I found a recent
photograph that shows three people in cowboy gear – I’m
the one pouring coffee from a thermos into beat-up cups. We’d
all just gotten down from our horses, and the guys are leaning on a
pickup truck marked U.S. Forest Service. Here’s the surprise:
We’re all laughing.
I’m a rancher, and the
picture was taken the day I accompanied two range technicians while
they did annual monitoring work on our cattle-grazing permit in the
Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming. Usually, that’s about as much
fun as going to the dentist. I dread the ordeal, mainly because it
usually includes a scolding from the federal grass cops about
“Things Gone Wrong,” subtitled “Cows Eat
Grass.” In recent years the government’s answer to any
problem has been “fewer cattle, fewer days on national forest
lands.” This can make it hard for a rancher to make a living.
That day last summer, as the photo shows, it was sunny
and warm, I had a good horse to ride in beautiful country, and the
range conservationists were good company. I hadn’t met them
before, but we visited easily as we stepped through the hoops of
walking, counting, recording. After all, it’s not rocket
science, measuring blades of grass. We’d been short of rain
in Wyoming, and it was a relief to agree that the grass would be
ready for our cattle when they completed their climb to these high
ranges.
Usually, the day carries tension and
finger-pointing, but to my surprise, these guys avoided that
approach. They were more interested in the country around us and
its history, asking questions about the original boundaries and
previous permittees, landmarks and trails. They wondered if I knew
the origin of obscure names such as Brindle Creek, Aagard Springs
and Divorce Ridge. They asked about gone-away sheep permits on the
Bighorns, and whatever happened to sold-off ranches and their
owners, and about the early-day trails and roundup customs. We
laughed as I retold the funny stories I knew from my 50 years of
ranching here. My husband, I said, could tell them more, since he
was born here and his father and grandfather used this range before
there ever was a Bighorn National Forest.
We talked about
the future, too, and I tried to be optimistic about what would
become of local ranches amid trends for ever-more housing
developments, second homes and resorts close to these public lands.
The ride was finished before we finished the conversation, so I
broke out the coffee and some fairly clean cups from under my truck
seat. When the fellows left, I said I hoped to see them again, and
I meant it. It felt like an unusual day. They’d given me a
lot to think about.
Like some other ranchers in the West,
our family has been in the same place for a hundred years or so.
Local folks like ourselves are the “stickers,” as
Wallace Stegner wrote, since we seem to be the ones who stuck it
out, sustaining our communities and keeping their history alive in
our memories. How refreshing it was — the sincerity and respect
for local knowledge these young Forest Service employees displayed.
Our conversation that day reinforced my view that grazing permits
and the ranching industry remain a positive use of public lands.
The ranchers who have survived have had to learn from
mistakes and change practices to become better caretakers of public
land. Now, those of us who are left on the land provide stability
for the surrounding areas. I realized that this has been little
understood and not much appreciated. Forest Service personnel
usually move frequently around the region, and they must adapt to
policy changes from Washington as they go. Ranchers, on the other
hand, stay put, so that while their knowledge may not be as wide,
it sure is deep.
I hope the two range men I spent time
with show up again in a rancher’s picture somewhere, and I
hope that someday they rise toward the top of the heap in the
Forest Service. They reminded me that ranching shouldn’t be
regarded as a detriment to public-lands management, but rather as a
contribution to the wellbeing of our federal lands system. Multiple
use of public lands is a concept worth preserving, and the
relationship between permittee and staff member ought to be
harmonious, respectful and maybe even enjoyable.
In the
meantime, I’ll keep the photograph.
Mary
Flitner is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High
Country News (hcn.org). She is a rancher in
Wyoming.
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