Sam Goldstein - "Working for Wisdom" Success Story

“My name is Sam Goldstein, and this will be my second season at Badger Creek Ranch (BCR). I am currently in college studying American History and Environmental Studies. I was drawn to BCR for a number of reasons, stemming from my upbringing working with horses, and my love for the American West.

I trace my love for the American West back to the annual trip my family used to take to visit our relatives in the Bay Area, California, each fall. We began this tradition when I was in elementary school, making it my first real travel experience. Everything about it was new and exciting, but the thing that left the greatest impression on me was one of the most seemingly mundane parts of the experience: the hour-long drive from the San Francisco airport to my aunt and uncle’s home in the suburbs. Once outside of the city itself, the drive took us into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada range. Having grown up about fifteen minutes outside of Boston, I had never seen so much open space in my life. Year after year, I sat in the back seat of our rental car with my eyes fixed out the window, following the drainages that flowed out of the folds between hills, searching the occasional copse of trees for cattle resting in their shade. The size and openness of that landscape captivated me; I could never have imagined that such a place existed. When we decided to roadtrip up to Yosemite National Park one year, you can only imagine my enchantment.

My love for animals began at an even earlier age. My early childhood was spent reading picture books about horses, and badgering my parents to take me on visits to my aunt’s small farm in western Massachusetts. For my birthday in first grade, my mom signed me up for riding lessons, and thus officially began my journey with horses. I learned to ride hunt seat and stuck with it through my second year of high school. At that point, I had been riding competitively for a few years, and was feeling thoroughly burnt out. The magic of being around horses seemed to have waned significantly for me, and so I walked away from the sport completely until I finished high school.

During my senior spring, I began looking for a way to bring horses back into my life, and stumbled upon a wilderness horse-packing course offered by the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS). The course totaled three weeks in the Wyoming back-country with five days of prep beforehand, learning how to do everything from rigging a pack saddle and pitching a tent to navigating using topographical maps and setting up a makeshift corral. I could not have anticipated the profound effect those three and a half weeks would have on me. Three years later, I still look back on the experience as a turning point in my life – perhaps THE turning point in my life (so far, anyway).

The time I spent in Wyoming, mostly in the Bridger Teton and Shoshone wildernesses, confirmed my love of wild places and reignited my passion for horses. My horse during the course, Red Duck, was smart, hard-headed, and sometimes explosive. He made me confront fear in a way I never had before in my life. Throughout all the years in my adolescence when I’d taken riding lessons, I knew that after the hour was up, I could walk away from whatever behavioral quirks or bad habits my horse that week presented me, and hope for a different mount the week following. During NOLS, there was no walking away. The only way to get from point A to point B each day was to saddle up and ride for anywhere from six to fourteen hours. There were no extra horses that I could switch to if Red Duck and I weren’t understanding each other. For better or for worse, we were partners. As time passed, I began to understand why Red Duck did the things he did, and my fear subsided. Red Duck, like all horses, was a creature intimately attuned to his environment, a prey animal who knew that safety was with the herd. He was never explosive for malicious reasons – he usually only became riled up if he felt unsafe. His occasional stubbornness on the trail often meant that he sensed something I couldn’t, and was letting me know that a different route might be better. Living in such a remote environment and working so intimately with this other being taught me about true partnership and showed me how rewarding it is to work so closely with these creatures that are so much bigger than we are and don’t speak the same language, and yet are so patient and so loyal if we humans can just figure out how to connect. By the end of my time in the back-country, Red Duck and I were understanding each other on a level I had not thought possible between two beings of different species. I listened to him when he told me about things up ahead that my comparatively weak smell and hearing couldn’t possibly pick up; his behavioral “ticks” had become an asset. At the end of each day when I would untack him and groom him, he would groom me back (sometimes painful, but I let him do it – I know he was saying thanks). I learned and improved on countless skills through NOLS, but one of the most important things it taught me was how to “speak horse” through immersion. That course changed my life dramatically, and largely made me the horsewoman I am today. Three years later and still not a day goes by that I don’t think of Red Duck. I hope that someday I can repay him for all that he gave me.

After NOLS, I knew that I had to pursue a career working with horses in the West. Fast forward a year and a half and I was searching for summer jobs on ranches from my college in Ohio. I don’t even know how many wrangler positions I applied for, most of the time not hearing back. One evening while scouring the web, I came across Badger Creek Ranch. I read through their website and was ecstatic – their mission seemed to include everything I could dream of in a job. Not only could I be in the beautiful mountains of Colorado working with horses every day, but I would get to learn about land conservation and regenerative agriculture. As someone who loves the American West and wants to ensure that its ecosystems remain intact for future generations to enjoy, BCR’s commitment to caring for the land was paramount. I didn’t see a “careers” page on their website, but decided to email them anyway. It seemed like such a long shot and I made a point of not getting my hopes up, but BCR seemed like such a perfect fit for me that I couldn’t just pass it by. A year later and I’m still so happy I sent that email.

Working in the West with horses was a dream job, but it was also daunting. I only knew what I had heard about the ag world, and what I’d experienced going to school in rural Ohio (corn and soy as far as the eye can see). It seemed that many rural communities across the country leaned heavily toward social conservatism; I feared that if I was to go work on a ranch in rural Colorado, I might have to hide who I was, or worse, lie about my identity outright in order to stay safe and employed. I couldn’t imagine that there were many out, gay women working in positions like the one I was seeking. I was ecstatic when BCR emailed me back a few days after I reached out and told me they were accepting applications for a summer internship. I applied, and within a few weeks, had a start date. But this also made the reality of my situation impossible to ignore; my new employers certainly came off as open-minded, but you can never really know, especially never having met them in person before accepting the job.

When I got to the ranch in May 2018, my fears were immediately put to rest. Brian, Natalie, Chrissy and Dave were so warm and friendly right off the bat, it obviously didn’t matter to them what I looked like or who I loved. More than that, everyone I met in the greater ranching community was so friendly; character and work ethic were the important things, beyond that, nothing else mattered. As the weeks went by and I got to know the BCR crew better and better, I realized that it wasn’t just that they didn’t care who I was – they loved me for who I was. My experience at BCR last summer was incredible to say the least. I not only found a family in the people I worked with and a home away from home, but I improved on the foundation in horsemanship that I got from NOLS, and began to learn about what regenerative agriculture actually entails. The decision to return for a second summer was a no-brainer. I cannot wait to continue learning in such a special place, with some of the most wonderful people I’ve had the privilege to know.”