enacted into law, it's virtually impossible to change. A National Monument can be created by the stroke of a President's pen... and un-created by the next President.
Most of Yellowstone National Park is in Wyoming, but there is a sliver of the Park that spills over the border near Island Park, Idaho. That 50 square miles has no roads and no inhabitants. No one I know considers it Idaho's National Park, but we visited that sliver of lodge pole pine for our 1992 show, "A State Without a National Park."(or another show?) Nice country, but not exactly breathtaking.
At the time we did not know we were in the "Zone of Death." It was 15 years after our show aired that a Michigan State University Law Professor wrote a paper called "The Perfect Crime." He argued that, theoretically, a person could murder someone in that Zone and avoid conviction. How can that be, you ask?
According to the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution, a jury has to be comprised of people who are from the same federal district and also the same state where the crime was committed. In other words, a juror would have to be from both Wyoming and from Idaho. Forming a jury would be impossible since there are no people who live in that section of Yellowstone.
An interesting legal theory that even resulted in the 2022 Idaho Legislature adopting House Joint Memorial 3, calling on Congress to close the Zone of Death loophole. National Park Service officials don't seem too worried, however. They say they'll handle the miscreants.
Our show, "A State Without a National Park" concerned itself, instead, with this question: Why would a state with so much beauty choose not to establish a National Park?
I thought it instructive to visit a sister state with several National Parks and asked John to join us as we drove to Canyonlands National Park in Utah. John had been a seasonal ranger for the Park Service, and he had a special affection for that federal agency. He also liked the cool hat that he got to wear.
My real motivation for inviting John was that I had allowed Outdoor Idaho to get tripped up by a deadline coming too fast upon us. With John in the station wagon, we could at least discuss the best way to approach the half hour program, as we sped down Interstate 84. The editor needed to begin editing as soon as we got back to the station. I knew we were cutting it close, but luckily we finished the show with a few hours to spare.
Years later, while reminiscing about that trip, John and I agreed that Canyonlands National Park was, indeed, a special place. But it was the cattle in a fenced pasture near where we camped that had made us laugh. As we played catch with a ball near the fence, the herd of cows moved their heads back and forth in unison with the ball, first one way and then the other. We thought, it's too bad no one had videotaped that.
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John and I may have disagreed about the need for a national park in Idaho. He was holding out for full National Park status for Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve. The polls suggested 57% of the people in the nearby rural towns wanted a National Park, and it would be an easy transfer, since both a National Monument and a National Park are managed by the National Park Service. The size would remain the same; hunters would still be able to hunt. Only the name would change, but that alone would draw thousands more to the nearby towns of Arco and Carey.
John was incensed that the Idaho Farm Bureau could turn people against the idea in the home stretch. Their argument: you simply can't trust the federal government to do what they said they would do.
Personally, I was ambivalent to National Park status. If people living near Craters of the Moon were willing to accept an increase in Winnebagos and tourists, who was I to tell them they were wrong. After all, we're talking about small towns struggling to exist amidst a sea of sharp black basalt rock. What could a hundred thousand more visitors do to a place called Craters of the Moon, where temperatures of 110 degrees Fahrenheit are not unusual on a hot summer day.
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John and I were on the same page when it came to the Sawtooth National Recreation Area. National Park status had been proposed as far back as 1911 by the Idaho Federation of Women's Clubs, but the idea went nowhere. Even referring to it as the "Alps of America" didn't help U.S. Senator William Borah's efforts.
In 1960, U.S. Senator Frank Church again tried to make the Sawtooths Idaho's first National Park. But too much pushback led him to propose a National Park "study," which eventually led to the concept of a Sawtooth National Recreation Area. The SNRA provided protection, but was more acceptable to the citizens of Stanley and surrounding areas. Hunting and fishing and wood-gathering would still be allowed. And a National Recreation Area was not the magnet that a National Park would be.
Another thing John and I agreed upon was the value of the Sawtooth Society, a non-profit group created to address the threat of inappropriate development and deteriorating recreational infrastructure. The non-profit organization has secured millions of dollars to fund conservation easements on much of the private land in the Sawtooth valley.
Bob Hayes, one of the founding members of the Sawtooth Society, met us at Galena summit, so we could look down on the Sawtooth Valley, for our 2012 program, "A Sawtooth Celebration."
"What you don't see is what is important," said Bob, looking down at the valley below. "What absolutely blows people's minds when they've come over Galena summit, they look down into the Sawtooth valley and see this wide open expanse. They see the Sawtooths to their left. They see the White Clouds to their right. They see the Salmon River running down the middle of this broad valley, and they can't imagine why it isn't filled up with homes."
According to Bob Hayes, the Sawtooth Society's vision has been a marked success. "That isn't to say that everything is perfect, but it's darn near perfect," he told us.
But the area is starting to lose that pastoral feeling the SNRA was established to protect. There are those who prefer McMansions in the heart of the valley. And it's hard to compete with rich men's egos: the millionaires and billionaires who think nothing of violating one of the best views on the planet. Shame on them.
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I spoke at John’s memorial service in May of 2020 at the Stueckle Sky Center at Boise State University. John had suffered an unexpected heart attack and people were still processing the loss of such a valued teacher.
To lighten the mood, I began my remarks about a party I had attended at John and Sheri’s home, with students and friends.
“At their last Christmas party,” I began, “John bragged to me about his latest find… Angel’s Envy bourbon. Come into the kitchen, he said, and you can try some of it. So we headed into the kitchen, only to find that his students had already finished off the bottle. So, in true John Freemuth fashion, a week later a bottle of Angel’s Envy arrived at tea-totaling Idaho Public Television. That’s the kind of guy John was… and, I might add, the kind of students he had.”
Actually, John’s students were some of the best. Sheri Freemuth, John’s widow, asked if we’d put something together for the memorial service.
We gathered a handful of his former and current students and interviewed them separately. I hadn’t watched the four? minute video since his death in 2020, almost six years ago. There seemed to be a thread that ran through their recollections of the man.
(WILL BE CHANGING the quotes below...need to add names... and maybe adjust what's chosen)
“John Freemuth was one of a kind," said Ed Cannady. "I lost someone who pushed me to no end.”
“I first knew him as a teacher and advisor. He later became my mentor, my colleague, my friend. I really credit John for helping me decide where I wanted to go next with my career.”
“He would draw so many of us into the conversation. He made the academic side of it real and applicable. He made learning fun.”
“He was so good at making sure all sides were considered. All perspectives have merit, and he just really pushed me in that way.’
“John and I had such far-ranging conversations, about work, about policy, about national politics and federal agencies. He just had such good perspective. It was always colorful coming from John.”
“I know how lucky I was to have John in my life, and I’ll always be grateful for that. The world is a poorer place without Jeff Freemuth.”
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Looking back, John holds the record for most appearances in our Outdoor Idaho series: fifteen different shows, stretching from 1991 to 2019, just before his death. John's understanding of multi-faceted conflicts had a lot to do with my willingness to tackle topics like “Fifty Years of Wilderness,” "Fish & Game at the Crossroads," “A Sawtooth Celebration,” "The Bureau that Changed the West," “Beyond the White Clouds,” and “State of Change.”
Whenever I had the opportunity to speak about John in his presence, I jokingly told the audience that Outdoor Idaho created John Freemuth. That gave John the chance to retort that he gave Outdoor Idaho the believability it so desperately sought.
Now, that’s the kind of non-proliferation pact that is so rare that it maybe comes around once in a lifetime... if you're lucky.
Cort Conley, Merry Prankster
I had just come back from Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique, and was heading to a Boise coffee shop to meet Cort Conley. I had forgotten he’s not like other kids.
There he was... sitting at an outside table, wearing a khaki safari guide hat, with what looked like leopard skins draped on a chair.. And all I had on was a colorful short-sleeved shirt I had purchased before boarding the plane in Johannsesburg, Africa.
Once again Cort had outdone me. In fact, I think he always outdoes me, except maybe the time I emailed him that it was time for us to have coffee together. He informed me that I would have to buy my own coffee for once because he was in Salmon, Idaho. I retorted, I think I know the name of the chapter: Prankster and Babysitter. After that, the communication stopped. Score one for me.
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Occasionally Pat Metzler and I would bring Cort into our edit bay to get his opinion on something dealing with Outdoor Idaho. He was always intrigued with how Pat would create an actual TV show. He was like a kid in a candy store. Then I remembered that he’s one of those few Idahoans who doesn’t own a TV set. How quaint is that!
Actually, I’m proud of him. He still sends me articles and books through the mail. I feel obligated to read them, because he went to so much more effort than just sending me an email. Cort comes by that naturally. He was Literature Program Director for the State of Idaho. And he is/was a judge at National Outdoor Book Awards based in Pocatello, Idaho.
He also received a Jurisprudence Doctorate degree from the University of California, He's the only one I know who became a lawyer – and decided not to get into lawyering. How quaint is that!
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Instead, Cort wrote 15 books. According to GoodReads, his most popular book is one I have yet to read. Modern American Memoirs. But I have read ‘River of No Return’ and ‘Middle Fork: A Guide (check titles; I have both)... They were essential reading if you’re going to raft those rivers. In fact, more than once I could be found in my tent, reading about the ranches we’d be passing by, and stories that you would only find in Cort’s book.
Cort was a guide, a memorable one who told me he once took passengers on a raging river and frightened them all. The next morning he went to check on the raft and was greeted by a huge banner created by his passengers, draped over his boat: (can’t remember what it said)... Knowing Cort, he had a good laugh about it, then piled them back into his raft. At least he had a good laugh while telling me about it.
But the book that our Outdoor Idaho team read and carried with us was a 700? Page book called “Idaho for the Curious.” It became required reading depending upon which road we’d travel to get to a ‘shoot.’ It was organized by roads, so if you’re heading up Highway 55, you could read about ... and ... and ... (is that the best road to mention?) I swear, if someone could memorize everything in that book, she would know more about the state than anyone. More than once his book generated stories for Outdoor Idaho, or at least contributed to them. The book is that thorough and that fascinating.
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He seemed genuinely upset when I told him that John Freemuth held the record for most appearances in an Outdoor Idaho show. I told him he could still win the honor with a few more appearances, but then I retired and Cort's interest in pursuing the record faded.
If we included all the shows that used the old film he dug up, he’d be the undisputed champ. He had found ‘lost film’ of the first rafters to take rafts won the Middle Fork of the Salmon, and anglers catching giant salmon. Between Cort and Dr. ....., who took a film camera with him on river trips, we were able to open up an entire chapter? on old timers like Buckskin Bill in his element?.
When rafters would stop at his place along the Salmon River -- and Buckskin did like visitors, unlike some of the Salmon River residents -- he enjoyed imperssing the young ladies with his baby cougars in a jar. He would also get the girls to dress up in old-timey outfits. Did I mention that Buckskin lived alone?
I still remember the time our family visited Buckskin Bill. For some reason my dad thought he could get a camper truck down a dirt road that began in Dixie. Back in the early 1960’s the road was so narrow and so bumpy and our truck was so large that I really think my mom would have divorced my dad right on the spot if she could. Us boys were outside the rig, piling rocks on the side of the trail that would have resulted in a several hundred foot drop if the truck tire slipped even a few inches.
But we did finally make it to the Salmon River, and we could see Buckskin’s little paradise on the other side of the river. There was more than one structure, and a large imposing cannon facing upstream. I heard later from ... that Buckskin told him it was for anyone from the government who tried to remove him from the river community that had grown up around him.
We wondered what we would do, stuck on the other side, when we saw someone in a boat oaring over to take us to Buckskin’s place. We piled into the boat and easily made it across the river. That was when Buckskin’s relative from Canada, a red-headed young man, informed us that Buckskin had left for a short vacation. I swear he mentioned Florida.
Nevertheless, the accommodating Canadian gave us a tour of the property. I think I went on my own tour and managed to find a room away from the main cabin. I think I was all of ten years old, and I think it was his bedroom.
Buckskin built his cabin and buildings and his own utensils and even his gun and canon. That in itself made me admire the man often seen in a coonskin cap in the old film. Buckskin was a consummate actor, especially when women were present.
But the room that I found fascinating was a vertical log structure, which bore a slight resemblance to my own vertical cabin that I built 15 years later. If you tried really hard you could peer inside. Buckskin apparently didn’t believe in traditional wallpaper. His walls consisted of Playboy pin-ups everywhere. I’m embarrassed to say that I don’t remember much else about my Buckskin experience, but every time I rafted the Salmon, the group I was with would stop at Buckskin Bill’s museum. He had long since passed, but his place was still a marvel to behold.
Cort found his film in Utah and Dr. _ shot his own film as he oared his children down the river. We have used both films maybe a dozen times, whenever we needed to show the unusual people that today seem so fascinating to us. You just knew that there would never be another era like that. I was surprised how it made me thankful every time we’d use the film footage, and also a little sad that Idaho would never experience that era again. Too many restrictions. Not enough big fish. That era could never be re-enacted.
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Mention a Doug Tims prank and a few more. Should pranks be moved up? Maybe. Richard Holm will be key to the Tims prank and perhaps others.
Mention inviting Cort on a Lewis and Clark shoot. At the time, he was our “expert” on their travels in 1805? through what would become Idaho. He labeled us Team A – me and >> -- and Team B – John Crancer and ___. By the end of our three day journey, the two teams had turned incredibly competitive, thanks to Cort. I remember that Team A had discovered a tipi off the main road, with a small group gathered around it. The sun had set but that didn’t stop us from visiting them. Turns out the key to any Nez Perce version of the L&C journey was there, and he consented to an interview in front of his tipi.
John Crancer was so incensed when Cort determined that Team A had won, that John demanded that we stop the rig at a nearby school with a basketball court and a single light barely illuminating the area. No one was going to beat a riled-up John, and sure enough, John’s Team B got to 20 points before Team A. John had been vindicated.
Back at our camp, unbeknownst to everyone, Cort had put a stink bomb in Team B’s tent. It failed to go off, one of the few pranks that didn’t go as planned. The finished program, “Lewis and Clark in Idaho” nevertheless got finished on time, and won several awards, including a regional Emmy and ___. (?)
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(I wouldn’t even call this draft 1.0; it’s entirely stream of consciousness at the Push & Pour coffee shop on Latah. I had planned to work on Mike Simpson and the ‘Elvis Version’ but the Muse operates in strange ways sometimes, and I am forced to succumb to superior powers.
As I mentioned, what Richard and his wife Amy bring to the table will determine much about the Cort profile. Hopefully, they can fill in the blanks, especially with the Doug Tims prank. Perhaps that serves as the ending, because we don’t have one yet.
And since Cort is still alive, I imagine I will show something to him. He will either never have coffee with me again or dive into the project and add the adjectives and truth that this little profile demands.)
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