I spent a couple of days last week down in Arkansas White River country, ending up all the way down in Mt. View, restocking some my outdoor books. While at Mt View I stopped in a woodcarvers shop and I haven’t seen anything like it since I first saw Peter Engler’s carvings at Silver Dollar City in 1968. The woodcarvers name is Randall Head, and all around the grounds where is shop is found, there are huge carvings, many life-sized and spectacular. Eagles and wildlife carvings are everywhere, from songbirds to mountain lions. He is one of the most unusual people you will ever talk to and one of the most talented.

Many carvers do great work but few do great carvings so quickly and so many of them. It took me an hour to look at all of them. I am going to display some of his work in my Big Piney nature center-museum but if you get close to Mt View Arkansas, where they have the big state park-folk center and are known as the folk music, blue-grass center of the Ozarks, you have got to see the work he does. I would have driven down to Mt. view just to see him and his work. Call him to find out when he is in his shop. I started to write ‘call ahead’! Randall Head’s number is 309-413-8025.

On your way to Mt. View stop at a place on the main highway about a mile or so east of Mt. Home called Rivertown gallery, to see the work of one of the most talented wildlife and outdoor artists I have ever met, a long standing friend of mine who is a river guide, stream ecologist and an artist whose work is beyond description. He is Ozark native Duane Hada. On his walls are painting of the Buffalo, the White and Ozark wilderness, plus smallmouth bass, trout and elk that seem to be alive as you look at them. See his work on his website (Duane Hada) and you will be in awe of what you see. Fantastic!

What is even more amazing than his work is the kind of man Duane is, a great conservationist! When I go there and meet with him it is difficult to tear myself away. I am going to try to get him to paint a river mural on the inside wall of the Big Piney nature center. I want to get him up there to float the Big Piney this fall, and if he accepts, readers can go along, to meet and talk with a legendary wildlife artist.

There is a third place you ought to see if you visit North Arkansas, a place on the White River that trout fishermen all over the country know about… Gaston’s resort. Jim Gaston, who made the resort something special, passed away a few years ago and it is now continued as one of the finest Ozark attractions by his grandson, Clint. I think it began sometime before the Bull Shoals dam was built by Jim’s father and has been there now for several decades. There are some of the best fishing guides working there that you will ever meet, and a restaurant second to none. Actually the restaurant is something of a grand museum with old White River and Ozark antiques from bicycles to boat paddles. And though the meals are expensive, they are fantastic, with several different kinds of trout prepared. You eat from a dining room extending out over the river. You can catch your limit of trout on the river and have them prepared by restaurant chefs. In that restaurant you can find what is referred to as a salad boat, a big display of many kinds of salads. And if you are there early you will find a breakfast buffet unequaled in the Ozarks. I knew Jim Gaston well, and I, like all who knew him, respected him tremendously. In earlier times, when I was the 22 year-old, chief naturalist for the Arkansas State Park System, Jim was a young Commissioner, and I never thought we would have much in common, but I was wrong. The preservationist and the developer, he opened my eyes to some things and helped me to learn much about Arkansas and the people I was working with. Jim and I shared a love of nature photography and I used many of his photos in my magazines over the years. If you are in North Arkansas don’t miss visiting Gaston’s resort, just a few miles out of Lakeview Arkansas, below Bull Shoals Dam. If you want to catch trout from the White, where there are monstrous brown trout in those cold waters, go there first.

My Big Piney Nature Center and Museum is coming down to painting the walls and putting the floor in. Hopefully we can open it to the public as a finished project in September. My family is going to help with the painting on Saturday, August the 17th.

I would love to have readers come by and see what we are doing, so remember that date and come visit with me and my family if you would like. It is located one mile south of Houston, Mo on the east side of Highway 63. The address is 6410 Highway 63. I will likely brew up a batch of sassafras tea (iced or hot) for visitors to try a taste of the old-time Ozarks of my boyhood. We are already moving in some interesting artifacts and on that day you can see an authentic Ozark johnboat my dad and I built years ago.

My email address is lightninridge47@gmail.com, and my office phone number is 417-777-5227