'Backroads' in the Bear Paws

A production crew from the Montana PBS series "Backroads of Montana" will be spending the weekend in the Bear Paw Mountains filming and interviewing a Chouteau County ranching family, who are helping to save an endangered breed of horses.

Tom and Rene Brown, who ranch on the south side of the Bear Paws, started their journey breeding Cleveland Bay horses with the purchase of their first stallion, Tregoyd William, in the fall of 2011. Tom Brown wanted to use the stallion to cross with the mares they have that are descendants of the horses bred through generations past and present for working cattle on the steep slopes of the Bear Paws.

"We wanted to be able to improve our ranch horses by adding more bone and a substantial foot and endurance but not lose the athletic ability and cow smarts," he said.

Owning a Cleveland Bay fulfilled a dream that started for Tom Brown when he was child listening to tales of a team of Cleveland Bays that his grandfather had purchased. Through William, the family fell in love with the Cleveland Bays, and as they learned more about plight of the breed, which has only about 1,000 purebred horses worldwide, the Browns decided to do what they could to help save the breed.

It is this story, Montana PBS producer John Twiggs said, that "Backroads" hopes to capture during their three days with the Browns, starting at sunrise Friday.

"Part of it is just kind of a day in the life with Tom and Rene, so trying to document some of that," Twiggs said, "... and of course how they're utilizing the horses."

Rene Brown said it'll be a full day Friday because they're trying to get ready for calving. Their three adult children and their families will be home to help with the cattle work, much of it done while riding Cleveland Bay purebreds and crosses.

Considered the oldest horse breed in England, dating back to an era before breeding records were kept, the Cleveland Bay is known for its physical substance and versatility. The breed, whose numbers fell after the railroads spread across England in the late 1880s, took a substantial hit in numbers during World War I when tens of thousands of them were brought into service as cavalry mounts and artillery horses, and died doing so.

Their numbers continued to drop with the post-war proliferation of farm machinery, as did many horse breeds around the world. Today, Cleveland Bays are used primarily as pleasure, competition and reenactment mounts.

"We're the oddballs because we use them for ranch work," Rene Brown said, "but most people use them for foxhunting and eventing and things of that nature."

A few in the U.S. are also competed in endurance racing and the Colonial Williamsburg 18th-century outdoor living museum in Virginia has purchased a few that are used onsite to bring the livestock element of the museum to life through daily handling, carriage rides and producing the occasional purebred foal.

The Browns have a handful of purebred mares and now stand at stud Bear Paw Waylon, their first homebred stallion. They have sold a few of their foals. However, they have largely kept their purebreds within their extended family, and kept on their ranch, which has passed down through Rene's family, their crossbred horses - which carry on the tradition of the horse herd started by his father and grandfather.

Twiggs said he and another PBS producer will follow the Browns in their work day. But they will also sit down with each of them for an interview to get some of their back story, then spend some time researching the Cleveland Bay to get the full story. He said that with a multi-generational family ranch he hopes to get photos of grandparents or great-grandparents.

"There's always a history component to a lot of these 'Backroads' stories, so you're always looking for, one, the information you get from the people that you're visiting with and, then two, anything visually to represent that," he added. "So we're always thrilled with the old family photo albums and anything else we can find."

As a visual media, they want to show the story as much as tell it, Twiggs said, adding that they'll take three days to shoot footage, including some on GoPro cameras and with a drone, and this footage will be distilled to about a six-minute segment.

Each "Backroads" episode has four or five different stories per show, he said, and with only two or three episodes each year, it's a beneficial luxury to be able to spend extra time with their subjects.

Production of "Backroads," which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, was on hiatus for almost a year once the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S., Twiggs said. A lot changed in the rest of their programming lineup as well, as they put together special programming addressing many aspects of the pandemic.

That programming ranged from information on COVID-19 to supplemental educational programs for stay-at-home schooling.

Montana PBS, which runs on donations from the public, were grateful to have generous support in 2020, Twiggs said, because they were conscious that budgets are tight for everyone.

"That's made us feel good (to know) that we're a resource for them while that's happening," he said.

As more people have gotten into the routine of utilizing the needed COVID safety precautions and more people are getting vaccinated, Twiggs said, the PBS crews are able to get back out on assignments around the state to cover many stories, including those for "Backroads of Montana."

"It's a good time to get back out there," he added.

The episode featuring the Browns and their horses is scheduled to premier Monday, May 24, at 8 p.m. and will be replayed several times after that, Twiggs said.

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Author's disclosure: I am a longtime friend of the Browns and a fellow Cleveland Bay owner, and I covered their story for The Havre Daily News in 2012. I confess that I gave Montana PBS the tip about their story. After getting them into this, my presence was politely demanded by the Brown family, so I will be out there for at least part of the weekend offering moral support and trying my best to avoid the cameras. I can't guarantee I will be successful at either effort.