September 2022
Arlie Sommer
Still from Idaho Babe film
Video, 7m 50s
Idaho Babe
Idaho Babe is a short, poetic, documentary about the buckaroo legend, Babe Hanson. The film uses collage animation, lighted archival photos, and oral history video interviews with and about Harriet “Babe” Drake Hanson, a queer woman who ran the Sawtooth Lodge at the beginning of the 20th century.
In Idaho Babe, I dive into a favorite pastime: listening to the tall-tales of my grandmother’s childhood in the wilderness of Idaho. Ava Lee Darnielle Lutteman led an unconventional life, fishing, hunting and exploring in the Boise National Forest. Her mother operated a general store in Gardena, ID, outfitting lodges on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River and at Deadwood Reservoir. Her stepfather was a backcountry pilot and Ava was raised to be independent and fearless, riding a horse to her one-room schoolhouse, spitting tobacco and fighting on the playground, and living on the packstring trail, farmed out as a gopher to her mother’s packer women friends. I listened to her stories growing up and they molded me into an independent, adventure seeking character myself.
Some of my favorite stories from Ava are about Babe Hanson. Dubbed the Annie Oakley of Idaho, Babe was a sharp shooter and outdoor adventurer. Babe ran a packstring and was an outfitter and guide in the Boise National Forest and the Sawtooth Mountains. With her brother and husbands (She married twice), she built and ran the Sawtooth Lodge, in Grandjean, ID. Later, she operated the lodge solo. Babe was unconventional and a top cowboy, whose story should be known by anyone interested in western frontier culture.
Included in the film are digital photos, of lighted prints, of screenshots, of a digital copy of a vhs tape, of a print, of film taken on a camera in the 1940s. I created paper cut out and digital stop animation using historic photos by wilderness photographers Robert Limbert, Ted Trueblood, Everett L. “Shorty” Fuller and others, courtesy of the Idaho State Archives, the Boise State Special Collections and Archives, and the Latah County Historical Society.
My research for this film also took me to Horseshoebend, where I and my Grandma Ava were graciously shown around by Deb Marks from the Horseshoe Bend Historical Society. I also visited the pioneer cemetery in Brownly, ID, and the site of my grandmother's family general store in Gardena, ID.
The film features a historic recording of “Put Your Little Foot” by old time fiddler Mary Trotchie of Havare, MT, courtesy of the Library of Congress.
