Category: Current Info

Bob Fay opened the gates for me at the Grandview Fair & Rodeo Grounds yesterday. Bob has lived his entire life here in Grandview, knows everyone, feels deeply connected to the community and it shows. He’s the kind of community member you wish you had 100 of!!. Community members who are there when something needs to be done. He is no youngster. This hangs on the exterior metal building next to my campsite:

Yakima Valley Fair and Rodeo

Our Mission is education through:

• advancement of all participants.
• promotion community spirit
• discovery of individual worth and potential

THAT is beautiful!!

I have stopped in Grandview to meet friends from the Confederated Tribes of the Yakima Nation. Margret Gwinn an elder of the tribe and her daughter Sandy were the only ones able to come, others had work commitments.

But I must tell you the story of meeting Margret and her husband Charles (now deceased) and the Gwinn family.

In 2007 I came across the Yakima Nations Tribal land from the west crossing Mount St. Helens. This is primate land the tribes National Forest land that I’d been granted permission to cross saving me from many miles of dangerous road travel. The 5000 mile – 22 month ride as I reflect remains the most arduous travel of all my rides. To say “harrowing,” is an understatement. Ignorance let me to make many mistakes. Illness, injury and inclement weather rode with me Honor and Claire Dog on that journey. So when I came over the Cascades into the Yakima Valley, I looked ragged, tired and thin, we all did. Margret and her daughter Elizabeth were driving home from a day of huckleberry picking when the passed me. They stopped greeted me warmly, offered water to the lowly looking travelers and left. BUT they returned with food and corn and meat and lots of food. They helped me find a suitable campsite off the road and brought buckets of water for Claire and Honor. Trail Angels, Trail Angels who then the next day invited me into their family home where I camped for nearly a week filling up on home, family, tribal love and kindness. One of those stops I shall never forget. I must also share with you this story.

Margret and Charles purchased for me a new pair of Airat Roper boots. I can’t remember if I had on tennis shoes or what but I do remember I had no money those years and what ever I could find at a thrift store had to work. (The next year I told Ariat my boot story which let to Ariat sponsoring me for years, they have since sold out to another corporation and no longer sponsor a lowly lady long rider)

What I will remember the most. What I took away from that stop in 2007 will be – “family and the love, support and importance it is to the “Tribal Indian.” Food and a revolving door – people coming and going, issues of the day discussed, card games at night. I sank myself in, recalling my Mother who also called us “Her Tribe.”

Margret introduced me to the Tribal Council. Where I thanked them for allowing me to cross their land. We toured the countryside and had lunch with other family members in Toppenish but mostly we spent our time in the large back yard where my beloved Honor and Claire rested, ate and were bestowed treats and care through out our stay. Elizabeth brought out a mattress and canopy for me to sleep on when I insisted on sleeping next to Honor.

We have stayed in touch thanks to Facebook and in 2009 I returned once again on the 6000 mile ride with two horses and a dog that now rode.

The dogie box you see here is one that Elizabeth, Sally and Margret and I pieced together. This arrangement lasted until Texas where another box was rebuilt still using the Indian black and white material the Gwinn’s first added.

This rendezvous with Margret meant a great deal to me. As I told Margret, 1000’s of people pass me but only a hand-ful stop, the “Curious and Interested” as I refer to them. These became Trail Angels. Many thanks to the Gwinn family and to the Confederated Tribes of the Yakima Nation for allowing me to cross tribal land.

I move on. Washington and Idaho commitments are filled. Next stop Oregon. Pendleton is next where I not only do a talk at the Public Library, November 1st at 6:30 but I will also meet up with Rebecca Adams who donated Little Liska Pearl to my rides after I tragically lost Essie Pearl. I simply cannot wait for her to see Liska Pearl and the remarkable change that has come to this little pony. (Although she is not so little anymore.) She is naughty, mischievous, quick to learn and I love her to pieces. She and Montana Spirit have a big sister/little sister relationship and are of course inseparable which is just fine with me because if I have one horse I have two.

My 1969 Ford pulled us gallantly into Grandview, Washington, home to Smucker, Welch and other fruit packing plants. Yakima Valley College is located here. An enormous irrigation system pulls water from the Columbia and makes possible tens of thousands of acres producing fruit -apples, pears, grapes. It’s a busy area.

We travel the back roads at 40 or 45 mph. The horses are not in the trailer over 2 hours.

We only travel 4 hours on any given day. We exercise twice a day. Plenty of carrots,apples and still much grazing can be done which keeps the girls in good spirits.

And now here it is the envy of all those who pass by with your luxurious living quarter horse trailers. The Lady Long Rider Living Quarters Horse Trailer!!

Wall ha! Smiles and appreciation to all of you that follow the rides.

Hopefully I will see more familiar faces on the book tour. It’s truly humble meeting people who helped me on my earlier rides at my talks. From young women who were once my ballet students as children to the elders like Margret. I am touched and deeply grateful to see you once again and to say, Thank You, Thank You!

Now one week into my book tour, I have spoken at four libraries, a well attended Back Country Horseman meeting, and my tour was launched at an over-the-top, so lovely, book club meeting in Libby.

When deciding the route and character of my book tour I felt I wanted to highlight our public libraries as funding cuts are making our libraries squeeze and creak. But I have discovered something about our libraries, they are reinventing themselves! My first Library, Boundary County Library in Bonners Ferry, Idaho, had the distinction of being nominated “Best Small Library in America 2017” by the Library Journal. Director Craig Anderson greeted me as I entered the library building with a box of books scheduled for my 7 pm talk. It is not a new library by any means but had the look of a well-used library. Three years ago Craig replaced Sandy Ashworth, director for 30 years.

From the Library Journal: “Anderson, whose record includes decades of teaching high school in Bonners Ferry, now works to strengthen and expand the BCLD [Boundary County Library District] vision and services. ‘I am the next generation of Sandy’s vision.’ Anderson says. ‘I let the board know that I share that vision to take the library far beyond a traditional library.’ The result is a dynamic BCLD, a model for all of America’s libraries and winner of the 2017 Best Small Library in America Award…..Ashworth had read about Massachusetts Institutes of Technology (MIT) professor Neil Gershenfeld, director of MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms and his FAB program that is now global. FAB empowers local invention, engineering educations, entrepreneurship, and the philosophy that anyone can make almost anything. Ashworth was so taken with the idea she decided BCLD needed a FAB Lab, what Anderson calls “a Maker space on steroids.”

Today, Boundary County Library instills a love of reading and learning to all ages. The library works on reading and activity time with 4-H, daycare, and the elderly at the local Restorium and Extended Care Facility. Boundary Library’s Box Program provides books in English and Spanish for the local food bank, hospital, Mountain Hops Farm, and Mercantile Store to serve migrant farm works. The Library also participates in the Read To Me early literacy program as well as Idaho’s Strengthening School Partnership summer program. Fulfilling its mission to create a culture of opportunity by incorporating technologies, adding a new dimension, and reinventing the meaning of library! Bravo, I say, Bravo.

Until I am There – I’m Not

As I prepare for my upcoming Lady Long Rider Book Tour (see www.endeofthetrail.com/book-tour/ ) I realize I’m approaching it as I would a long ride. Find a route, walk myself through it again and again…and again. Prepare gear (truck & trailer) gather tack and necessary apparel. Condition the horses, new horseshoes, vaccinations and traveling papers… I am glad for the time traveling with Rosie and her truck and trailer earlier this year. It gave me valuable experience for this trip.

When I conclude this book tour at Fort Edwards, New York, seven/eight months from now I’ll saddle and pack up the horses, who will, by then be rearing to move and strike out on a short 2 month ride. We’ll travel south through Pennsylvania, West Virginia, maybe Kentucky before heading back to the Montana cabin.

I’m aware that riding public as I do makes me a moving target for critics. I am not complaining. Many times criticism, if you are brave enough to look, will bring humble moments of self-discovery.

There is nothing heroic about what I do. I’m quite sure there are many more women and men who’d be better long riders than the rider I’ve become having ridden 30,000 miles. I by no means think I know everything about long riding. My horses and I have traveled many long, hard-earned miles together. I had no teachers. I am self taught and believe me there were so many mistakes made and as many roads and trails I wish I’d never ridden down. I have humbly apologized (more than once) to my horses for getting them into dangerous, complicated situations, into a mess.

There are many, many more of you that hold greater knowledge than I do about equine care, packing, saddling, riding. There are many that would/could provide better hoof care and equine health care than I do. There are those who will say, “Why must you torture horses as you do?” Don’t trim their manes or fore-locks, don’t use horseshoes, use this mineral supplement, use this saddle pad not that one, that saddle of yours is no good, use a treeless saddle, a bit is cruel, and so is riding my horses as many miles as I do. (I am off & walking a great deal.)
It goes on and for the most part I am willing to accept criticism and suggestions. I am not above looking at my own actions and looking at how they could be improved upon.

I recently heard about a review (Amazon)… “She is aloof, the rides are really all about her, she does not put her horses first – She did not write about her horse’s enough.” I thought, “They’re right,” I had been aloof on those early rides. It was all I could do to stay alive the first few years of travel. But my horses do come first. The review however did make me think, “Maybe I take for-granted this deeply personal and unique relationship I have with my horses.” The only other person I’ve met who actually lived with her horses (mules) was Jodie Foss, who wrote Mules Across the Great Wide Open. I met her when crossing Oregon in 2009, stayed at her farm a few days. I have also seen equine “liberty” trainers who brought tears to my eyes with the display of beauty and grace between human and horse and leaving me with the desire to know more about the equine/human relationship. I know it sounds crazy but with the Fjord’s its almost like having dogs around, how we relate is easy, gentle, even mischievous at times.

Are my horses worse off than horses seldom ridden? Or horses handled momentarily morning and evening but live quiet, safe days in one pasture their entire lives? Bernice it would be far safer to stay home!!! Only a handful of horses in today’s world can run free and wild. The remaining which live with we humans are at our mercy are they not?

I honestly believe my horses are interested, intelligent, more capable, healthier, and happier than many horses I come across. My horses have brave hearts. They are incredibly curious because they are unafraid of most things they encounter. They, like most horses that are fit, like to move, like traveling about in search of fresh grazing. I think if you met me and my horses you would find a warm, loving, happy unit consisting of two gregarious horses and one not so young woman. Our dance together is smooth and quiet. I hear them through out the night whether here at my cabin or on the road traveling where they lie next to me. They speak to me with their eyes, ears and soft rumbling neighs. We like one another, we do our work well together. Little Liska Pearl and Montana Spirit are both alpha mares, they are, but have found a peaceable arrangement which works for the most part for them.

Truck and trailer? Who would have thought. Competent mechanics have gone through both the 1969 Ford PU and …… Iowa built horse trailer. New tires, bearings, brakes, engine, front-end, etc., etc. New floor, mats, brakes, electric on trailer. I shall maneuver the back roads slowly, ever so slowly. That being said, from 20 miles a day to 200 miles a day? I guess its all relative isn’t it? We’ll take breaks and stop often, go for a run, rest, stretch. I’ve allowed plenty of time between talks. I will not be pushing day after day. I have USRIDER insurance.

Please, all of you, know that I sincerely try. And I will continue as I travel on this book tour to keep my horses and myself fit and happy and cared for us as best I can. It may not be the way you would do it but usually there’s a reason for my actions concerning the horses. Humbly having to step down off my high horse day after day asking for food, water, shelter, or directions has ( I like to think) produced a more empathetic person not so quick to judge. My horses have been my greatest teachers with daily lessons in devotion, trust, willingness, endurance. But so have the 100s of families and individuals who for no reason offered kindness with food, a shower, encouragement, shelter, corrals, safety. Trail Angels. From the bottom of my heart I thank you, all those who have been following my rides, for what ever reason, all these years. You fit in my saddlebags, vicariously. Your spirits do not weigh much, but are soundly felt.

This Lady Long Rider Book Tour will take me through my earlier routes with the opportunity to see faces I met years ago (and not so long ago)… an opportunity to once again say, “Thank you.” Already it is beginning to feel like the “Lady Long Rider’s Reunion Book Tour.” All those years and miles of riding would not have happened without a great deal of help. I hope to share what I discovered long riding, what I learned, and how it re-shaped my thinking.

I also realize traveling with truck and trailer offers risks I would never encounter traveling at 4 miles an hour with only the horses. Friends from each state are reaching out with support for which I am beyond grateful. But at some point I will single-minded-ly turn and leave everything behind except the road ahead. Sarah Wilson will be helping with emails, Facebook, and the endeofthetrail.com website. If you receive a response from her instead of me, you’ll know who it is. If anyone knows where I am it will be her. Zach Basinger, marketing and publicity manager at Farcountry Press, is handling much of the booking for talks once I leave.

As with any long ride once I leave I must be focused with attentiveness, caution and skill thinking how best to move forward.

Even with this journey I will preface with, “Its a whole lot of talk until I actually do it.”

Until I am there – I am not.

Yours truly, Bernice

If for no other reason I do hope with all my heart that my rides will impart encouragement to those longing to reach beyond their fears for more.

Several people have commented, “I think fall is here.” And yes I agree a touch of fall air brushes against my cheek now and then. We have perhaps made it through another fire season. Hard to imagine this will be a yearly event, “Fire Season” but with climate changes it appears inevitable. Carry on we shall….

September, 2018 dates for book-signing/slideshow presentations.

September 24^th– Whitefish Public Library 7pm Whitefish, Montana contact information:

September 26^th– Northlake County Public Library 7pm Polson, Montana contact information:

September 27^th – Grizzly Claw Trading Company 7pm Seeley Lake, Montana contact information: 1 406-677-008

September 28th-30^th Montana Book Festival, Missoula, Montana contact information: www.montanabookfestival.org

Below is a radio interview I did with Yellowstone Public Radio August 8th 2018 with Steve Shadley.

Last but not least I would like to mention the up coming Book Tour I am embarking on in Oct. I’ll be posting more about this in the coming week. Hope to see many of you out there that I have not seen in years, I am expecting many hugs and lots of joyful tears and smiles. Bernice

The air is hot and smoky here in the Northwest corner of Montana. I hose the horses off in the hot afternoon. They stand with contentment in the cool shade of their stalls.

Last week I traveled with my friend Janna Pekaar down the east side of Flathead Lake over Helena National Forest up and over McDonald’s Pass to the eastern front of the Rocky Mountains where I gave a series of five slideshow presentations/book readings and signing. We brought our tents, camp food was on the menu as were cold creeks and hot springs. We toured Helena, Janna is improving on her accordion with gentle French melodies. My childhood friend Paulette attended two of the talks. (there is a chapter about us in the book) The Choteau stop gave me another opportunity to share stories about my grandparents who had settled in the area during the early 1900’s. Finally, and yes finally I was able to put faces to what had only been voices from the crew at FarCountry who have been absolutely delightful to work with through this lengthy book process. The weather cooperated as I talked and sold books, traffic was light, the scenery spectacular and I kept saying to Janna, “I must go out and ride again, I must.” The huge expanse called again and again, “Come, Come come feel the road, taste the air.”

TV  Link: http://www.kxlh.com/story/38816559/montana-woman-shares-stories-about-travels-on-horseback