Ketchum, ID

Counting Sheep in Ketchum

Peacefully munching grass in downtown Ketchum, Idaho, the stars of the annual Trailing of the Sheep Parade await their big moment, the capstone event of a three-day celebration.

The crowd on Main Street hushes as a local minister blesses the sheep. A Boy Scout honor guard proudly leads off, followed by horse-drawn sheep wagons, Basque dancers, and kilt-clad Scottish bagpipers—all of which are etched into the fabric of Ketchum (pop. 3,003). Behind them come hundreds of sheep, managed by herders and three or four working dogs.

As the parade passes downtown shops and restaurants, adults and children join the procession, trailing behind the sheep. It isn’t Spain’s “running of the bulls,” but the event is just as significant to local history.

Every fall for nearly 100 years, shepherds in the region have been driving their sheep through Ketchum, moving their herds from summer pastures in the mountains through Snake River Valley to milder lowland areas for winter grazing and lambing in the Snake River plain. The three-day Trailing of the Sheep festival celebrates this tradition.

In keeping with the region’s multicultural background, Basque, Scottish, and Peruvian folk artists provide music and dance throughout the festival. Basques—the area’s earliest sheepherders—are still influential throughout Idaho, comprising the largest Basque population outside of Spain. Scots also developed some of the biggest and longest-running sheep operations in the area, while Peruvians provide most of the current herding.

Ketchum was founded in 1880 as a shipping and smelting center for mines of the Wood River Valley and soon was one of the richest mining districts in the Northwest. As the mining boom wound down 10 years later, Basque sheepherders moved into the summer grazing lands in the Sawtooth, Boulder, and Pioneer mountains. By 1920, Ketchum was the largest sheep and lamb shipping station in the United States, second in the world only to Sydney, Australia.

Today, Ketchum is best known as the gateway to Sun Valley, the ski resort, which began attracting tourists when the Union Pacific Railroad steamed through in 1935.

The area is now a year-round resort and recreation area but has kept its Western pioneer charm, along with its ranching and mining legacy. After the sheep festival opens on an October Friday, with sheep poetry readings and music, festivities move south to Hailey (pop. 6,200) for Saturday’s Sheep Folklife Fair. Townspeople and tourists wallow in sheep shearing, wool spinning, camp cooking, and sheep arts & crafts. Kiosks offer woolen goods, birdhouse sheep wagons, even “sheep fat” hand lotion.

Children clamber into historic canvas-and-wood sheep wagons, covered wagons compactly designed with beds, kitchens, and dining rooms, which once served as temporary shelter for shepherds. Archie England, 85, greets visitors from inside a wagon he rebuilt in 1988.

“I’ve worked with sheep and cattle off and on for 75 years,” he says. “I left home when I was 13 to break broncs, and I’ve been working ever since.”

After a Saturday night spent swapping tales and dancing to Basque music at the Sheepherders’ Ball in Ketchum, the festival’s highlight—the Trailing of the Sheep Parade—moves out at noon on Sunday. Hundreds of sheep trundle through town, before heading south through the valley—replicating the time-honored tradition now nearly a century old.

Joanne Hinkel is a freelance writer from Boise, Idaho.

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