Building an American Serengeti in Montana

“Ask anybody in America to imagine a prairie—you see a red barn, cows, some barbed-wire fences. How many people see bison and elk and bighorn sheep and wolves and grizzly bears—a Serengeti image but with truly North American animals? We can bring that back.”

Despite his skepticism about the practicality of the reserve and his allegiance to the ranching community, Johnson admits that he finds bison “majestic.” He says, “I can even say a 3.2-million-acre functioning ecological system would be kind of neat.”

Even Barthelmess can see the benefit of more visitors to the area. A few years ago, he says, he took out-of-town guests on a drive to show them his ranch. There were deer. A coyote ran across their path. A prairie-dog town was overseen by chirping sentinels. Elk lay under a pine tree near the Missouri River. And as they entered reserve land, they came upon a bison in the road. His guests were thrilled. The prairie was alive. “That’s all it takes right there to start a business,” Barthelmess says matter-of-factly.

Horse Capture points out that the Native American and Caucasian communities in the area haven’t always gotten along—tribal members didn’t always feel welcome in the area that is now the reserve when it was only ranches, he says. Today, he hopes that the reservation and surrounding, predominantly white communities like Malta and Lewistown can join together to market themselves as a destination for travelers and “break down old walls.”

“We can all be stuck in our bad history,” Horse Capture says, his hand sweeping across elemental country. “But let’s see what the future holds for us, together.”

By Aaron Teasdale