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Yellowstone Chip
Chip Samuell loved Montana where his family homesteaded in Hedgesville. He was from a musical family and began calling himself Yellowstone Chip, Montana's Singing Cowboy, following his stint as a Yellowstone Park stage driver. He served in the Marines during WWI, had a radio show in Minneapolis in the 1930s, working at several dude ranches in the West, including the OTO near Yellowstone National Park. He was a first class wrangler and entertainer.
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Chip wanted to be out on his own when the family arrived in Montana to homestead. For a time in the early nineteen hundreds Chip herded cattle, hunted and trapped and drove a stage in Yellowstone National Park. His family didn't always know quite where he was or what he was doing. Here is one of his stories.
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Lost in a Mountain Blizzard
Cliff and I had discovered a good place to get a crack at some good game herds. It was also a good spot where we could lay in a supply of trout to freeze for the winter. They are mighty good in any camp in the winter months and so easy to keep by just pouring them in a tub or half barrel, cover them over with water and leave them outside overnight and thirty below will do the rest. You pour hot water over the outside of the barrel and out comes a block of solid frozen fish. When you want one just take your hunting axe and break one out and thaw him for frying. He’s just like you had taken him out of a cold water lake.
This place was a long way from camp which would take one day on webs or skis to reach and it was on top of the range. It was a small little stream with pockets of pools. There were plenty of trout and we planned on getting them by dynamiting the pools.
We left camp without our usual trapping gear, though we had our rifles, six guns, skis and webs, hunting axes and one heavy six pound blanket each. We had enough grub to last us two days, made up mostly in sandwiches. After hard going all day when we were near to reaching our spot we ran into one of the toughest blizzards I have ever experienced. If you have never bucked one of these high mountain blizzards where all signs of landmarks are washed away, then you couldn’t understand what flirting with death every minute means. Besides avalanches, slick gorges, falling rock and no food, the possibility of breaking a leg and many other hazzards, you
just have to be a damn fool or have God on your side to come through such.
We camped that night and trying to keep a fire going I ate most of my food thinking by morning it would stop and we could make it back to camp the next day. We could kill a deer or some grouse and have food. But not so, it was almost unbearable, though we knew we must keep going.
Not realizing the storm had driven all foul and game down to lower elevations we bucked it all day hoping that we might be on the right track back to camp. Because I had eaten my last sandwich long before, Cliff wanted to share his with me that second night. I refused and would have died of starvation rather than do so. He had carried it so long maybe knowing better than I how valuable it could be to a hungry trapper in distress.
By the next morning our storm was still just as bad and we hadn’t the slightest idea of where we were. We had never sighted a living thing, even the little chipmunks had gone into shelter.
At the end of that day before it got too dark we came to a fork of the river which we were sure was the two Boulder Rivers coming together. There were many wind falls so we made camp back away from them. Some were in a great pile which we set on fire. We made a lean-to of spruce bows and poles with plenty of bows for a mattress. There was times when the fire got so
hot we would have to get out and walk back from it. Having lived the past two days on spruce gum, we certainly had no excess weight to carry.
The storm that night was the fiercest I have ever seen. The wind blew a regular gale near all night but just as daylight was beginning to show we got our first sense of direction. As it cleared near as fast as it had come up we moved out of our lean-to. A buck deer jumped out from behind a large spruce tree not too far from the fire which had now near burned itself out. This deer had stood in his tracks, in the swirl of that spruce tree where the wind kept the snow from piling, near all night. Evidently to get the warmth of the fire in the storm. Maybe he was as hungry as we were but he still had strength enough to move fast to keep us from getting a shot at him.
As the sun came up nice and clear we knew we were on the forks of the Boulder which was just about fourteen miles from our camp headquarters. Of course we had to climb to the top of Monument Peak for our camp was just at the base on the other side.
That day came as near making me give up all hope of making camp as any I have ever spent. But that old wooly Cliff kept saying, “We are just getting started, never give up, that’s the last thing a man ever wants to say.”
And while he said that, I wondered if I were a man, for if ever two lived it was sure he
was both of them. Never have I ever known one with such courage and stamina as that old buddy Cliff. Never got excited. His head seemed to always have a cool gear that shifted into high just
when he needed it most.
About three o’clock that afternoon we reached the top of Monument Peak where we saw our second living thing since the storm started. It was a big blue grouse and Cliff shot him almost the instant he saw him. Though only a mile all downhill to camp we built a fire, skinned him and stuck him on a stick. I still say the fire never got to warm him. We ate him raw and if you don’t think he tasted like a dinner in a good ranch mess hall, just ask my stomach. It still remembers that
wonderful grouse.
I’m sure without men like my old buddy Cliff there would be much of our pioneer history missing. For the weak ones never lived to tell of the extreme hardships endured in making this great nation and the world.
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This is a 000-28 Martin Guitar. It was made in 1936. Chip etched western brands into the top of the guitar. He most likely bought this as a new guitar in 1936 and it begins showing up in his personal photos after that time. Click on his guitar to see closeup photos of the brands.
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This is a photo of Chip's Martin guitar.
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