Wilderness careers land Workmans in Cowboy Hall of Fame

The family name Workman is an appropriate and well-earned moniker for two Eureka locals.

Bill and Gail Workman of Eureka were inducted into the Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center during a ceremony in Great Falls on Saturday night. The event was originally scheduled for February but was postponed due to COVID-19.

The Workmans won a Legacy Award as they are the latest in a long line of horsemen, packers and wilderness adventurers.

Workmans have lived in Montana since 1903, when great grandfather Will Workman homesteaded west of Eureka. They have packed since 1913, when grandfather Charlie Workman began working for the U.S. Forest Service in the Libby Ranger District. His career exceeded 40 years.

Bill's dad is Harry Workman. He was born in 1933 and during high school he worked in the summer as a packer with his father in the Rexford Ranger District. He graduated from Lincoln County High School in 1951, then packed for the National Park Service on the east side of Glacier National Park for three years.

Harry Workman then worked for the Forest Service at the Ant Flat Ranger Station near Trego until he was drafted into the Army in May 1956. After his discharge in 1958, he hunted on the South Fork of the Flathead River in what is now the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex.

That was the beginning of a nearly 60-year career packing and outfitting in "The Bob" for outfitters, including his own outfitting business. With eight years of Park Service and Forest Service experience and 55 years of commercial packing, Harry Workman's career spanned nearly 65 years.

"It still feels weird," Bill Workman said. "When I was younger I thought I might make the Hall of Fame for rodeo, but not for packing."

Bill Workman, 65, said following in his ancestor's footsteps is special.

"We never made a conscious decision about packing as a career, but it has treated us well and I became a permanent packer for the Forest Service a little over 20 years ago," he said.

BILL AND Gail Workman met while competing in high school rodeo in the late 1970s.

"We knew each other before we started dating," he said.

Gail Workman's parents are Ray and Ruth Cole. She was born in Whitefish and raised on a small farm and ranch in Columbia Falls.

After high school, she graduated from Flathead Valley Community College but declined a basketball scholarship at the University of Montana Western and instead married Bill.

Twenty years later, she went back to school at Montana State University Billings and earned a bachelor's degree in elementary education with a minor in special education.

"I taught and coached basketball and then worked as a packer's assistant at Spotted Bear during the summer season," Gail Workman said.

Bill and Gail Workman's daughter Chelsea was born in 1987, and it wasn't long before she joined on the packing trips. She's now in her 40th year packing in the Spotted Bear Ranger District.

After 24 years of teaching and coaching basketball, Gail Workman retired in 2014, but not from packing or making art from horseshoes or old chainsaw chains.

The "Wilderness Worn" items she welds come from shoes worn by horses and mules they've used for packing over the years. She also uses shoes that haven't trekked into the wilderness on the feet of stock animals, but the "Wilderness" brand is what people really prefer to buy.

Gail Workman has welded various creations, including a cactus, a hat rack, wind chimes and decorative hearts.

BUT ALL of those items are just mementos of the thousands of miles spent packing various items into the Bob Marshall Wilderness.

"One time I was kicked in the chest by a mule named Miller," Bill Workman said. "He was pretty wild, and after he kicked me I thought I was OK. But the others weren't so sure and they ended up sending the A.L.E.R.T copter in to get me out."

Bill survived that thumping and it gave birth to a new joke about "Miller Time."

"It just wasn't our kind of 'Miller Time' we preferred," Bill Workman said with a smile.

With an estimated 50,000 miles of trail riding where grizzly and black bears roam along with moose, mountain lions and wolves, one might imagine wild encounters occur on a regular basis. But for the Workmans, it's hardly their story.

"One time I came around a corner and a black bear cub was on the trail," Gail Workman said. "The mule jumped off the trail, but fortunately it was only a 4-foot drop. If it had been 25 feet, things may have turned out much differently."

Bill Workman said he had to put down an injured horse one time and he also recalled a 40-mile day from the Swift Dam Trailhead in the headwaters of the Middle Fork of the Flathead River.

"Taking a pack string through the Middle Fork some of those times could get pretty hairy," Bill Workman said.

Bill and Gail take a lot of pride in supporting those who worked in the backcountry.

"We've packed in trail maintenance crews, firefighters, picked up smokejumpers," Bill Workman said.

He said packing in scaffolding is the worst.

"It's heavy and unwieldy. It sticks out and it can cause issues in certain conditions," Bill Workman said.

"The most weight we ever put on a mule were big hydraulic jacks that were used for repairing bridges. They weighed about 340 pounds," he said.

They've also packed in water tanks, hoses, water pumps, fish and trees. They've packed plenty of tandem loads, too, where two mules are linked together to carry long boards or logs used in bridge or cabin building.

One of the smelliest jobs was packing bear lure, a concoction of cow blood and rotten fish, mixed together and fermented. In 2011, Bill Workman packed 65,000 trees for the Rexford Ranger District.

One memorable event involved him roping and freeing a moose that was caught up in old telephone wire. Another was a real-life reenactment of the wreck in the "Man from Snowy River," with his horse and nine mules coming out of the incident unscathed.

Reporter Scott Shindledecker may be reached at 406-758-4441 or sshindledecker@dailyinterlake.com.