{"id":9031,"date":"2016-10-07T18:09:12","date_gmt":"2016-10-07T18:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/idsunmedia.com\/?p=9031"},"modified":"2016-10-07T18:09:12","modified_gmt":"2016-10-07T18:09:12","slug":"herding-heritage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2016\/10\/07\/herding-heritage\/","title":{"rendered":"Herding Heritage"},"content":{"rendered":"

20th Annual Trailing of the Sheep<\/i><\/span><\/h2>\n

BY YANNA LANTZ<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"The
The Trailing of the Sheep Festival is heralded by MSN Travel as \u201cone of the top ten fall festivals in the world\u201d and by USA Today as one of the \u201cten best festivals in America.\u201d Photo courtesy of Carol Waller<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It is alleged that John Hailey brought the first sheep to the Wood River Valley in the late 1860s. By 1918, the population of sheep skyrocketed to 2.65 million \u2013 nearly six times Idaho\u2019s human population. Ketchum became the world\u2019s major sheep center, second in size only to Sydney, Australia.<\/p>\n

To commemorate this rich ranching heritage, Ketchum and the Wood River Valley celebrate the 20th annual Trailing of the Sheep Festival Oct. 5-9. The festival is heralded by MSN Travel as \u201cone of the top ten fall festivals in the world\u201d and by USA Today as one of the \u201cten best festivals in America.\u201d The Trailing of the Sheep has also received the Governor\u2019s Award for Cultural Heritage and is a sheep spectacular not to be missed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe festival is a great community event because it is an opportunity for us to educate and celebrate sheep ranching and sheep herding in Idaho and in the West,\u201d Laura Musbach Drake, director of the Trailing of the Sheep Festival, said. \u201cThis is our 20th anniversary and it is an opportunity to celebrate our history and our past, while looking to the future of sheep ranching as an industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Festival headquarters will open on Wednesday, Oct. 5 at 9 a.m. in the nexStage Theatre, 120 S. Main St., Ketchum. Stop by for questions, registration assistance and festival swag. Headquarters are open daily throughout the festival.<\/p>\n

Wednesday and Thursday offer \u201cCooking with Lamb\u201d classes from some of the Valley\u2019s most talented chefs. Additionally, fiber and crafting classes run throughout the festival.<\/p>\n

Looking to learn more about the history of sheep ranching? On Friday from 2-4:30 p.m. head over to The Community Library, 415 Spruce Ave. N., in Ketchum, for a Q&A by Laird Noh and Mike Guerry. After the presentation, downtown Ketchum will host \u201cFor the Love of Lamb.\u201d Featuring free lamb bites at 10 locations, this is one of the locals\u2019 favorite festival events.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy favorite part of the week is the lamb bites,\u201d said Ketchum resident Peter Burke. \u201cEach location prepares the lamb a different way and it\u2019s so nice to see the entire community out and about comparing their favorites.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Sheep Folklife Fair is Saturday\u2019s main event, held in Roberta McKercher Park in Hailey from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Meet 70 artisans with unique creations, see sheep shearing up close and personal, enjoy traditional music and dancing, and feast on lamb delicacies. The fair boasts numerous children\u2019s activities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe offer many special children\u2019s activities during the Trailing of the Sheep Festival, and families with young children are one of the fastest growing segments of our event attendees,\u201d Drake said. \u201cThe families get a very intimate, up-close and personal connection to the sheep through our festival activities and the kids really love it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saturday night head to the nexStage Theatre for the \u201c20th Anniversary Celebration\u201d from 7-9 p.m. and the \u201cSheepherder\u2019s Ball\u201d from 9:30-11:30 p.m. Austin, Texas-based Hot Club of Cowtown will play for attendees into the night. Tickets for these two special events are available at trailingofthesheep.org.<\/p>\n

Sunday presents the festival\u2019s star event: the Trailing of the Sheep Parade and Barbeque.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe parade is one of the foundation blocks of the festival,\u201d Drake said.<\/p>\n

Main Street in Ketchum will flood with 1,500 sheep at noon, accompanied by herders, sheep ranchers, musicians, dancers and wagons.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on the hoopla and heritage. For a full schedule of the festival events and times visit trailingofthesheep.org or call (208) 720-0585. Contact info@trailingofthesheep.org for questions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

20th Annual Trailing of the Sheep BY YANNA LANTZ It is alleged that John Hailey brought the first sheep to the Wood River Valley in the late 1860s. By 1918, the population of sheep skyrocketed to 2.65 million \u2013 nearly six times Idaho\u2019s human population. Ketchum became the world\u2019s major sheep center, second in size […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9034,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,36,48,53],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9031","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-calendar-2","8":"category-slider","9":"category-calendar","10":"category-calendar-feature"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}