What if?

[Big Fin]

What if Ron Marcoux had not left MT FWP and went to work for RMEF? What if Alex Diekmann had not left his Wall Street career to work for the The Trust for Public Land (TPL). What if a lot of MT FWP old timers had not given the finger to the legislature and supported so many land deals? What if Bob Gibson had not been the Supervisor of Gallatin National Forest and a passionate elk hunter? What if Bob Denee had not been the Region 1 USFS Lands Program Director? What if (insert others who made a huge difference in land conservation in my back yard)?

We are starting some short films about the amazing work so many people did in our backyard that I am sure most folks today take for granted. These are key people, a list too long to name here, that made a huge difference; in essence, the right people in the right place, at the right time. And the product of their work is at risk of being taken for granted.

The list of projects in the northern Yellowstone area is very long - North Crazies, South Cottonwood, Porcupine, Taylor's Fork, Gallatin Consolidation, Madison Range consolidation, Upper Madison Valley, OTO, Dailey Lake/Dome Mountain, Royal Teton, Rigler corridor, Duck Creek, Crystal Cross, Nelson acquisition, and the list goes on. Just those added 76,000 acres of formerly checkerboard private lands to the public estate, plus perfecting access to many times that amount of acreage that was being blocked off by those deeded sections.

Last year, prior to his passing, we were able to interview Bob Gibson. We spent this week filming some of the projects that were the pinnacle of Alex's accomplishments before he passed in 2016 at age 52. Next week I am interviewing some of the others who I watched do remarkable work that just seemed like the right thing to do at the time, and now given the price of lands and demands for exclusive access seem to be absolute genius.

Part of the reason for doing this now is due to Bob and Alex passing without getting their full stories recorded. The other reason is that my entire purpose for our platforms is "To promote self-guided public land hunting and create advocates for that cause." I feel the stories of these relatively unknown people and their amazing work needs to be told to those who think what they enjoy today was always as it is today. What they are enjoying today is the result of a lot of hard work by a lot of people who risked much of their professional careers and in some cases, friendships, to get these completed.

Hopefully those projects and the stories of how they happened will motivate others to do what they can to make a difference today. If nothing comes of our films, that is fine. Doing these will give me a ton of personal gratification to shine light on people who did so much and who I felt blessed to call friends and do what little I could to help them in their efforts.

This map is just one of the many maps in my library of "before and after." onX and RMEF's creative team is helping me touch them up so they are less like crayons and more like a true digital image.

Below is what the Gallatin and Madison Ranges looked like before the many projects that were completed from 1992-2004. All that pink and some of that white was being closed once Big Sky Lumber bought the Plumb Creek Lands. Plumb Creek, the land holding division for lands (mostly checkerboard) acquired over 100 years prior via the railroad land grants, had always allowed public access. Once those lands were sold to BSL, BSL made it clear they did not intend to follow the Plumb Creek legacy. Not only were those lands to be closed, but so were the huge network of trails across those lands that took us deeper into the public lands.

 

[Big Fin]

And here is what it looked like after a decade of hard work. All that lime green became public and access across those newly acquired pieces that took us back to the core of our elk hunting was forever preserved. This was the biggest game changer that I was ever involved with.

Hopefully the legend makes sense. This was an exchange with Big Sky Lumber (Tim Blixeth and Mel McDougal). They ended up with the Yellowstone Club lands, a lot of Moonlight Basin and Jack Creek. The public got all the bright green stuff; 152 sections or around 98,000 acres and perfected access to a lot more acreage that otherwise would have been inaccessible.

The number of elk and elk-hunting days that these lands provide is huge. RMEF was critical in getting this done. Ron Marcoux needs a statue erected of him on the crest of the Gallatin. Alex Diekmann of TPL was the only person able to pull off the final pieces down in Taylor's Fork and deservedly now has a peak in the Madison Range named after him.

 

[Big Fin]

So yeah, "What if?" What if these folks were "too busy" and these threats and opportunities came at inconvenient times? What if the difficulty caused them to walk away and focused on easier stuff? What if they worried about hard feelings from a neighbor, family, or a friend who might have a personal interest in the status quo?

The core of these conservation films we are doing highlights what I think are three common traits to important conservation work; 1) it's always difficult, 2) it's always uncomfortable, and 3) it's always inconvenient.

The first film is the longest we have scheduled, probably about 20 minutes long, is about halfway done, having been working on it for the last eighteen months. It is called "The Dam That Never Was." How some rebellious FWP employees stopped the Yellowstone River from being dammed and de-watered, allowing Paradise Valley south of Livingston to still be a valley and not a reservoir.

These others will be shorter, probably 6-9 minutes, and when taken together, will show how local people did some remarkable things to preserve public lands in a remarkable place, the northern Yellowstone region that is the Gallatin and Madison Ranges.

 

[Sytes]

Look forward to watching the series. Sounds like a great premise for presenting the tough work performed by those who find our land as their lives objective.

 

[JLS]

Can’t wait to see these Randy. How about one on the history of the Robb Ledford, how it came to the public via RMEF, the people involved, and what it’s like today?

 

[ntodwild]

It's difficult to say what if? No way to know but it's always people like this who require "No Recognition" in the first place that typically end up doing these things. I personally don't have the stomach for the political world so I thank those people for doing what they do. It's very hard to quantify the kind of service and dedication that goes into the behind the scenes work being done on behalf of the outdoor community.

Here in Washington (A very liberal state with regulations at every corner) there are many of these same type people who have a passion for battling against the machine in order to make small gains for all of us who enjoy the outdoor lifestyle. It would be a shame not to recognize them and it is nice to honor them from time to time even though their mindset and dedication requires no recognition. It's just who they are.


Big Thanks to all

 

[mdunc8]

Will forever be grateful that this happened. My family and I spend much of our time recreating those once checkerboards areas. In fact, I was just up there last night enjoying a quiet evening on a couple streams with my pup.

 

[Big Fin]

Can’t wait to see these Randy. How about one on the history of the Robb Ledford, how it came to the public via RMEF, the people involved, and what it’s like today?

We shot a lot of video of that project in 2017. We gave the footage to RMEF. I think we still have the raw footage. I'd just need to interview the characters involved, many of whom have passed.

 

[Treeshark]

Fully through my own ignorance, I’ve never heard of a single person you mentioned- I would like to learn more about them so I’m really glad you are doing this.

As a young man I didn’t really care of this type of thing (extremely selfish about most things if I’m being honest), but then learned that my favorite duck hunting area was a result of a DU project that happened many moons ago. Start peeling back the layers of that onion and you begin to realize a lot of people put a lot of effort into projects that benefit other people and things would be much different had they not did what they did!

 

[WyoDoug]

How soon can you get these films out? That aint quick enough. LOL It's very important that people know these stories and learn to appreciate them.

 

[Europe]

So yeah, "What if?" What if these folks were "too busy" and these threats and opportunities came at inconvenient times? What if the difficulty caused them to walk away and focused on easier stuff? What if they worried about hard feelings from a neighbor, family, or a friend who might have a personal interest in the status quo?



and "what if" nobody took the time to put together a film educating the masses, of the work, these fine folks did for all of us

we thank them and we thank you

 

[BigHornRam]

A great short clip of just one project of many that Alex Diekmann was instrumental in getting to the finish line. At around minute 6 he gets some well deserved posthumous recognition for the work he did.

 

[jryoung]

Such a cool project, there are probably thousands of examples like this across the country where one person, one small group or one agency stood up for what was right. So many don't even know the history of the big names like Roosevelt, Grinnell, and Leupold.

The story of the Gibson's and Garland's needs to be told and shared too.

 

[Lv2hnt]

As a resident of state dominated by national forests, I look forward to seeing how you in states with so much private land holdings work to preserve (and build up) public lands ...

 

[Oak]

The core of these conservation films we are doing highlights what I think are three common traits to important conservation work; 1) it's always difficult, 2) it's always uncomfortable, and 3) it's always inconvenient.

Love this.

 

[Big Fin]

Love this.

You would know better than most

 

[elkrchr]

Looking forward to this series of videos. Thanks to you and your team for putitng these short clips together.

 

[Little Big Man MT Chris]

I’m looking forward to this series as well , should be some good time well spent , like others I’ve never heard of the the folks Randy mentioned. But I enjoy learning new stuff , Randy always tells a good story, so the videos should be excellent

 

[Big Fin]

This project and these stories have always been simmering on the back burner. Over the last few months, I have Marcus to thank for relighting a bit more of the fire. It got me to think about our "WHY" and how these stories are perfectly aligned with that WHY. After three years of driving around the west with me, listening to stories about projects we drove past or trailheads from which we hiked or people I talk about, Marcus met with me a couple months ago and pitched his idea. I'm paraphrasing, but it went like this.

M: "You tell about all these landscape stories I find very compelling. I think other people might find them interesting. You know the people; they are your friends. You know most the backstories. If you weren't involved, you know someone who was. When we going to make films out of these?"​

​

Fin: "Yeah, so. We've got a ton of work to do. We're struggling to get a film completed about a dam and the crazy people who got it stopped. How we gonna do 3-4 new projects each year? Let me know where the money tree is growing and I'll go shake it for a while."​

​

M: "Well, once we finish the dam story, we could switch from the super expensive 20-minute films and start doing less expensive 6-9 minute pieces and do more of them. Nobody else has the ability to tell these stories. We should do it. I'll take the lead."​

​

Fin: "I've gotta run to another meeting. Let's talk about it later."​

Marcus knew he was hitting my weak spots. He knew it would get me thinking more about his pitch, and it did. Not sure if he talked to Matthew, but as part of our SWOT analysis, Matthew identified one of our strengths as the value provided by decades of conservation involvement and the stories that came from that. Matthew also pushes me to do these stories when we can finance them internally.

Financing "WHY" projects is a reality that falls on my shoulders. We've talked about how our food and conservation content has lower views. When we have meetings and the topic of lower performing videos comes up, I usually respond with, "I don't care. Food and conservation are important to me and our brand. If they don't pay for themselves, I'm still doing them. Just part of how I'm gonna run this joint."

That reply gets the crew smiling. They know I won't let the numbers get in the way if the project is something important to me, as this is. They are all in. I am lucky they share my same passion for that part of what we do. So long as we can make payroll and tell the stories we think are compelling, that is what we are going to do.

So, this project has gone from something I've been talking about for a decade to something that will get done, mostly thanks to Marcus and his understanding of how to get me wound up. And due to the talent we have. Three of our seven guys have Masters of Fine Arts in Science and Natural History Filmmaking from Montana State; Marcus, David, and RJ. These guys know how to make a film. I just need to get the hell out of their way, find the funding, give them the backstories and overall message, then let them put it together.

A 20-minute film is a $50-80K project. Finding that kind of funding in the outdoor space is hard. As such, we've lost our butts on the films we have done, with the exception of Rain Deer, which was a break even, thanks to Leupold, Sitka, and B&C. The films Close, Uncommon Ground, and our new film coming out in two weeks, Selfless, are all money pits. Fun and fulfilling money pits, but money pits nonetheless. Fortunately Mystery Ranch and Wild Sheep Foundation helped make Selfless a smaller money pit.

A 6-9 minute film will be more of a $15K hard cost. Presenting them as short chapters in a much bigger overall story about common people doing uncommon work is unique and gives me confidence I can get some of those funded. If not, well, it will fall in with the many other projects we've done in this endeavor that cost more than hoped.

Summary; thanks to Marcus for knowing how to get me on board with his idea to capitalize on the twenty-five years of conservation stories that exist in our office. Fingers crossed we can get it done and the crew can still get a paycheck.

 

[406LIFE]

"I don't care. Food and conservation are important to me and our brand. If they don't pay for themselves, I'm still doing them. Just part of how I'm gonna run this joint."

Who you are and what you do for our mutual passions makes me feel indebted to you, to those you highlight. Those with a "damn the torpedoes" attitude sometimes hit one, but when they break through, films like Rain Deer and Uncommon Ground are made and those impacted are ignited into other firebrands for the cause. I hope to see more films, and more advocates.

Thanks, Randy.