Heather: Seriously, if you had told me three and a half years ago that I would be putting on a sheepherders festival, I would've been like, "I don't think so" [laughing].

I have a varied career in Wyoming. I've done a lot of different things, and three years ago, I came to work for the museum. Um, by trade, an artist and a designer. I came here, and they're like, "Well, we do a sheepherders festival." Well, I like to go big or go home, and so there is a huge event, I don't know if you've ever heard of it, called “Trailing the Sheep” in Idaho. Who knew? Here we go. Right?  Not my world. And it, I mean, it's like a four or five-day long festival of Basque folks, and they come out from everywhere, trail the sheep, huge groups of sheep. And so I used that as my jumping-off point.

But [today], there were 30 ewes and their lambs that trailed in from three miles away down Echeta Road. We had to shut down streets, and when they came in, the Lander Pipe Band was standing there serenading the sheep. It was, I mean, you're like... So the rock pile was a landmark for ranchers to be able to find the railroad, and so here we are standing in this field, we have lots of Scottish immigrants. We have Basque immigrants in this area. And you're like, "I think we're actually hearing history," because here come the sheep and, and the Scottish ballad is being played, and you're like, "God, I'm gonna try not to cry." So yeah, it's a very niche-y event. But this, I mean, when it started, it was two sheep wagons.

That was it. So this is what we have now. I know, I know. It's kind of exciting. And lots of things for people to do and so, yeah.

Nichole: Can you tell us a little more about the sheep wagons, how they get here, where they go afterward?

Heather: Yeah, that's a great question. So this year we kind of have a, it's a little bit different as far as the wagons we have.

That wagon down there is from Kansas. They traveled all the way from Kansas so that we could see their wagon. They're the McIlvrays. This wagon is Lane and Felicia Schederline’s. They're part of the Crow Tribe. And then the next wagon was made by our local high school. They made it in their shop class or their CTE (Career and Technical Education) class. And then this one is a Hoss Port wagon. He's an up-and-coming designer out of Colorado of sheep wagons. This is the the randomness [of the wagon world]. People are like, "Oh, I think that's a Hoss Port wagon." And you're, "Okay." And then the next one was made by the other high school.

This one that they're standing at, that's Grace. She is our resident mascot shape. And then this is the one that we have usually, in the annex where kids can go in, or people can go in and actually see. Then the next one is one of our... We have a 90-year-old file clerk that works for us. That's his title, but he does everything, and that's his wagon. And then the last wagon is the Daly wagon, probably from the 1920s, all original. And so when you go through to look at them, you get, you really, every one of them is like a fingerprint in that they're totally different, and how they store things and where the table is, and if there's, if there's a stove in it, or how did they...

Like, both of these little wagons have no stove, no way to cook, no any of that. So you just see something, like the kids saw something different, and they don't know some of the things like having something to latch the door to. So they are completely different, and we just invite people to come through to see that part of history. 

Note: This was recorded live at the Sheepherder’s Festival in Gillette, WY and includes background crowd noise.

The transcript above has been condensed from its original audio recording to improve the flow and readability of the story.