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| Kim Kenney at home in Winthrop with his new, historic sheep camp. |
(This story originally appeared in the Sept. 5 issue of The Methow Valley News.)
Maybe
it’s memories of a childhood running around the high desert of northern Nevada.
Maybe it’s the photos and stories of his grandfather’s sheep camp in the
Colorado mountains. Perhaps it’s the urge to cleanse himself of a life of
extravagance and corporate excess.
It
is most likely all of these factors, combined with an inquisitive mind and love
of western history, that drove Kim Kenney on a quest for his very own bona fide
sheep camp - a portable home that in this case can be dated back to 1932,
according to its new owner.
Kenney
returned to Winthrop recently after a five-day, 960-mile journey to Kinnear,
Wyo. to purchase the sheep camp, stopping over in Sheridan to pick up a canvas
range tent on the way.
“It’s
called a sheep camp [not camper or trailer] because everything a sheep herder
needed for summer on the range would have been inside,” Kenney said.
He
had been looking for a sheep camp for a long time, he said, and finally
found his after a worldwide search on craigslist.
Upon
meeting the camp’s prior owner, Matt Gustin, in Wyoming, Kenney realized he had known Gustin's mother, Ann, when they were children at a one-room schoolhouse of
18 pupils in Denio, Nev., around 1960.
“How
strange is it that after childhood in the middle of nowhere, we meet up again
in Wyoming because of an old sheep camp,” he marveled.
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| A range tent would have been part of any working sheep camp. |
Still a working camp
Both
Gustin, who had owned the camp for three years, and the original owners had
been “interested in maintaining the heritage of this vehicle,” Kenney said.
It was “a working camp” on the Lazy H
X-Bar Ranch near Sheridan Wyo., until being sold in an estate auction three
years ago, Kenney said. The camp was listed on estate sale documents at the
time, but unavailable for viewing because it was still in use up on the range,
he added.
Based
on his research on sheep camps and how they were used around the west, Kenney
believes that it - along with a commissary wagon loaded with supplies - would have
been towed into the high country every summer to provide mobile housing for a
sheepherder, probably of Basque origin.
Kenney
carries a circa 1900 photograph of his own grandfather’s horse-drawn sheep
wagon, “the original recreational vehicle,” he quipped.
His
grandfather, Ira Wood, was “steeped in sheep culture,” that the family had brought
with them from England, Kenney said. Grandfather Wood homesteaded near Craig, Colo., and
left his wife and three children most of every summer to herd sheep in the
mountains. “It was a rough way to make a living.”
Kenney’s
camp has the loaf-shaped domed roof and white exterior that is standard for
what he calls “the second generation” of camps that were built after
the turn of the century. It is not plumbed or wired, but has a two-burner cast
iron wood stove that provides both heat and a cooking surface.
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| Knotty pine and a ranch brand add to the camp's aura of history. |
The
interior is completely finished in wood, with ample windows and a skylight to
brighten the space.
The
camp is loaded with built-in drawers and cabinets for storage. A platform bed -
spread with a woven wool blanket from Methow Valley Woolens - is marked with
the Lazy H X-Bar brand; beneath the bed is a slide-out table, more storage, and
an emergency exit hatch in case of fire.
Kenney
plans to do some work on the camp, including putting vintage Model A wheels on
the single axle, replacing the modern plastic skylight with one of glass, and
retrimming the exterior with scrap barn wood offered to him from the Shafer
Museum.
Essentially,
he said, the camp is “in perfect working order” and “towed beautifully at 60
miles per hour” behind his pickup from Wyoming to Winthrop.
The
single-axle trailer was a big selling point for Kenney because many of the
classic sheep camps on the market still come with four wheels - wagon style -
and “wag if you go down the road very fast. It’s hard to find one that can be
trailered at highway speed,” he said.
A different life
The
sheep camp attracts a crowd wherever he takes it, said Kenney. “I knew it would
be an item of interest to people, but it’s really more than I expected,” he added.
On
the trip home from Wyoming, Kenney found himself camped among million-dollar
RVs at Yellowstone National Park. “Somebody [from one of those RVs] said, ‘I
think you are having more fun than we are,’” he recalls.
Kenney,
whose handlebar mustache and broad straw hat belie his “former life of
extraordinary opulence,” said that purchasing the sheep camp is part of a new
focus on the non-material, spiritual meaning of life.
He
moved to Winthrop eight years ago to become the full-time caregiver of his parents,
Mary and Frank Kenney.
Before
that he had a varied career, investigating waste, fraud and abuse at the
Seattle office of the U.S. Government Accountability Office during the Reagan
administration; as a CPA at Price Waterhouse; as a management consultant under
three different Washington governors; and working for Craig McCaw - the
Seattle-based cellular telephone pioneer - who sent Kenney to Bogotá, Colombia
in the early 1990s to provide expertise to billionaire Julio Mario Santo
Domingo and set up the Celumóvil company.
During
his time in Colombia he got to know many powerful people including the
Colombian president, and Ingrid Betancourt, the high-profile presidential
candidate who was held captive by the FARC for over six years. The U.S. State Department
advised Kenney “not to get taken,” he said.
“I
had a penthouse apartment, armed drivers, helicopter transport, private jets -
I was treated like a prince,” said Kenney of his time in Bogotá. “After years
of living that way, I decided it wasn’t all that fulfilling.”
Having
“made the decision to scrap that life,” Kenney has been shedding material and
spiritual burdens in Winthrop while “developing a sense of humor” and
perspective around caring for his aging parents.
“I
have gotten to enjoy the fine things in life,” Kenney said. “I no longer want
to have my life revolving around material possessions. If I have nothing left
but this sheep camp in my elder years, I’ll be completely happy.”
