By Rick Schwertfeger Captain, Frontier Partisans Southern Command — On Extended Scout Duty in Montana Territory * On a quiet summer Sunday a Frontier Partisan and his wife walk along the path between the north bank of the Missouri River and the main street of Fort Benton, Montana. Place and Time being what they are, it’s curious to … [Read more...] about Fort Benton On The Missouri River: Gateway To Montana And The Northwest Frontiers
Working The Trapline — In The Pays d’en Haut
Trade took me to the old Pays d’en Haut* for a couple of days this week. The Mullen Newspapers rendezvoused in Leelenau County, Michigan, where the Leelenau Enterprise is located. My time to explore was limited, but I did get out for a ramble in the woods. Beautiful country. I would love to come back. We ate dinner outdoors on Thursday night at … [Read more...] about Working The Trapline — In The Pays d’en Haut
The Ballad of Dood & Juanita
He was a mighty mountain man She was his one true love — Prologue, The Ballad of Dood & Juanita * The things he could do with that rifle… Shoot the balls off a bat Reload and shoot it one more time — Ol’ Dood, Sturgill Simpson This might well be as “Frontier Partisan” a set of songs as has ever been released. Sturgill … [Read more...] about The Ballad of Dood & Juanita
A Salute To The Humble Hunting Wagon
When we think of the tools of the early hunters on the southern African veld, we think first of firearms: the mighty muzzleloading roer, perhaps an English double; Frederick Courteney Selous’ Holland & Holland… A “salted” horse — one that had survived the sleeping sickness brought on by the bite of the tsetse fly and was immune to its bite — … [Read more...] about A Salute To The Humble Hunting Wagon
Gunpowder Therapy
I’ve had trouble in mind the past week or so. The Delta Blues are real — the variant is ripping through Deschutes County like wildfire. I’ve seen friends go down, despite being vaccinated — though so far the cases have been mild to moderate. And, speaking of wildfire, we had a run of smoke days that felt a bit like trudging through Mordor. There’s … [Read more...] about Gunpowder Therapy
Working The Trapline In Americanaland
Musta been a column I received from a freelancer exploring other experience of a white woman in Sisters whose Black daughter experienced racist bullying in school a few years back. Maybe it was waking up to extreme heat and unhealthy air quality that reminds me of the old homeland... I got to thinking this morning about something that occurred … [Read more...] about Working The Trapline In Americanaland
Working The Trapline — Red Dog & Red Rocks
I’m restlessly roaming the veld of southern Africa these days. The next podcast will relate the weird, wild tale of Coenraad de Buys — a Boer hunter, rebel, rogue and gun-runner who loomed like a giant over the Eastern Cape frontier (beyond the Fish River, as it were) in the late 18th and early 19th century before trekking north to the Limpopo … [Read more...] about Working The Trapline — Red Dog & Red Rocks
Cry Macho
“If a guy wants to name his cock ‘Macho,’ it’s OK by me...” — Mike Milo * Clint Eastwood has at least one more in him — and I’ll be there for Cry Macho in September when it hits theaters and streams on HBO MAX. You all know by now that this kind of contemporary-Western borderland tale is in the X-ring of the Frontier Partisans mythos. The … [Read more...] about Cry Macho
The Storytellers
These storytellers are friends of mine. They’re making something truly magnificent. Keep your eye out for this film. https://centraloregondaily.com/%e2%96%b6%ef%b8%8f-the-storytellers-local-filmmakers-shine-light-on-oregon-cowboy-culture/ … [Read more...] about The Storytellers
Working The Trapline — Indian Running and California Dreamin’
CrimeReads is a very fine — and highly influential — website focusing on the crime and thriller genres in fiction, nonfiction and film. It recently sent me down an obscure sidetrail that somehow escaped my notice back in 1991. Here is THE DARK HISTORY OF THE INDIAN RUNNER, SEAN PENN'S MEDITATION ON AMERICAN VIOLENCE, BY WAY OF BRUCE … [Read more...] about Working The Trapline — Indian Running and California Dreamin’
