Miracle in the Wilderness | |
---|---|
Based on | Miracle in the Wilderness by Paul Gallico |
Screenplay by | Michael Michaelian Jim Byrnes |
Directed by | Kevin James Dobson |
Starring | Kris Kristofferson Kim Cattrall John Dennis Johnston Rino Thunder David Oliver Sheldon Peters Wolfchild |
Composer | Vladimir Horunzhy |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language | English |
Production | |
Producer | Wayne Morris |
Cinematography | Dan Burstall |
Editor | Susan B. Browdy |
Running time | 88 minutes |
Production companies | Turner Pictures Ruddy & Morgan Productions |
Original release | |
Network | TNT |
Release | December 9, 1991 |
Miracle in the Wilderness is a 1991 American adventure film directed by Kevin James Dobson and written by Michael Michaelian and Jim Byrnes. The film stars Kris Kristofferson, Kim Cattrall, John Dennis Johnston, Rino Thunder, David Oliver and Sheldon Peters Wolfchild. The film premiered on TNT on December 9, 1991. [1] [2] [3]
Based on 1975 short story "Miracle in the Wilderness" by Paul Gallico. Gallico's original story was set in pre-Revolutionary Colonial America. Whereas The 1991 TV Movie is set in late 1800s, on the Western Plains/Rocky Mountain Frontier. Recently reformed, but violent, and rough mountain man, Jericho Adams and his devout Christian wife Dora, along with their infant boy child, are preparing to celebrate a humble frontier Christmas. When unexpectedly he and his family are captured, and their cabin burned by Chief Many Horses, and his Blackfoot band, who are seeking revenge and restitution for Jericho previously killing the chief's young adult warrior son. The Chief's intention is adopting and raising the Adams baby as his own, in lieu of the older son, killed by Jericho. The life or death fate of Jericho and Dora also hang in the balance. It being Christmas Eve. And after coming upon a miracle of fearlessly tranquil family of deer, which the Indians view as "strong medicine". Dora and Jericho relate a loosely adapted story of the Nativity of Jesus, to the Blackfoot band, but employ plains Indian cultural motifs and characters. For Instance, the Three Wise-Men are described as medicine men chiefs from various tribes to the east "One was a Teton. And second was Mandan and the third was Plains Cree". Although at first skeptical, in the end, Chief Many Horses is so moved and impressed with the Christmas Story, he relents in his original plans for revenge and restitution.
Christopher Houston Carson was an American frontiersman. He was a fur trapper, wilderness guide, Indian agent and U.S. Army officer. He became a frontier legend in his own lifetime through biographies and news articles; exaggerated versions of his exploits were the subject of dime novels. His understated nature belied confirmed reports of his fearlessness, combat skills, tenacity, as well as profound effect on the westward expansion of the United States. Although he was famous for much of his life, historians in later years have written that Kit Carson did not like, want, or even fully understand the fame that he experienced during his life.
The Nez Perce are an Indigenous people of the Plateau who still live on a fraction of the lands on the southeastern Columbia River Plateau in the Pacific Northwest. This region has been occupied for at least 11,500 years.
The Crow, whose autonym is Apsáalooke, also spelled Absaroka, are Native Americans living primarily in southern Montana. Today, the Crow people have a federally recognized tribe, the Crow Tribe of Montana, with an Indian reservation, the Crow Indian Reservation, located in the south-central part of the state.
The Arapaho are a Native American people historically living on the plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Lakota and Dakota.
The Comanche or Nʉmʉnʉʉ is a Native American tribe from the Southern Plains of the present-day United States. Comanche people today belong to the federally recognized Comanche Nation, headquartered in Lawton, Oklahoma.
William Frederick Cody, known as Buffalo Bill, was an American soldier, bison hunter, and showman.
The Blackfoot Confederacy, Niitsitapi, or Siksikaitsitapi, is a historic collective name for linguistically related groups that make up the Blackfoot or Blackfeet people: the Siksika ("Blackfoot"), the Kainai or Blood, and two sections of the Peigan or Piikani – the Northern Piikani (Aapátohsipikáni) and the Southern Piikani. Broader definitions include groups such as the Tsúùtínà (Sarcee) and A'aninin who spoke quite different languages but allied with or joined the Blackfoot Confederacy.
A mountain man is an explorer who lives in the wilderness and makes his living from hunting and trapping. Mountain men were most common in the North American Rocky Mountains from about 1810 through to the 1880s. They were instrumental in opening up the various emigrant trails allowing Americans in the east to settle the new territories of the far west by organized wagon trains traveling over roads explored and in many cases, physically improved by the mountain men and the big fur companies, originally to serve the mule train-based inland fur trade.
The Bighorn Mountains are a mountain range in northern Wyoming and southern Montana in the United States, forming a northwest-trending spur from the Rocky Mountains extending approximately 200 mi (320 km) northward on the Great Plains. They are separated from the Absaroka Range, which lie on the main branch of the Rockies to the west, by the Bighorn Basin. Much of the land is contained within the Bighorn National Forest.
Washakie was a prominent leader of the Shoshone people during the mid-19th century. He was first mentioned in 1840 in the written record of the American fur trapper, Osborne Russell. In 1851, at the urging of trapper Jim Bridger, Washakie led a band of Shoshones to the council meetings of the Treaty of Fort Laramie. Essentially from that time until his death, he was considered the head of the Eastern Shoshones by the representatives of the United States government. In 1979, he was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.
The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation are a federally recognized tribe in the U.S. state of Montana. The government includes members of several Bitterroot Salish, Kootenai and Pend d'Oreilles tribes and is centered on the Flathead Indian Reservation.
The Assiniboine or Assiniboin people, also known as the Hohe and known by the endonym Nakota, are a First Nations/Native American people originally from the Northern Great Plains of North America.
The province of Alberta, Canada, has a history and prehistory stretching back thousands of years. The ancestors of today's First Nations in Alberta arrived in the area by at least 10,000 BC according to the Bering land bridge theory. Southerly tribes, the Plain Indians, such as the Blackfoot, Blood, and Peigans eventually adapted to seminomadic plains bison hunting, originally without the aid of horses, but later with horses that Europeans had introduced.
The Wind River Indian Reservation, in the west-central portion of the U.S. state of Wyoming, is shared by two Native American tribes, the Eastern Shoshone and the Northern Arapaho. Roughly 60 mi (97 km) east to west by 50 mi (80 km) north to south, the Indian reservation is located in the Wind River Basin, and includes portions of the Wind River Range, Owl Creek Mountains, and Absaroka Range.
Shoshone National Forest is the first federally protected National Forest in the United States and covers nearly 2,500,000 acres (1,000,000 ha) in the state of Wyoming. Originally a part of the Yellowstone Timberland Reserve, the forest is managed by the United States Forest Service and was created by an act of Congress and signed into law by U.S. President Benjamin Harrison in 1891. Shoshone National Forest is one of the first nationally protected land areas anywhere. Native Americans have lived in the region for at least 10,000 years, and when the region was first explored by European adventurers, forestlands were occupied by several different tribes. Never heavily settled or exploited, the forest has retained most of its wildness. Shoshone National Forest is a part of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, a nearly unbroken expanse of federally protected lands encompassing an estimated 20,000,000 acres (8,100,000 ha).
George Bird Grinnell was an American anthropologist, historian, naturalist, and writer. Originally specializing in zoology, he became a prominent early conservationist and student of Native American life. Grinnell has been recognized for his influence on public opinion and work on legislation to preserve the American bison. Mount Grinnell in Glacier National Park in Montana is named after him.
John Baker Omohundro, also known as "Texas Jack", was an American frontier scout, actor, and cowboy. Born in rural Virginia, he served the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. He later served as a civilian scout for the US Army during the American Indian Wars. Before his untimely death, Texas Jack became a legendary figure in the American Old West as a Western showman performing dramas on the stage throughout the country, and was immortalized in dime novels published around the world.
John Farrell MacDonald was an American character actor and director. He played supporting roles and occasional leads. He appeared in over 325 films over a four-decade career from 1911 to 1951, and directed forty-four silent films from 1912 to 1917.
Chief John Big Tree was a member of the Seneca Nation and an actor who appeared in 59 films between 1915 and 1950. He was born in Buffalo, New York and died in Onondaga Indian Reservation, New York. His interment was also there.
The Nez Perce native Americans fled through Yellowstone National Park between August 20 and Sept 7, during the Nez Perce War in 1877. As the U.S. army pursued the Nez Perce through the park, a number of hostile and sometimes deadly encounters between park visitors and the Indians occurred. Eventually, the army's pursuit forced the Nez Perce off the Yellowstone plateau and into forces arrayed to capture or destroy them when they emerged from the mountains of Yellowstone onto the valley of Clark's Fork of the Yellowstone River.