The High Plains Seed Library is back at the Albany County Public Library in Laramie.

 The High Plains Seed Library is back at the Albany County Public Library in Laramie. 

In Memoriam: Pat O'Toole.

 

Rod Miller: Remembering Pat O’Toole, Wyoming Visionary

Southern Rockies Nature Blog: Lettuce Get Down to Business

Southern Rockies Nature Blog: Lettuce Get Down to Business: Photo from 1918 of the Mahon Ranch, west of Buena Vista. Pictured are Martha Mahon, her daughter Cassie and Cassie’s husband George Fields...

Really interesting article on an agricultural evolution in Colorado.  

As I noted in my comments there, and expanding on them a bit here, it's often struck me that the hills around Ft. Laramie, which are grazing land today, are called "Mexican Hills" as New Mexican laborers were brought up to the area after the Mexican War to build the cement buildings at Ft. Laramie, and after they completed the construction, they moved off post and put in vegetable farms. The produce was sold to travelers on the Oregon Trail.

That obviously didn't continue on forever, but I don't know when it ceased.  I've also often wondered what happened to them, and their descendants.  There is farming, of course, in that region of Wyoming, but it's nearly a monoculture of a sort.  All corn in that area.

In the Bessemer Bend area of Natrona County, which is farm land but for hay farms and feed corn only, at one time there was some potato production and barley production, the latter for Coors. 

Around the state, if you look at old photos from a century ago and more, you'll see grocery stores with signs indicating that fresh produce was "bought and sold", meaning that they were getting their produce locally.  That certainly doesn't happen anymore.  If I buy lettuce at the chain grocery store (the only place I can buy it) it's come hundreds of miles to be here.

And, in spite of all the land they hold, you'll not find a ranch yard with a garden.  At least I'm not seeing any.

Something has been lost here.

Agrarian of the Week: The Victory Garden.

The television show, not the World War Two institution from which it takes its name.

Somewhat quirky and odd, the long-running show commenced in 1979 and was hosted by the late James Underwood Crockett originally.  I recall it from the Roger Swain era, however, which apparently from the mid 1980s to 2002, which surprises me as I recall watching it with my father, and not thereafter.  He died in the early 1990s.  Swain, with a huge red beard and suspenders was ahead of his time in the hipster movement, held a PhD in biology, so he knew his stuff.  It apparently ceased production in 2010.

One interesting thing I'll note is the name, The Victory Garden, which takes its name from the gardens people were urged to plant in World War One and World War Two to counter food shortages.  While both wars were obviously horrific, this aspect of the home front remains fondly remembered, and therefore the name is familiar.

Canadian World War One Victory Garden poster.

Going Feral: Subsistance Hunter/Fisherman of the Week: Dick Proenneke

Going Feral: Subsistance Hunter/Fisherman of the Week: Dick Pr...: 

Subsistance Hunter/Fisherman of the Week: Dick Proenneke

Dick Proenneke may be the ultimate modern subsistence hunter and fisherman in so far as the Western World is concerned.

Proenneke was born in Iowa in 1916.  His father was sort of a jack of all trades laborer, which is and was common to rural areas.  His father was also a veteran of World War One.  Dick followed in his father's footsteps prior to World War Two, leaving high school before graduation, something extremely common in that era (less than 50% of males graduated from high school prior to World War Two  He joined the Navy in World War Two and took up hiking around San Francisco while recovering from rheumatic fever contracted in the service.  Having the disease was life altering for him, as he became focused on his health.  He received a medical discharge from the Navy in 1945.

After the war he became a diesel mechanic, but his love of nature caused him to move to Oregon to work on a sheep ranch, and then to Shuyark Island, Alaska, in 1950.  From 1950 to 1968 he worked for a variety of employers, including the Navy and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.  He moved to the wilderness in 1968, at age 52, the year that in many ways gave us the Post Post World War Two World we are now seeing collapse.  He lived there, as a single man, until 1999, when old age forced him out of the woods and to his brother's home in California.  He died in there in 2003, at age 86.  His cabin now belongs to the Park Service.

Proenneke loved photography and left an extensive filmed record of his life in Alaska.

There's a lot that can be gleaned from his life, some of which would probably be unwarranted, as every person's life is their own.  Having noted that, however, it should be noted that Proenneke is not the only person to live in this manner in Alaska's back wood, including up to the present.  So he's not fully unique, but rather his high intelligence and filmed record has made him known.

It's also notable, fwiw, that he was a single man.  Basically, if looked at carefully, his retreat to the woods came in his retirement, as he had very low expenses up until 1968, and had worked for the government for many years.  He never married, so he never had a family or responsibilities of that type.  Many of the men who live in wild Alaska have married into native families, so their circumstances are different.

Probably every young man who loves the outdoors has contemplated doing something like what Proenneke actually did, while omitted the decades of skilled labor as a single man that came before it.  And in reality, Proenneke, had lived over half his life as a working man with strong outdoor interests, rather than in the wilderness.  People really aren't meant to live the way he lived, in extreme isolation, save for a few.

Related Threads:

Dick Proenneke in Alone in the Wilderness

Dick Proenneke in Alone in the Wilderness part II

Blog Mirror: George Singleton wrote that 'hog-killing time' was a community event

 

George Singleton wrote that 'hog-killing time' was a community event

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: War on Weeds

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: War on Weeds: Weeds are my nemesis. Left unattended, they'll overrun a guy's place. With last year being such a wet summer around Worland, the wee...

Published here both for its content, and my comment.