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Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>🚧 Daily Cartoon 2: Saturday, May 31, 2025 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Daily Cartoon 2: Saturday, May 31, 2025

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Outdoors

Hunting

Hunters will go to great lengths to try to bag a grizzly big enough for the record books. They hire guides to take them deep into the northern wilderness and pack expensive rifles chambered for whopping cartridges capable of dropping bears. 

But one of the largest grizzlies ever recorded was killed in 1953 with a single shot from a .22 rifle wielded by a tiny Canadian Cree grandmother named Bella Twin. 

Guy Eastman of Cody has hunted numerous species all over the world, including grizzly bears in Canada. He said Bella’s accomplishment, and sheer courage, will likely never be matched. 

[{"type":"text","text":"“That’s one hell of a daring shot,” he said. "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"She Knew Right Were To Aim"}]

Twin, 63 at the time, lived in the Slave Lake area of Alberta and had been hunting and trapping her entire life, so she knew bear anatomy well. 

According to accounts from the time, she knew exactly where to shoot the bear — in the side of the head from just a few yards away. 

Head shots on grizzlies are incredibly risky because they have such thick skulls, Eastman said. And from the front, a grizzly’s skull is sloped, so they can act as helmets and deflect bullets. 

“They claim that a grizzly skull can deflect a .30-06 round from the front,” he said. 

That’s why shot placement means everything, retired Forest Service and National Park Ranger Richard Jones, who lives in grizzly country west of Cody, told Cowboy State Daily. 

Jones has also worked as a law enforcement firearms instructor, and said he uses Twin’s story to highlight the importance of proper shot placement.

To be clear, from all accounts from 1953 through today, Twin’s shot wasn’t lucky, it was good.

[{"type":"text","text":"A Small Game Hunt Becomes A Grizzly Hunt"}]

As the story goes, Twin and her partner, Dave Auger, had no intention of trying to bag a record-class grizzly when they set out on May 10, 1953, near Florida Lake in Alberta. 

There were after small game, and Twin had her trusty single-shot Cooey Ace 1 rifle with her. She’d packed it many times while checking her trap lines and was known to be deadly accurate with it. 

According to accounts, she had several rounds of .22 long ammunition with her. Most people who target shoot or hunt with .22s are these days used to the .22 long rifle cartridge. It’s more modern and more powerful than the old .22 long.

Before long, they spotted a huge grizzly bear approaching. It was a windy day, and Twin and Auger were behind some brush. While the bear might have scented them, it apparently never heard or saw them. 

When the bear came up to within just a few yards, Twin took deliberate aim at a tiny weak point in the side of the bear’s head and fired. 

The grizzly reportedly dropped instantly, stone dead, after the first shot. 

But not being one to take any chances, Twin walked up to the fallen beast and put a few more rounds through the side of its head. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Set The World Record"}]

Though she might have gone out that day to hunt rabbits, squirrels and the like, Twin had bagged a world-class grizzly. 

The Boone & Crocket (B&C) big game record measuring system is considered the gold standard by hunters all over the world. B&C bear records are judged by skull size. 

This bear’s skull was 16 9/16 inches long and 9 14/16 inches wide, for a total score of 26 7/16 inches. That made it the world record grizzly at the time.

The next year, the skull of a bear shot by a hunter on the coast of British Columbia, Canada, beat Twin’s score by a 3/16ths of an inch. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Twin’s grizzly is still in the B&C records books, ranking No. 21. "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Skill And Courage"}]

Eastman said Twin’s accomplishment is worthy of respect. It also highlights the knowledge and skill of Native American hunters in the northern regions. 

His grandfather, Gordon Eastman, pioneered outdoor adventure filmmaking. His father, Mike Eastman, founded the Eastmans hunting media company, and Guy Eastman later took the helm. 

“My grandfather filmed Natives way up north hunting polar bears with small calibers, like .22s,” he said. “They know this ‘sweet spot’ to hit them in right between the shoulder blade and the spine,” he said. 

[{"type":"text","text":"That type of hunting is not for cowards, he said. "}]

“They bay the polar bear up with a dog, and then they get in really close and shoot them in that perfect spot,” Eastman said. 

Twin apparently had similar knowledge of exactly where to shoot a grizzly, but that doesn’t make the shot any less badass, he said. 

“That’s pretty gutsy to shoot a bear like that, because if you make one mistake, you’re going to have a really pissed off grizzly right there,” he said. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Accuracy Is Everything"}]

Hunters might never stop arguing about what the perfect rifle cartridge is, but Twin’s story illustrates that precision accuracy is what really counts, Jones said. 

“All the online ‘gun experts’ argue about the best calibers or guns for self-defense, and especially against bears. As a 30-plus year police firearms instructor, I’ve always said shot placement is the most important and effective aspect of stopping any attack,” he said. “Unless the central nervous system is hit, any attacker, man or beast, can continue its attack even for a few minutes. Not good.

“I say, have a gun, any gun, and hope for an instant CNS (central nervous system) effect to stop the attack. I use Bella Twin to illustrate my point.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Contact Mark Heinz at mark@cowboystatedaily.com"}]

Bella Twin close 8 4 24

<title>🚧 Grandma Who Killed Huge Grizzly With 1 Shot From .22 Still Amazes Wyoming Hunters | Cowboy State Daily</title>

One of the largest grizzlies ever recorded was killed in 1953 with a single shot from a .22 rifle wielded by a 63-year-old grandmother in Canada. She had hunted and trapped her entire life, so she knew bear anatomy well -- and knew where to place the shot.

Grandma Who Killed Huge Grizzly With 1 Shot From .22 Still Amazes Wyoming Hunters

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

Around Wyoming

One of the most popular homestead bloggers on social media doesn&#x2019;t live in a faraway or exotic location. She&#x2019;s here in Wyoming, just outside the tiny town of Chugwater, 40 miles north of Cheyenne, with a population of just 175 people.
Her name is Jill Winger, and the Idaho native has been blogging steadily about homesteading to a growing national audience for more than a decade, beginning long before it became the multimillion-dollar, buzz-word industry it is today.
Winger, however unassuming she may appear in person, is a social media star with almost 650,000 Facebook, 286,000 YouTube subscribers and millions of page views, as well as author of a bestselling cookbook that features advice and recipes developed from her family&#x2019;s adventures restoring a 67-acre farmstead.<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="576" src="https://csd-legacy-assets.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2023/03/Wingers-cookbook-The-Prairie-Homestead-1024x576.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-41454" srcset="https://csd-legacy-assets.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2023/03/Wingers-cookbook-The-Prairie-Homestead-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://csd-legacy-assets.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2023/03/Wingers-cookbook-The-Prairie-Homestead-300x169.jpg 300w, https://csd-legacy-assets.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2023/03/Wingers-cookbook-The-Prairie-Homestead-768x432.jpg 768w, https://csd-legacy-assets.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2023/03/Wingers-cookbook-The-Prairie-Homestead-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://csd-legacy-assets.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2023/03/Wingers-cookbook-The-Prairie-Homestead-480x270.jpg 480w, https://csd-legacy-assets.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2023/03/Wingers-cookbook-The-Prairie-Homestead-889x500.jpg 889w, https://csd-legacy-assets.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2023/03/Wingers-cookbook-The-Prairie-Homestead.jpg 1600w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Jill Winger has written a cookbook inspired by her Wyoming homesteading lifestyle. (Renée Jean, Cowboy State Daily)</figcaption></figure>

<h2>Don&#x2019;t Do It</h2>The farm, she will admit, was something of an impulse purchase – one friends tried to talk her and husband Christian out of making. 
It wasn&#x2019;t just that the farmstead&#x2019;s house was so tiny. Nor that it was 35-some miles from work and the nearest grocery store. 
A single glance at photos was all one needed to know the property was a disaster. 
Old car parts littered the property, filling up a shop and a barn and seeming to grow like mushrooms from the pasture itself. An empty washer had even randomly sprouted in the back pasture.
There were crumbling fence lines, disintegrating outbuildings and gaping holes where trash was being buried. When the Wyoming wind blew, it would pick trash up from those piles and blow it all around the tiny home in little whirlwinds, as if to say, &#x201C;I told you so.&#x201D;
The house itself wasn&#x2019;t any better. There were no &#x201C;good bones&#x201D; to salvage here like homestyle magazine articles often opine about.
The dining area was so tiny, Winger took to calling it a dining closet. It would barely fit a small table and chairs. The ceiling was lop-sided, too. 
The kitchen, meanwhile, had no dishwasher — it was too small. And while the ceiling was reasonably straight, the floors sagged. 
The living room wasn&#x2019;t even as large as a small master bedroom. It was like a tiny home, before there were actual tiny homes. 
When the couple tore off their new home&#x2019;s ugly yellow siding, sure enough there were new, hidden troubles to occupy time and money — rotten boards and zero insulation. 
The house was a classic money pit.<h2>But 67 Glorious Acres</h2>The Wingers wouldn&#x2019;t be dissuaded, though.
Despite its condition, the farmstead was 67 acres of glorious space — big enough to hold all their horses and all of their dreams.
The couple took random odd jobs in addition to their regular jobs, earning extra cash to fix their new home. 
They also worked every free weekend, restoring the property board by board and, sometimes, staple by staple.
Winger, in fact, blogs about painstakingly removing tens of thousands of tiny staples from the log fencing that remained on the property, so it could all be reused. 
Never once during all this was there any thought in either of their minds about being &#x201C;homesteaders.&#x201D; 
&#x201C;It was one of those weird bits of inspiration where I got the land and then I&#x2019;m like, &#x2018;How else can we make this productive?&#x2019;&#x201D; Jill said. &#x201C;Because we didn&#x2019;t have a lot of money. We didn&#x2019;t have a big budget. So, I&#x2019;m like, &#x2018;How do I rationalize my new mortgage payment?&#x2019; You know, you buy on emotions, but you justify it with logic.&#x201D;<figure class="wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-67 is-layout-flex">
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="577" data-id="41452" src="https://csd-legacy-assets.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2023/03/Winger-has-created-an-historical-display-preserving-the-history-of-Wyomings-oldest-soda-fountain-shop-1024x577.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-41452" srcset="https://csd-legacy-assets.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2023/03/Winger-has-created-an-historical-display-preserving-the-history-of-Wyomings-oldest-soda-fountain-shop-1024x577.jpg 1024w, https://csd-legacy-assets.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2023/03/Winger-has-created-an-historical-display-preserving-the-history-of-Wyomings-oldest-soda-fountain-shop-300x169.jpg 300w, https://csd-legacy-assets.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2023/03/Winger-has-created-an-historical-display-preserving-the-history-of-Wyomings-oldest-soda-fountain-shop-768x433.jpg 768w, https://csd-legacy-assets.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2023/03/Winger-has-created-an-historical-display-preserving-the-history-of-Wyomings-oldest-soda-fountain-shop-1536x865.jpg 1536w, https://csd-legacy-assets.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2023/03/Winger-has-created-an-historical-display-preserving-the-history-of-Wyomings-oldest-soda-fountain-shop-480x270.jpg 480w, https://csd-legacy-assets.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2023/03/Winger-has-created-an-historical-display-preserving-the-history-of-Wyomings-oldest-soda-fountain-shop-888x500.jpg 888w, https://csd-legacy-assets.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2023/03/Winger-has-created-an-historical-display-preserving-the-history-of-Wyomings-oldest-soda-fountain-shop.jpg 1598w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="576" data-id="41451" src="https://csd-legacy-assets.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2023/03/Some-of-the-old-time-medications-found-in-the-basement-of-the-Chugwater-Soda-Fountain-shop-are-now-on-display-1024x576.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-41451" srcset="https://csd-legacy-assets.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2023/03/Some-of-the-old-time-medications-found-in-the-basement-of-the-Chugwater-Soda-Fountain-shop-are-now-on-display-1024x576.jpeg 1024w, https://csd-legacy-assets.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2023/03/Some-of-the-old-time-medications-found-in-the-basement-of-the-Chugwater-Soda-Fountain-shop-are-now-on-display-300x169.jpeg 300w, https://csd-legacy-assets.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2023/03/Some-of-the-old-time-medications-found-in-the-basement-of-the-Chugwater-Soda-Fountain-shop-are-now-on-display-768x432.jpeg 768w, https://csd-legacy-assets.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2023/03/Some-of-the-old-time-medications-found-in-the-basement-of-the-Chugwater-Soda-Fountain-shop-are-now-on-display-1536x864.jpeg 1536w, https://csd-legacy-assets.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2023/03/Some-of-the-old-time-medications-found-in-the-basement-of-the-Chugwater-Soda-Fountain-shop-are-now-on-display-480x270.jpeg 480w, https://csd-legacy-assets.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2023/03/Some-of-the-old-time-medications-found-in-the-basement-of-the-Chugwater-Soda-Fountain-shop-are-now-on-display-889x500.jpeg 889w, https://csd-legacy-assets.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2023/03/Some-of-the-old-time-medications-found-in-the-basement-of-the-Chugwater-Soda-Fountain-shop-are-now-on-display.jpeg 1600w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="576" data-id="41449" src="https://csd-legacy-assets.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2023/03/Her-philosophy-printed-on-a-tea-towel-1024x576.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-41449" srcset="https://csd-legacy-assets.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2023/03/Her-philosophy-printed-on-a-tea-towel-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://csd-legacy-assets.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2023/03/Her-philosophy-printed-on-a-tea-towel-300x169.jpg 300w, https://csd-legacy-assets.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2023/03/Her-philosophy-printed-on-a-tea-towel-768x432.jpg 768w, https://csd-legacy-assets.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2023/03/Her-philosophy-printed-on-a-tea-towel-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://csd-legacy-assets.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2023/03/Her-philosophy-printed-on-a-tea-towel-480x270.jpg 480w, https://csd-legacy-assets.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2023/03/Her-philosophy-printed-on-a-tea-towel-889x500.jpg 889w, https://csd-legacy-assets.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2023/03/Her-philosophy-printed-on-a-tea-towel.jpg 1600w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>
<figcaption class="blocks-gallery-caption wp-element-caption">The flavor and spirit of Wyoming and a homestead lifestyle are all around the Winger family on their land near Chugwater. (Renée Jean, Cowboy State Daily)</figcaption></figure>

<h2>One Thing Leads To Another</h2>That&#x2019;s where the garden and the homesteading really all began.
Winger decided she could free up more cash for other things if she just grew some of the family&#x2019;s food. 
Meanwhile, the horses were making so … much … manure.
She didn&#x2019;t have a tractor to haul it away. That led to a research project on compost piles that could feed her garden. Christian helped her build the farmstead&#x2019;s first compost bin. 
The remoteness of the farm also played a key role in transforming her into the Prairie Homestead blogger.
&#x201C;I was lonely,&#x201D; Winger said. &#x201C;All my friends were still in college or doing young person things, and I was trying to like, build a compost pile. So weird. I&#x2019;ve always been weird.&#x201D;
The blog helped Winger find others like herself who were treading a path toward self-sufficiency before there was any buzz at all around it.<h2>The 3-Year-Old Already Knew</h2>Winger laughingly admits, however, that her homesteading ways probably go back to when she was just 3 years old and begged her parents for a horse.
They would send their wild child outside to play instead, where she would stubbornly push a wheelbarrow around the yard, pretending to clean horse stalls. 
Barbie and Ken dolls? Forget about it. Her dolls were all ranch hands, too.
&#x201C;I was literally obsessed with it,&#x201D; Winger admits. 
Eventually, she graduated to showing mom and dad the sweet ranches they could buy. They would just laugh. They weren&#x2019;t interested in that idea. At all. 
Winger doesn&#x2019;t know why she&#x2019;s always been so interested in the homesteading lifestyle, or she prefers to describe it, old-fashioned on purpose.
&#x201C;Everyone talks about the simple life,&#x201D; Winger says. &#x201C;Especially right now because homesteading is trendy, but, it&#x2019;s a little bit of a paradox.&#x201D;
It&#x2019;s honestly simpler to go to the grocery store to get food, versus growing it one&#x2019;s self, she said.
&#x201C;But there&#x2019;s something about that hard work and that complexity that&#x2019;s really speaking to our culture right now,&#x201D; she said. &#x201C;And one of the biggest, just overall revelations, is just how much more fulfilling life is when we strip back a lot of the modern stuff. Life just kind of comes into full color. A lot of things just fall into place and make sense.&#x201D;<h2>Soda Shop Is A New Dream</h2>These days, you&#x2019;ll often find Winger working behind the counter of Wyoming&#x2019;s oldest soda shop, serving up grass-finished beef hamburgers from her homestead, along with any one of 35 flavors of milkshake. 
The soda fountain, she says, is a detour from her typical homestead projects, as is a charter school she and Christian are helping to set up in Chugwater.
&#x201C;That&#x2019;s taking a lot of time and energy,&#x201D; she said. &#x201C;But we just wanted to be able to invest in the community, too.&#x201D;
The soda shop, and perhaps even the school, are not so far outside the wheelhouse as they might seem, though.
Winger has found making things by hand slows life down to a speed where she can appreciate it in a new way. 
At that slower speed, a compost pile isn&#x2019;t just a compost pile. It&#x2019;s a link in the chain of life — gold for a garden that&#x2019;s making all the vegetables on the table, which are in turn shared day-in, day-out with the family she loves. 
There&#x2019;s a satisfaction in all of that, and something that can&#x2019;t be purchased from a store.
It&#x2019;s the same satisfaction Winger feels when she looks around the busy soda shop she and her husband have restored. People are gathering and connecting over the burgers and milkshakes that she&#x2019;s made with her own hands.
&#x201C;Chugwater is a cute little town with a lot of potential,&#x201D; Winger said, glancing around at the shop full of chattering people. &#x201C;It&#x2019;s just fun to see people getting excited about it.&#x201D;

Jill Winger with one of her hamburgers and a plain soda water

<title>🚧 Wyoming Is Home For One of Homesteading’s Biggest Social Media Stars, Jill Winger | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Buying their small ranch 9 miles outside of Chugwater gave Jill and Christian Winger room for their horses and their dreams — but blogging about it all unexpectedly turned Jill into a social media star.

Daily Cartoon 2: Saturday, May 31, 2025

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