GUY CLIFTON
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
Posted: 1/29/2006

If cowboys -- and we mean real, working cowboys -- have a Holy Land, it just might be Northeastern Nevada. At least, that's the feeling you get from watching the new feature-length documentary "Tapedero," which will be presented this week during the annual National Cowboy Poetry Festival in Elko. Though most of the cowboys and cowgirls interviewed in the film are on ranches in Arizona or California, they all speak of Nevada in reverent tones.

"Nevada is the training ground," said Susan Jensen, director of the film, which was two years in the making. "I'd say 80 to 90 percent of the vaqueros or Californios that we interviewed had spent some time in Nevada." What they learned, and what the film does a wonderful job of communicating, is a love of horses, horsemanship cows, wide-open spaces as tradition.

"It's a matter of attitude and a love of the horse and regarding horsemanship as almost an art form," said Paul Singer, who produced the documentary. "In order to buckaroo in Nevada, you've got to be a special kind of person because it ain't easy. It tests your skills, it tests your guts and it tests your commitment."

Filmmakers Jensen and Singer spent six months researching the project and a year and a half filming it. They literally trace the path of the Spanish vaqueros from Sonora Mexico up the Anza trail to Arizona and on to the missions and ranches of California's central coast.

It's a history lesson of 300 years and covers the evolution from vaqueros to buckaroos, explaining that the word "buckaroo" is an Anglicized version of the word "vaquero." It includes a history of the types of horses used and of the training methods used by the vaqueros and buckaroos. It also includes segments that show the old traditions in training and equipment are still being used today.The film will be shown three times during the Cowboy Poetry Festival at 2 p.m. Monday at the Folklife Theater; at 2 p.m. Friday at the Northwest Nevada Museum; and at 4:45 Saturday at the Turquoise Room of the Elko Convention Center.