Sheepherders With Cell Phones – a 2013 Deep West Video by Carolyn & Linda Duffurena

Carolyn and Linda Dufurrena ponder how cell phones have changed the lives of sheepherders who live with their flocks on isolated western ranges in this Deep West Video produced by Hal Cannon and Taki Telonidis for the Western Folklife Center.

Buster Dufurrena grew up
in the Bilk Creek mountains

of north-western Nevada,

tending his father's sheep camps
from the time he was a small boy.

Now 81, he owns
the Dufurrena Sheep Company.

Many things about the sheep
business have changed.

Although some have remained the same.

I rode along with him one day
as he made camp for his herders.

The road winds into the mountains
east of Wilder ranch

and when the truck bumps into the canyon

the old stories start to come.

Buster Dufurrena: When I was
five, six, seven, eight years old

up until about probably ten,

I spent the summers -

with [unclear] off to sheep camp
in Wilder Creek.

We'd tell mom we were going
to the sheep camp, and away we'd go.

Emmanuel and I rode, we had two old mules

called Pat and Charlie.

And when we'd get up there
we'd go fishing.

We'd catch fish
and we'd put them in a bucket.

And we'd haul the bucket

up to the camp where they had troughs

and we'd put the fish in the troughs

and while we were taking our nap

[unclear] would cook up the fish

and he'd take everything
that floated to top

and that's what we ate.

The rest he'd turn loose in the creek
and when we'd wake up he'd tell us,

cats ate the fish.

And that had gone on most of the time.

When we tended camp,

[Unclear] would take us -

he was the camp tender
and we'd follow him all over.

We'd go to Holloway Mountain,

Maggie Creek, Cottonwood,

Shasta Creek, Wet Creek.

He had about five bands
that he took care of.

You know, a lot of times
when we were on a trip,

thunderstorms would come up
and just scare us to death.

But we had to keep going.

And when I was nine, ten years old,

sometimes I'd take the mules
and tend camp by myself.

I wasn't big enough
to take the packs off the mules

and I'd just lead them to the camp

and the sheep herders would meet me
and they'd take the packs off,

take what they wanted, put them back on,

and head me for home.

CD: These days,

although the herders still live in tents

and move their remote
summer camps with burros,

Buster brings supplies
with his pick-up now.

The road rises into granite crags
and as we creep up over a saddle,

the sheep appear -

tiny white dots
on the steep slope above us.

"We'll meet him at the salt ground",
Buster says, checking his watch.

I scan the mountainside
for some glimpse of the herder

but see only dark mountain mahogany
twisting between crags,

Aspen groves, fluffy and green
in the draws.

Suddenly, two of the huskiest
Border Collies I have ever seen

bound down the dust
to the track toward us,

barking exuberantly.

Buster eases the truck to a halt

and reaches for his cell phone.

I climb out and the two dogs
are all over me with greeting.

Two burros - one gray and white pinto,
and a big long-haired jack,

graze in the brush nearby.

Little Juan is from ranching country
in northern Mexico.

He has worked for Buster for 25 years.

Always by himself.

He stands barely five feet tall,

his curly hair graying at the temples,

wrinkles creasing his tanned cheeks.

His small feet have hiked
every canyon and ridge

of this empty corner of the world.

Through dry seasons and wet.

Through fires and floods that rolled
truck-sized boulders down the canyons.

Buster pops the battery out for his phone
as Juan says hello.

Juan hands his own battery to his boss

and snaps in the fresh one
as they discuss the news of the day.

Juan has only had
this little phone for two years

and its precursor,

El Negro, a bulky black bag phone
for a few years before that.

Although there is of course
no cell coverage in the canyon,

the ridge tops have a clear shot
at the cell towers on the horizon.

The biggest problem now
is where to call from, Buster tells me.

The top of the ridge is the only place,

but depending on where you are,
there is different service.

It looks like there's
never been another human

in these miles of empty country.

And the human footprint is light.

Still, on this knob it's called Verizon,

and on that ridge over there, it's AT&T.

Juan has charted an invisible map
of cell phone coverage.

On this side of that rock pile there,

above the mahoganies on that ridge
across the canyon

that will let him call out
any time he really needs to.

For Juan, the phone has changed nothing.

And everything.

The camp on the mountainside
is the same as it's been for 100 years.

The burros, the dogs,
the lions, the sheep.

But the one most difficult piece

of the sheep-herding life
is different now.

The loneliness.

Only a few years ago,

it would be five days between
human conversations for Juan,

as he waited for the camp tender to come.

Weeks or months without
word from his family.

The time it took for a letter
to make its way

from the ranch outside Guadalajara
where his wife and children live,

to his remote sheep camp in Nevada.

BD: He calls me every couple of nights

and lets me know what's going on,
how they're getting by.

When we had a lion problem
at Shasta Creek,

dogs barked all night
right under his camp.

And in the morning when he got up,

looked at the sheep,
we had several dead lambs.

And he walked around the rocks
where the dogs were barking

and there was a lion

looking at him,
right from one of the rocks.

And he got him, and a little bit later,

another one came
right on top of the rocks.

And he got him.

But it stopped the killing.

For that day.

CD: The battery switch complete,

Juan tucks his newly energized
cell phone deep into his pocket.

He hangs binoculars and his
burlap sack on the pack saddle

next to the machete handle
wrapped with duct tape.

He takes several neatly folded
burlap sacks from another pack,

Buster fills them from the boxes
and cooler in the back of the pick-up.

The dogs wait patiently, panting softly

in the shade of the tailgate.

One sack holds vegetables,
another a leg of mutton.

The largest he fills with dog food.

Juan nestles a plastic bag of green grapes

gently in a sagebrush.

To tuck it the last
into the top of his load.

Then he gathers up the lead ropes,
ties his pack string together,

slings his rifle and whistles up the dogs.

In a moment, they have
disappeared down the trail

that divides our life from his.

The trail will lead them across the creek

and up the draw on the south side
of the deep canyon

to an invisible swale above
the shoulder of this mountain.

And there, he will do
as herders have done for 100 years -

put away his groceries,
turn his burros loose,

and watch the Sun redden in the west.

And then, he will do what herders
only a few years ago

could not imagine doing.

He will call across the miles
to faraway Guadalajara

and say goodnight to his wife,

and she to him.

And the sinking Sun will have
a different quality

because of that small thing.