Jim Bond
Jim is flattered to be among such distinguished company! Retired from the broadcasting business, he spends most of his time in Las Vegas and St. Louis. An ardent admirer of Brokeback Mountain and a lover of travel, he has felt a deep identification with this project since its inception.

Jim’s special thanks go to his sweetie, Chris Panzer who often wondered, in a way that Lureen could certainly appreciate, why his partner had to go all the way up to Calgary, Alberta just to see some phone booth, railroad track, or trailer park.

Favorite line:  “You know, it could be like this, just like this, always.”
Favorite scene:  Childress Dance Hall Interior

Rob Freeman
Rob was deeply moved by the Brokeback film. He is semi-retired, having sold his telecommunications company, and lives in London, Ontario, Canada.

Rob bought Jack’s 1950 GMC pickup truck from a teenager who had acquired it from the film’s producers. When asked if he was going to give tours of Brokeback Mountain filming locations, he said “I’ll do it once only this year [2006] and auction it on eBay with all the proceeds to charity.”

See: http://www.thebrokebacktruck.ca/

In preparation for the charity tour, Rob met Steve and Jim in May 2006. The three spent six long days, racking up 3,000 km (1,900 miles) in search of the filming locations. Rob’s tenacity served the group well as he persistently hounded potential sources for filming location information in a manner that seasoned Guantanamo interrogators might only hope to emulate. He proudly holds the unmatched distinction of having visited every railroad crossing within 25 km of Beiseker, Alberta.

Rob formed the non-profit charity, “The Rob Freeman Foundation” (http://www.therobfreemanfoundation.ca/) in 1999 which supports AIDS/HIV and cancer research, operates a home in Burlington, ON, for special needs adults, and raises funds for other charitable causes.

Favourite line:  “No ma’am, we was herdin’ sheep up on Brokeback one summer ... back in ’63.”
Favourite scene:  Dozy Embrace.

Barry Gilligan
Barry enjoyed a long career working with computers. He retired a number of years ago to pursue other interests. He has most recently devoted his energies to projects such as FindingBrokeback.com, where he has crusaded tirelessly to protect visitors to this site from unforgivable puns and unfairly disparaging remarks about Brokeback Mountain filming locations.

He wrote this: “On first seeing Brokeback in the theater, I was oddly unmoved; perhaps because I had read the short story and various film reviews before hand. Then in the days and weeks after, I often found myself thinking about bits of dialog and scenes from the film. I eventually discovered Dave Cullen’s Ultimate Brokeback Forum. The many insightful comments there are a must-read for anyone interested in better understanding the film’s many nuances and subtleties. My present opinion is that Brokeback Mountain is one of the best made motion pictures I’ve ever seen, and probably the most important. I involved myself in putting up this website because I’m a preservationist at heart. Brokeback Mountain is a landmark film, and I believe everything that went into its making should be documented and preserved. This website is my contribution to that effort.”

While Barry continues to play with computers, he will only admit to knowing enough about the Internet and HTML to be dangerous. Though he has not formally announced his candidacy, Canadian political observers concur that he intends to run for Mayor of Cowley, Alberta, in the near future.

Steve Gin
Steve is one of the original “Three Amigos” who crossed Alberta alongside Rob and Jim in search of Brokeback Mountain filming locations. On other days, he can be found working across Canada as an actor, arts educator, and most recently, as a playwright. Though the stage is his preferred medium, Steve has snagged occasional work in Calgary’s burgeoning film and television industry, appearing alongside Sam Elliott in the TV movie “You Know My Name,” Peter Scolari in the Disney TV series “Honey I Shrunk the Kids,” and Graham Green in the Canadian television drama “North of 60.” Oh, yes, and there was that film about two gay cowboys shot in and around Calgary.

We all remember that Jack met Lureen at the Childress bar, but few know that this was also the place where Jake first encountered Steve. Sadly for Steve, his father owns no tractor dealerships. Steve resides in Calgary with his lawfully wedded husband, and is the founder of the city’s highly respected gay and lesbian theatre company Teatro Berdache.

Favourite line:  “Oh, I’m sorry, I thought that was a Braille name tag.”
Favourite scene:  When pressed for a favorite scene, Steve just couldn’t do it. “The film works not just because of the brilliance of individual moments, but because of the sum of those parts - the unity, the contrasts, the counterpoints, and the resolutions of those moments,” he says. “Whether or not a moment affects me during a particular viewing has a lot to do with my own connection to a parallel place in my own psyche at that time. But that’s the brilliance of the writing, the direction and the performances in Brokeback Mountain - that they can reflect something with such specificity and honesty that it has universal resonance.”

Lauren Gurney
Lauren’s soft-spoken nature belies a fearlessness that Jack would envy. During her first trip to Alberta in 2007, she made short order of some of the toughest undiscovered Brokeback sites, unrelentingly grilling town clerks, trainmen, bronc riders, construction workers, real estate agents, river rafters, sheep ranchers and, when they collapsed in utter exhaustion, their poor wives, for Brokeback location information. If there exists a fence, gate, body of water, or posted warning powerful enough to keep Lauren from photographing a Brokeback site, it must not be in Canada.

Among her particular interests are the evolution of the Brokeback screenplay, horses and riding, and hiking. Impatient with the traffic and hubbub of Calgary (!), Lauren finds peace and inspiration in such idyllic spots as Buffalo Paddock (Sheep Staging, Sheep Tangle, et al) and Seebe (Cliff Jump). There, she is frequently mistaken for a lost electronics store clerk as she totes around her vast collection of voice recorders, GPS equipment, tripods, digital still cameras, video cameras, battery chargers, mobile phones, and DVD players. Of course, Lauren is not lost, at least not in a geographical sense!

Favorite line:  “We’re supposed to guard the sheep, not eat ’em.”
Favorite scene:  The one with Ennis del Mar in it.

Bob Sohomuch
Bob’s lifelong interest in travel, geography, and photography were put to good use as he helped to hunt down and document some stubborn Brokeback sites. “I don’t get lost,” Bob said before we first traveled together. We smiled then but, indeed, despite many challenges, he never did.

Bob continued the FindingBrokeback.com tradition of naming and renaming mountains, but unlike his colleagues, when he had finished with his analysis, he had the correct answers. Particularly astounding, though, is Bob’s verbatim knowledge of the Brokeback screenplay. We have no doubt that he can recite every line from “If you pair of deuces …” to “Jack, I swear ...” Flawlessly.

When he is not up at dawn to photograph the “I did once” (Upper Kananaskis) Lake or driving around Cowley in the Brokeback Truck, Bob can be found in Northern Virginia, where he enviously admires the del Mar wedding portrait that hangs proudly in his home.

Favorite line:  “There ain’t no reins on this one”
Favorite scene:  Campsite #1 - Jack’s “rodeo dance”