Trimotor and Trail by Earl Cooley, and: A Pictorial History of Smokejumping by Stan Cohen
1985; University of Nebraska Press; Volume: 20; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/wal.1985.0034
ISSN1948-7142
Autores Tópico(s)American Environmental and Regional History
Resumo80 Western American Literature Roger Dunsmore offers startling and somewhat puzzling insights into the character of Black Elk. Born into “the last generation to experience the old way of life on the plains before the bison were gone,” the young warrior served as a scout for the Army, then performed in “Buffalo Bill’s” Wild West show. Apparently, conflicts swirled within the man whose childhood vision haunted him into old age. A convert to Catholicism, he in turn went through a period of evangelizing his tribesmen. Then, after the publication of Neihardt’s book, he made a public and strenuous declaration of his continuing commitment to the Christian faith. But what might seem a contradiction in white men’s terms makes a different kind of sense in a native culture. Contrasting the poverty-stricken Black Elk with “sun-tanned gurus proclaiming Truth in the Astrodome,” Dunsmore reminds us that in the Lakota’s view one does not egotistically pursue other-worldly experiences. Instead, a vision seeks out the man, guar anteeing him nothing but perhaps frustration through a lifetime of wrestling with its bright reality. In the lesson of that struggle, Dunsmore suggests, may lie the central message of Neihardt’s book. PETER WILD, University of Arizona Trimotor and Trail. By Earl Cooley. (Missoula, Montana: Mountain Press Publishing Company, 1984. 204 pages, $14.95.) A Pictorial History of Smokejumping. By Stan Cohen. (Missoula, Montana: Pictorial Histories Publishing Company, 1983. 172 pages, $10.95.) Trimotor and Trail is a narrative memoir of the chief smokejumper, and his life before, during, and after his 38-year forestry career, and the Pictorial History is a good photo log of this exciting phase of the twentieth-century West. Trimotor and Trail takes its name from the fact that the Johnson Flying Service, the private company that made smokejumping a practical reality for the Forest Service, for many years used the old Ford Trimotor planes as their principal back-country workhorse aircraft. This was because of the Trimotor’s ability to fly slow and low with a big load, and to land and take off from short back-country landing strips amid the big mountains. After 58 experimental jumps were made in the fall of 1939, Earl Cooley and Rufus Robinson made the first operational fire-jump on July 12, 1940. The smokejumper project slowly grew, with small bases being set up in Washington, Oregon, northern California, Idaho, and New Mexico as well as the main one in Montana. Cooley continued to be a smokejumper, squadleader , rigger and foreman for eleven years. Then after eight years as a district ranger on wilderness districts, he returned to be director of the para chute project in Missoula for thirteen more years, plus a last hitch as fire equipment development specialist. His book is an anecdotal autobiography with no descriptive flair (one would like to see more of those beautiful Idaho and Montana mountains) but lots of interesting stories of Region 1 Forest Service life. Reviews 81 For example, during World War II, with few able-bodied men available, the smokejumping project would have died except for the willingness of con scientious objectors to work at this hazardous trade for nothing but room and board, and the right to prove their bravery in a non-combat role. Ironically these men were scorned and reviled by the pro-war civilian society and were laid off at the end of the war in favor of returning veterans. Yet they did their jobs very well, while honoring their religious beliefs in nonviolence. (Editor David Flaccus of Mountain Press was one of those men, a fact you won’t find in the volume.) Stan Cohen’s Pictorial History is of course most valuable for its excellent collection of photos. All phases of airborne fire-fighting are well represented in Cohen’s collection of pictures, mostly from smokejumper and Forest Service photographers. Cohen’s writing, though a small part of the book, is clearly from one who has researched the subject rather than lived it, and thus it lacks the insider’s feel that Cooley’s book has. But Cohen does give a good historical coverage. Cooley has provided the words and Cohen...
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