Book Notes: Backbone of the World

Notes on Backbone of the World: A Portrait of the Vanishing West Along the Continental Divide

Frank Clifford, 2002

Read February 2007

In short, the book consists of about a dozen interviews with people in the Rocky Mountain states. Clifford’s goal was to talk to people with more traditional (or stereotypical, however you like) Old West livelihoods, generally meaning ranching and farming.

I have a weakness for these sorts of travel books, and generally read one or two a year. I love travelling, and always wonder about the people who live in the places I drive by. What kind of people are they, and how do they live. But I never have time to linger, and I don’t really like talking to people anyway, so I’m not likely to find out on my own. So it’s fun to visit vicariously through the experiences of others.

I ended up liking this one, although it was kind of annoying at first. I didn’t like the title – “backbone of the world” seemed a bit ethnocentric – I never thought of the Rockies exactly as having world-wide significance. Turns out the phrase is a Blackfoot Indian expression, although that’s never mentioned in the book. In fact, the book is not really about the Continental Divide at all. The Divide makes a few spot appearances, and a minor running theme is the development of the Continental Divide Trail, but all that is tangential to the book. Which is too bad; I was looking for some discussion about the Divide; some natural history, or what makes it special aside from being a line on the map would have been nice.

Prologue: Clifford’s goal is to talk to people who maintain a link to the pioneers and Old West past, as well as to ramble around on the land and muse about how best to preserve the wilderness while keeping some of the Old West spirit. Discussion for several pages about the Continental Divide Trail’s birth, and how he plans to hike it. The prologue ends with him starting the hike from the Mexican border … and you never hear of him hiking the trail the rest of the book. The first chapter starts in Wyoming.

There’s a very weird section in the prologue where Clifford assumes that the mountain west is a place that “extends a helping hand to travelers in need. Isn’t this the place where a warm pot of coffee is always waiting and the refills are free, where the gas stations let you pump first and pay later, where people leave their keys in the car and their front doors unlocked, where the farmer’s field is open to some hunter in the fall …” Umm, no, that would be the Midwest. Actually, people in the Rockies are generally friendly; same as they are everywhere else, but if you’re going in for Old West stereotypes, you should also remember the parts about rustling, shootouts, massacres, vigilantes, and the like. What makes the above passage extra funny is how much it’s belied by Clifford’s experiences in the rest of the book, for example the discussion among some Blackfeet about how to go from Montana to eastern Washington without passing through what they call the “Aryan panhandle” of Idaho, or when he rides shotgun with a meter-reader through a scary, crime-ridden part of rural New Mexico.

Once you exit the prologue, the rest of the book is a good read. Clifford connects with his subjects and does a good job of giving you perspective on all the issues. Lots of rumination about the future of the west, conflict between environmentalists, residents, and hunters. Nothing really profound or that I didn’t already know, but it was fun to listen to.

In brief:

Chapter 1 – Clifford goes on a pack trip through the mountains of northwestern Wyoming with an old-timer surveyor.

Chapter 2 – A visit with an old rancher in Catron County, New Mexico, home to an anti-environmentalist, anti-federal government movement a few years ago. Interesting passage where Clifford suggests that the notoriety for the county is not turning out well. Cheap land and a reputation of being a place where nobody can tell you what to do has attracted more people than the arid land can support, and the “nobody can tell me what to do with my land” attitude only works when population densities are low. Catron County had seven unsolved murders in the two years before the book was written. That’s a huge number for a county of 3500. By the way, I checked the official census estimates and they show the county’s population as growing 40% between 1990 and 2000, and being flat since.

Chapter 3 – Hanging out with a man who is running sheep in the mountains above Vail, Colorado. I didn’t know such people still existed. Not surprisingly, his sheep-herding, coyote-shooting ways do not endear him to the urban-yuppie hikers who traipse through the area.

In passing, Clifford described the towns of Silverthorne and Frisco as “stand-alone suburbs with deceptively exotic-sounding names”. I was curious, so I checked up on the history. Frisco has been around since 1880, although certainly there is nothing left of the original town, either materially or spiritually. Silverthorne is modern; it was founded in the late 1960’s as a tourist destination, although the name is somewhat authentic, as it comes from one of the pioneers in the 1880’s.

Chapter 4 – with the Blackfeet in northern Montana

Chapter 5 – with a game warden in Yellowstone who chases hunters when they cross the line. The issue here is that a number of outfitters set up salt licks fifty yards or so from the park boundaries. The elk, protected in the park and presumably feeling safe there, venture to the salt licks, and boom. Legal, but not very sporting if you ask me, but what do I know.

Chapter 6 – with a former uranium miner in Jeffrey City, Wyoming, site of a major mining operation from the 50’s through the 70’s. Sounds like an eerie place now; built up from scratch fairly late in the century but now mostly abandoned. Not a very happy place. Par for the course – the government and mining companies claimed that the mining was safe, saw no need to implement inexpensive ventilation mechanisms, and paid well so nobody worried too much, until the workers in their forties started dying of cancer.

Chapter 7 – a small cattle drive through the Great Basin of Wyoming.

Chapter 8 – the highlands of northern New Mexico. Scared me away from ever wanting to live there.

Chapter 9 – an old farming family on the bootheel of New Mexico.

Chapter 10 – with an environmental activist in Alberta.