Country Outdoors Podcast

Dr. Lanny Real Bird joins Mary O'Neill on the Country Outdoors Podcast for a rare conversation about Native American sign language, Crow traditions and the old ways of the Plains.
Lanny is a Crow tribal member, educator and Native American elder who has spoken Plains Indian Sign Language, or "hand talk," since childhood. He learned it from his hard-of-hearing grandmother, uncle and father along the Little Bighorn. He has since taught it in classrooms, built teaching resources for the Crow and Hidatsa languages, and worked as a sign language consultant on HBO's Lewis and Clark miniseries. He shares how tribes used hand talk to trade horses and make peace, the night a teepee full of elders told him to "go get a Masters," and why he says the land is a form of literacy.
They also talk about boarding schools and the loss of Native languages, missing and murdered Indigenous people, the reservation housing shortage, hunting antelope with his uncle Floyd, the pheasant that got away, and why the wolf has been the Crow's ally for generations. Lanny also teaches Mary real hunting signs.

Yellowstone Family Outfitter
Since 2002, Heidi Saile has been packing clients into Yellowstone's backcountry on horseback. Now her family's park permit is up for renewal, big corporations are applying for permits too, and Heidi is wondering whether family outfitters like hers will still have a place in the park.
Heidi came to Montana as a ski bum, got into horses, married Kipp, and together they built Rockin' HK Outfitters, an authorized Yellowstone outfitter based at Chico Hot Springs Resort in Paradise Valley. They run about 65 head of horses, keep plenty of "old geezers" they can't part with, and raised their three kids, Scarlett, Wyatt, and Wilson, on the trail.
On this episode of Country Outdoors Podcast, Mary O'Neill sits down with Heidi in the pasture at her place to talk about the 10-year permit renewal, why she doesn't believe corporations should hold park permits, and the rules that ding small outfitters while bigger problems go ignored.
They also get into the morning Caleb the mule got gored by a bison, wolves howling outside their tents at 2 a.m., a mule that stood guard for three hours before running off a bear, ice for cocktails on day nine of a pack trip, why it takes about three days for people to truly unplug, and Heidi's worries about AI data centers and Montana's water.
Family run. Hands-on. Still fighting for their place in the park.

Raised unschooled and wild, 13-year-old Duke Tansey is giving us hope for the next generation. Known as the Country Boy Skater, he’s chasing skateboarding dreams, getting into hunting, and inspiring his peers to put down their screens and use their imaginations.
The son of Eric Tansey, author of “Pig Latin: A Seriously Funny Story,” Duke is the oldest of five kids. When he’s not skating, he’s building forts and exploring the woods with his siblings. His dream? A farm with room to roam—and a skate park on the property.
Mary O’Neill sits down with Duke at bear camp in North Carolina to talk about the $5 garage-sale skateboard that started it all, his first black bear hunt with a crossbow, and growing up with the freedom to follow his curiosity. They also get into skateboarding competitions, recovering from injury, interviewing his hero Ryan Sheckler, and why having fun matters more to him than winning.
It’s a conversation about childhood—scraped knees, big imaginations, and finding adventures worth putting the phone down for.

“I don’t want to be remembered. I want to outlive everybody.”
Montana cowboy, horse trainer, and film wrangler Duncan joins Mary O’Neill Phillips at Yellowstone Film Ranch for a Country Outdoors conversation about rodeo, recovery, and a life that sounds like a Western movie.
From riding a bull with a broken arm to surviving devastating injuries and learning to speak again, Duncan shares his extraordinary experiences with honesty and humor. He opens up about alcohol addiction, rehab, relapse, and sobriety—and the family, freedom, and work that give his life meaning.
The conversation follows his unexpected path from horseshoeing and custom saddle making to stagecoach driving, backcountry horse packing, and wrangling horses for Western films. Along the way, he talks about traveling to Australia, building a Montana property with horsepower, and turning handmade fur coats into another business.
It’s a candid look at cowboy life, Western craftsmanship, second chances, and finding joy in the everyday.
Content note: This episode includes discussion of a self-inflicted gunshot injury, alcohol addiction, serious injuries, and death.

Jason Matzinger and Tara Banks join Mary O’Neill Phillips on the Country Outdoors Podcast for a wide-ranging conversation from Bozeman, Montana about grizzly bears, hunting, conservation, wildlife art, outdoor storytelling, and the changing American West.
Jason—creator of Into the High Country and the filmmaker behind the upcoming Walking With Grizzlies documentary—shares why the grizzly bear comeback in Montana and the Greater Yellowstone region has become one of the biggest conservation conversations in the West. They discuss bear recovery, increasing human-bear encounters, attack survivors, delisting, management, and the reality of living alongside grizzlies.
Wildlife artist and self-taught bowhunter Tara Banks shares how she built a career through art and social media, learned to hunt independently, bowhunted her first whitetail, and turned a shared passion for the outdoors into adventures with Jason—from bear hunting in Montana to hunting ibex, mouflon, and fallow deer in Spain.
They also explore the changing character of Bozeman and Jackson Hole, public-land pressure, western hunting, wolf reintroduction, elk herds, AI-generated content, authentic storytelling, documentary filmmaking, and why real experiences still matter.
Topics covered: Jason Matzinger, Tara Banks, Country Outdoors Podcast, Mary O’Neill Phillips, grizzly bears, grizzly bear conservation, grizzly bear delisting, Walking With Grizzlies, Into the High Country, Montana hunting, bear attacks, bear management, Yellowstone, Bozeman Montana, Jackson Hole Wyoming, wolf reintroduction, public-land hunting, bowhunting, wildlife art, Spain hunting, outdoor filmmaking, conservation, hunting podcast, outdoor podcast.