Submitted photo
The shepherds that tended flocks in Montana's Bear Paw Mountains are long gone, but thanks to a Minnesotan's talent, their wagons roll on.
Victor Mord, who lives outside Birchdale, in extreme northwest Minnesota, restores the former sheep wagons. He also creates and rebuilds chuck wagons, buggies and bob sleds.
"I grew up in north-central Montana. I worked for a big rancher out there. He had about eight, nine (sheep) camps."
The herders lived in the mountains in wagons from spring to fall while they tended their flocks, and Mord, a teenager at the time, brought supplies to them.
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"I hauled water and groceries out to those herders." When the sheep ranchers sold their herds the wagons were abandoned, Mord says.
"These wagons were standing where they were left and they just started falling apart and I had a hankering to restore them.
"Some of them there was nothing left of them, hardly. I just started tearing them down and putting them back together."
When Mord graduated from high school and left Montana in 1995, the sheep wagons stayed. But over the next several decades, Mord, who managed grain elevators in the Dakotas and Minnesota, visited his native state and began collecting his wagons.
Hobby
In his spare time he continued to work on restoring them. Mord's collection grew as he found parts of other abandoned wagons, including the running gears of two that the Matador Land and Cattle Co. used in the 1800s when its cowboys drove cattle from Texas to Montana.
Now retired and living on the Rainy River near Birchdale, Mord spends five to six hours on the wagons, building them from the ground up. He doesn't draft any plans for the wagons, but relies on 50 years of experience.
"I've made enough of them, I have it upstairs."
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"I've got woods on my place. I saw the lumber then take it to a sawmill. I give them the measurements," Mord says, noting that the boards have to be custom-made to fit the wagon. The inside of the wagons are outfitted with a stove, bed and table and some even are wallpapered.
"It's a good nine-month project."
The wagons, sell from $6,500 to $9,500.
Versatile"Mostly women buy them," Mord says. "We sold one out in Idaho - a gal had 40 acres up in the mountains with no cabin and she bought it for a cabin." Meanwhile, another woman bought one to use as a bed-and-breakfast.
The half dozen wagons Mord has on his farm sometimes are used in parades. The wagons are made so the wooden wheels can be converted to rubber tires, depending on if they are horse-drawn or pulled by a motorized vehicle.
Though Mord puts a lot of time into his projects, he doesn't consider it a business and relies on word-of-mouth for advertising.
"It's just a hobby. I just kind of fool with that stuff."
