Pocatello is a word that sounds really cool and just rolls off your tongue. We had driven through pretty Pocatello on the way to Yellowstone and had booked accommodation there for our drive back. Little did we know that Pocatello was an ancient Shoshone Indian chief when we decided to sleep in a traditional tepee for the night!
The Buckskin Outpost was right on the outskirts of town, up the hill, around a hairpin bend and down the slippery dirt track surrounded by pine trees and yellowing aspens. Buckskin is a kit home cabin but aside from the tepee out on the back deck, the most marvellous thing about this cabin is that it was built by a 60yo-ish woman.
One of the highlights of travelling is meeting people. We hadn’t stayed in any one place long enough to strike up a long conversation with anyone, only catching 2 minute chats with taxi drivers and checkout chicks. Meeting Rebecca, the owner and builder of Buckskin, was one of the highlights of our trip.
Rebecca is a natural born storyteller who should have been born 100 years ago in the age of hardworking farmers and real western heroes. Her long greying hair keeps falling out of its loose tie, her eyes sparkle and her curiosity and enthusiasm is infectious. She admits that the locals probably refer to her as the crazy lady.
Her family used to live out on a farm in Idaho and because she collects antiques from salvage yards, she used to cook, “can” and heat bath water on an 1899 wood fire stove. After her divorce, her husband moved on and she made dolls for a living.
Most of Rebecca’s dolls were traditional European versions of Santa Claus and her work was regularly featured in upmarket arts and crafts magazines. It would take her around 24 hours to make each doll, their delicate features sculpted from clay, their intricate clothes made from leather and their realistic hair made from horse hair. Her most famous customers were John Travolta and Kelly Preston and she has an autographed thankyou photograph of the pair with baby Jett and a life-sized Santa she custom made for them. 
Life was busy for Rebecca. She was a single mum raising three kids, a member of the 4H Club and FFA both of which are designed to pass on farming skills to the community’s kids like canning (preserving food), horse riding and roping, raising and showing pigs and marksmanship. She was also still making dolls to feed her kids.
In hindsight Rebecca feels she should have left the farm after the divorce. Being a divorcee in the Mormon state of Utah, was frowned upon and her kids felt like they stood out because they were different and believe they lost out on opportunities later in their education because they weren’t Mormon. As adults they really don’t like Mormons now.
After the kids were grown she decided she wanted to live in the mountains amongst the trees. She sold up her farm and spent 5 years building her cabin, laying each Lodgepole pine to build the walls, tiling and grouting and building stairs, while working a full time job.
The cabin is two storeys and you feel transported back in time as Rebecca’s artistic flair creates the feel of the 1800’s with cowboy hats on hooks with boots in a corner. The kitchen is made up of antique benches, sink, oven and table with jars of preserves lining shelves and cast iron cookware hanging above the sink. The walls are covered in paintings and old photos of Indians and a cow’s skull, complete with horns, resides over the front door. The bathroom was my favourite with a claw foot tub, saloon doors leading into the wc and a dance hall dress hanging in the corner. The dresser was an antique complete with an ornate copper hand mirror oxidised blue with the passage of time.
As part of the town’s tourism commission, Rebecca became involved with the local Shoshone Indians when a statue was to be built commemorating an ancient Shoshone chief called Pocatello. Weekly meetings were held to discuss the statue because nobody knew what he looked like. Five years later, her respect of their culture and her friendship resulted in her adoption by a Shoshone family. Now this daughter of a Baptist preacher prays with Indians, teaches their stories to the local kids and her traditional Shoshone dress hangs by the TV.
A traditional Indian tepee was set up on the wooden deck out the back of the cabin complete with a double air mattress (with electric blanket) and two single cots for the kids. After closing a little gate to keep the moose off the deck, we fell asleep to the sounds of owls hooting but slept through the howling coyotes.
Breakfast was incredible and filling. Rebecca made us a traditional mountain man breakfast that included biscuits (damper scones), German pancakes and griddles of potato, cheese, bell peppers and cheese and fabulous American coffee. Do you know what makes American coffee so good? It’s the “creamer”, half cream and half milk and it makes your coffee sweet and creamy!
I had to hug her when we took our leave of Rebecca. I was taken with her positive attitude to life, and she was as good a listener as she was a storyteller. She respects all life and tears brim in her eyes at all things unfair and wrong. I hope that’s not the last time I see the “crazy lady” from Pocatello.
