EMILY WHANG / NEXTGENRADIO
What does it mean to be
home?
Signa McAdams speaks with Patti Baldes (Northern Arapaho & Big Pine Paiute) about her passion for buffalo. Baldes is from the Wind River Reservation and she says her connection to home would not exist without this keystone species.
Buffalo Revitalization in the heart of the Wind River Reservation
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[REPORTER] I’m Signa McAdams with NextGen Radio Indigenous on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming.
Patti Baldes is a Northern Arapaho and Big Pine Paiute tribal member.
Her passion is to bring home buffalo to the Reservation that had long been eradicated from tribal lands.
To her, home does not exist without the presence of Buffalo.
[PATTI] The buffalo are just, I mean, they’re everything. They really are just everything to me.
Buffalo and that was my connection to home. When I think of buffalo initially I think of my grandpa. And I didn’t I didn’t know him.
I was young when he passed but you know, stories of ceremonies where the Buffalo was called in or involved and I think of that, and I think of his home that still sits at the end of the road. You know, it’s grandma and grandpa’s home.
My name is Patti Baldes and I am the Executive Director for a nonprofit called Wind River Native Advocacy Center. And also photographer, I call that Patti with an I and I’m also involved with a few art projects that revolve around Buffalo and the focus of rematriate.
We’re here today in Crowheart, North Crowhart, Wyoming on the property that we call Crow Creek Camp. It was formerly the Bane property; one of the first homesteads on the reservation at the base of Black Mountain in the Owl Creeks.
You can see where there’s flowers and plants and a lot of native plants are still here: rose hips and the aspen trees. Everything is lovely.
And I think of my mom and how she talks about the Buffalo and she’s Northern Paiute. Northern Paiute but as a human I always questioned you know, all of that.
The things you don’t see you know, the stories, but she really did she just had a way of making me believe in a home that you couldn’t see or touch.
The buffalo are, you know, I can just picture them around me, inside me. And they remind me of my mom, I guess mostly like when I think of the stories, it’s always my mom.
The way to get youth involved is to get the moms and the auntie’s, and the sisters and the grandmas involved because we’re the ones in charge. And we are the ones that will help get them to these events, get them to the harvests, and get the food, get the buffalo in our bellies.
And that’s what we need. The buffalo in our bellies, and our hearts will make us I think, feel better think better. be healthier, obviously.
And it’s a cool thing for me to think about.
And I have this thing I do where I see all of us as hearts like I’ve pictured us and others. So when like the birds that fly by I don’t see a bird I just see like a little heart one. So it’s like my earrings have hearts on them. I have tattoos with hearts. It’s just my favorite shape.
… and a Buffalo’s heart is huge.
And they make me feel like no matter where I go, I can have some sort of, I don’t know, something to share, like I don’t feel lost all the time or in a way that’s making me forget who I am.
They’ve just really brought home to me for myself
Dust flew in the air and a truck weaved between muddy pools of melting spring snow amidst a sea of sagebrush.
Patti Baldes looked fierce stepping out of her big blue truck with coffee in hand. Through an old iron gate, crunching sundried leaves, she led the way into what you could tell is a relic of time.
Patti is Northern Arapaho and Big Pine Paiute, a mother and a grandmother. She is the Executive Director of the Wind River Advocacy Center located in Fort Washakie, Wyoming. She is also an artist – a photographer. She has an ability to capture the beauty in all that surrounds her. You can tell by the way she begins to speak of this place.
Patti Baldes navigates the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative’s 600 acres in her Side-by-Side ATV on April 15, 2023, in Crowheart, Wyo. The property is at the base of Black Mountain in the Owl Creek mountain range.
SIGNA MCADAMS / NEXTGENRADIO
“We’re here today in North Crowheart, Wyoming, on the property that we call Crow Creek camp,” she said. “It was formerly the Bane property. One of the first homesteads on the Reservation, at the base of Black Mountain in the Owl Creeks.”
Birds chirped with the soothing sound of bubbling water closeby. Patti opened the door of a house that was once someone’s home.
“You can see it’s a home. There’s a raspberry greenhouse. You can see where there’s flowers and a lot of native plants are still here, rose hips and the aspen trees. Everything is lovely,” Patti said, speaking of the land’s former occupants.
Buffalo soak up the sun on the Wind River Reservation on March 21, 2023. Currently, 145 buffalo reside on the reservation – 65 in the Northern Arapaho herd and 80 in the Eastern Shoshone herd (pictured here).
SIGNA MCADAMS / NEXTGENRADIO
She captured the present beauty of the property with her words, but she has a picture in her head of the future it holds. Patti has big plans for Crow Creek. She wants this land to be for the people. A place to connect with one another and with the land, she envisions a future of rematriation.
Crow Creek runs through the property, photographed on April 15, 2023. Patti Baldes says she hopes a river restoration project will bring back native vegetation and wildlife.
SIGNA MCADAMS / NEXTGENRADIO
The Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone Tribes have two herds totalling 145 animals, as of this spring. Currently, these buffalo reside on Tribal land approximately 30 miles downstream from the Crow Creek property.
“A Buffalo’s heart is huge. My earrings have hearts on them. I have tattoos with hearts. It’s just my favorite shape,” she said. “And if that’s a silly way to direct my life, I don’t know what else to do.”
She sees connection in everyone and everything. She wants Crow Creek to be a place of healing and connection. She is excited for the future of Buffalo on the Wind River Reservation.
Patti Baldes drives through the Crow Creek property in Crowheart, Wyo, on April 15, 2023.
SIGNA MCADAMS / NEXTGENRADIO