SWAN VALLEY – There will be a free film showing of “Unbranded,” Saturday, March 19, 7 p.m. at Condon Community Hall, presented by Alpine Artisans, Crown Community Cinema series.
Unbranded is the story of four young cowboys, just out of college and looking for a little adventure before getting jobs and settling down. They decide to take a bunch of wild mustangs from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) shelter, break them to ride and pack and take a trip from Mexico to Canada through some of the wildest country in the U.S. Piece of cake, right? Wrong!
It is a film filled with adventure, beautiful scenery, comedy and sorrow. The route is from the Mexican border, through Arizona and the Superstition Mountains, the Navajo reservation, the Grand Canyon, the Utah mountains, up to Jackson Hole in Wyoming, through Yellowstone Park and along the Continental Divide in Montana, including the Bob Marshall Wilderness and Glacier Park.
First off, they select about 20 mustangs (wild horses) from among the 50,000 horses being held by the BLM due to the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act. These horses have been kept in holding pens since their capture from wild herds around the western states. But they are still wild animals, completely unbroken.
One of the boys talks at one point about how dirty and smelly he is and how dirty and smelly his sleeping bag is. At times they have a hard time finding water for the animals and sometimes the horses escape and have to be tracked down. They climb over mountains and ridges with no trail, covered with downfallen timber. They cross rivers, negotiate narrow ledge trails, through tunnels and even a suspension bridge at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.
The Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 (WFRHBA) is administered by the BLM and Forest Service. Wild horses are gathered from their home ranges as the population gets more than the range can support. The excess horses are available for adoption but there are more horses gathered each year than there are adoptees. Currently there are more than 50,000 horses being held and fed by the BLM and that number increases every year. The BLM is not allowed to slaughter the horses, they must be kept until they are adopted or die of old age.
Besides being an adventure by these four young men, this film seeks to bring attention to the issues of the Mustangs and the WFRHBA. The film does a good job of presenting both sides of the issues surrounding the horses and burros. One of the points that I picked up on was the ability of the BLM to provide birth control to the wild mares, limiting the number of offspring each year to the number of people interested in adopting. This has only been done on a limited basis to date.
Do our four cowboys and their horses (plus one burro) all make it? Come and see!
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