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FIELD Training

Filling in the connection gap left in the wake of COVID-19

Posted on by Alan Rogers

One day in mid-March, all of us on the Wyoming Outdoor Council staff found ourselves sitting at home. The safest thing to do was to stop all work-related travel and work remotely rather from the Lander office. Our office remained open a few hours a day for our administrative staff (thank you Maureen and Misti) to process mail, pay bills, and acknowledge new and renewing memberships, but things had changed. 

Like you, we stayed awake at night worrying about the health of our vulnerable family members and friends. We tried to make sense of a rapidly evolving global pandemic while facing new, everyday challenges, like kids who could no longer go to school or how to safely get groceries. Overall, we did our best to stay positive. 

Fortunately, most of our work continued from home offices, but other aspects — holding public events, attending legislative and state agency meetings, getting together with members and partners — evaporated overnight, and we were left wondering how to fill that gap. It quickly became apparent this situation wasn’t going to resolve itself anytime soon, and after just a few days of self-isolation our staff was eager to connect with one another and our members. 

The first step was the easiest. 

Even in normal times, the Outdoor Council offers a variety of trainings and resources for citizens who want to be better informed about conservation issues in Wyoming and empowered to participate in public processes that affect our public lands, wildlife, and environmental quality. We’d already planned to bring our citizen outreach and engagement work under a single banner, and took the opportunity this spring to launch FIELD: Fostering Impact through Environmental Leadership Development.

We dove in headfirst with a brand-new offering: a continuing series of video lessons for kids and teenagers that we dubbed Live from the FIELD. In each installment, students had the opportunity to learn from a Wyoming expert, then participate in a live Q&A session over Zoom. We heard about mule deer, big game migration, and wildlife ecology from University of Wyoming research scientists Samantha Dwinell and Rhiannon Jakopak, wildlife disease from Hank Edwards of Wyoming’s Wildlife Health Laboratory, the sagebrush ecosystem from Gina Clingerman of the Bureau of Land Management, and healthy streams from fly fishing guide and longtime member George Hunker. When we noticed many adults were tuning in as well, we took a bigger creative risk and put together a live, online variety show about the National Environmental Policy Act.

Was there an occasional technical difficulty? Of course. Was using a fireside monologue, game show-style trivia, and puppets to explain federal environmental law a bit corny? Maybe. But the response these events elicited showed us that people in Wyoming are eager to learn and excited to engage in new ways. If you missed the sessions, you can find recordings on our YouTube channel.

The next step was slightly more daunting. 

What was to become of our flagship conservation leadership program — the newly renamed FIELD Training — if we couldn’t assemble the eight weeks of class meetings in person? As was so often the case during the first months of the pandemic, taking the program online was the solution. This proved to be as much of a benefit as it was a hurdle. Nothing compares to a face-to-face conversation, but delving into remote learning allowed many people from around the state to participate. How else could a dozen passionate citizens from communities as far-flung as Lusk, St. Stephens, Alpine, and Wapiti all get together for twice-weekly workshops? 

It was evident from the start that the value of engaging with people through these online platforms went far beyond a temporary workaround. It’s not a perfect solution, but in this big, sparsely populated, mostly rural state, it’s a step toward bringing us all a little closer together. It’s our intention that these online offerings will continue and expand. 

The past months have shown us new opportunities to reach people in Wyoming who care about conservation, and strengthen the type of community building we’ve always done. We’re proud to have a resourceful and energetic staff that can adapt and react quickly. And none of this would be possible without the unwavering support of members like you who took a chance with us and tuned in, demonstrating your commitment to protect Wyoming’s environment and quality of life. Thank you. When the next unexpected challenge arises, as it inevitably will, we’ll rise up to meet it together. 

FIELD Training Profile: Yufna Soldier Wolf

Posted on by Alan Rogers

No matter how much Yufna Soldier Wolf insists she has more to learn about advocating for her community, her work already speaks for itself. 

Yufna is the former director of the Northern Arapaho Tribal Historic Preservation Office, where she worked for 12 years. During her time with the office, she was responsible for repatriating the remains of three Northern Arapaho children — Little Chief, Horse, and Little Plume — to the Wind River Reservation from the site of a government boarding school in Carlisle, Pennsylvania where they died in the late 1800s. More recently she’s been doing consulting work related to environmental policy, preservation of cultural resources, and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, as well as Arapaho history. 

Yufna grew up in St. Stephens,  located just outside Riverton on the reservation, as the youngest of 10 children. She now has three kids of her own and lives in the house her father built, which is fitting given that she’s walking in his footsteps. 

Mark Soldier Wolf, who passed away in 2018 at the age of 90, was Yufna’s introduction to dealing with tribal cultural resources and land management issues. Before the Northern Arapaho Tribe had an official historic preservation officer, he filled that role and a young Yufna was there to help. She quickly came up to speed on Section 106 — a portion of the National Historic Preservation Act that requires federal agencies to consider impacts on cultural sites and artifacts — and other policies. 

“Him being older, he didn’t really know computers or all this other stuff, so I’d be sitting there helping him read an [environmental impact statement] or an [environmental assessment],” Yufna said. “And I was in high school.”

Yufna has degrees from Montana State University and the University of Wyoming, and is currently taking courses at UW with her eye on another diploma. At the same time, she’s transitioned from student to teacher, sharing the traditional knowledge passed down by her parents through speaking engagements and her consulting work. 

And, this summer, she decided to venture down a new path of learning when she heard about FIELD Training, the Wyoming Outdoor Council’s conservation leadership program. It’s a natural fit for Yufna, whose career has been based largely around stewarding tribal lands and cultural resources — and focusing on “things that are important to me that, if I didn’t do them, probably would never have gotten done.”

Even though she has served as a Fremont County historic preservation commissioner, Yufna felt her experience in county and state government didn’t match her familiarity with the tribal and federal levels. Now, she’s expanding her comfort zone in FIELD Training, WOC’s free eight-week program designed to give engaged citizens the skills they need to be effective advocates for conservation in their communities. This year’s curriculum centers around public lands and covers the basics of Wyoming government and policymaking through the process of creating and carrying out a grassroots campaign. 

For a small group project, Yufna and several other participants opted to research renewable energy development. Just like the state of Wyoming, she points out, the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone tribes rely heavily on oil and gas severance taxes for revenue and need to be prepared for a future with lower prices or less demand. 

“Education, healthcare, roads, maintenance … you name it, it’s going to be impacted. So that’s why we’re going to talk about renewable energy and how it can be incorporated into land use.”

As a tribal member, Yufna says public lands carry a special significance. 

“That’s where we came from, that’s who we are. Just being able to connect to areas that are special or sacred to us is important. I think that’s why I work as hard as I do with these various entities and land issues. Land is the biggest resource we have.”

Yufna Soldier Wolf

She isn’t sure where the future will take her, but she hopes to use her experiences to make sure Indigenous voices are heard at all levels of government, educate tribal members in Wyoming and elsewhere about the tribal impacts of county and state policies — like taxation and voting law — and encourage people to “help Wyoming be the best, most successful state we can be.”