IN CONVERSATION WITH FILMMAKER COLIN RUGGIERO
While the buffalo is undoubtedly a cultural icon, this is perhaps its dilemma—emblematic of an Old West that, for many of us, exists only in the memory of someone themselves forgotten, as alive in the American mind as the faces on our currency or the figurines in our museums.
A Buffalo Story (National Wildlife Federation, 2024) examines the animal through an ecological and historical lens: its cultural importance and tribally-led efforts to restore their natural habitats across the American West, where, just 100 years ago, “innumerable droves roamed, comparatively undisturbed” before “thousands [were] ruthlessly and shamefully slain every season […] by white hunters and tourists merely for their robes, and in sheer wonton sport, and their huge carcasses left to fester and rot” (Overland Monthly and Out West Magazine, 1889). Despite this and all manner of eradication (their numbers dwindled to 541 in North America), the buffalo has maintained. A group of them is called an obstinacy; a stubborn bunch.
A Buffalo Story is, in every sense, a homecoming, and a deeply American one. Filmmaker Colin Ruggiero follows Jason Baldes, Eastern Shoshone and the Tribal Buffalo Program Director for the National Wildlife Federation’s Tribal Partnerships Program, and his wife Patti Baldes, Northern Arapaho, as they work to restore the buffalo populations sacred and integral to the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes of Wyoming’s Wind River Reservation.
J.M.M.:Are you originally from Montana?
CR:I was born in Wyoming. But I’ve been in Missoula or Bozeman since I was about 15 or 16, so 30 years or something.
J.M.M.:How’d you get from Wyoming to Montana, making this incredible documentary?
CR:I always loved the outdoors and spent a lot of time outside. My dad was a wildlife biologist—he was something of a science evangelist, but I always thought there were these other ways of knowing, so many different knowledge systems, including Indigenous wisdom.
J.M.M.:Was it the over-identification of nature you found problematic?
CR:I always had this notion that there were more holistic ways of looking at the world, as opposed to this reductionist [view] and breaking things down into smaller and smaller pieces. People would go out and learn all the scientific names of plants, but they wouldn’t know anything about those plants. They didn’t have a relationship with that plant or that animal. But I should say I’ve come around to being quite an evangelist for science myself.
I was doing freelance writing and photography for a while, out of undergrad, not really ready or wanting to go to grad school. And Discovery Networks started a Science & Natural History Filmmaking MFA program at Montana State in Bozeman. I didn’t really know anything about it; I knew it would probably involve a lot of screen time and computers and cutting-edge technology, all of which I was hesitant about. But I also thought it would be a way to combine many of the things I loved, and to spend time in the natural world and to maybe move the needle on issues I cared about. I applied thinking I wouldn’t get in. I got in, and I’ve been doing that ever since for 20 years now.
CR:I’ve always been interested in wildlife and also land management issues. I’m critical of a lot of big environmental organizations and the way they do things but the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) is a really good one . Their Tribal partnerships, in particular, are really on-point. They’re making a real effort to provide support when and where they can—like the Eastern Shoshone with this buffalo reintroduction, and the Arapaho—and then just get out of the way. Transferring control is a hard thing for a lot of organizations for a lot of complicated reasons and there is always the need to get credit for their work in order to keep the funding coming in - but NWF does a really admirable job of walking that line and prioritizing the highest good. So, for example, Jason started the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative, and now he works for both organizations. He’s the Director of the Tribal Buffalo Program for NWF, and he’s also the Executive Director of the Tribal Buffalo Initiative and those two organizations work in close partnership.
As I became more interested in bison, and the central clash between people who were trying to bring bison back, and those who didn’t want them around—this became another lens through which to look at land management and ranching in particular.
Long story short, I was hired by NWF to shoot some footage of the first bison reintroduction to the Wind River Reservation in 2016 and I ended up making a short film about it that got a fair bit of attention. Garrit Voggesser, the Director of NWF's Tribal Lands Partnerships asked me if I was interested in making a longer film.
I was hesitant for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was that I’m a white guy, and wasn’t sure how to approach the story or if I was the person to make a buffalo film that would have a focus on Tribal issues. But we decided to proceed slowly and see how things took shape. I drove down from Montana to Wind River a few times a year, hung out with the buffalo and filmed them. And in the process, I got to know Jason Baldes better. As time went on, I became more and more compelled to make a film. Jason and I became better friends, and years went by. He told me more about his personal experiences and opened up about some of his own trauma. I was hesitant to think about that as a thread in the film - I didn’t want to use a human-interest story to sneak in a story about bison - but he’s a really charismatic and thoughtful guy.
J.M.M.: He’s a wildly magnetic person, every time he’s onscreen.
CR:He is. There’s something about him. And so largely this is his story. And Patti’s story. As I got to know her better later on, I realized what an incredible, smart, thoughtful and creative person she is. So that allowed me to just let them tell those parts of the story and allowed me to not be in the position of trying to represent someone else’s beliefs. And really they aren’t speaking on behalf of anyone or any group either. This is how being involved in buffalo restoration has affected them. And viewers can infer for themselves whether it has that potential to do that for other people or other groups of people or on a larger level. But I could largely just let Jason and Patti tell their stories.
J.M.M.:Another fascinating aspect of the film is its objectivity; the ranchers aren’t painted in a negative or positive light. But did you personally get any pushback from them?
CR:They were all open to talking with me. But actually I lost a lot of sleep making the film and trying to navigate my desire to represent their values and beliefs accurately. I have a deep respect for most of the ranchers I know but there are some deep differences as well. You know, they’d talk about being scared of losing their traditions, if their kids were going to take over the ranch, if their values were going to disappear. And I was like, Yeah, that’s a real fear. And given that you understand that, do you see any parallel with the groups of people who lived here for thousands and thousands of years before you, and they had these connections to the land and these values and traditions that they wanted to pass onto their kids, while their way of life was disappearing? Do you see a parallel there? And they’d just give me these blank stares.
In the end, I reconciled that issue the same way I reconciled being a white guy making a film about buffalo - with the understanding that Native people and Tribes are not these totemized, homogeneous blocks. They’re diverse and nuanced groups and individuals. I let Jason and Patti represent their own views. And I stopped wrestling with whether or not ranchers were friend or foe - they’re neither. They are a diverse group of people with their own feelings about issues that defy simple classifications. As Patti so eloquently states in the film though, I think, with the right perspective, buffalo are something that we all have in common and can serve to unite us if we let them.
For more information about the film, and to sign up to receive updates about screenings and release dates, please visit: www.abuffalostory.org
For more information about Colin Ruggiero and his other film work, please visit: www.colinruggiero.com
