{"product_id":"wild-and-free","title":"Wild and Free","description":"Jack Boudreau  author of the bestselling Crazy Mans Creek and Grizzly Bear Mountain  is back with another wild and wooly  scarcely believable but nevertheless true tale of misadventure in British Columbias northern wilderness. Wild and Free  which Boudreau says is his best book yet  tells the stories of two of Canadas most legendary mountain men--Skook Davidson (who actually has a mountain named after him) and Frank Cooke. Readers of Edward Hoaglands 1966 classic  Notes from the Century Before  will remember Skook Davidson as the \"cranky old man  crippled up with arthritis  cussing into his radio  who gives a report on his wolves instead of his weather  and throws the cork into the creek when he opens a bottle of whiskey so there wont be a way of stopping the fun.\" In Wild and Free the fun rolls on for 240 pages as author Boudreau falls in with Davidsons long-time protege  Frank Cooke  (now 77) and together they reconstruct the old buzzards memorable life.  Davidson came into the remote Kechika valley in northernmost BC as horse packer for the early surveyors  and chose to remain  surrounded only by his own feral horses and the wolves that he found to be congenial enough neighbors. He carved a horse ranch out of some of the worlds most isolated wilderness and supplied guiding  packing and entertainment for virtually everyone who ventured into the region for the next forty years. Cooke was the 17-year-old son of a Prince George policeman when he came to the attention of the authorities after he and a couple buddies decided to hang their teacher. \"They didnt kill him or anything but they made his face turn black and his tongue stuck out \" says Boudreau. \"They said he was a far nicer guy after that.\" Franks father decided to forestall further such experiments by sending him about as far out in the bush as it was possible to go  apprenticing him to Skooks guiding and outfitting business in the faraway Nechika Valley. Skook had his own ways of handling youthful boisterousness. Once when Frank was roughhousing with one of the other hands  Skook sent them out into the 40-below night to work their steam off on the frozen woodpile. They decided to get back at the old man by stuffing a gunnysack down the chimney and smoking him out  but he caught on and took after them with his shotgun  showering them with birdshot as they dove for cover. When Skook left off  they scuttled back to the woodpile and chopped away half the night before he finally let them come in to thaw out. Frank survived Skooks version of tough love and in time bought half his guide line. He became almost as legendary among the worlds outdoorsmen as his mentor  guiding the Prince of Iran  Governor John Connolly of Texas and innumerable other celebrities.","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44884561559605,"sku":"ByrdShop_1894759044","price":47.68,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/ByrdShop_1894759044_747256fa-2818-4a13-ba13-ac421b51b893.jpg?v=1772671321","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/wild-and-free","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}