Free-range descent

KETCHUM, Idaho - The atmosphere is festive, but tension is in the air. The main street of this tiny mountain village, where Ernest Hemingway's spirit still lives, is lined with throngs of visitors. Basque dancers in traditional costumes prance and pirouette to an ancient tune, followed by a mule-drawn gypsy-style caravan. The main event is soon at hand, heralded by the sound of thundering hooves echoing off walls and the unmistakable baaaa of . . . sheep?

It might be Pamplona, Spain, at the Running of the Bulls, the heart-pounding stampede of hooves and feet that Hemingway immortalized in The Sun Also Rises. But it's not. This is Ketchum, adjacent to the ski resort of Sun Valley, where "Papa" spent many of his later years, where he died of a self-inflicted gunshot to the head in 1961 and was laid to rest.

Apart from its literary claim to fame, though, Ketchum has the Trailing of the Sheep Festival, celebrating the annual autumnal migration of the woolly creatures as they descend from higher altitudes to winter in the valley. The four-day festival - this year's iteration is Oct. 7-11 - is not just an excuse for a parade down Main Street. It is an acknowledgment of the legacy of sheep ranching in the Northwestern United States, a deep heritage that encompasses the very essence of the American dream.

Sheep first came to this part of the country in the 1860s, when livestock-laden ships from the Hudson Bay Co. docked at Astoria, Ore., at the mouth of the Columbia River. From there, herders moved eastward along the Columbia River Gorge, settling in the mountains and valleys of what would become eastern Oregon, northern Nevada, and southern Idaho. No coincidence that the famous Pendleton Woolen Mills started here.

By that time, the mining frenzy that had taken the West by storm a decade earlier was on the wane, and the sheep industry ambled into the void. The wide-open spaces and varying elevations are ideal for these naturally free-range animals. During a year, they traverse more than 100 linear miles and one mile in elevation, moving every four to five days as they seek temperatures suited to their fleecy coats.

"I didn't know what misery was until I started herding sheep," quipped Hank Volger, addressing the Friday-night audience at last year's festival. The Nevada sheep rancher and humorist typically leads a discussion with other ranchers about this unique - and uniquely American - way of life.

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