Russell Country  

       This collection of poems is an echo of the stories I heard as a granddaughter of early Montana and North Dakota pioneers. These poems contain memories of a time when the great buffalo herds still thundered through the valleys, when Cheyenne and Crow still camped around the Yellowstone River, when mountain men and cowboys, prospectors and miners, rustlers and vigilantes still populated Russell Country. Many of the poems are true accounts of events in the lives of Emma and Caleb Duncan (Grandparents of my late husband, Bill Duncan.)

        Bill was raised on the family ranch. As a small boy, he and his brother Pete rode bareback on bucking  calves with Bud Linderman, pretending to be rodeo stars.  ( Bud Linderman later became a World Champion bareback rider.) Bill was active on the family ranch.  In Spring, he helped drive cattle about 50 miles from the home base, to higher leased ranges on the Crow Indian reservation. In fall, he helped drive them back.  He figured he'd been on about 20 such cattle drives. Many of the poems were based on accounts in Bill's life.

        The poem "Rustler's Roost" is about a band of rustlers that operated out of the Big Horn Mountains.  As head of a nine member crew that surveyed the Big Horn Mountains prior to the construction of the Yellowtail Dam, Bill traveled through country that few white people have ever seen.  In the five months they were there, they lived chiefly off of the abundant game to be found in the Bighorns. In a very remote section of the Big Horns, the crew came across a narrow pass into the canyon. It had a  heavy chain attached to a hook in the granite wall. It was stretched across the pass, and across the adjacent river.  Past the boulders, there was a pathway to a fertile plateau.   It had long been rumored that there was a band of rustlers that operated out of the Big Horn Mountains; and this apparently was the place.  The entire area is now under water; and is part of the Yellowtail Dam Reservoir. Bill was  fortunate to have seen this bit of Montana history and to have experienced the wild west in a way that  few people living today have known.      This book is $9.95.
 

                                                                    Rodeo Country

   The author, Bette Wolf Duncan, grew up in southeastern Montana, not far from the Wyoming border. This is Rodeo Country; and she celebrates this rich western heritage with poems and photos of regional rodeo champions.  She is the granddaughter of early Montana and North Dakota pioneers; and she was married to a former cowboy whose grandparents were among the earliest ranchers in southeast Montana. She can still hear with her heart the pioneers tales of relatives and other old-timers. This book is the echo of their tales and of good times remembered.

  RODEO COUNTRY contains a collection of poetry and written accounts that embody much of the history and events that shaped Montana and Wyoming: the westward movement of the covered wagons; Buffalo Bill Cody and his Wild West Show; data and poem about Earl Durand; Wyoming's enactment of the Suffrage Act (the first state to do so); the Mormon handcart trek through Wyoming;  Black Sunday (April 14, 1935) and the dust bowl; the Johnson County War; the Coal Mine Disaster at Bearcreek, MT; the disastrous winter of 1885-1886;the migration of the homesteaders (the Honyockers) from about 1910  to 1922, in large portions of Montana and Wyoming; and the recession that hit farms/ranches in the 1980s. And of course the book features bios, stats, photos and poetry about the rodeo champions from Montana and Wyoming.

         RODEO COUNTRY  received the 2007 Will Rogers Medallion Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Publishing of Cowboy Poetry.