"Born into every generation are a few restless souls who long for adventure. In the early 1800s this wild breed became mountain men who headed up the Missouri, crossed the Rock-ies and continued west, hunting, trapping and exploring as they went.One mountainman,reflecting the general attitude of the day, wrote, 'We found the richest place for beaver we had yet come across, and it took us forty days to clean that section.' Valley by valley, stream by stream, the mountain men elimina...

"Early-day women of the West are depicted in fading photographs: a gaunt, bonneted figure in a long dress walking beside a wagon, baby cradled in her arms, children scattered behind, a woman, looking older than her years, stirring lye soap over an open fire, a dancehall girl on stage, miners watching her every move....Letters and diaries tell the details of these women's existence, the sorrow of being uprooted from family and friends, the yearning for companionship of other women, ...

"The storyteller spins a web of fantasy while the campfire sends a shower of sparks leaping into the night sky to drift among the ancient stars. It is in this manner that the history of mankind has been passed from one generation to the next. In North America the native people formed their cultures and spiritual beliefs through stories. Stories described the origins of earth and mankind, of floods, fires, hunts, wars, heros, the supernamral, myths and legends. Young people knew what had ha...

"According to popular theory the first inhabitants of north America arrived during the last Ice Age. Between 15,000 and 40,000 years ago people are believed to have crossed from Asia to North America on a natural land bridge, where the Aleutian Island chain now exists.These people migrated south, hunting mastadons and mammoths, giant ground sloths, camels and long-horned bisons. They ate the meat and used the hide for clothing and shelter. Their weapons consisted of rocks and obsid...

"Sir Francis Drake, the daring English pirate, was the first European to sail the stormy North Pacific. ln 1579, after having raided the Spanish settlements of South America, he sought to escape up the coast through an inland waterway that would return his ship, the Golden Hind, to the Atlantic Ocean.In his wake came other explorers. They soon concluded a Northwest Passage did not exist and turned their attention to exloiting the natural resources of the region. Trade was initiated...

The inspirational first person story of a young dog sled racer who had to overcome incredible odds to compete: she is legally blindFor more than eleven years, twenty-one-year-old Rachael Scdoris has been guiding teams of sled dogs across jagged mountain ranges, frozen rivers, dense forests, and desolate tundra at speeds exceeding twenty mph. Not only is Rachael the youngest athlete to ever complete a 500-mile sled dog race mile, but she is also legally blind and has...

The true story of one man's incredible journey. Dave Franke might have been content to lead the life of a simple cowboy. But he believed in the American Dream, started a construction company and rode the crest of a building boom to the pinnacle of success. When the Great Recession hit and interest rates topped 24 percent, he lost it all. He drowned his failures with alcohol. Then one day, out on the broad sweep of the desert, God and Satan had a fistfight over his alcoholic soul. This is a...

At the 1911 Pendleton Round-Up, the Saddle Bronc Championship of the Northwest came down to three men of different skin colors - Jackson Sundown, a Nez Perce Indian, John Spain, a white man from pioneering stock, and George Fletcher, an African American. Red. White. Black.What happened that September Day in 1911 - the judges' decision and the reaction of the crowd in the aftermath - forever changed our history, and the way the sport of rogeo, and the emerging West, was to look at it...

This true contemporary story reads like pages ripped from a dime novel. All-Around rodeo cowboy, Mac Griffith, is gunned down after a barroom brawl. The shooter is arrested and charged with murder. At the ensuing trial, a cast of truly colorful western characters parade to the witness stand. It is their testimony—what they have to say and what they are not allowed to say—that leads the jury to make its ultimate decision.After a half-century this case is revisited, and this time thos...

The names of the gunfighters are legendary: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Doc Holliday, Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, Henry Plummer, Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill Hickok.... These men, and others like them, epitomize the image of the Wild West.The gunfighting era was born in the late 1830s when Samuel Colt patented his single-barreled pistol with a revolving bullet chamber.But the gunfighter was not common on the frontier until after the Civil ...

"The names of the gunfighters are legendary: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Doc Holliday, Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, Henry Plummer, Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill Hickok.... These men, and others like them, epitomize the image of the Wild West.The gunfighting era was born in the late 1830s when Samuel Colt patented his single-barreled pistol with a revolving bullet chamber.But the gunfighter was not common on the frontier until after the Civil War w...

"Mountain men and fur traders were the first to travel the route that would one day become the Oregon Trail. In their wake came missionaries who wrote letters and reports describing the far side of the continent and praising the mild climate, healthful conditions and the deep, fertile soil.Historians recognize 1843 as the official beginning of the Oregon Trail.That spring a group of a thousand land-hungry pioneers with 120 wagons and 5,000 head of cattle departed from Elm Grove, Mi...