A Tribute
One Saturday evening last July, over 200 people sat at a long table in a field on our ranch. Some were local, others came from all over the country. All had come for the same reason: to enjoy an extraordinary meal in an extraordinary setting.
Bison grazing to the south, the North Bridgers to the west, the Crazies to the east, rolling hills to the north—it was a gorgeous night in Montana’s Shields Valley northeast of Bozeman.
Chef Eduardo Garcia and his team cooked a one-of-a-kind meal over fire in a makeshift kitchen not far from the table. Almost the entire meal came from a 2-year-old bull bison I had field-harvested a month before the dinner about a half mile from the table. Steve Thompson, the co-founder of Analemma Wines—a biodynamic, natural winery in Oregon—walked beside the table, pouring different wines, talking with guests. There was a palpable energy around the table; people were stoked, and you could feel it.
About halfway through the meal, people began to leave their seats at the table. Some walked closer to the grazing bison, others went and sat in the grass. Conversation flowed, new friends were made. There was no script at this point—folks were just enjoying the night, the food, the land, the people, the views, the bison.
Later, after dessert and some remarks by Eduardo, the guests slowly walked across the ranch, guided by lantern light. They returned to their vehicles and left.
It was a magical night at North Bridger Bison. And we’re looking forward to doing it again this summer on July 13, this time with Chef Jarrett Wrisley of Shan in Bozeman and his wife and restaurant partner, Candice Lin.
The orchestrator of all of this is the renowned company Outstanding in the Field, which was founded in 1999 by Jim Denevan, who attended our dinner here last summer. Outstanding in the Field puts on outdoor dinners at farms, ranches, and other venues all over the world. Denevan’s team describes it as a “traveling celebration of what connects us all”—it’s a way to connect people and honor what it takes to feed us.
Here at North Bridger Bison, we focus on a handful of core principles: raising bison in sync with nature; increasing the biodiversity of our ranch; field-harvesting our bison in a humane, ethical, zero-stress manner; and providing our customers with extraordinary meat and an incredible customer experience from start to finish.
When it comes to bison meat, there are numerous variables that ultimately account for the taste and nutrient density of the steak on your plate. What was that bison’s life like? What did it eat? Did it endure a lot of stress? Was it field-harvested on the ranch? Was the carcass properly dry-aged? It goes on and on and on.
The 2-year-old bull bison that was served at last year’s dinner was born on our ranch. He lived his whole life here, I field-harvested him on a beautiful June morning, and then he was dry-aged, butchered, and packaged with care at Amsterdam Meat Shop west of Bozeman.
We are passionate about what we do, and we work hard. And with our ranch and direct-to-consumer bison meat business, our summers are busy. (As the joke goes, Montana is nine months of winter and three months of friends and family.)
So, for us, the Outstanding in the Field dinner is a chance to stop, slow down, open up our ranch for a night, and celebrate. It’s a tribute to ranching, and to Montana, our work, our bison, and the friends, colleagues, and customers that make all of this possible.
To make new friends and watch some 200 people eating our bison meat and enjoying our ranch in the middle of the summer is a special thing that we hope to continue annually. Here’s to ranching, good meat, good people, summer in Montana, and real food from the land.
