STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK

One man describes why he left Peru to come to Idaho to herd sheep.

Wages there were not enough to support a family or have a house, he told an interviewer at the annual Trailing of the Sheep Festival. My daughter was born while I was in the United States. With the money here, I can cover those expenses.

The herder described how he was so excited when the plane took off from Peru. And, upon landing, the people of America were so kind to him.

A Peruvian sheepherder accompanies his sheep on horseback.

“It’s a really nice experience coming here, especially being up in the plane looking down on mountains. This is the United States that many people talk about—where you can make your dream,” he concluded.

The Community Library has partnered with Boise State Public Radio to offer three podcasts giving voices to Peruvian sheepherders like this one, as well as those who came from Scotland and the Basque country to herd sheep.

The podcasts were created by Vance Cunningham, a summer intern with The Community Library’s Jeanne Rodger Lane Center for Regional History using interviews gathered through the years at the Trailing of the Sheep Festival. The interviews were included in archives given to the history center by the Trailing of the Sheep Festival founders John and Diane Peavey in June 2021.

Cunningham picked out portions from interviews; Boise State Public Radio is distributing them via its webpage at https://www.boisestatepublicradio.org/podcast/sheep-stories.

Alberto Uranga is among the Basques who came to Idaho to herd sheep.

“The voices and stories in ‘Sheep Stories’ illuminate the human side of Idaho’s sheep industry,” said Mary Tyson, the Library’s director of the Center for Regional History. “Vance Cunningham picked out great stories from years past. And his narration as the host of the podcast is very relatable and conveys an enthusiastic spirit for lifelong learning about sheepherding.”

The gift of the archives to the library and the interns that have been hired since to process the material were made possible by the estate of Patrician Crandall Lane, who was born in  on the third floor of the Sun Valley Lodge when the lodge housed Sun Valley Hospital. Her mother was Jeanne Rodger Lane Moritz, one of the 17 women who founded The Community Library Association, and her father was John Crandall “Pete” Lane, the owner of Pete Lane’s ski store and a founder of the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation.

Her grandfather was John Pusey “Jack” Lane, who established Lane’s Mercantile to service sheep ranchers in the building Enoteca Restaurant now occupies. Lane grew up on the Box L Sheep Ranch, now Lane Ranch.

Cunningham, a senior at Western Washington University, took part in his Patricia Crandall Lane Trailing of the Sheep Festival Archive internship from June through August.

A sheep camp sits amidst yellow aspen as the flock heads south to summer pastures in the deserts of Idaho, California or Colorado.

“My love of history and community storytelling goes back to my time working for the Museum of History and Industry (in Seattle) during high school, where I worked on the ‘Rainy Day History Podcast,’ " said Cunningham.

The Scottish episode that Cunningham put together tells of men like James Laidlaw, who emigrated from Scotland to establish the Flat Top Sheep Ranch near Carey. The Basque episode includes tale of comradery in a Twin Falls Basque boarding house and the loneliness of tending sheep in the mountains.

The episode featuring the Peruvians who make up the majority of the sheepherders today epitomizes how their stories are similar to those who came before, said Cunningham. Many came from a small town 80 miles outside Huancayo, some following in their father’s footsteps.

“Most of the time we grow up watching sheep in Peru,” said one. “When I was young, we watched the sheep—we usually watched 800 sheep.”

Trailing of the Sheep Festival co-founder John Peavey holds the ribbon cutting scissors as the Trailing of the Sheep Festival gifts its archives to the Jeanne Rodger Lane Center for Regional History.

About two million Peruvians live outside Peru, including 800,000 in the United States, said a professor from Utah in an interview made several years ago. Forty percent of those live in the United States, 25 percent in Venezuela and Argentina, 20 percent in Europe and the rest in Japan and Australia.

Seventy percent never return to their home country.

It takes three years to adapt to the new society, he added. The money they send home is the second biggest source of income in the Peruvian economy, contributing $1.5 billion a year.

About 90 percent of those who come here sign a three-year contract for what is a 24/7 job, said one sheep ranch owner. At the end of three years, they have to go back to Peru for at least one day. Most stay two to three months while there, and most come back.

Sheep herding takes a laid-back easy-going person, commented one sheep ranch manager: “If you’re high strung, you’re not a very good sheep person. But, you’re in the beautiful mountains where it’s quiet and peaceful—it’s a pretty good life.”

One man told how he came to Idaho because of the war the Shining Path was waging in his country.

“I love my country but I was afraid to go back so I stayed here,” he said. “And I married my lovely wife, and I started working in construction and, years later, we started our own business.”