Our Chat with Blackfeet Rancher Beau Michael

A Hollywood stuntman, a rodeo great, and a Blackfeet Nation rancher with quite the family history.

I saw Beau Michael in the new "The Real Yellowstone" documentary and I thought- man it would be cool to hear more of his story. Thankfully, I got to sit down with him after our show in Cut Bank last month.

For those of you in Eastern Montana that might be more familiar with the milk chocolatey Milk River, did you know that the Milk River is actually spring fed? That's how Beau started by describing his incredible ranch that has been in the family for decades.

You can listen to the full chat below, but here is an excerpt about how he describes his great great grandfathers barely surviving the winter in a cave in the Sweetgrass Hills. That was, before they married the Blackfeet woman who would keep them alive for many winters to come.

Beau Michael: "My grandfather, I guess it'd be my grandmother's grandfather. His name was John Hall, and he come up from Texas on a cattle drive. And my dad's grandfather came up on the same cattle drive. His name was Jake Williamson. So those guys came up, and came to Milea City on this cattle drive. Rode to Fort Benton and back in those days, you know, horseback. So they rode to Fort Benton...they camped out in that winter. They camped out in a cave at the Sweetgrass hills, and darn near froze to death. So they went back to Fort Benton and married Blackfeet women, because they knew that those those women would get them through. And so then I guess eventually they moved up on here to the Blackfeet Reservation. And I'm not sure where the reservation lines were at that time. But yeah so those guys, they had ranches. What's kind of funny was John Hall- his ranch was on the south of Birch Creek, and his wife's ranch was on the north side of Birch Creek on the Blackfeet Reservation. So they rode across the river. They said they used to ride across the river to spend the night with each other."

Full audio of our chat with Beau Michael can be heard about 15 minutes into the below podcast.