everything that is
in this creation is put here for a
specific purpose
all the things that fly all of the
things that swim
all of the things that crawl they all
have a special place in our culture
it is our responsibility as the
two-leggeds to try to
foster good relationships with the earth
it's beginning now
i've taught for 17 years here at the
high school
and also in the grade school and i
teach community language classes and
a firm believer in our indian way of
life
we've been working diligently to try to
revitalize our language and
reintroduce it to our children hey dez
how good is it my man
good new info here son my ancestors
were the nakota people of the prairie
from the great rockies to the great
lakes we consider this
area in between to be the land that was
meant for our people
where you've been all my life does just
now wake up yeah
we thrived in the country that we lived
in
so remember that all of these things so
far in the story
they're all in reference to heaven how
how it is in heaven
the june berries are heavy and the
buffalo are fat
and the grass is tall and it kicks
running and the teepees are white
and everything's good people look young
look like you guys
this is all in reference to end in
heaven
the buffalo he was the image a symbol of
god to our people
because everything we knew come from the
buffalo
when the western people came they took
away the buffalo from our people
they brought in the cattle they brought
in the farming the mining the fishing
the logging all of these kind of things
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as far as the american prairie reserve
goes
in my mind what they're attempting to do
is one of the more impressive things
that's happened in this country
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i grew up in great falls montana
my parents used to bring me out and we
would camp right on the prairie
and seeing this landscape was very
exciting and
wide open with possibilities
it's not hard to put together in your
imagination what could be here again
the idea the mission at american prairie
reserve is to create the largest
wildlife reserve so far
ever created in the lower 48 states open
it up to the public
save it for future generations
we're creating the reserve out of
existing intact native prairie
there's very little of this left around
the world where you can reassemble
something like we're talking about here
the best thing about this is we don't
have to buy it all
much of the land that we are pulling
together to be a part of this model
already belongs to the public what we're
doing is gluing these parcels together
with pieces of private land
taking down the fences bringing all the
wildlife back
so we have intact prairie that looks
like it has for thousands of years
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people are excited about the heritage of
wildlife that they have read about
and they want to be a part of saving
that as a part of american history
but some people in the local area think
that this may not be the best use of
land out here
that perhaps this land should only be
used for food production
so we wanted to start something that
benefits local people
in the work that they're choosing to do
ranching has been in my family probably
about 100 years
i'm the fifth generation rancher here
you always hear the term that stuff gets
in your dna i guess and that's probably
what it is it's just in my
it's in my blood my dad
he bought this when he was a young man
in his 20s
we've scattered his ashes here i'll
probably get scattered here too i
suppose
i had essentially grew up about an hour
north of here and moved back here and
doing our thing i told her move back
here and live a nice quiet leisure
country life
she told me i get bored easy so i'm
trying not to let her get bored
i'm not bored
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we joke sometimes when we're having
coffee on our front porch that people
pay to go on vacation to live the
lifestyle we live and
you know there are days that it's hard
but there are more days that it's
really nice
i think there's constantly threats
facing ranchers
they're afraid of getting diseases from
the buffalo they're afraid of predators
or land grab it just seems like every
time you turn around
the deck is stacked against you
so when i heard about american prairie
reserve my first
opinions were very negative was very
much very much against them it's like go
away
leave us alone that's not how we live
here
but as i started educating myself i got
involved with wild sky ranch
which is a branch of the apr
saw it as an opportunity to make a few
bucks to utilize these conservation
practices whether it be wildlife
friendly fencing or camera traps
once guy sets up cameras and then you
know you get a picture of a
mountain lion or a bear you get a couple
hundred bucks and
that adds up over the course of the year
that helps
buy hay or part of a vet build but
definitely
helps my bottom line and so far the
camera traps have caught bears mountain
lions and to my knowledge i have not
lost
a single calf man
these coyotes are gonna make me rich
yeah
so i think we are living in harmony
living in balance and wildlife is
is thriving and they're doing well
i'm gonna have to go get more clothes on
the wind's got a bite to it
to leave this land as a legacy is is
extremely important
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ranching is evolving and it has to
evolve
and i think if we're not very mindful of
the connection that our society has to
have
with nature it'll be too late
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it's funny how much green is still out
there i know that's the other reason
we're having problems catching the bison
to me bison are really interesting in
that they
fit so well in this place this guy got
mud on the truck
their name brought back simply to
fulfill their ecological role their
ecological
niche in that landscape
uh what we're gonna do today is we are
gonna sort the cows
from the bulls number one priority is
for everyone to leave here safe
we are relocating bison to fort belknap
fort belknap is a great receiving site
because of the social and cultural
values native american tribes have four
bison
so kind of how it's going to work
essentially we're sorting out four cows
out of here and we want to get them
separated from the bulls
so we will be running some animals into
this pen when bison need to be relocated
to another property
or conservation organization or tribe it
starts with capturing the bison off of
large pastures and then sorting them
into different pens depending on their
destination
age and sex
i'm gonna have to tie the thing to your
hand
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all right once they're sorted
they will be shipped and loaded onto a
truck and
hauled to their destination where they
will be released
and able to be bison again
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hey
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hmm
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there's some things that there's just
really no words for at times
to see them back here you know places
where their
ancestors roamed long ago you know and
to see them in place is pretty pretty
cool
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there are more and more buffalo that are
coming back to the places that they
belong
it does my heart good it does my mind
good because
as the buffalo grow stronger my people
grow stronger
we're living in this time to see a lot
of those things come to pass where our
people are going to
find themselves
and become a vibrant thriving people
again
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[Applause]
i think a person is foolish to think
that they could ever own the land and
those are things that
our people have said from the beginning
of time
there's an old song among our people it
says
my relatives don't be foolish
death is a hard thing but the earth is
the only thing that lives forever
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hey
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you