The Buffalo Boys of the Kalispel Tribe
2/3/202645 min
I drive across the mountains and forests to a small corner of Washington state, where there's a group of ranchers from the Kalispel Tribe of Indians. They’re known as ‘The Buffalo Boys.’
Generations ago, members of the tribe would migrate hundreds of miles to the great plains to hunt buffalo. There were millions of buffalo until white settlers hunted them to near extinction, and the Kalispel were pushed from their land.
But now, they have a herd of their own.
On today’s episode, I visit the Buffalo Boys and their herd of buffa...
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSpeaker 10:00
You know, every day on Up First, NPR's Golden Globe-nominated morning news podcast, we bring you three essential stories. At the heart of each story are questions. What really happened? What really mattered? What happens next? At NPR, we stand for your right to be curious and to follow the facts. Follow Up First wherever you get your podcasts and start your day knowing what matters and why.
Chris Morgan· Host0:22
Hi, all. Uh, this episode is so special to me, and I hope it will be for you, too. It was so moving spending time with the Kalispel Tribe and learning about them and their incredible work with buffalo. But before we start, I wanted to quickly give a shout-out to some members of our growing Patreon community. Wes S., Jess S., Meredith O., Nicole T., Theresa L., and Fabrice F. Thank you. Okay, let's get to the buffalo. [gentle music] Imagine you're looking at the Pacific Northwest from above. Washington State is a big rectangle, with the lush forests and waters of Puget Sound bitten out of the top left corner. Head east, and you come to a steep mountain range, the Cascades, covered in jagged peaks, licked by glaciers. Keep going, and you cross the Columbia Basin, a giant rolling prairie carpeted in wheat fields and corn. You're now almost all the way to the right-hand edge of the rectangle, just short of Idaho.