Tales of Swan Valley outfitters - Tom Parker

SWAN VALLEY – Tom Parker was the final speaker at the Aug. 3 Upper Swan Valley Historical Society (USVHS) program Guides and Outfitters of the Swan Valley. His talk was punctuated by comments from old-time outfitter Leonard Moore.

Parker said he was 21 years old when he decided he wanted to be an outfitter. He was living in the Bitterroot area at the time. A hunting trip into the Bob Marshall Wilderness with his own horses and mules confirmed his career decision. He moved to the Swan Valley the following spring.

Moore interjected, "You were a little green." To which Parker replied, "It takes a long pack trip to get the greenhorn off."

Parker continued, "I wanted to get in the outfitting business, but you needed a fair amount of money – those outfits were $50,000 or more. I worked for a construction company in Helena to make my grubstake."

According to Parker, in the 70s the outfitting industry was active and constituted a fairly large part of the economy of Swan Valley, Seeley Lake and Ovando. He made a point of getting to know all the old-time outfitters and to spend time probing them for information about the South Fork area and listening to their outfitting stories.

Parker said, "That insight and love for the country that they imparted to me with all their rich stories and history did much to enrich and make my career much more interesting and rewarding. I wanted to see it all, understand and experience the magic that these guys were talking about."

Barbara Burns with the Bob Marshall Wilderness Ranch Outfitters was the first person Parker approached to try to get a job as a horse wrangler. Her husband Virgil was on a trip at the time and she turned Parker down, saying they were looking for someone with more experience. Over Labor Day weekend that same year (1975), Parker packed in to Koessler Lake with his horses and mules. He said it was 80 degrees when he left but in the mountains a snowstorm hit and dumped 18 inches of snow. Coming back over the pass, Parker ended up behind another pack string, which turned out to belong to Virgil Burns. Barbara was there also.

The weather was so bad, as Parker explained it, "Their guests were basically getting hypothermic. It was a blizzard. I mean a whiteout – the spruce and subalpine firs were plastered clean into the barb with wind-driven snow and ice. That was their American Forestry Association Trail Trip and they had a lot of old folks. These people were hypothermic and shakin' and they'd been tryin' to get a fire goin.' And I looked around and I seen these folks are in trouble, so I said, 'You guys need a fire built.' They said, 'Yeah, but you're not going to get one built.' I said, 'You gimme a minute.' So I get on the lee side of the big subalpine fir and there's a big whitebark pine stump there that I knew would burn like diesel fuel and I rolled that thing out a ways so it wouldn't set that tree on fire and I had some stuff to get a fire in my pocket, and I found some kindling and got the stump lit. And before long people are getting' dried out and warmed up. And everybody was huddled around that fire and Barbara said, "Didn't you ask me about a job this summer?" I said, 'Yes' and she said, 'You're hired.' That's how I got that job with Burns."

Parker worked for Burns the full 1976 season. He described Burns as a young, cowboy bronc rider from Colorado. He expected a lot from his crew.

According to Parker, "You had to shoe your own string. We all had a nine-head mule string. These mules, he'd buy 'em at the sale for five bucks and they had brands from their hind foot to their nose. They'd been turned over a hundred times. And I'm here to tell you, if you made it through the season, you knew how to shoe a mean mule and you could pack 'em anywhere."

Moore interrupted to urge him to tell about the horses.

Parker said, "[Burns] had a rule on the ranch at that time. Basically, we were pullin' string on horses that were broncs. Because that's how he wanted 'em. And he wanted 'em broke. The rule was, if you hit the ground off a horse, it didn't matter if it reared over backwards or bucked you off, you bought a case of beer for the outfit. Well, let me tell you, the deductions were high out of our pay checks."

Parker went on to add that the wranglers covered for each other whenever they could. If Burns didn't see it, nobody told, because their paychecks were meager as it was without a bunch of deductions. Parker later added, "The big payoff in outfitting is mostly in scenery and relationships, not in cash, I can tell you that."

After that year with the Burns', the Carlsons offered Parker a position as outfitter for the Diamond Bar L Ranch at Lindbergh Lake. He worked out of the Big Salmon campground until the Carlsons sold it to Lloyd Hahn. Parker is currently the owner of Buck Creek Guide Services.

As some of the previous speakers had pointed out in their talks, Parker reiterated that outfitting was definitely not a way to get rich. He said the overhead was high and more than one outfitter ended up selling off their ranch and most of their assets, just to try to stay in the business.

Moore shook his head knowingly and said, "You stayed in it 'til you were broke."

Parker said there are two reasons you stay in the business: the places and the people. He said, "The landscape kinda gets a hold of you. Its infectious and it stays with you and you just want to see the rest of it."

When he talks about the people, Parker not only means the customers he shares the scenery with, but also the people he has worked with throughout his career, and especially the people who worked for him.

Parker said, "Any outfit, I don't care where you are, you'd better have some rock-solid help behind you and underneath you. The people you have with you had dang well better have a diverse skill set."

Some of the skills Parker pointed out were guidance counselor, marriage counselor, horseshoer, animal vet, not to mention the ability to figure a way out of complicated situations that invariably happen in the worse spots possible.

Parker ended, "I feel really privileged to have worked with a really great bunch of people over the years. I wouldn't trade it for anything and I feel very fortunate and privileged to still be able to do it. I can't tell you how much I value these folks I've worked with and the country I've seen and all the relationships over the years."

Moore got in the last word and summed up the whole USVHS Guides and Outfitters program: "I've had a good day tellin' these things. It's been great."