It’s barely sunrise, but I’m already warming up my voice for a yodelling session with Kristyn Harris – a young buck reviving this time-honoured cowboy singing tradition. “Louder! It’s impossible to yodel quietly,” she urges, a 10-gallon hat crowning her cascade of curly blonde hair.
As Kristyn effortlessly slides into falsetto, I do my best to follow suit – “yodel-ay-ee-oooo” – while beyond the window the sun spills its first light over Elko’s Ruby Mountain Range, casting a golden hue like something straight out of the 1969 movie Once Upon a Time in the West. The 30-year-old western swing star is here to perform at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, a celebration of frontier arts now marking its 40th year – the same event that has drawn me to this remote pocket of northeastern Nevada, 420 miles from the bright lights and hungry slots of Las Vegas.
Unlike me, this isn’t Kristyn’s first rodeo. “I first came to the Gathering 13 years ago, so I kind of grew up on stage here,” she tells me, guitar slung casually across her shoulder. “Elko started the whole contemporary cowboy poetry movement. Some people still struggle to connect the tough life of ranch work with the artistry of poetry. But cowboys have always had to entertain themselves on long, lonesome cattle drives, so this tradition runs deep.”
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Each January, around 8,000 people descend upon Elko for its week-long National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, a folksy celebration of poetry, crafts, music and storytelling rooted in the rural American West. Events spill across a constellation of venues in this gold-mining town of 20,000. I leave Kristyn to prep for her next set and slip into a ringside seat at the conference centre, just in time for the cowboy poetry open mic.
Ballads of busted pickup trucks, sonnets of surly mules and a heroic verse about roping a fearsome bear bounce around the room. The Stetson count is high, while glinting belt buckles and waxed handlebar moustaches also seem part of the dress code. Those accustomed to stadium-quality entertainment might find the Gathering a little rough around the edges, its performances punctuated by nervous stops and hesitant starts. But therein lies its rootsy charm. These are genuine working cowboys and cowgirls, spinning yarns from the grit of their everyday backcountry life.
To stretch my legs, I wander over to a line dancing lesson in a local school gymnasium. Beneath a star-spangled banner the size of a bedsheet, no-nonsense Cowboy Jeff commands the floor, preparing a crowd to become two-stepping buckaroos in just 90 minutes. “Three, two, one, let’s do the Cupid Shuffle!” he booms, as we shuffle and jazz-box our way through a couple of classic country songs, boots echoing with every step. “That’s the most fun I’ve had in a high school!” a cowgirl laughs as we catch our breath on the sidelines. Later that evening, I put my new moves to work at the Gathering’s wrap party – an all-night hoedown where a band called Wylie & the Wild West keep the tunes rolling until the early hours.
At daybreak the following morning, I head into downtown Elko to visit another institution keeping the spirit of the west alive. As soon as I spot the life-sized horse statue mounted on the JM Capriola store’s exterior, I know I’m in the right place. Inside, I’m greeted by third-generation owner John Wright, whose family has been crafting custom-made saddles, bridles and ornate silver spurs for A-listers like Sylvester Stallone and Bing Crosby – who, fun fact, was once Elko’s honorary mayor.
“We see ourselves as guardians of tradition,” John says, as he and his wife, Susan, lead me through their legendary cowboy gear shop. “We haven’t really changed the way saddles are made in 120 years,” John stresses, adding that a particularly elaborate saddle can fetch up to $30,000 (£23,700). “It’s not a cookie-cutter process. Everything is made by hand. We even invite customers into the workshop to watch the makers at work. Step in and smell the leather,” he grins, as I take in the sight of a striking pair of 100-year-old angora hide chaps in the shop’s mini museum upstairs.
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However, Elko isn’t just home to gold rushers and rough-riding cowboys, as I discover at my final stop: the roadside Toki Ona restaurant. Along with the nearby Star Hotel & Bar, it’s one of the last two places in town still serving traditional Basque fare. Here, I join a gathering of locals whose ancestors trace back to the Basque region of Spain.
“Our people started arriving in the mid-1800s, escaping Spanish oppression,” says 30-something Zach Arbillaga, handing me a steaming dish of cow’s tongue stew, rich and aromatic in its thick gravy. “They settled here, working as sheepherders and establishing homes and ranches,” he adds.
While Basque heritage is honoured year-round in Elko, things really heat up in July with the National Basque Festival, a weekend of folk dancing, wood chopping, handball tournaments and weightlifting. At one point, the event even included the running of the bulls – until it was deemed too dangerous to have massive bulls charging through Elko’s tiny downtown. “This was once the Basque epicentre of the US,” Zach says, “and its influence is still woven into the town’s culture.”
As I head out of town, veering back toward the jagged peaks, the roadside flickers with the warm glow of vintage neon motels and weathered cowboy shops. Elko might seem like a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it desert stop, but beneath its rugged surface, it remains one of the last true strongholds of the American west.
How to do it
You can fly from London to Salt Lake City on airlines including Delta, United, American, JetBlue and Virgin Atlantic. From Salt Lake City, it’s either a 40-minute flight to Elko Regional Airport or a 230-mile drive.
For more information on visiting Nevada, check out travelnevada.com
Zoey Goto travelled as a guest of Travel Nevada.
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