Horse club provides unique training to teens

The Wild Horse Plains Back Country Horsemen conducted a Stock Packing Clinic for five members of the Plains Thompson Falls Ranger District's Youth Conservation Corps at the Sanders County Fairgrounds on Friday.

Volunteers from the horsemen group spent over six hours with a lecture and hands-on training for utilizing stock animals for transporting equipment to remote work sites. The Superior Ranger District, led by Will Cuddy and Kodi Kelly and eight students, also took part in the clinic. The students learned knot tying, animal grooming, safely approaching stock animals, as well as saddling and properly loading the animals.

Five members of the Wild Horse Plains Back Country Horsemen taught the class. John Errecart of Plains led the clinic, which included Jean Nemeth of Camas Prairie, David Crawford of Ronan, Dan Mathis of Trout Creek and Cheryl Burt of Paradise. Marie Errecart, John's daughter and the YCC team leader, grew up around horses and mules and helped with the clinic.

The YCC team at the Plains-Thompson Falls Ranger District began their summer work on June 5 and will continue until July 28. The five teenagers included Beau Crabb, Cody Arnott, Matthew Wyatt, Isiah Mathers and Jayden Lefebre. This is the second year for Wyatt, who is considering an occupation with the Forest Service after high school.

John Errecart, a retired Forest Service member, gave an overview of the clinic and provided cargo packing methods to the group. Crawford lectured on the types and uses of saddles - decker and saw buck - that would be used on stock animals. Nemeth taught the students the most common knot tying techniques used with stock. The YCCers were shown how to place riding and pack saddles on the animals and had the chance to practice each of the topics taught, including how to use a mantie and balance the loads on a mule or horse. Errecart brought his three mules - Lady Bug, Bullet and Rosie - to help with the lesson. Burt had Josie, a mule, and Takota, a horse, there for the lesson and Crawford had his horse Sage and mule Tinker Bell on hand.

"The kids are pretty enthusiastic and it's fun to teach them," said John Errecart, a charter member of the Wild Horse Plains Back Country Horsemen, a nonprofit organization that was formed in 2006. Nemeth and Burt have helped with the class seven times. Nemeth felt the students were very attentive and caught on quickly. "We want to get the kids interested and inspired in this. We really need to get the youth introduced to this before it's a lost art," said Burt.

The Forest Service periodically uses stock animals to ferry equipment to work sites. The Wild Horse Plains Back Country Horsemen often volunteer its services with mules and horses. Last year's YCC group helped when Errecart's mules ferried gear to the site of a new bridge they were building.

Mathis demonstrated the preparation of a mantie, which is a canvas tarp that covers the load, and showed the kids how to properly attach it to the animal. Mathis has used pack horses for club projects a handful of times, but has utilized the mantie technique more than 100 times on his own projects. Burt is also experienced with the use of manties. She and her husband, Dennis, used their animals to carry supplies into the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex with their dog atop the mantie.

The class ended with a final exercise that was also a competition. In teams of two or three, the kids had to prepare a mantie and load two of them on a horse or mule. This was the first time for the Superior youth to take part in the "Packer Scramble," but within 13 minutes, the team of Oscar Wolff and Anthony Dodd had their animal loaded, paraded in a circle and unloaded to win the contest with a prize of just bragging rights. Superior's Wyatt Todd and Garrett O'Day finished second, followed by Plains boys Beau Crabb and Jayden Lefebre.

The Wild Horse Plains Back Country Horsemen is one of 17 chapters in Montana and 212 chapters in 30 states. The volunteer group's mission is to help maintain trails on federal and state lands in Sanders County. They also adopted the Big Hole Lookout, now a recreational cabin. The group provides maintenance on the lookout and opens it up each season. One of the roles of the club is to educate the public and solicit active participation in the wise use of the forest's backcountry resources, according to Errecart, who added that they've given the class to the YCC several times since 2016.

The YCC program began at the Plains Thompson Falls Ranger District in 2007. It's a combination of hands-on work and education and introduces teenagers to job opportunities of the Forest Service.

The Stock Packing Clinic is only one thing the YCC members do during the two-month program. Their primary focus is clearing trails, but they've sometimes got a lookout ready for fire season, repaired bridges, and done stream fish studies. Last year they went on a field trip to the Forest Service's Coeur d'Alene Nursery.