BECOMING WILD AGAIN IN AMERICA: THE RESTORATION AND RESURGENCE OF THE PABLO-ALLARD BISON HERD

By Francine Spang-Willis

In this podcast series, Becoming Wild Again in America: The Restoration and Resurgence of the Pablo-Allard Bison Herd, you will hear from Marcia Pablo, Dr. Kyran Kunkel, and Jason Baldes. In part one, Marcia shares her family story about the formation of the Pablo-Allard bison herd in the late 1800s and their journey from the Flathead Reservation in Montana to Elk Island National Park in Canada, from 1907 to 1912, and then back to the American Prairie Reserve in Montana in 2012. [41] In part two, Kyran Kunkel shares the intent of his conservation work with the Pablo-Allard bison herd’s descendants. He explains the benefit of the bison’s return and the concept of the land becoming wild again or more natural and of itself. In part three, Jason Baldes shares his conservation work and vision for the future, which involves recently reintroducing bison on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming.

Francine D. Spang-Willis is an oral historian and educator based in Bozeman, Montana. She is of Cheyenne, Pawnee, and settler descent. Spang-Willis is an Oral History Master of Arts (OHMA) graduate from Columbia University. Her thesis, Becoming Wild Again in America: The Restoration and Resurgence of the Pablo-Allard Bison Herd,  as a website and three-part podcast, was cited as an OHMA Thesis of Exceptional Distinction, 2021. She also holds a Master of Arts in Native American Studies from Montana State University. 

As the owner of Appearing Flying Woman Consulting, LLC, she collaborates with diverse organizations, communities, and individuals on oral history and community-centered projects. Diverse organizations have invited her to share her knowledge and expertise on oral tradition, oral history, project design, settler colonialism processes, Cheyenne leadership, and bison and land recovery and restoration. She also has had diverse roles in higher education, the US federal government, and the nonprofit sector.

Spang-Willis was the American Indian Tribal Histories Project (AITHP) Director at the Western Heritage Center in Billings, Montana, from 2003 to 2009. She and the AITHP team collaborated with Northern Cheyenne, Crow, and Chippewa Cree narrators to amplify, share, and preserve Indigenous history and culture through storytelling as an oral history tradition and oral history method.

Spang-Willis serves on the Oral History Association’s Diversity Committee and OHMA’s Anti-Oppression and Oral History Workshop Series Advisory Board.   She is part of the Leadership Advisory Council for The Indigenous Chicago Project at the Newberry Library. She also serves on the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness Foundation and the WildEarth Guardians Board of Directors.