Deep in the hills of Blackfeet Nation – the Native American reservation which spans over one million acres, running east of Montana’s Glacier National Park all the way to the border of Alberta, Canada –director Duncan Wolfe met self-described ‘Indian cowboy’ Seth Fenner and his grandfather, Truman “Many Horses” Hall, a former pro rodeo rider. “I hadn’t been on a horse since I was 10 years old,” notes Wolfe. “These are wild horses that they’ve broken. I jumped on and then for the next 10 hours, they showed us their life and their land.”

The filmmaker found himself amidst these vast expanses of North-Western America as part of the team behind The Collective Quarterly, a new travel and design magazine that spotlights a single geographic location in every issue. Issue one, currently on newsstands, heroes the region in Montana known as Absaroka, which the Blackfeet have called home for generations. 

"Their way of life is so antithetical to every bit of American capitalism,” says Wolfe. “In some ways it’s the most passionate and patriotic way of living. What they care about is this land and this place and they do everything in their power to ensure that it’s not destroyed for the next generation.”   

Revealing the rich history of the land and sharing stories of lives played out on horseback, Fenner and Hall reflect on the legacy of their tribe, and their sense of obligation to preserve and pass on the land that fosters the horses, or ponokamita. A combination of the Blackfoot names for elk (ponoka) and dog (imita), the animals symbolize the strength, tameness and loyalty that have ensured their livelihood.