A friend of mine has a plot of land north of Sisters that he loves as deeply and profoundly as a person can love a place. “I’ll never develop my land,” he told me. “It’s truly wild out there.” This friend of mine is not what you’d picture if you were to commission a forensic sketch of an “environmentalist,” but his depth of ecological … [Read more...] about Mountain Men & Green-necks

The legendary Billy Joe Shaver kickstarted the Outlaw movement in country music when he badgered Waylon Jennings into recording a whole bunch of his songs in the 1973 album Honky Tonk Heroes, which remains one of the most important albums in my life. A tribute album to the great songwriter is due out in November, just in time for my birthday. … [Read more...] about Working The Trapline — Outlaws Live Forever

“A history of North America with mixed-descent families at its core creates a different view of the past, one with resourceful people making families through centuries of contact and war.” — Anne F. Hyde Those of you who have been around this campfire for a while know that I am drawn to the stories of the “Men of the Middle Ground,” those who … [Read more...] about Born Of Lakes And Plains

By Matthew Ilseman I picked up the first issue of The Rush largely because of the cover. It featured a man with a bowler riding a giant spider. I did not know quite what to expect when I read it. What I found was a tale of surreal horror set during the 1890s gold rush. Created by British writer Si Spurrier and artist Nathan Gooden for Vault … [Read more...] about ‘The Rush’ — A Weird & Wild Yukon

Michael Mann is an important Frontier Partisans storyteller. Not just because he directed The Last of the Mohicans — that’s just the most on-the-nose effort of his run on FP cinema. He was working the terrain in the 1980s with Miami Vice. I audited a class at UC Berkeley with my then-girlfriend because the prof was lecturing on Miami Vice as a … [Read more...] about Bringing The ‘Heat’

It is impossible for me to resist this: And why should I, after all? The tales of King Arthur form one of the great frontier cycles of legend. One of the things that is so compelling about the Arthur legends is that the line between folklore, myth and history is impossible to demarcate. The 5th Century was a profoundly unsettled time, as … [Read more...] about The Great Frontier Legend Of Arthur

By Matthew Ilseman (Editor’s note: Matthew Ilseman’s review of Reminiscences of a Ranger: Early Times in Southern California comes at a fortuitous time, as the next Frontier Partisans Podcast series will focus on the wild  frontier history of my old home town. I referenced Horace Bell’s books in the series on filibustering, and it got Matt’s … [Read more...] about ‘Reminiscences of a Ranger: Early Times in Southern California‘

The feast of Frontier Partisans content continues. Mark Lee Gardner, who has turned in a solid collection of Western frontier history touching on the lives and legends of Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, Jesse James, and Theodore Roosevelt, has a new dual biography coming out on Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. I will inevitably measure any such book … [Read more...] about Working the Trapline — Dangerous Territories

Ye know I can never resist a buccaneer tale. Thus this tome is making its way to me through the library. If it’s as good as it’s purported to be, It’ll find its way onto the shelves of the captain’s cabin. The year is 1680, in the heart of the Golden Age of Piracy, and more than three hundred daring, hardened pirates—a potent mix of low-life … [Read more...] about Born To Be Hanged

It’s been a full four years since I alerted Frontier Partisans across the globe to be on the lookout for the Nude Queen of the Communist Cannibals. Despite the turbulence the world has experienced since then, our vigilance remains undiminished. I said it then and I’ll say it again now: I do it for America. Inevitably, the dive into 19th Century … [Read more...] about ‘The Commie Killing Joy-Girls Of The Bay Of Pigs’