A Shoshone Man Restores Buffalo to a Past in ‘Homecoming’ » Explorersweb

Jason Baldes, a member of the Eastern Shoshone tribe, grew up hunting with his father. But as the two men explored the natural landscape of Wyoming’s Wind River Indian Reservation, the younger Baldes grew frustrated that those hunting trips couldn’t include bison.

“Before colonization, the buffalo was our store of life for many of our tribes. It was our food, our clothing or shelter, but also central to our cultural and spiritual belief systems,” Baldes says in the PBS film Homecoming.

“It’s been missing for a long time,” he continues. “So, by bringing that animal back into our communities, we can begin to heal. From the atrocities of the past, from the loss of land, the loss of culture, the loss of language. It’s fundamental to who we are.”

Baldes’ father was a biologist and Baldes himself was interested in science from a young age. He knew from those first family hunts that his footsteps would follow the path of the buffalo.

Bring back the buffalo

The quiet, meditative film follows Baldes as he attempts to bring the buffalo back to his tribal land. Through organizations like the InterTribal Buffalo Council (ITCB), Baldes and others like him purchase and accept donations of animals from other herds and transport them across the country.

The Council hopes the bison will bring ecological healing to a landscape that has long been abused. To date, ITBC has restored more than 25,000 bison to 60 herds in 20 states.

Currently, many tribes have to help the bison survive by feeding them. But the long-term goal is to “return them to larger landscapes where they can exist on their own, without human intervention, or genetic engineering, or ranching,” Baldes says.

‘In our DNA’

The desire to see the buffalo again is more than just ecological. Baldes feels a strong cultural connection to the animal and hopes to one day go buffalo hunting with his children and grandchildren.

As he rightly notes, the bison’s 100-year absence from Wyoming is a drop in the ocean compared to the millennia that Native Americans have had a powerful intimate relationship with them. Such a relationship, Baldes says, is “in our DNA.”

He’s right. One of the goals of the InterTribal Buffalo Council is to reintroduce buffalo meat into the diet of Native Americans through lunch programs on reservations.

The council cites the modern Western diet as a major contributor to the high rates of diabetes and other health problems faced by indigenous peoples of North America.

Baldes also sees the buffalo as a metaphor for the plight of his own people, who have been similarly relegated to the pitiful remnants of their once vast territory. By restoring the animals, Baldes hopes to reestablish the emotional and spiritual ties his people once felt to the buffalo. His spirits are lifted a little each time he sees one of the majestic creatures gallop out of a pen and onto the plains.

“When that hoof hits the ground and you see that first footprint, you finally realize they’re home,” he says, emotion audible in his voice. “And they’re never going to leave.”