America Outdoors with Baratunde Thurston

(wind howling) (light music) - Most people experience time as linear, every minute tracked by our devices, rushing through life until nature demands that we stop.

But here in New Mexico, I can feel a shift.

Time slows down (clock ticking) and stretches in every direction.

In these ancient ruins, the distant past feels alive, not just in the rocks, but in the earth, the air and the sky.

(ghostly whooshing) (light music continues) To understand what this land means to the people of New Mexico, you need to recalibrate from modern life and move at a different pace.

(water burbling) (ghostly whooshing) I'm ready to slow down and learn from the wisdom that's all around me.

(light music) My name is Baratunde Thurston.

I'm a writer, activist, sometimes comedian, and I'm all about telling a better story of us.

Wow!

This country is wild and its natural landscapes are as diverse as its people.

- [Both] Hey!

(light music continues) How does our relationship with the outdoors define us?

As individuals, and as a nation.

(gentle guitar music) (car whooshing) Our first experiences in the outdoors usually happen when we're very young.

(bike spokes clicking) (water burbling) Older generations introduce us to their favorite pastimes.

Camping, hunting, fishing, cooking outdoors.

Here in New Mexico, where family heritage might go back literal millennia.

Keeping tradition alive is central to how people experience nature.

I'm here to learn how New Mexicans have preserved their traditions with each generation, and why they're so determined to keep on doing it in the face of a rapidly changing world.

(gentle guitar music continues) (somber music) I'm in Manzano Mountain State Park, where native tribes have inhabited the land since around 600 AD.

It is also home to elk, mountain lions, many species of birds, and today's specialty, wild turkey.

And where there's wild turkey, there's hunters.

That's right folks, for the first time ever, I'm going hunting.

My guides are Katie DeLorenzo, a public land conservationist, and Orrin Duvuvuei, a wildlife biologist.

Two New Mexican hunters who know this land, and its wild occupants.

(somber music continues) Hello.

- Hi, how are y'all?

- Chilly.

- Yeah.

- What's up?

- Orrin.

- Baratunde.

- Katie DeLorenzo.

Nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you too.

Thanks for letting me join y'all.

- We're glad you're here, it's a beautiful morning.

- It is a beautiful morning to shoot at some turkeys.

(laughs) I've never done that before.

- I don't do it often.

- Yeah.

- They can be pretty hard to shoot at.

- Yeah, how about you?

- I like to go after 'em.

- Yeah.

(both laugh) - Easier to hear, harder to shoot.

- Yeah.

Now, turkeys are notoriously hard to hunt.

They're highly intelligent, have excellent eyesight, and can pick up on the slightest movements.

So the best time to get at 'em is when they're doing a little something hunters like to call- - Gobbling on the roost.

- Gobbling on the roost.

- Gobbling on the roost.

- I'm gonna need to explain that one to me.

- They sleep in trees, they roost in trees.

- Okay.

- And in the mornings, they're pretty fired up trying to attract the ladies, and so to get the ladies, they have to vocalize and display their presence.

They gobble and the hens hear them.

And in theory, in nature, the hens will come to that sound to the gobble.

What we're gonna try to do is reverse that.

We're gonna try to get the gobbler to come to the hen.

We're gonna act like the hen and have him come toward us.

We're trying to reverse what's natural for him.

- So this dude's out here looking for love, and he's gonna find us instead?

- In theory, in theory.

(both laughing) - So this is like an intelligence operation?

- It's like a big chess match.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- You're like seeding misinformation within the turkey sphere.

(both laughing) As it gets closer to hunting time, I'm starting to feel a little uneasy.

I have a limited history with firearms.

I've never owned one.

Most recently, I got to fire a shotgun at moving things, but they were clay.

So there is a difference in shooting at a clay target verses a living creature.

What can I expect?

How do you think about shooting at a living thing?

- The goal is to have fun.

- Yeah.

- The goal is to work a turkey.

The harvesting a turkey's icing on the cake.

When it happens, it's exciting.

You're happy, you're sad, you're remorseful.

You have every emotion that you can think of that you've ever felt and it's very weird.

Allow yourself to feel those emotions.

Sit with it for a few minutes, you know?

And just appreciate what just happened.

Just enjoy it and take that moment for yourself and for that animal, and give some respect to that animal.

(lively country music) - Okay.

Orrin's words are grounding, and I can use all the reassurance I can get.

- So always treat it like it's loaded.

Over your shoulder and there you go.

Just like that.

- Okay.

Even though I'm not in my element, I have a feeling Katie and Orrin are the right folks to guide me on my first hunt.

(lively country music continues) It's so serene out here.

The land, the air, the underlying anticipation.

I find myself focusing on every detail, every sound.

(turkey calling) That sound is no turkey.

(Orrin imitating turkey calling) That's Orrin's impressive mouth call skills.

If I were a turkey, I'd probably fall for it.

- So sometimes you'll see like scratching too in the pine leaves.

- Mm.

- Like, it'll just look like that.

And they're getting to stuff underneath.

So just scratching in addition to the little turds.

If we see one, we'll show it to you.

- Okay.

- Could take it home.

- A turd?

- And freeze dry it.

You can take a- (Katie laughs) - You just invite me to take a turkey turd home?

- Yeah, if that's all we get, I guess, you know.

- Do you collect turkey turds?

- I just like to see them on the ground.

- We're on the same wave length here.

That's good.

(lively country music) - See, this is old scratchings.

- (whispers) We got some turkey scat!

- [Orrin] That's a gobbler because it's bigger.

Yeah.

I've never been proud to find poop before in my life.

But what can you tell about the bird that made this?

- It's pretty old, but we feel like there's a lot of scratching and sign in here, so let's keep looking around for more scat and more tracks and see if something fresher turns up.

- Great.

Okay, turkey, we're definitely here.

After seeing scratches, scat and water nearby.

Orrin and Katie decide this is as good a spot as any to set up and play the waiting game.

Be one with the tree.

Orrin stakes out by one tree with his turkey call while Katie and I settle down into another.

- Just get totally comfortable.

So if a bird comes in, you don't have to move at all.

You wanna rest to where all you're gonna have to do is bring that gun up to your face and shoot.

But right now we wait.

- Now we wait.

(birds chirping) (light country music) (tool imitates turkey call) And an hour later, we're still waiting.

Important lesson, hunting requires a lot of patience.

It's the most immersive woodland experience I've had.

Just kind of chilling inside of a tree.

Camoed out, green firearm, waiting for some turkey to cross my path.

(Orrin imitates turkey call) I feel... so present.

I don't know that I've ever sat this still for this long in the woods.

I've always been pushing through in a rush and then being able to relax in that stillness.

That was really, really, really nice.

(tool imitates turkey call) - May not get one today, and that's okay.

But I hope you have enjoyed just learning the process and kind of being here in the woods and interacting with this space in a different way.

And you're missing the most important part of turkey hunting which is afternoon naps under a tree.

- Katie, I love naps.

You're amazing.

I also feel like I don't wanna move my head too much 'cause I'm still trying to stay still in case a turkey shows up.

So it feels like we're on the phone even though you're right next to me.

After two hours of practicing patience, I've gotta admit I'm bummed we didn't see any turkeys and simultaneously, relieved I didn't have to shoot at one.

But in a way, the process helped me feel closer to the turkey I didn't see today, than the turkey I buy in the store.

I want to, I hear sizzling.

- Mm-hm.

- I wanna make sure you're good.

- I mean, burning things is kind of my M.O.

so.

(both laughing) - Luckily, we can still enjoy the fruits of the hunt because Katie came prepared with a New Mexican favorite green chili turkey enchiladas.

Thank you for the warning, it is hot on the bottom!

- Thank you.

- Don't grab the bottom!

(Baratunde laughing) - Made with turkey that Katie harvested and processed herself.

Okay, Katie.

- [Katie] What's the spice levels?

- No, no, spice level was great.

The delicious levels what I'm referring to.

(clears throat) Oh, there's the spice.

(both laugh) Okay, Katie.

(laughs) Can you tell me a little bit more about the family tradition or the family, the importance of family to you in your relationship with the outdoors in particular through hunting.

- Yeah, so for my family, I mean, this is how we spend time together.

For me, it's not a hobby, right?

It's a lifestyle, it's part of our family.

And my dad was a biologist for 34 years.

My sister's a biologist.

All of the other adults in my family essentially work in the outdoors.

And so it's just really integrated into everything that we do, and I think more importantly, like who we are.

Most of us do our meat processing at home, and every time we can pull that pack of meat out, you know, we know the story behind that animal and know they, you know, they lived a good long life out here.

And that always makes me feel really good.

- What is hunting and your general relationship with outdoors, how does that connect to your relationship with multiple generations of family?

- I still need to connect with the landscape, to connect with my ancestors.

I'm thinking back when I was 15 years old, hiking around with my grandpa, you know, and him and my dad are the ones that brought me into the hunting and outdoor world.

That's why I became a wildlife biologist, was my early formative years with them.

- You ever think your grandpa's out here nudging the turkey towards you?

- I hope to think that, he wasn't today.

(all laughing) - Grandpa, what you doing?

We needed you!

Because of their multi-generational connection to this place.

Both Katie and Orrin are committed to keeping public lands protected and accessible so future generations can continue this way of life.

What are some of the challenges that you are trying to prevent or address in terms of educating people around sustainable hunting, ethical kills, fair chase.

What can go wrong?

- Yeah, that's a really good question.

I think the hunting community, we just want people to be thoughtful when they're out here, right?

And it's thoughtful about how they're moving across the landscape, and that's as simple as, like leaving trash or- - Or picking up beer cans.

I saw you pick up a bunch of beer cans.

- Myself and other wildlife biologists across the country.

We survey populations to ensure that there are enough on the landscape for sustainable use, right?

And if there's not, then we don't hunt them.

I want for generations to come to be able to experience this and come out and enjoy nature as we are today.

- Thank you both so much.

I learned a lot.

I ate someone else's turkey, it was great.

And I have really positive memories here in New Mexico because of you.

Thank you.

- Yeah, thanks for coming.

- Next time we're getting a turkey though.

- Yeah, just staying extra day.

(all laughing) - And then tomorrow they're gonna get all the turkeys soon as I leave.

Hey, you may not always get the turkey, but an afternoon nap in the woods will do just fine.

Katie and Orrin have shown me that hunting is not just about guns or harvesting food.

For them it's about family and tradition and how that's deepened their desire to protect wild places.

Of course, for some in New Mexico family tradition goes back much, much further.

(water burbling) (lively music) The Rio Grande is one of the most majestic rivers in America.

It's the main water source for millions of Americans and a large part of the US, Mexico border.

It's also an historic place of recreation for generations of New Mexicans.

Today, my river guide is Louie Hena, member of the Tesuque Pueblo.

(both cheering and laughing) Oh, yeah!

His ancestors have lived along the Rio Grande from as early as 950 AD, and their stories are etched into the canyon walls.

When I would look up the history in a more formal text about this space, I might read about Spanish explorers.

I'd read about border wars and the division of lands.

How do you tell the history of this place?

- Well, we don't tell his story.

We tell our story.

There's the petroglyphs all up and down this canyon.

The first people were the Tiwa and the Tigua people, all their stories are written up through all around here.

And the Comanche come through here, write their stories.

The Europeans came through here and wrote their stories.

So everybody's stories is etched into these boulders.

And so in indigenous communities, we're teaching our stories to our younger people now.

- Louie believes those stories should be told, not just within his community, but to anyone who visits.

He gets to do just that in his job with the Los Rios Runners, a local whitewater rafting company.

Where native guides educate visitors on Pueblo history and why this river is sacred.

What does this river mean to you?

And what does it mean to your community?

- We look at the river as a lifeblood.

Everything out here has a spirit.

Today the floor of our church is this river itself.

- Floor of our church, huh?

- Uh-huh, the floor of our church.

We're floating on (speaks foreign language).

(Baratunde speaks foreign language) (Louie speaking foreign language) The Lady Water Serpent.

(water burbling) So if you understand the water cycle, you know, it starts rain and everything coming from the ocean.

And all of this water that lands on top of these mountain ranges, brings all of this great organic matter and great energy.

So all this good energy comes into our fields, waters our crops, and then we eat the foods and all that good energy comes into us, keeps us healthy.

- [Baratunde] Yeah.

- I'd rather come out here and gather my medicines out here than standing in line at the Walmart pharmacy, right?

Out here... vitamin D, right, you know?

(Baratunde laughs) - You don't have to take a pill for that.

Louie's ancestors were experts at the science of observing and maintaining complex ecosystems without depleting them.

Today we might refer to that as permaculture.

- [Louie] You see the terrace thing?

- [Baratunde] Yeah.

- So basically that's how we engineered our landscape.

Just mimicking nature, creating these terraces.

And so every little terrace is a planting bed.

Everything that you see here, our community still use.

It's a pretty view, huh?

- It's amazing view.

I'm feeling the character of the river change just (snaps fingers) like that.

- [Louie] Mm-hm.

- It's louder, it's bumpier, it's busier, picking up some speed.

- [Louie] Mm-hm.

- We didn't move, but we changed.

- Right.

- [Baratunde] The knowledge passed on by Louie and his ancestors can teach us how to be better stewards of land and water.

In recent years, this has become especially critical as the Rio Grande has shown signs of drying, resulting in water shortages and low crop yields.

For Louie, the health of this river is directly tied to the health of his culture, his livelihood, and his legacy.

- We have 15 grandchildren.

- 15 Grandchildren.

Whoa.

What's it like to have so many descendants?

(Louie chuckles) - Oh, that's a great feeling, man.

It's a great feeling.

And then I love it when their parents are telling them, this is where our parents brought us and this is how we played.

And so they're showing them the same things that, how I showed them to play.

And so by teaching the next generation what I know continues my ancestors' teachings also.

And it's nothing that you learn in school.

It's learning what's going on out here.

- Louie Hena, it's been an honor, man.

Thanks for inviting me to church, into the pantry, into the medicine cabinet all at the same time.

I'm glad we could overlap.

- Mm-hm, thank you.

Thank you for your time.

And I hope you share this information with everybody.

And I hope the individuals take it to heart and make it start making a change.

(upbeat music) - New Mexico is vast and diverse.

The river's just one way people explore it.

For centuries there was a another way... by horse.

In the town of Gallup, they still like to saddle up, but with wheels instead of hooves.

Like a lot of kids in America, these guys are passionate about riding bikes.

But where they live on the Navajo reservation, you have to go a long way to fix your two wheeler.

Thankfully there's the Silver Stallion, a bike shop with wheels of its own.

- Someone said there's two of the best human inventions.

One is the bike...

I don't know what the other one is.

(both laughing) - When Scott Nydam, a former pro-cyclist, arrived here in 2014, he noticed a near perfect landscape for biking, but not much of a bike culture.

So this looks like a candy store on wheels to the kid in me.

All these bikes, all this tool stuff.

I love it.

- Yeah.

Yeah, across the entire Navajo nation, there's not a single bike shop.

- How big is the nation?

- It's about 27,000 square miles the size of West Virginia.

- And no bike shops?

- No bike shops.

So if a kid gets a bike and gets a flat tire, maybe grandma needs to drive them two hours to a border town to go into an intimidating bike shop probably and ask for some help.

And so it's really kind of not viable.

So we created this as like a dynamic solution and then provide the repair parts for their bikes and show up.

- [Baratunde] But Silver Stallion is more than a bike repair service.

They also teach kids how to repair their own bikes, instilling confidence and self-sufficiency.

- Silver stallion's a non-profit.

Our mission is to educate and empower youth and young adults in the bicycle mechanic repair.

So basically we're a job skill nonprofit.

What we're trying to do is provide kids to develop their own agency.

And that's the subtle difference.

And what happens when you're on a bike?

I can't do it for you, man.

Yeah, you have to do it and you do.

And you do it by default, you know, and we do it alongside each other and create relationships.

- Silver Stallion is a team of mechanics and coaches mostly from the native community.

Today they have programs in schools of the Navajo Nation and serve more than a hundred kids.

(kids laughing and chattering) You do races?

- Mm-hm.

- Are you good?

- A little.

- A little?

(both laughing) What do you like about races?

- I like the awards and the trophies.

- You like winning?

- Yeah.

(all laughing) Is Kaylin good at winning?

- Yeah.

- Yeah?

- Sometimes.

- Sometimes?

Oh, we got some truth!

(laughs) Mentorship and technical skills can be lifesaving for native youth who are at greater risk for addiction, suicide, and dropping out of high school.

But as a self-described privileged white boy from South Denver, Scott knows there's a lot he can't fully understand about the challenges of rez life.

How do you avoid the outsider tendency to show up with your ideas and tell people here how to do things?

- Hmm.

Well I guarantee you I continue to screw up.

- (laughs) Right.

- But that's the thing is like, as long as the dialogue's there, you know, the eye contact's there, the love is there.

We're gonna be okay.

As long as we continue to course correct, you know?

Keep the Titanic on course.

- Or the bike on the path.

- Yeah, exactly.

You know?

- There you go.

Because the Titanic's not a great metaphor.

- No, no, well, I didn't.

I'm just saying, we're trying- Yeah.

(Baratunde laughs) Yeah, I'll stay away from the boat metaphor.

- Bikes!

This is your whole thing.

(laughs) (bike spokes clicking) (lively music) - [Person] Are you ready?

- Where's that slow guy?

- I'm right here!

(all laughing) This is a serious bunch.

These kids are way more advanced than I was at their age.

If I'm being honest, they're way more advanced than me now.

(Baratunde exhales and yells) But here we go anyway.

(lively music continues) (Baratunde yelling and laughing) (indistinct) that would stay low (Baratunde laughing) Yeah!

Another six 'till Christmas As it gets the breaks Okay, maybe I need to train a little more before I join this group and sure, biking can take you from point A to point B, but it can also take you on a different path in life.

- These are valuable things.

They are a tool.

They're a tool for us to move forward.

Literally, you can't really go backward on a bike.

You know, you go forward.

(lively music continues) Oh Oh - [Baratunde] The beauty of New Mexico is its special blend of cultures.

There's the Spanish influence, dozens of native tribes and a bit of the wild west.

And much like its heritage, the range of ways to enjoy the outdoors is endless.

(lively country music) - So I think of New Mexico as, in the outdoor world, you can do everything.

Rock climbing, rafting, kayaking- - Camping, hiking.

- Riding a bike, out fishing, out canoeing.

- My favorite thing to do here is to be horseback.

- It's a really healing place so I don't waste any time indoors on the weekends.

I like to be out and about adventuring throughout New Mexico.

- [Person] New Mexico kind of has the best parts of all the different states.

It's got a little bit of Colorado up in northern New Mexico.

We've got some of Arizona down in Southern New Mexico.

And we've got a little Texas in there, for what it's worth.

- Little Texas in the southeast.

(laughs) - [Person] New Mexico has rivers, we have alpine forests, alpine lakes.

- Look at our view, the mountain, trees, forest, grassland, farms.

- This is some of the longest continually farmed land in North America, right?

It goes back thousands of years.

It is like indescribable actually the amount of bounty and all the different things that you can do out here.

- It's such a diverse state in every way.

Topographically, culturally, with roots to the indigenous people.

It's a resilient culture.

- New Mexico for vida, New Mexico for life.

(lively music continues) (car whooshing) (birds chirping) (light music) (water burbling) - In New Mexico, it seems the past is always with you.

And there's no place that speaks to this more than the settlement of Taos Pueblo.

Being here is like walking into history.

Many of the buildings appear exactly as they were a millennium ago.

And to get a taste of this history, there's only one stop I need to make.

At Tiwa Kitchen Restaurant and Bakery, a native owned and operated business.

Debbie and Ben Sandoval have been warming the souls of their people through the "horno," a hand-built outdoor oven that's been part of Taos Pueblo cuisine for centuries.

I've heard legendary reviews about their squash cake, enchiladas, fried bread tacos and cookies.

But what I'm really here for is their fresh outdoor oven bread.

(light music continues) Debbie?

- Oh hey!

- Hey!

We're hugging, come on.

- Nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you too.

Thanks for letting me come in.

- Yeah, yeah.

We're gonna do some bread- - Oh, you're putting me to work?

- In the outdoor oven.

Yeah, well!

- Okay.

(laughs) - You wanted to see how its done.

- Roll my sleeves up.

I did wanna see how it's done.

- [Debbie] Let's do it.

- All right, so what are we making here, Debbie?

- We're making some outdoor oven bread.

- Can I tell you something?

- Yeah.

- I don't think I've ever made bread before.

(Debbie laughs) This is my first.

- Well, it'll be fun.

- Good.

- I'll show you how.

- And tell me everything you're doing.

- So we make a loaf like this.

Then we're gonna put it in the pan.

- Okay, there, there.

- This.

- Oh cool.

- This one.

Grease it up a little bit on top.

- Just grab like this?

- And push it down.

- Push it down.

- Yeah.

- Outside to the edges.

It's my first time making a cooking show.

She's like, "not pushing hard enough!"

It's like Play-Doh, but you really can eat it, you know?

- Yep, (laughs) it's fun.

I like to play with the dough.

(laughs) - Apparently so do I.

(Debbie laughs) So all these needs to end up in these pens?

I have been slacking.

All right, here we go.

Get the air out like Debbie taught me.

What do you call this bread?

- (speaking foreign language) in our language.

(Baratunde speaking foreign language) (Debbie speaking foreign language) (Baratunde speaking foreign language) - Right.

- Okay.

Debbie learned how to bake this traditional bread from watching her mother-in-law.

As Taos became more of a destination, they saw an opportunity to share their cuisine with others and open Tiwa 30 years ago.

What does it mean to you to pick up this tradition and kind of keep it going?

- It feels good.

My daughter and my granddaughters know how to do it.

I'm really, really proud of that.

- So from a grandmother to a granddaughter passing this down?

- Yeah.

- Learning this way is challenging my inner perfectionist.

I'm used to following recipes.

But Debbie, she don't work that way.

If my wife were here now, she would laugh at this because I always, I like to know the instructions very clearly, and follow them very precisely.

And you're just like, smash, smash.

I'm like, no, no.

How many smashes is that?

Is that five?

Five and a half smashes?

Okay, good.

- As long as it's flat down, you're good.

- Flat, all right.

What is in the bread?

I mean, I'm assuming some kind of flour.

- Yeah, we just use regular all-purpose flour.

- Okay.

- A little bit of salt, yeast and a little bit of grease.

- Grease, right on the outside, that's it.

And so the magic is from the oven it sounds like.

- Yeah.

We're gonna go make a fire now.

I'll introduce you to my husband, Ben.

- So I get to play with Play-Doh that I could eat and make a fire.

- Yeah.

- This is a dream day.

(both laughing) (wood crackling) (light music continues) - Hey Ben, this is Baratunde.

- Oh, hello there.

- This is Ben.

- Glad to meet you.

- Nice to meet you too.

- He wants to learn how to make the fire.

(Ben gasps) - She made me make the bread.

I'm gonna make some fire with you.

- Oh!

(Debbie chuckles) Shall we?

- We should.

(all laughing) Thank you Debbie.

- All right, let's see about.

I'll try that.

- All right, Ben.

So I've never seen an oven like this before.

What is it?

- Well, we call it (speaks foreign language) in our language.

- Okay.

- We use cedarwood.

That's the only wood that we use because it's clean.

- Clean wood.

- And it smells really nice in there, the bread flavors with the smoke.

- Yeah, I love the smell of cedar.

Can I help you load up the oven?

- Sure, you can grab some wood there, about an arm load.

- Okay, by the arm load.

Little more?

- Okay.

- That should do.

- Should do.

- Yeah.

- Throw it in.

There you go.

How do we light this fire?

- With a lighter.

(both laughing) - Okay, a modern twist on the old ways.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Okay.

All right so just light this.

Where do I want to put this?

- Maybe right beside this other.

There you go.

- Okay.

Oh, that does smell good.

(fire crackling) (light music continues) So how do you know what the temperature in that oven is?

How do you know when it's ready?

- We put four arm loads and we just hope that it's hot enough.

- Hope?

That's your thermometer is hope?

- Yeah, that's hope.

It's hope it's hot enough because we might redo the bread.

- Thank you, I was curious 'cause I didn't see any dials on here.

- Yeah.

- I didn't see a thermostat on so you just know, tradition is the answer.

- Yeah.

- Hornos are handmade with dirt, straw, and rock.

It can take up to two weeks to build one and it's not an easy process.

But Debbie and Ben are carrying on this tradition the same way their ancestors did centuries ago.

She's just all up in there.

I've never done that to a fire.

(Debbie chuckling) This is an operation.

This is hard work.

It's time consuming and a bit unpredictable.

But the dedication and love that Ben and Debbie put into the bread every single day is inspiring.

- Now we gotta close it up.

Half an hour.

Now we time it.

- That's to make sure the bread doesn't escape.

- [Debbie] Yeah.

- Yeah.

- They're banging on the up this side.

Let us out, let us out!

(Debbie laughing) It's hot in here!

- We locked the dough boy in there.

(all laughing) - Baking is a science that Debbie and Ben know intuitive.

There's no measuring cups, no thermometer.

Just a lot of practice and a little bit of faith.

(light music continues) - All right!

- Nice!

Outdoor oven bread.

Try one of those?

Thank you.

- You try.

All right.

- Good.

Yeah, everybody out?

The oven is empty.

Oh, look at that.

- All right.

- Look what we did.

Yes for us!

(both laughing) How do you feel?

Do you feel any differently when you're cooking outdoors?

From cooking inside in the kitchen here.

- It's harder, of course, 'cause, I enjoy it though.

- Why do you think you enjoy it?

Harder things, I don't enjoy.

(Debbie chuckling) I enjoy hard less.

But you said it's harder and I enjoy it more, why?

- Cooking outdoors is just fun.

- Yes!

Absolutely, I love to grill outdoors.

Cooking outdoors is fun.

- And then all of the stuff that's involved with it, it's like getting wood, we have to go get wood to bake.

So that's what we love, being outdoors, We go get our wood together.

Me and him.

- Still?

- [Debbie] Yeah.

- That is so romantic.

Wow.

- Yeah.

- How did you two meet?

- We met in our canyon up that way.

- [Baratunde] Okay.

- Yeah.

Me and my friends were camping out.

Just four girls camping out in the canyon.

(chuckles) - Way up there.

- So we said, "do you guys want some Kool-aid?"

(laughs) - That was your line?

That's your first move?

- [Debbie] Yeah.

- You offer Kool-Aid?

(both chuckling) So Debbie is smooth.

- We give them slow gin with Kool-Aid.

(all laughing) - There we go.

- That's what it was.

- They didn't know.

- Roped you right in.

- Yup.

Reeled me in right there.

- Tiwa Kitchen is a special place because it operates as both a mom and pop restaurant and a cultural preservation project.

Keeping history alive through food.

- Taos Pueblo's been here generations.

So our ancestors they fought hard to keep this land.

- Hmm.

Their ancestors' legacy shaped New Mexico.

Most notably through the Puebloan Revolt of 1680.

When the Spanish arrived in the 1500s they began taking lands, forcing conversions to Catholicism and enslaving Pueblo peoples.

Over many years, the Puebloans organized an uprising and sent the Spaniards packing.

It's considered the most successful native rebellion in history.

Though the Spanish eventually returned, the Puebloan revolt ensured that New Mexico would develop with a unique blend of Spanish and native influences, which we see today, including the horno itself.

The stories you're telling cover hundreds and hundreds of years.

You're still here.

- Mm-hm.

Same land, Spanish gun, same land, cannon balls, the petroglyphs in the hills, like you haven't been moved.

And that's not everybody's story who was already here.

- Yeah.

We were very lucky.

- Lots of tribes have respect for us here, and that we still carry over 90% of our religion yet since it was given to us by our great spirit.

Our way of life here is more important to me because that has to be passed on.

You can't even write our language.

There's no alphabet at all in our language.

- So you gotta speak it to keep it alive.

Which is, this kind of comes back to cooking for me.

(Debbie chuckles) - Oh, okay.

- The way you preserve this cooking technique didn't sound like you passed your kids a cookbook.

Your grandmother didn't give you any written instructions.

You just witnessed and repeated what you saw.

And in that repetition, in that practice, you've kept it alive.

Kind of like your religion, kind of like your language.

You gotta practice it and keep doing it.

Well, thank you so much - [Debbie] You're welcome.

- for sharing some of your words with me in your language, sharing some of your food with me with your outdoor oven and your traditions and just taking so much time with me.

I appreciate it.

- We're happy to do it.

- In our language.

(speaks foreign language) (Baratunde speaks foreign language) - Mm-hm, that means thank you too.

(chuckles) - Ben and Debbie keep their culture alive by practicing traditions every day and passing on that knowledge the same way it was passed on to them.

It's about preserving what you have.

But when it comes to the land itself, that's not always possible in a place as hot and dry as this.

(light music) (fire crackling) Spring 2022.

Wildfires are raging across the southwest.

In New Mexico, the flames are fierce.

The most destructive wildfires in state history.

The Calf Canyon, Hermit's Peak Fire began when a controlled fire merged with a dormant pile burn, creating one giant blaze burning out of control.

Around 341,000 acres burned.

Hundreds of homes were destroyed, including settlements that dated back centuries.

In the years since, the focus has been on recovery.

Recovery of human lives, communities, and the land itself.

- We looked around and talked to people, and started to ask, what was the need?

What were people keen to know about what was gonna happen over the long term?

And that was a niche that we could fill.

That was a role that we had a little bit of experience in.

- Shantini Ramakrishnan is a conservation and restoration educator who centers her efforts on community-based recovery.

(light music continues) Tell me about your expectations for the near and midterm future, the next five to 20 years.

- So we've been seeing, not just here in New Mexico throughout the southwest and certainly the West, has been seeing more and more catastrophic fires.

So it's becoming our new normal.

And even though this fire is devastating, we still have pockets of green that we need to protect.

We need to take care of our forest, the ones that we have left, whatever the cause of the fire might be, that it doesn't burn in a way that kills the forest, rather burns in a way that rejuvenates the forest.

- And it sounds like not only will post-fire recovery from this incident be many decades long, but there will be future incidents.

- Yes.

- Which will require themselves post-fire recovery.

- Absolutely.

- It's just gonna become a way of life.

- Yes.

And so as a overall community, we need to figure out how do we contribute to what recovery could mean?

And how do we stay connected?

Because if we all say, "ah, this is too much, "I'm gonna up and leave."

Quite frankly, I mean, where are you gonna go, right?

- Yeah.

- So if you're here, then you're connected here, then you can do good by the land.

And that's scaled according to what you can do and what land you have access.

- Your resources.

- Yeah, absolutely.

- [Baratunde] Staying connected to the land after devastating wildfires may be vital, but it's not easy.

After the physical loss, emotional trauma soon follows.

- What I need first is somebody that's going to be getting temperature for me.

- [Baratunde] Many of the young people in this area watch their communities burn.

So to help them begin healing schools in Mora County decided to spend most Fridays teaching outdoors.

Shantini believes teaching kids about wildfire can help them stay resilient and inspire some to make fire ecology their life's work.

- So we have a lot of wonderful resources here in New Mexico, but not a lot of local decision makers.

And so we wanna grow those leaders because they know the land, they grew up here, they work the land, who knows better, right?

And that makes great leaders of resources.

- What's an example of a natural resource leader?

What will these kids become?

- Oh, they could become foresters, they could become fire ecologists, hydrologists, soil scientists, rangeland ecologists.

- If they do, they'll be learning how to use controlled fires to prevent and contain wild ones.

It may seem counterintuitive, but good fires are necessary if we wanna maintain the health of communities and land.

- You know, fire is really the only way that we can treat lash landscapes.

Because coming in and thinning is certainly one thing, but how do you thin hundreds and thousands of acres, millions of acres?

But so many of these forests co-evolved with fire.

- Co-evolved with fire.

- Co-evolved with fire.

We have, you know, the trees evolved really thick bark because they were expected to get a low grade fire that would go through.

We have seedlings that don't establish until a fire cleans the duff and the litter under a tree so that there's bare soil.

If we want to continue to have forest systems, we have to find a way to work in fire into that system.

- Yeah, and so I think the other framework a lot of us show up with is, okay, that was a terrible natural disaster.

Government, community, friends, let's create a GoFundMe of size X and rebuild and get back to normal.

That seems to not be a reasonable expectation for the the future that we're already living in.

So how do you help people manage those expectations?

Set more achievable ones.

- This forest didn't establish in two years.

It was practice for 120 years that we excluded fire from the system and it got really dense, and now we're vulnerable to these catastrophic events.

And so we need to then say, "okay, it took us 120 years to get into this mess."

- Will it take 120 to get out?

So even setting that expectation, this is a marathon.

- Yes.

- This isn't back in two years or five years back to normal.

- Decades.

- Decades from now, these are the kids who will see this forest recover.

So it makes sense that they'd be the ones to decide how to care for it.

It's a lesson New Mexicans understand deeply through the history all around them calling to each of us if we choose to listen.

(light music continues) (birds chirping) (somber music) There are places we can go to witness the legacy of those who came before us.

And they can serve as clues to what early civilizations thought about the natural world.

Like the Roman Colosseum, Egyptian Sphinxes or Machu Picchu.

But we have awe-inspiring ruins in the US too.

One of them is in New Mexico's Chaco Canyon, home to Pueblo Bonito.

Built between 850 and 1150 by the ancestral puebloans.

It's immense, epic in scale and it's clearly stood the test of time.

But it's more than that because the people who built these structures were thinking about their place in the cosmos.

And if you wanna see what I mean, you need to come here at night.

Steve.

- Oh hi.

- Hello.

- Nice to meet you.

- We could have met inside at a cafe.

- (laughs) Where it was warm.

- You got me in the middle of the night.

It's dark, it's cold.

- Yeah, at night.

- But it's beautiful.

- Yes.

- Steven Beth is a history teacher and tour guide here at Chaco Culture National Historic Park.

He's been studying the ruins for 40 years and he has an amazing story to tell.

The people who built this place 900 years ago were guided by the night sky.

Tell me about what makes this place special and what does that mean, "Chaco culture?"

- Pueblo Bonito is the largest of the great houses that's been preserved here.

And these buildings are obsessively aligned with the sky.

This building tied the people here on the ground in a very chaotic place to a sky that was balanced, symmetrical, and I think the people recognized here a thousand years ago that in the sky was a bit of a cultural anchor for them.

- To anchor upward.

- Yeah, yeah.

- It's very different from most of our ideas of what an anchor is.

- Yeah.

The night sky is actually one of our official natural resources of the park.

So that means that we have to take care of it.

We have to protect it.

You take a look up and you can see why.

- Do you mind showing me your fancy telescope equipment?

I've never seen anything quite like this.

- If you look right through here, you may be able to see kind of a fuzzy snowball of stars.

- [Baratunde] I couldn't get a good view through Steve's telescope because of the camera crew's lights.

So we decided to cut them.

Oh yeah.

What?

Wow.

- [Steven] So this is what we call a globular cluster.

This is quite literally 50,000 stars in one clump.

- [Baratunde] What?

It's a star rave.

- [Steven] I think it's where they stored their traditions, their memories, their stories.

Americans need to come here because it is a humbling experience.

- This is one of the darkest skies in the whole country.

Chaco has designated 99% of the park as a natural darkness zone, not only for the enjoyment of stargazing visitors, but for the natural environment too.

The ancestral puebloans looked at this same sky as a guide.

Soon I'll see the structures around me in the light of day and better understand how they're connected to the cosmos.

Considering that all the things built here were built in alignment with the sun, with the stars, with a rising light that's about to happen.

I have brought a lawn chair, a sleeping bag, and my backpack, and I'm gonna park myself to feel the sunrise and try to feel that alignment myself.

(celestial music) (vocalist vocalizing) (celestial music continues) (vocalist vocalizing) (Baratunde groans) (celestial music continues) Wow.

Look at that.

It's so big.

(chuckles) (celestial music continues) - Good morning.

So are you ready for some adventure today to learn about our amazing building?

- I'd love to see and learn about what I couldn't fully see and learn about in the dark.

- Yeah, well you've come to the right place.

- All right.

Declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.

Chaco Canyon was once a major center of this region, and Pueblo Bonito its most significant structure.

It's a meticulously designed complex with over 600 rooms.

From the years 850 to 1250, this was home to hundreds of people.

Based on artifacts, scientists believe it was a flourishing hub for trade, religious ceremonies and daily life.

And today it's a hotspot for Archaeoastronomy.

The study of how ancient culture shaped their physical structures and spirituality around the sky.

- Okay, I brought you over here because, do you notice this window here on the second floor?

- [Baratunde] I do.

- [Steven] It's diagonal, which is a little strange.

- Yep, a window in a corner.

- So our astronomer friend who was studying this site looked at that and kind of wondered, "well, does the sun rise and go through that window?"

Well, the answer is no.

Until the sun rises far enough south that finally on one day a sliver of light just makes it through the edge of that diagonal window.

And it strikes the opposite corner of that room where somebody constructed a square tower, and then of course the next day the sun moves a little farther to the south so that sliver of light gets a little wider and starts to move over.

And eventually that light pattern will walk right over that square column and on the winter solstice, when the sun rises as far south as it ever will, that window perfectly frames a square of sunlight on the opposite wall.

- That's really cool, man.

A celestial clock.

The building itself, a calendar.

The people who lived here over a thousand years ago may have used this structure to mark seasons to help them know when to plant and harvest, and when to conduct their ceremonies.

It's just, you know, we have clocks now.

- Yeah.

- And they're in our pockets and on our wrists and on all of the screens of our lives.

But they're in the walls here.

- Yeah.

- So a very different way.

- Well, and And to do it at this scale.

The movement of the sky was the original clock.

And these people certainly understood that.

- Original timekeepers.

Scientists can only speculate about why the path of the sun and stars was so vital to their society that they constructed these buildings and their entire lives around them.

(uplifting music) Wow.

What a view.

Whoa.

That's a cool perspective on Pueblo Bonito.

- [Steven] What these people achieved here is simply difficult to describe.

- So many of these structures were built to help tell time.

What does this all add up to?

- Well, the pueblos still believe that this is a very sacred site.

That in a sense they've captured their world and put it in stone here.

And then they can come back to this space and feel that same spiritual connection that they had to their ancestors.

- The most elaborate clock I've ever seen.

- Oh, yes.

Yeah, it gives us a chance to study what these people thought about the natural world.

Thought about the cosmos around them.

- What a great place to take into cosmos.

(celestial music) Time.

On my wrists, on every screen.

I've got clocks telling me exactly what time it is, but I feel like I don't have enough.

Like I'm always running behind, can't quite catch up.

Out here, I'm starting to meet people who are sharing a different relationship with time.

- Our forefathers, they fought hard to keep this land and the tradition that needs to be passed down.

- When I'm sitting in the woods with them, I'm not in a rush.

- I want for generations to come to be able to experience this and come out and enjoy nature as we are today.

- Yeah.

When I'm floating down a river, I'm traveling on this moving timeline.

- We're connected to the past.

We're connected to now and we're connected to the future.

- And in those moments, the soul measure of time is no longer the clock.

Instead it becomes plants, animals, water, and rock.

- You have a spirit.

I have a spirit.

Everything out here has a spirit.

- I can forget my watch.

Enjoy nature.

I can take my time.

(celestial music continues) (uplifting music)