This weekend, the mountain towns of Ketchum and Hailey are the settings for The Trailing of the Sheep Festival. In keeping with the century-old tradition, sheepherders move their flocks from summer pastures in the mountains north of the resort towns of Ketchum and Sun Valley, south through the Wood River Valley to winter desert grazing areas.
The festival on Friday through Sunday, Oct. 7 -9, celebrates this migration and the traditions of the sheep ranching culture with a weekend of music, dance, food, arts, work skills and stories that honor its families and the Scottish, Basque and Peruvian peoples that figure prominently in its history. This year, in addition to its usual popular programs, the Festival will highlight Scottish contributions to western sheep ranching. Ivan Doig, who writes about growing up on Montana sheep ranches with his Scottish father, will set the stage for Festival events at An Evening with Ivan Doig on Friday.
The weekend culminates on Sunday at noon with an authentic sheep "trailing," not a reenactment, when close to 1,800 sheep parade down Main Street Ketchum past restaurants, boutique shops, coffeehouses and hotels. Traffic halts on city streets and state Highway 75 to allow the sheep to complete their annual trek. Residents and visitors come to watch and "trail" (walk) behind the sheep herding them through the fall afternoon reliving the slower pace of a bygone era. In the early 1900s, the Wood River Valley was second only to Sydney, Australia as a sheep center.
Friday, Oct. 7, festival activities begin with a cooking workshop from 1-3 p.m. featuring prominent chef Scott Mason of Ketchum Grill. Mason will discuss and demonstrate some of the secrets of cooking delectable lamb dishes. Following this from 3 -- 5 p.m. renowned camp cook Allan Laudert will lead a hands-on workshop on sheepherder bread-making. There is a small fee for each class and registration is required through the College of Southern Idaho, 208/788-2038.
Friday evening at 7:30 p.m. the Trailing of the Sheep Festival will present "An Evening with Ivan Doig." In celebration of this year's Scottish theme, award-winning author Ivan Doig will make a rare public appearance for the Trailing of the Sheep Festival. Doig will read from his writings then with former public television newsman Marc Johnson, he will discuss his books and life growing up on sheep ranches with his Scottish father.
Ivan Doig was born in Montana in 1939 and grew up along the Rocky Mountain Front, the dramatic landscape that has inspired much of his writing. His first book, "This House of Sky," was a finalist for the National Book Award in contemporary thought. Hailed as Wallace Stegner's successor as "Dean of Western American Letters," Doig explores the lives of average people, Westerners who carved out an existence though sheer dint of their labors: ranchers and rangers, cowboys and cooks, sheepherders and truck drivers.
"The language begins in western territory and experience but in the hands of an artist it touches all landscape and life," wrote Robert Kirsch in the Los Angeles Times. "Doig is such and artist." Doig has been honored with the lifetime "Distinguished Achievement" award by the Western Literary Association, and in the century's-end San Francisco Chronicle poll for best Western novels and works of non-fiction. He is the only living writer with books in the top dozen of both lists. Among his long list of notable work is Doig's important trilogy, "English Creek," "Dancing at the Rascal Fair" and "Ride with Me, Mariah Montana."
Saturday morning, 9 - 10 a.m. Ivan Doig will hold a conversation about the craft of language and writing, looking at the properties and elements of language available to writers of prose of the American West. This class will be held in a small group setting at the new Center Hailey, formerly the Roberta McKercher House. Space is limited and there is a small fee for this workshop. Registration is required at the College of Southern Idaho, 208/788-2038. This appearance of Ivan Doig in the Wood River Valley is supported in part by a grant from the Idaho Humanities Council, a State-based Program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Also on Saturday is the popular Sheep Folklife Fair in Hailey, 12 miles south of Ketchum, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The event features regional artisans working with wool -- shearing, carding, spinning and weaving. There are demonstrations of herding sheep with stock dogs, a display of sheep wagons, a craft area for children, a workshop in spinning and weaving and the traditional St. Charles Church Basque lamb dinner. The fair presents performances by the Boise Highlanders Scottish bagpipers and drummers, the nationally renowned Oinkari Basque Dancers, the Gaupasa Basque Folk Musicians, Latino X Peruvian musicians, the Chicago-based Polish Highlanders of North America and the Boulder Brothers performing Celtic songs.
New this year: There will be a sheep camp run by the Western Folklife Center staff where fair-goers may record personal stories of sheep ranching life.
Also for the 2005 Trailing of the Sheep Festival, which highlights the contributions of the Scottish sheep ranchers to the history the West, there will be a Scottish Stage with performances of traditional Scottish dance with classes in the Highland Fling and the Sword Dance, bagpipe and Celtic musicians, a display of kilt-making with a discussion of the tartans and clans and athletic demonstration of Scottish Games.
Saturday evening is the Sheep Tales Storytelling Session. John Peavey, who runs one of the oldest sheep ranches in the region on the headquarters of what was Scotsman Jim Laidlaw's ranch, will lead a discussion as our special sheep herding guest from Scotland, long-time area residents, visitors to the area and this year, in particular, Scottish sheep ranching families gather to reminisce about the days when the valley had more sheep outfits than tourists. It was this group of Scots immigrants who came to this country often as sheepherders, took their pay in sheep and stayed to build some of the largest sheep operations around the west. James Laidlaw and Andrew Little were such a Scotsmen, and there will be plenty of stories to tell at this event.
On Sunday, all of these activities are a prelude to the Trailing of the Sheep Parade at noon, when hundreds of sheep "trail" or are herded down Main Street Ketchum by the families of Flat Top Sheep Co., one of the remaining four outfits to still move sheep through the valley seasonally. The animals are ushered through town in style by historic sheep wagons, the Oinkari Basque Dancers, Latino X Peruvian musicians, the Polish Highlanders and Boise Highlanders and Dancers.
Following the parade the Sheep Shuttle will take participants to Neil Canyon for the Sheepherder Walk, a guided tour of aspen groves to view sheepherder carvings on trees, the names and drawings a record of the men who walked these trails caring for their animals over the years.
The weekend events conclude with a hint of the Basque celebration scheduled for the 2006 Trailing of the Sheep Festival. The Boise Basque Choir will perform at the Big Wood Presbyterian Church in Ketchum at 4 p.m. This performance is the choir's first in the Wood River Valley and is a fundraiser so that the group can visit the Basque country, the inspiration for their work.
ON-GOING FESTIVAL EVENTS
Museum Exhibit
Trailing the Year: The Human Landscape of Sheep Ranching in the American West is a traveling exhibition that presents contemporary stories of sheep ranching in the intermountain west. Designed to give depth and context to the lives of people who work and live in remote parts of the West, the exhibit is organized by the seasons of work and features photography, poetry, architectural drawings, quotes from interviews, and audio and video installations. There will be an opening reception at the Ketchum-Sun Valley Ski and Heritage Museum on Thursday, Oct. 6, from 5 -- 6 p.m. and a special exhibit tour and discussion with the Western Folklife Center staff on Sunday at 1 p.m. The exhibit is open Thursday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday 10 a.m. until 2 p.m.
Lamb Dine Around
Other events:
Over the weekend many local restaurants will serve gourmet lamb specials for the popular Lamb Dine Around. Enjoy dinner and American Lamb at its finest.
At Starbucks visit the Lane Mercantile, a re-creation of the site of the sheepmen's gathering place, and at local historical museums and libraries, view special weekend exhibitions.
