This interview is from SDPB's daily public-affairs show, In the Moment, hosted by Lori Walsh.
During the height of the pandemic, the phenomenon of "slow television" kept millions of viewers company during long days of isolation, furloughs, and work-from-home tedium. Viewers tuned in for hours of video footage of trains rumbling along the Norwegian countryside and other seemingly ordinary events.
The Custer State Park Buffalo Roundup is far from ordinary. Once a year, cowboys, cowgirls, park personnel, and volunteers saddle up to bring around 1,400 bison in for testing, branding, and sorting. In-person spectators feel the earth rumble as the herd thunders along. You can hear the whooping calls of the cowhands and the cracks of the whip directing the herd. Spectators can also gather for meals and stops at vendor booths and an arts festival.
Now the roundup is also streamed online, commercial free, courtesy of South Dakota Public Broadcasting. It's not exactly South Dakota "slow television," but it is an hours-long event that unfolds in often unexpected ways. Patient viewers are rewarded with the surprises as the roundup progresses. And it's the perfect way for people across the globe to experience the sweeping vistas of South Dakota, to contemplate the ecology of North American herds today and before colonization, and to marvel at the modern-day management of a massive gathering of one of nature's more powerful beasts.
The SDPB Custer State Park Buffalo Roundup livestream will fire up at 10:15 CDT / 9:15 MDT. Hosted coverage begins when the roundup officially starts at 10:30 CDT / 9:30 MDT. Watch it at sdpb.org/live or checkout out live Facebook feed at facebook.com/sodakpb.
Enjoy the rumble.
