Top left: Alaina Buffalospirit: Cheyenne ledger art
Bottom left: Fox Family: Fiddle Traditions
Right: Arnold “Smoke” Elser: author of Hush of the Land: A Lifetime in the Bob Marshall Wilderness
Tradition bearers and their folk practices represented in this year’s demonstration area will include Alaina Buffalospirit’s Cheyenne ledger art; weaving and fiber artistry with Allison Grove and Kammy Johnson; Crow moccasins and elk teeth ceramics with Birdie Real Bird and Tanya Plainfeather Gardner; Eli Hernandez’s farrier blacksmithing and rawhide braiding; Elle McGill’s cinches and pulled wool saddle pads; Shawn Didyoung’s silversmithing; John Murie’s Chippewa-Cree moccasins and beadwork; Lake Berkeley Decoys’ hunting decoys; Noah Pino’s Dakota/Diné beadwork; Dan and Julia Schwarz’s custom boots; Spur Watson’s saddles; Tim Ryan’s Salish Tool Building and traditional games; and Tim Mocilac’s flytying.
Taking to the stage, the Folklife Area will also include Montana songwriter Sterling Drake; Jamie Fox and Sapphire Ferguson-Jetty, representing fiddle traditions; Western poets Henry Real Bird, M.L. Smoker, and Ben Larson; folk duo Isaac and Louise; and Arnold “Smoke” Elser and folklorist Mike Korn in conversation about Elser’s Hush of the Land: A Lifetime in the Bob Marshall Wilderness, which he co-authored with Eva-Maria Maggi.
See you in Butte July 10-12, 2026.
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