(gentle music) - Welcome to a special edition of "This Is Utah".

I'm Liz Adeola, and we are here at Wheeler Historic Farm.

And I think this is the perfect spot to talk about some of our favorite four legged friends who stole the show on "This Is Utah".

Take, for instance, the dogs behind Utah's avalanche search and rescue missions, or the bison who may look big and slow, but are pretty quick on their feet.

Utah's got some pretty cool animals.

And now you have a front row seat to some of the most popular animals centered events in the state, from the bison roundup to the sheep run in Northern Utah.

- [Narrator] Support for "This Is Utah" comes from the Willard L. Eccles Foundation, the Lawrence T. & Janet T.Dee Foundation, the Utah Office of Tourism, the George S. & Dolores Dore Eccles Foundation, and the contributing members of PBS Utah.

Thank you.

(playful music) - Heritage is important to Lane Jensen.

His family is closing in on a century of holding an annual sheep drive that goes down Sardine Canyon to Brigham City.

(gentle music) - Sheep are an interesting animal, they require patience and they themselves are very impatient, especially when it comes to food.

(soft music) My grandfather put the outfit together in about 1928.

This was his sheep outfit.

We're just caretakers of it after the fact.

We looked up to him and respect him for what he did, for what he put together.

He was a child of immigrants who came from nothing.

I remember sitting in the end of the barn, we'd come out, sitting there with my grandfather on a bale of straw.

And it seemed like there was always a sack of cookies or something that he was sharing with us.

And then we were always expected to be around it shearing time, or whenever we moved to load the trucks or work the sheep in the corral.

I guess I fell in love with it as a teenager and always wanted to do it.

(gentle music) There's some freedom to it, to be able to work for yourself and to take care of things.

But it's also taking pride in taking care of the animals too, to see them grow and do well and have something that you think has value to it that you feel like you helped produce - It's our life.

It's not only our livelihood, but it's the way we do things.

Everything revolves around what needs to be taken care of the sheep?

What needs to be taken care of on the farm?

What do we need to do here and there?

I love my husband's work ethic with it.

When we first got married, that was really hard for me, especially not growing up on a farm and not knowing how many hours and how detailed every little thing is there has to be completed.

- We can spend time with family too.

My favorite memory so far this summer was three weeks ago.

We brought in one of the herds of sheep and got the camp set and everything else and sat down with my wife and kids on a blanket on the grass and had a little picnic, pretty pleasant thing.

(gentle music) - I think our girls will be the ones that, you know, if anyone takes it over, it'll be the two girls.

You know, my husband's third generation, they would be fourth.

He's worked really hard to be able to pass this on to them and give them this legacy.

And I'm really proud of that, that we have taught them.

This isn't a man's job.

It's as much a woman's job.

(sheep bleating) (gentle music) - I think it's pretty cool just knowing how far back it goes.

And I mean, in a couple years, it'll soon be a hundred years old.

(soft upbeat music) So that's pretty cool that we get to do this all the time.

And some people don't even get to have this experience at all.

- That's lupine.

- I just, since I've grown up around it all the time, just going out with my dad and my older brother, I just grown attached to it, that every year you get to see new animals.

'Cause I've just been doing it since I was little and I like it, I don't think I ever wanna stop doing it.

He's great.

He's taught me how to drive trucks and how to do a whole bunch of different stuff like docking and branding and just moving sheep.

And so being out to work with him is always one of the best parts of the day.

- And the animals have to follow the feed.

So that's why summer times are up in the high country.

Like this, stay here as long as we can, where there's as much green feed as we can.

And even when the feed dries out, it's still got a lot of punch to it to help the animals do well.

(soft music) Well, the summer has come to an end.

So it's time to leave the high country where we've been since the end of May and head back home to the fall and winter pastures just here at Box Elder County.

The route is a public livestock trail, it was in existence before most of the roads and a lot of the homes too.

But my grandfather started using it in the mid 1930s.

And this trail existed before that.

Trailing it's just the means of moving 'em from one area to another, with sheep or cattle.

You can do it when you want to move them up a long distance.

There's a process that gets into it in that you've got your group together.

You've got to have the help to keep the back end, pushed up and then keep the sides tucked in so that you're not losing strays.

If the sheep are in good shape and in good health, it seems it's better to walk 'em.

(upbeat music) As we go through Brigham City anyway, that part, and you know, there was a time then than a lot of the housewives were out there with a broom in hand to make sure the sheep didn't set foot on their lawn.

Now there's been a change in that.

There's quite a few people want to come out and see it and bring their kids.

And there's lots of squeals and laughter.

(soft music) (indistinct talking) Because it's something that you don't see it every day and you may not see it forever.

- It's a beautiful life.

And I wouldn't change it for anything.

(soft upbeat music) - This little guy Banjo is so cute and cuddly.

Man's best friend has also proven to be one of man's best protectors out here in the snow.

When it storms, dogs work with ski patrollers, and also avalanche forecasters to make sure that people like you and me are safe.

(helicopter rotors revving) - Low traverse.

See Gabe over there.

He's your witness.

- Okay.

- Wasatch Backcountry Rescue's an organization on the nine ski resorts here, along the Wasatch Front.

We do everything from assist our county and local sheriff and police departments in rescue in the back country.

And in inbound on our ski resorts that we work for.

Go search.

This school that we're here at today is our International Rescue Dogs School.

We have 35 teams here from Alaska to Montana as far down as New Mexico.

It's the place to be this week.

If you want to do avalanche dog work.

- Here, sit, good.

That's very good.

That's very good.

This is Frank's first class.

He is almost six months old, so he's a little bit young to be in, but he's doing really well.

(soft upbeat music) They love the really high pitch baby talk screaming.

It's very, very positive for them.

This is the coveted toy.

Every dog has a different toy.

Some dogs respond to food rewards as well, but this is the reason that our dogs are hunting for people under the snow is they think those people have their coveted toy.

(dog barking) Ready, ready?

Search.

Basically take instinct their drive to hunt and find something and turn it into playing and rewarding with a game of tug of war.

So it's all instinctual.

(woman murmuring) We did the breeding of the dogs I thought would make really good avalanche dogs.

Mom had wonderful attributes and dad had four master hunt titles under his belt and lots of energy.

And I got the pick of the litter of nine little pups, probably one of the toughest decisions I've ever made.

Every single one of them.

Would've made a great avalanche dog, but yeah, little Frankie was the runt of the litter and ran harder than the rest of his brothers and sisters.

Got the job.

(soft music) You know, if we go to an avalanche site, you know, it's just a field of white and I've gotta be able to know him and he's gotta be able to know me well enough that we can clear that site if nobody's in it or if there is somebody in it.

So it takes quite a partnership.

It would take 400 ski patrol men, three days to do the same amount of work he can do in 20 minutes.

- Oh, good girl!

- The dogs are gonna be first on scene in the event that someone is not wearing an avalanche transceiver.

I mean, are able to gather a scent and pinpoint exactly where that person's buried.

And they have been really critical and important to finding the people that had been buried under the snow.

These dogs are professionals.

I say that with a straight face in so much, as they have received years of training.

(soft upbeat music) - Search.

- We have to realize that if there's a call out because of an avalanche accident, we already know that conditions are dangerous.

And so in that way, more than just the rescuers themselves, the dogs are sticking their necks out as well to go into dangerous conditions, to hopefully save a life.

(tranquil music) To trail in the back country, you have to have the gear.

You have to have the avalanche transceiver, the beacon, the shovel, the most importantly, in my view, you have to be armed with a weapon of knowledge.

You have to know what the conditions are.

We put out avalanche forecast every day from fall to spring telling people what the danger is so they can make informed and wise decisions on where to go in the back country to keep people on top of the greatest snow on earth, rather than buried beneath it.

(tranquil music) We're up here in Little Cottonwood Canyon.

This is the birthplace of snow science and avalanche research in North America.

(soft music) In the late thirties, the forest service was gonna have a snow ranger to help with snow safety.

And at that time it was all just sort of passive in so far as just closing areas, when they thought that the danger is gonna be significant, to protect the skiers.

At the end of the war, they brought in Monty Atwater, who is part of the 10th Mountain Division, to come up here.

And of course, you know, Monty just coming from the war thought, we've gotta have active control work.

And so, what did the soldiers think?

Oh, we gotta have explosives.

(gun explosion) here in Utah as well as other places in the West, you know, we use artillery, you know, the howitzers, we have the avalaunchers that from far away, you can shoot and sight in and target starting zones and free these avalanches to keep it safe for the public.

Ready to fire?

Fire.

(howitzers exploding) (soft music) - This is the most avalanche prone canyon in North America.

We create the majority of them.

We want to make the avalanche happen when we have the slope cleared.

We know there's nobody down in around it.

We are working with Mother Nature.

She does surprise us every once in a while.

That's why we do have the dog.

You want to go running?

(dog barking) But yeah, we're always training ready to go.

So it's been four years.

He's been all over the world training with me.

Let's go big guy.

You know, he went from just looking at me with eyes wide open and hoping he does the right thing to know when he does the right thing now.

It blows me away all the time, watching just how incredible he is at his job.

You know, just that little breeze that carries that little bit of human scent.

He's on it.

And he's all for it.

It's incredible, little heart of gold.

Franky!

(indistinct).

- We are in such an amazing and unparalleled place.

You can go literally from walking through the mall downtown to into the dragon's lair within 45 to 60 minutes.

Very quickly, we can be into the wilderness.

When we go into the mountains, there is a chance that we may not come back.

The scope of my work.

I have put friends in body bags and that experience changes you.

We have to appreciate every time that we go into the mountains as a gift.

(tranquil music) - It's an ode to the Wild West.

Men and women from all over the world on horseback here at Antelope Island, their mission to herd hundreds of bison to help keep the island ecosystem in check.

(soft upbeat music) (horse neighing) - We're on Antelope Island for the Buffalo Roundup to round up the buffalo.

They're big, they're big.

And they're mean, and they're cool looking.

(soft upbeat music) - Antelope Island is a gem because it's like stepping back in time.

So the Causeway connecting us to the Wasatch Front is only seven miles long, but you drive that seven miles and you transport yourself back a hundred years.

(soft upbeat music) It's like experiencing the Old West.

(soft upbeat music) - This is a unique area.

For one thing, it's on an island.

So that makes it, you know, a closed population.

It dates back to the 1890s.

When the animals were suffering in population, we basically nearly ran them to extinction.

Some numbers are as low as 200 animals left in North America.

A conservationist brought 12 animals out to the island to try and save the species.

And that's the basis of the herd that we've got here today.

So from those 12 animals, we grew the some 770 animals that we've got on the island now.

(all laughing) So every Fall we get a bunch of crazy horse people together.

And we round bison up off of the island.

We open it up to the public.

We limit the number of riders, but there's a few hundred.

We do ask you to register early because this year we did fill up, we'd pushed the bison from the south end of the island typically up to the handling facility on the north end, that's usually about a 12 mile ride.

So it's a pretty good day for most people on horseback.

But yeah, so this is the place where you can show up.

If you've got a horse and 50 bucks in your pocket, you can come and herd bison with us.

And that's the reason we continue to do it, it's one of those places.

And maybe the place in the world that you get a chance to do this.

- Oh, you kidding me?

- I just said, go now, can't hear yet guys speak up.

We come here the day before and we camp out and everybody gathers up and we have a nice campfire.

- For the antelope, b for the buffalo.

c is for the cowboy, d for the doggies flow.

- Yeah.

You know, and there's stories to be told and good eating.

You know, everybody just kind of pitches in, brings whatever their favorite is and it's good time.

(soft upbeat music) Most challenge and turn on you in a second.

I can't emphasize safety.

All right.

That is a must.

We all got to be safe.

I'm actually the trail boss.

So whatever, I don't know how to call it, team captain.

I know the natural tell that buffalo takes.

And I just kind of tell everybody we need over here.

We need people more over here to get the buffalo go in the direction.

I've been out here doing it so much, close to 15, 18 years, somewhere in there.

You know, it's very addicting.

You been here once and you can't turn away.

- Yeah, out here for the first time, it's gonna be a good time, I guess.

- So this is kind of been a dream for you?

- Yeah, to be out there like riding right by the buffalo is something that doesn't happen every day.

No, it's just, it's awesome to see nature and how it works.

You know, animals, they use body language to communicate with you.

You gotta know what you're doing.

You gotta watch them and see what they're telling you, you know, be able to read them.

So that's gonna be key today I hope.

(soft upbeat music) Try to find that line of if it's better to herd the buffalo or better to watch the people, because there's a lot of people that are out here for the first time and like us, but there's also people that haven't even ever rode a horse before in their life.

So to be honest, I'm hoping, I'll see some rodeo action inside of it.

(soft upbeat music) - Well, with him, he's used to us, but you get other horses out there that have never been by bison and all the horses are hyped up.

And a lot of times you see a lot of bucking before we even start and people going off their horses and then they kind of settle down and kind of get into a group.

- I'm excited, this is actually my first time.

- Is Bandit ready too?

He's probably more nervous, he's never seen a buffalo before.

- I've never herded a buffalo, but we'll see if I can handle that, gonna be fun.

- Is there any competition at all?

- Nope, well, I guess there is, don't be the first one to get bucked off.

(both chuckling) (soft upbeat music) - You can't really push it like a cow, like the normal cows in that, because it's just like you see on TV that they circle up and put all the little young ones in between.

And they're very, very protective.

The only defense they have is to charge you.

And so we've learned that instead of going, driving straight into the herd, you go on an angle.

And so when you go into the angle, they turn and they snort, raise their tail up and that means get the heck out of there.

And so you take off and they'll chase you.

- These are buffalo!

They're right here.

- And there is no predator to bison on Antelope Island.

Currently we have 200 new babies typically every year, that's a lot of bison.

We don't feed the bison.

So it's limited to what the island could support.

Grass is what they eat.

A mature bison can eat 40 to 50 pounds of grass a day.

These guys, they only start out at about 40 pounds when they're born, but within four months they could weigh as much as 400 pounds.

So they grow big, really fast.

And then the bulls they'll top out at about 2000 pounds, but at 2000 pounds, they still can jump six feet.

They can run 40 miles per hour.

(soft upbeat music) - If you're not on horseback, you can come out and view the whole thing from your car, from the road.

And then we have a great big public viewing area, kind of right near the finish line.

As we push them into the corrals.

(soft upbeat music) The goal is to bring them up into the corrals and get them captured so that the following week we can work them through a series of chutes and check their health.

(soft upbeat music) It's a whole process and then at the end of that, they get sorted for sale.

And so we'll sell about 200 to 250 animals a year, just depending on what the island can support through the winter and that's the way that we cull the herd.

(soft upbeat music) - No really hard injuries.

So it's always good when there's nobody really hurt.

You know, everybody's got one thing in common, a horse.

So it's kind of a cooler situation here.

(soft upbeat music) - You get up on and you start driving them.

And like I said, they get a mind of their own.

They'll turn on you.

You gotta look all around you.

(soft upbeat music) - I had one of the mothers come after me and I was vigilant enough to turn and take off the other way and it was close.

(soft upbeat music) - I would recommend to come to this 'cause it was super fun.

(soft upbeat music) - We're really excited about next year and just coming back and we'll be here.

That was a blast.

- And I think every social media feed could use a good dose of cute animals.

You agree with me, head to This Is Utah's social media pages and give us a like, or follow, and if you know any other stories about cool animals, be sure to let us know.

Until next time I'm Liz Adeola.

And "This is Utah."

- Support for, "This is Utah" comes from the Willard L. Eccles Foundation, the Lawrence T and Janet T. Dee Foundation, the Utah Office of Tourism, the George S and Dolores Dore Eccles Foundation, and the Contributing Members of PBS, Utah.

Thank you.

(soft music)