for the Gathering, which is a non-prof-
it organization. “We pride ourselves on
keeping it authentic,” Cadden said.
“We make it welcoming and comfort-
able for the storyteller – the storyteller
is the focus. The poets have to be
working cowboys and ranchers to be
able to perform as a storyteller – a CD
and a bio are required for submission.”
The term ‘working cowboy’ is more
inclusive than it sounds and applies to
more than just roping cattle and start-
ing horses. *
“Ross Knox is a poet in the broader
category – he’s a mule packer extraor-
dinaire,” said Cadden. Originally from
Oregon, Knox is one of the “elders” of
the Elko Poetry Gathering. He had a
reputation for knowing hundreds of
old poems, so the organizers brought
him into the fold of the first Elko event.
(“Knox is also known locally because
he has cowboyed Out Here quite a
bit,” Cadden said.)
Knox was a typical working cowboy
who moved around with the work and
ended up settling in Arizona. An
opportunity arose at the Grand
Canyon National Park as a private
contractor providing a particular serv-
ice to the park. The job came with a
house about 100 yards from the edge
of the Grand Canyon and a barn full
of mules. Seven days a week Knox – or
one of his part-time employees, if he
took a rare day off – packed these
mules full of supplies and headed down
into the heart of the Grand Canyon to
a place called Phantom Ranch.
Now, Phantom Ranch isn’t a ranch
like West Texans think of a ranch. It’s
just some rustic cabins built in 1922, a
small general store and a canteen. The
only ways to get there are by river raft,
hiking, or by mule. (Phantom Ranch is
its own 1% club, as less than one per-
cent of Grand Canyon visitors make it
down to the ranch.)
Employees stay at the ranch for
days at a time and require food; the
general store needs supplies; and the
mail needs to run back and forth. The
park doesn’t allow burning or burying
of trash, so everything that’s brought
down has to come back up, albeit per-
haps in a different form. The maxi-
mum number of mules allowed is
seven and the average trip there and
back is eight or nine hours, if all goes
well. This is done 365 days a year, no
matter if it’s hot as Hades or snowing
balls. Note: This is not the tourist trail
to Phantom Ranch – the “working”
route is different from the visitor route
and is much more dangerous. The
steep trail is narrow, with drop-offs to
one side of hundreds of feet. The mules
walk on the outside edge of the trail so
as not to drag their pack on the inside
wall. The switchbacks are hairpin-
tight, and the mules have to dance
around back and forth in place on
their feet to accommodate the turns.
Knox did this job for 17 years in all
types of conditions and had to be res-
cued by helicopter three times due to
injury. Cadden and his wife, Pam
Cook, traveled out to the Grand
Canyon one time to visit Knox and
make the supply trek with him.
Cadden said he could only describe it
as terrifying. “It was a harrowing expe-
rience. You couldn’t have paid me
enough to do that job, but Knox loved
it.”
Sources of the poetry are as varied
as the poems themselves. Green
Berets, paratroopers, Marines, pub-
lishers of award-winning novels and
writers of songs recorded by Kenny
Rogers, The Oak Ridge Boys and
Dianna Ross are just a few examples of
poets. Bruce Kiskaddon, whom many
consider to be the cowboy poet laure-
ate of America, left the cowboy life
behind and went to Hollywood to get
into film work in the 1920s. He sup-
ported himself by being a bellhop in an
elevator, which some considered a
tragedy. However, tale tells it that
Kiskaddon carried a pencil behind his
ear and wrote down memories
throughout the time of wearing a
“monkey suit.” It’s been said that some
of the greatest cowboy poetry came out
of that elevator.
Ranches are oftentimes a blending
of generations. For those of us who
come from more urban areas without
long ties to rural life, sometimes the
struggles and viewpoints of the people
in the hinterlands are unknown to us.
Cowboy poetry opens a window to a
culture lost in the obscurity of ranch
folk and country people. The stories
expose outsiders to a perspective which
is largely rural and conservative, shar-
ing the loneliness and hardships on the
trails of the past as well as more mod-
ern struggles against government (or
continued on page 20
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