Wild River Pioneers
Adventures in the Middle Fork of the Flathead, Great Bear Wilderness, and Glacier National Park
by John Fraley
published by Big Mountain Press
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Follow author John Fraley as he reconstructs the events surrounding the exciting pioneer history and spectacular landscape of the Middle Fork of the Flathead River Drainage in and around the Great Bear Wilderness and Glacier National Park. In Wild River Pioneers, Fraley brings alive the history of Montana's wildest river drainage by telling stories of some of its most riveting historical characters. The stories feature shootouts, murders, a hanging, a train robbery, marauding grizzly bears, lost graves, gold prospecting, and an ice cream-eating pet bear.
Although the Middle Fork of the Flathead is the geographical stage for these stories, many of the pioneers and events have broader connections and appeal. It's hard to find more quirky old-timers than Slippery Bill Morrison; Libby Collins (the Cattle Queen of Montana); Josephine Doody (the Bootleg Lady of Glacier Park) and her notorious Glacier Park Ranger husband, Dan Doody; and George Snyder (Glacier Park Maverick). In these stories, you'll learn the relationship these old-timers had with the land and with the government officials who tried to regulate them.
248 pages, 6 x 9 , 83 b/w photos, 1 map(s), index, 52 softcovers per case, Perfect Bound
softcover
ISBN 10:
ISBN 13: 9780962242885
$18.95
RELEASE DATE
09/15/2008
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| Wild River Pioneers
Adventures in the Middle Fork of the Flathead, Great Bear Wilderness, and Glacier National Park |
| "Raging down through the Flathead's Continental Divide wilderness, the Middle Fork was born wild, but the pioneers who first explored it over a hundred years ago seem equally untamed. John s book gives a spellbinding history on those daring, valiant, and sometimes different people. I'd buy the book just for the chapter on Josephine Doody (the Bootleg Lady of Glacier Park)." -George Ostrom, Montana's "Most Colorful Newsman", and Author of Glacier's Secrets and Yum Yoogle Snook Wild Beastie Book "Once started on the stories, I read them all nonstop except for two lumber sales, four visitors, at least three coffee breaks, and one night of deep sleep recovering from the adventures of the Middle Fork's People. Hooked on the pace, suspense, and interest, I wanted always to see the next page. Would that my knees were once again strong enough to rediscover the sense of place of your story. I wish I were Slippery Bill at age 35..." - Bud Moore, retired U. S. Forest Service Official Emeritus, Noted Conservationist, and Author of The Lochsa Story: Land Ethics in the Bitterroot Mountains "If natural surroundings could be deliberately secretive, reclusive, inhospitable, and grandly beautiful as well, the Middle Fork of the Flathead River would be the ultimate example. Much of John Fraley's life has been shaped by the fact that as a biologist and as a curious, caring individual he has tramped those mountains, rivers, and streams; and hunted, trapped, and sought out the life-details of the few earliest settlers, eloquently sharing them with us. Read this book and you shall be touched by the heart, not only of the author, but those whose biographical records he has so diligently sought out even to their graves. " -Carl F. O'Neil, Historian and Author of Muscle, Grit, and Big Dreams: Earliest Towns of the Flathead, and Two Men of Demersville |
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John Fraley came to Montana as a teenager and received fish and wildlife management degrees from both Montana Universities. He worked for Montana's wildlife management agency for 40 years, mostly in northwest Montana's Flathead Country. He is an adjunct faculty member at Flathead Valley Community College, where he has taught wildlife conservation for two decades. He has written many articles for wildlife and western history magazines. John has done much of his fish and wildlife work, hunting, fishing, fur trapping, and exploring, in the Middle Fork of the Flathead Drainage, the Great Bear Wilderness and Glacier National Park. His previous book, A Woman's Way West (Big Mountain Press, 1998) tells the story of pioneering couple Doris and Dan Huffine in the Middle Fork and Glacier National Park area. John's children, Kevin, Heather, and Troy, accompanied him from one end of the Middle Fork backcountry to the other and have been an important part of his odyssey of researching and writing Wild River Pioneers. John, his wife, Dana, and their children live north of Kalispell within sight of the peaks of Glacier National Park. |
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