Photo credit: Kesek Waupoose
Buffalo, Fish, and National Geographic Help Connect Indigenous Youth at Photo Camp
Story by Taylar Dawn Stagner
July 31st, 2025
LeTavian Brown had been camping before but not quite like this. He’s a 15 year old Northern Arapaho tribal member who loves to be outdoors and fish.
For a week in July around 20 Indigenous young men learned the ropes of how to fish and how to become photographers — something Brown had known nothing about, but was open to trying. The group of young Indigenous outdoorsmen were camped at the base of Black Mountain, part of the Wind River Mountain Range. Crow Creek Camp has a tiny cabin next to a crystal clear creek with cottonwoods bending to shade the area from the intense desert sun. It’s about an hour and a half away from the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative (WRTBI) headquarters.
“The group had to come find me cause I was fishing so much,” Brown said with a laugh. Over the span of a week he said he caught around 60 fish. He caught mostly brook trout, a fish that only survives in the coolest and cleanest fresh water. In fact, the fish is a good indication of the health of a particular watershed.
It was all a part of the National Geographic Photo Camp – a series of camps put on throughout the world to teach young creatives how to use a camera and tell both their communities and their own stories. This is the second year that Ronan Donovan, a National Geographic explorer and photographer, has come to the Wind River Indian Reservation to put on a photo camp.
The group shared songs, campfires, and fishing equipment, composed mostly of Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho participants, but the photo camp also had visitors from Wisconsin. Medicine Fish is building connections between Mother Nature and Indigenous youth, something that Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative is excited to build here.
“We cultivate a safe and healthy environment for our future leaders to build relationships and empower self-resiliency through our model: heal, build inspire,” the Medicine Fish website says.
The group also got to participate in a Buffalo harvest at the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative headquarters. Around 60 people participated in the harvest, the largest group recorded on the property. “We are lucky to have visitors from all over to visit us,” Jason Baldes said as he addressed the crowd. He is executive director of WRTBI and Eastern Shoshone.
Baldes and Patti Harris, executive director of the Wind River Advocacy Center, taught the young boys how to take care of the heart, intestines, and hide.
During another one of the days the group got to learn more about a Buffalo jump near Dubois through a tour by anthropology researcher Todd Gunther. The site is called the Wiggins Fort Bison Jump Complex at Table Mountain where Buffalo were driven off cliffs for Tribal harvests. The site is reportedly around 2,000 years old and local Indigenous researchers like Crystal Reynolds are working to learn more about the site.
At the end of the week the group presented at Central Wyoming College’s Intertribal Center in Riverton. Community members, students, and photographers from the surrounding area came to see the photos.
Brown was such a good help during the Buffalo harvest that he was invited back WRTBI to help out anytime. Although he liked learning how to work his camera – he’s excited to get back to fishing up at Crow Creek the next chance he gets as well.
“I love fishing,” he said. “I made a lot of new friends too.”
Photo Gallery
To view as a slideshow, set your desktop browser to fullscreen and click an image.
