Bighorn Project

The Wood River near Kirwin, September 2001 –Photo: P.J. Hughes
Bob Edgar in Old Trail Town – June 2001 – Photo: House of Commons

Video Frame from December 2000 – South Fork Shoshone River -The first video shot -Photo: House of Commons

The Bighorn Project actually began when I met Bob Edgar for the first time in Cody Wyoming in 1993. Bob Edgar and I had a chance to spend some time together. During that time I became aware of Bob’s interest in the Old West, particularly the Bighorn Basin area where he had grown up.

Time passes as it does, thinking that Bob might provide wonderful material for a documentary, I contacted him with this idea, and we began a relationship that has resulted in a number of trips to the region to document Bob and the Bighorn's many stories.

Dave Kelleher & Ed , South-East of Cody – Photo: P.J. Hughes

I was aware that Bob was a collector of stories of the early gunfighters of the region. After we began to do the first interviews, his knowledge and interest in the area became apparent. He was a storyteller, an author, archaeologist, and historian, working on his discovery of Mummy Joe, who lived in the Bighorn Basin over ten thousand years ago.

Re-enactors on the Main Street of Old Trail Town – June 2001 –Photo: House of Commons

As the collection video began to grow, it all seemed a rather disconnected and a random happening. As the process continued, I realized that the locations that Bob was sharing with us were in fact many of the places that he had discovered when he was a young man. The Buffalo jump on the land of the Crow Nation, the old cabin in the Oregon basin, part of an old coal mine, a several hundred year old summer tipi in the mountains on the Pitchfork Ranch, these are several the places that were favorites of Bob’s discoveries.

The journey in making this documentary production has in itself become a great adventure. Fording the Wood River on our way to Kirwin, an abandon gold mining town, high in the mountains west of Meeteetse Wyoming, going to the Crow Nation and getting stuck in snow in Prior Gap, (miles from nowhere, and of course, cell phones don’t work!), and the adventure in the “red mud” that will hide under the truck forever. It came from shooting at the Willow Creek Ranch in the eastern Bighorn, the site of the actual “Hole in the Wall”.

The Red Mud at Willow Creek Ranch, March 2001 – Photo: House of Commons

Recording Sound Effects, Wood River September 2001 - Photo: House of Commons

The project has evolved from its simple beginnings, into the story of the Bighorn Basin, the last area to be settled in America. It covers the time before early man, and includes the early Native Americans, the first Trappers and Explorers, Outlaws and Cowboy’s, Ranchers, and the settling of Cody and the Bighorn Region. We have been fortunate to interview Joe Medicine Crow, from the Crow Nation during Pow Wow in Cody, and others from the region.

Joe Medicine Crow, with Bob after his Interview,
Buffalo Heart Mountain in the Background – June 2001 –Photo: House of Commons

With the cooperation the cooperation of the Park City Historical Society in Cody Wyoming we have been able to archive many images of the early and developing region. The Buffalo Bill Historical Center is also another source of material for the production, as well as the Wyoming State Archives.

Cody Railroad – Early part of the Century –Photo: Park City Historical Society

The production is being shot in DVCAM using an anamorphic process to be released on DVD, with a version edited for television. During most of the production still photographer P.J. Hughes traveled along with us giving us an opportunity to produce a soft or hard cover volume that chronicles the production that could be sold separately or bundled with the DVD. The production is now in the initial post-production phase, with some pickup shots to be completed.

Conference about Buffalo Grass – Old Trail Town
(And the camera does what?) Photo: House of Commons

Bob on the job on the Board Walk at Old Trail Town, June 2001 – Photo: House of Commons