a weblog sharing info on outdoor skills and campfire musing by a guy who spends a bunch of time in pursuit of both
CULTURE
WHERE -
TALES ARE TOLD OF
Welcome to Roland Cheek's Weblog
Roland is a gifted writer with a knack for clarifying reality. Looking forward to more of his wisdom
- Carl Hanner e-mail
The famous Western artist Charles Manion Russell must have been having a bad day when, in a talk given to the Great Falls Booster Club in 1923, he said:
To access Roland's weblog and column archives
Tip o' the Day
Think opportunity -- that's my Tip O' the Day.
Jane and I have become accomplished opportunists during our latter years. That talent manifested itself after years of being somewhat circumscribed by the circles our horses could make over wilderness trails. Then, after a little over two decades guiding others to adventure, we retired with the professed desire to guide ourselves to the same end.
Unfortunately a life filled in the pursuit of fun had yielded little in the form of filthy lucre, so we were compelled to venture out into the great beyond with a van loaded with our books (to sell). Jane, as a peddler, is good at her trade. She allows me to be her chauffeur during these latest of our circles. It was opportunism that permitted us to blink at a Nebraska map, note that we had a weekend free, and see Rock Creek State Park was but a few miles away.
As it turned out, Rock Creek State Park is situated on 300 acres of tallgrass prairie, with several miles of hiking trails winding through it. A Pony Express way station, complete with the old log barn and replica corrals was there. And, as if that weren't enough, the Oregon Trail crossed Rock Creek right there on Park grounds.
There is a nice campground at the Rock Creek Park, with each site isolated from others amid rolling hills and juniper trees. Showers and restrooms are there, as well as macadam parking pads, electricity, and water at each site.
Parking pads? Electricity? Piped in water? Showers? Rest rooms? Is this the same folks who wrote the book Dance On the Wild Side, about their life of adventure in one of America's greatest wilderness?
I'm not sure if Ethan Lester, the 13-year-old Camarillo, California lad who likes my Westerns, has read any of my outdoor books. But Ethan isn't the only young person reading these days. Alexa Mrgich, a sixth-grader in Kalispell, Montana, wrote to say she's reading my book about elk [The Phantom Ghost of Harriet Lou}.
Alexa says, "I am probably the only girl you know that loves loves loves hunting." She says, "I go almost everday of hunting season, except for the week days." Alexa said her favorite story in my book is "where the 12-year-old boy and his grandfather go hunting".
If you find it bewildering that a young lass just entering her teens found The Phantom Ghost of Harriet Lou fine reading, consider that an officer on a U.S. Navy ship at sea liked it, too.
"I have just finished The Phantom Ghost of Harriet Lou. Wow! It was wonderful! I was transported from my stateroom aboard a destroyer to the wilderness I roamed as a teenager. Your tales were well told, enlightening, and dead on the money. The open ocean on a calm, clear night is beautiful, but I'll never hear the hoarse bellow of a rutting bull elk. Driving a warship into heavy seas and tailing green water on the bridge is exhulting, but not nearly as much as bucking into a northern blizzard and stumbling across grizzly tracks that haven't even begun to fill in [with snow]. Thank you for sharing with me. My dad has sent me the Thursday Great Falls Tribune no matter where I am in the world for the past 13 years. I have always enjoyed your columns, but this book was special.
Joel Stewart / USS Fife Dd 991
WILDWOOD HOME
We've lived in the same house, on the same plot of land for going onto 45 years--which, I suppose, is no record, but is a pretty fair average. The house we moved into, back in 1965, was a 1925 Sears & Roebuck pre-fab that replaced the original homestead cabin.
Golden willows had been planted in windbreak rows north and south, Lombardi poplars towered to the west. The poplars were augmented by a row of wild plum mixed with chokecherry trees. Rows of carigana windproofed the willows and a phalanx of house-high firs stood final palace guard.
Apple trees and cherry trees were spotted hither and thither around the yard. An elm grew there. Jane planted a birch outside her kitchen window, as well as a row of Scotch pines to the east to fend off highway noise.
With all the trees and a yard the size of a pitch-&-putt golf course, the place darned near killed us. Then came our outfitting and guiding years when we were seldom home during summer. Untended, the carigana crept outside its rows to ambush a tent frame and a tennis court we'd built when first hitting the country. The fir trees grew and grew until they nudged the sky, then two had the audacity to die and threaten the house. Acres of golden willows shed limbs into our front yard with utter disdain for our orderly selves, their color matched only by the flair of competitive dandelions spreading parachutes over all.
Much to Jane's terror and my alarm, the place was getting away, building such a lead on deterioration that the task of whipping it back to any stage of order and neatness appeared overwhelming.
But what's this? Deer feed on our apples. Raccoons steal from the bird feeder. A red squirrel and two pine squirrels scold from our own private little forest. Ruffed grouse rest near the boles of fir trees and ringnecked pheasants strut between windbreaks. Turtle doves coo from the willows. Owls hoot from the elm. Elk once bedded in the high grass of our pasture.
There are songbirds of a gazillion kind. A bobwhite quail once called from a corral rail. Never has there been so many robins. Meadowlarks sing their throaty welcome from the fields, bluebirds flutter from fence post to fence post. Magpies sail into and out of the yard and ravens perch on the barn roof. A redtail hawk glides effortlessly overhead, and is joined by an occasional kestrel.
It's miraculous! We've discovered the encroaching wildwood to be a blessing in disguise. We not only now have no intention of manicuring the tangled sanctuary that crept so surreptitiously into our homelot, but we feel no guilt about it--not when reaping the pleasures afforded by watching goldfinches bathing in Jane's fountain, or a cow elk standing in our overgrown pasture.
There is a downside, though. The place has also became a haven for predators. Remember the magpies and ravens? Do you think the redtail soars overhead in order to obtain more flight time?
Our yard has turned into a crossroads for barn cats, striped skunks, coyotes, and neighborhood dogs. Just the other morning, at break of day, Jane awoke to watch a red fox play with a mouse he'd just nailed from our back lawn.
Wherever there are prey animals, there you'll also find creatures to prey upon them. some folks frightened of mountain lions in their woods might wish to remember that fact while sprinkling food for whitetail deer under their living room picture window.
Roland Cheek wrote a syndicated outdoors column (Wild Trails and Tall Tales) for 21 years. The column was carried in 17 daily and weekly newspapers in two states. In addition, he scripted and broadcast a daily radio show (Trails to Outdoor Adventure) that aired on 75 stations from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean. He's also written upwards of 200 magazine articles and 12 fiction and nonfiction books. For more on Roland, visit:
www.rolandcheek.com
Recent Weblogs
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
for more info about these and other Roland Cheek books
There's a bunch of specific info about Roland's books, columns, and archives. By clicking on the button to the left, one can see Roland's synopsis of each book, read reviews, and even access the first chapter of each of his titles. With Roland's books, there's no reason to buy a "pig in a poke."
for detailed info about each of Roland's books
Read Reviews
Read their first chapters
For interested educators, this weblog is especially applicable for use in history, economic, and ag classes, as well as for journalism students.
Roland, of course, visits schools. For more information on his program alternatives, go to:
In my book a pioneer was a man who turned all the grass upside down, strung bob-wire over the dust that was left, poisoned the water and cut down the trees, killed the Indian who owned the land, and called it progress. If I had my way, the land here would be like God made it, and none of you sons of bitches would be here at all.
In all my experience in the wilderness wild, I find two of God's creatures especially fascinating: the ones you've read about above: elk and grizzly bears. Perhaps grizzlies are twice as fascinating because I've written two books about them, and only one on elk.
Learning To Talk Bear is Roland's best selling book, in its 5th printing. The book depicts his own learning curve to understanding the great beasts
An entire book devoted to a single charismatic grizzly bear
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to tell Roland what you think of his Campfire Culture weblog
to visit Roland's newspaper columns and weblog archives
source links for additional info
NEXT WEEK:
MOUNTAIN EDUCATION
www.campfireculture.com
Sure is. And Jane is loving every minute of it. These days, when we awake and rain pounds down on the roof of our little motor home, we eye each other, burrow a little deeper into our pillows, and murmur, "I don't have anything pressing to do today, do you?"
Opportunisim took us to visit Palo Duro Canyon, famed in Western history, in the Texas Panhandle. There we hiked their several miles of trails, hunkered down and watch Rio Grande turkeys while the gobblers gobbled, then flew from their nightime perches in live oak trees. We saw honest-to-God Texas longhorns, horned toads, road runners, and rattlesnakes.
Opportunity. Seize it!
