Karen Snyder

by Christi Marsico
Tuesday, June 24, 2008 12:22 PM MDT

Five years ago, Karen Snyder had just moved to Casper as a journalist, and as she drove up Casper Mountain to conduct a story on Crimson Dawn, the experience blew her away.

Snyder found a cabin, which is now a museum, and a nature park dedicated to Neal Forsling, the woman who resided on the mountain and created the Mid-Summer's Eve Celebration.

"Neal Forsling was a woman exploding with creative energy," Snyder said. "She was a master storyteller, and her celebrations were pure storytelling."

Driven to make a documentary about the woman on Casper Mountain, Snyder took action in the fall of 2004. She met with the Crimson Dawn Association and members were in favor of creating the film.

Spending hours with Eleanor Carrigen, close friend of Forsling and the first curator at the Crimson Dawn Museum who recently died, Snyder was intrigued with the information she found.

She was compelled to share the story of this woman homesteader, who was a poet, painter and early environmentalist.

Snyder thought that the project might turn out as a talking head documentary at first. However, she was delighted when Rebecca Hunt, historic research consultant and head storyteller at the Mid-summer's Eve Celebration, found a trunk of Forsling's personal photographs and journals.

"Neal's telling her own story, which made it much more fun to create and appropriate for the structure of the video," Snyder said.

The documentary features Forsling's biography, as well as how the Mid-Summer's Eve Celebration originated.

Selling, telling the story

Forsling moved to Casper Mountain in 1929 with her two daughters. During their first summer solstice, she told a story about seven witches who lived on the mountain.

"Neal liked to tell stories where the unreal crosses over into the real," Snyder said.

This was Snyder's first film that she produced and directed completely by herself, noting she missed the camaraderie of film-making that she had experienced with others.

Having gone to film school in Minneapolis-St. Paul, she felt nurtured in the independent film scene, and when story boarding (a series of sketches that organize the film’s plot), Snyder was cautious of creating the re-enactments.

"It's a fine line of re-enacting something without being cute," she said.

One of the hardest parts in making the documentary for Snyder was the fund-raising.

She took a grant writing class, and after investing time and energy into the fund-raising world, Snyder was confident the project sold itself.

With a budget of $21,500, she estimated funds were closer to $40,000-$50,000 in contributed time and energy from the community.

Source of inspiration

Spending time with several community members who had connections with Forsling and Crimson Dawn, the filmmaker also wanted to capture Casper Mountain.

Snyder implemented a strong nature presence into the movie, showing all of the seasons on the Casper landsite.

In the midst of making the documentary, Snyder thought about religious tolerance, which the film addresses. She noted that Forsling showed reverence for nature and called herself a Christian and later became Catholic.

Working on the film whenever she had a free moment, Snyder edited the footage in her living room using Final Cut Pro, an editing software program.

With the videography of Jacek Bogucki and an original compositions from the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra's Gary DePaolo, Snyder finished "A Woman to Match a Mountain" in April 2008.

She completed this effort, all the while working full time for K2 Radio.

Snyder hopes the community will take away from the film the recognition that there was a creative force in central Wyoming.

"Neal blows Wyoming stereotypes out of the water," Snyder said. "It's important to have inspirational people to look up to and ask yourself is there more I can do to express myself."

Receiving support from Arlene Goodstein-Rosen and the Natrona County Recreation Joint Powers Board has made it possible for distribution of the documentary to the Natrona County Public Library, the Natrona County School District and the Crimson Dawn Museum.

A screening of "A Woman to Match a Mountain" is scheduled at the Natrona County Public Library on Thursday, June 26, at 6:30 p.m. Snyder will be present for discussion after the film.

For more information call, 577-READ, ext. 2.

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