Odds & Ends

Bits o’ information and interesting stuff thrown up by the moccasin telegraph…

• A bison slaughter is underway in Montana, near Yellowstone Park. It’s generally portrayed in a negative light by the national media, but the program is actually one of those working efforts between a variety of interests that we like to support. The local media has a better perspective:

The Billings Gazette:

GARDINER — Bison wandering outside the northern boundary of Yellowstone National Park can now be captured at the Stephens Creek facility. The Interagency Bison Management Plan called for the facility to open on Monday.

The management plan calls for removing 600 to 900 bison that migrate out of the park’s northern boundary this winter to reduce population growth and the potential for a larger migration in coming years. Hunters have killed more than 300 bison outside the park this winter, and tribal hunting is expected to continue, but likely wouldn’t reach the management goal. Additional animals will be captured and transferred to tribal groups for slaughter and distribution of meat and other parts to their members.

• FP contributor Paul McNamee sent links to some interesting posts he wrote about his grandfather’s World War I Service. Very interesting and much appreciated:

Grandfather’s Diary
http://paulmcnamee.blogspot.com/2012/11/veterans-day-diary-of-peter-kenny.html

Grandfather’s Paraphernalia
http://paulmcnamee.blogspot.com/2015/05/personal-effects-world-war-i.html

Finding Joe St. George
http://paulmcnamee.blogspot.com/2015/11/on-11th-hour-of-11th-day-of-11th-month.html

• Paul also re-upped a post on the American intervention in the Russian Civil War:

http://paulmcnamee.blogspot.com/2016/02/a-cold-corner-of-forgotten-history.html

• Check out this wonderful video on artist Alfred J. Miller and the Green River Rendezvous.

• The band is very close to having the three original songs I’ll be offering as Kickstarter rewards in the can. This is the biggest pickle out of the jar and once they’re done I will be comfortable moving forward quickly on launching the campaign for “Warriors of the Wild Lands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” It’s a slower process than I anticipated, but you only get one crack at it, so it’s gotta be right.

And offering these songs is right. I am very pleased with the way these recordings have come out — and our sound engineer Pete Rathbun deserves HUGE credit for effort way above and beyond the call of duty. And Jeff Wester, Lynn Woodward and Mike Biggers have my eternal gratitude for working so hard to get these songs ready for my project. That kind of friendship and support can’t be bought with any amount of gold or beaver pelts.

One thing that I love about the tribe that has gathered around the Frontier Partisans campfire is that we all help each other out in our creative endeavors. Near or far, you all are a posse that will do to ride the river with.

The three songs are:

 “Fugitive On Every Corner,” (sung by Lynn) which was inspired by the sad, sordid tale of Claude Dallas.

 “Shoot Straight You Bastards (the Ballad of Breaker Morant)”

 “Once We Moved Like The Wind” — the tale of an Apache warrior who rode with Geronimo and finds the white man’s path a hard one to travel.