-[Female voice] This place has a heartbeat of its own.

-[Male voice] You just get a vibe that you hear at home.

-[Female voice] It's given me opportunities that I never thought I'd have.

That atmosphere is infectious.

-[Female voice] It's a magic little place in the mountains.

-[Narrator] Made with the state fruit of North Carolina, Mighty Muscadine offers a line of superfruit supplements and juices made from the muscadine grape, including the cellular health antioxidant beverage, Vinetastic.

More at mightymuscadine.com [drumming] [chanting starts] [Joshua Deel Voice Over] Some people are wired for the kind of life where the horizon swallows you whole, where the sky stretches so wide and wild it makes you feel small and infinite at the same time.

Out here in Wyoming's Cody Yellowstone, it's not about hobbies or weekend diversions.

It's about survival, ritual, the primal rhythm of hunting, fishing and sleeping beneath that endless dome of stars.

You don't just live off the land, you surrender to it, letting it shape you, humble you, own you.

[drumming and chanting continue] -[Johnny] We came to this land because a--of a dream, a vision.

-[Joshua] What was this place before it was Cody?

Before it was, what it is now.

Well, like I said, this was pretty much the original homeland of the Apsáalooke , so this is where we were at.

[drumming and chanting] -[Bob] History here is young.

-[John] And it is called the cowboy state.

So, the last best place.

-[Johnny] When we came to this land because of the dream, this was before the states came.

So the territory of the Apsa'alooke was Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota and South Dakota -[Josh] Okay -[Johnny] was the original homeland of the Apsáalooke.

-[Joshua VO] Johnny Tim Yellowtail is one of those people.

♪ ♪ ♪ I've heard it said where we are affects who we are.

Makes sense, right?

I've always believed, you can't really understand yourself until you understand where you come from.

Hi, I'm Josh, and I'm hosting this series with PBS Appalachia to explore the places people still call home their hometowns, and to uncover the stories that make them unique.

Hometowns is about exploring the communities that give America its character.

This season, we're going off the beaten path on a journey from Virginia to Wyoming.

Now, don't get me wrong, many of these places have their flaws, warts and all.

But if that's all you focus on, you're missing the bigger picture, the raw, untamed beauty of the land and the depth and complexity of its culture.

These are the things that speak to the heart of understanding what it really means to be an American.

It's a journey worth taking, trust me.

♪♪ I've wandered far from the soft, rolling hills of Virginia and found myself here standing in the raw, formidable shadow of the Yellowstone River Valley's jagged peaks.

Today, I'm in the presence of Heart Mountain, a place steeped in stories, reverence and the kind of sacred weight that makes you pause, look around and remember why you travel in the first place.

[Joshua] My goodness.

-[Johnny] That tree over there.

That big tree... -[Josh] Uh-huh.

-[Josh] What do you do here with Heart Mountain?

-[Johnny] So I'm the Historic Site Caretaker, and it's a new position that they, they made here.

So I'm the one that takes care of the site.

Well, when I do the tours, I bring them into this, into the barrack, and I'll do the historic site of the barrack.

I'll tell the story of the barrack and what the Japanese-Americans went through.

And then after that, I'll go into the indigenous side of the land also, and talk about the land also, but the indigenous side too.

-[Josh] Yeah.

[Joshua VO] Before the prospectors came with their dreams of gold, before the explorers etched their names into maps, there were the Plains Indians.

But the 18th century, they had adopted the Mustangs, brought by the Spanish, a tool of survival that became part of their very identity.

Among them, the Apsáalooke, commonly known as the Crow people, once a branch of the larger Hidatsa tribe.

They split from their kin centuries ago, driven by conflict, pushed and pulled by battles with the Blackfeet, the Cheyenne and the Dakota.

Until they found themselves here in the Yellowstone River Valley.

But history, as it often does, turned cruel.

Their lands were taken, their way of life erased in the name of progress or conquest, left to sit dormant and forgotten for 50 long years, and then... Pearl Harbor.

[explosions, gunfire and aircraft] -Once they removed us from this area, they never touched this land for 50 years, and then they put the camp here.

-[Joshua] Internment camp for... -[Jonny] Yeah.

-[Josh] Japanese men.

[Joshua VO] In the aftermath, Heart Mountain became one of the darkest chapters in American history, a place chosen for its isolation, its vast emptiness, perfect for hiding what the government didn't want the world to see.

Japanese-Americans torn from their homes, their lives, their communities were brought here, not criminals, families, citizens.

-[Logan] So there were 10 camps, -[Joshua]10 camps across the US, -Yep.

Across the US, -Roughly 10 to 15,000 in each.

-Yeah, you know, you figure about 120,000 total were removed from their homes.

So yup, somewhere in there.

Tooley Lake is one that ended up being the largest, and it was sort of an isolation camp.

-Right.

-Where if you were deemed a dissenter, or, you know, might raise problems in one of the other camps, you got sent there.

So they were kind of all, you know, deemed the bad.

So basically, yeah, taken from your home and sent to an assembly center.

The government realized really quickly they didn't have anywhere to put anybody, so they used like Pomona, speedway, racetracks, fairgrounds, things like that, until the camps could be built.

-In intentionally rural, remote... -Yep.

Yep.

-parts of the country.

-Yep.

Places where there wasn't a whole lot else going on, but were close enough to a train track that you could transport people.

So that's how Heart Mountain basically got picked, is there was nothing here, and the train track was here.

So outside of that, yeah, they did a pretty good job of getting rid of the evidence that anything happened here.

But we have acknowledged over the last couple years that what happened on this land and being so important to Japanese-Americans, for a totally, totally mirrored reason, is equally important to Native-Americans and the Apsáalooke tribe.

-[Josh Voice Over] Decades after the confinement, Japanese-Americans received an official apology from the US government, a gesture accompanied by small reparation checks, a step toward justice, sure, but far from enough to erase the scars.

Johnny's people, though, their story is something else entirely, a different kind of tale, one without apologies, reparations or even recognition, just silence.

-[Josh] You're sitting here giving tours, you know, about this place, and the irony is not lost on me, it's the very land, you know, that your people got forced off of.

-[Johhny] Um-hmm.

No, the government never apologized, or, nothing like that.

We never got no apology.

-[Josh Voice Over] Beneath the sky that swallows the world, they ride where wind whispers and wails, boots dusted, parts of stone, keepers of a land untamed, hooves drum a rhythm of ages, leather cracks, shadows, stretch.

Legends here are carved in grit, etched by storms and fire lit peaks.

Wyoming's cowboys wild as Mustangs, rooted like cottonwoods.

They need little, just the open range, the winds calm and a good horse to carry them home.

♪ ♪ ♪ Speaking of horses, I'm at Yellowstone's first front country mounted ranger, a man so at home in the saddle, you'd think he was born there.

Turns out, he's got a pedigree to match his grandfather outfitted Buffalo Bill himself, born and bred on a ranch just west of Cody.

This guy isn't just spinning cowboy cliches, he is the cliche, and he wears it like a badge of honor.

His stories, they don't just entertain, they grab you by the collar and drag you straight into the grit and glory of the old frontier, where the land is brutal, the air bites and survival is the only real story worth telling.

-[Bob] I have letters from Buffalo Bill to granddad saying, "Here's my crew, here's my horses," and take the prince of Monaco on his hunting trip, And then he went up to Pahaska, he was with him there.

And then Buffalo Bill rode out of Pahaska with the granddad and the whole hunting party.

And then he came back to Pahaska, where he played cards.

And granddad was in the back country with the prince.

Buffalo Bill had many different hats.

They needed a man like Buffalo Bill that was well known throughout the country, to help promote this town.

They invited him to come over, and he had been here earlier.

He says, "I love this place."

But the river here was called the stinking water river because of the sulfur smells coming out of the river.

He says, "Don't worry."

So he got the legislature to rename it the Shoshone River, after the Shoshone Indians.

-[Josh] Smart man.

-[Bob] Well, he was.

He was a builder of communities.

And Bill Cody would invest in anything that would help his community grow, and never had any money because he kept putting it into anybody's idea to make this a better place.

-[Josh Voice Over] Buffalo Bill Cody wasn't just a buffalo hunter or a man who built towns out of nothing, he was a born showman, the kind of larger than life figure who could spin myth into reality and sell it to the world.

For over 30 years, his Wild West show wasn't just a spectacle, it was a phenomenon, touring across America and Europe, bringing the rough and tumble spirit of the frontier to packed crowds who couldn't get enough of it.

And rodeos, yeah, you can thank Buffalo Bill for those too.

In the early 1880s, he put on what's widely credited as the first spectator rodeo in the US, the Old Glory blowout, a mix of grit, guts and showmanship that still echoes in arenas today.

-[Ed] Everybody seems to love the romanticism of, you know, the American West, and you know the rodeo culture.

So you can dive right into it here.

And, but as far as the rodeo itself goes here, the stampede has been going for, I believe this was our 105th season.

And then in 2019, the committee -- Cody Stampede Board -- was inducted into the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association Hall of Fame, so as a committee, so that's-- -[Josh] It's quite the honor.

-Yeah.

Down in Colorado Springs, that's the main headquarters for PRCA, and they have the Hall of Fame there.

Well, the rodeo is huge in Cody.

I mean, we've been, I guess, self-proclaimed the name, the rodeo capital of the world.

We're only--the only nightly rodeo that goes for over 90 consecutive nights, like we have seven nights a week all summer long, June, July and August.

-So tell me, like, who's doing that?

Like, is it just your local landowner coming out saying, "I'm gonna get on one of those crazy horses," or, like, -[laughter] The trailer hood?

-Yeah.

-No.

So we have a lot of contestants from all around the country that come and hang out for the summer.

-Basically, living out of the truck and... -Yep.

- Just trying to compete.

-Yeah, exactly.

-Make name for himself.

-Yeah.

So, I mean, over here on the property, there's-- well, the trailerhood, but it's all these trailers, our contestants tend to stay here, you know, for weeks, if not months, on end, and enter virtually every single night, and they accumulate points throughout the summer for the Nightly Show.

And then then--they-- there's a month end champion for each event.

And then there's a finals at the end of August that all these guys are shooting for, so.

-Huh, man.

-Tens of 1000s in prize money up -for grabs for that one, so.

-Wow.

♪ ♪ ♪ -[John] We ended up purchasing the UXU, a historical ranch, and it's historical.

When you don't have enough time for the stories that we found in this place, and all the stuff from-- this goes back to 1898 that we know of.

I think it was a Dude Ranch, became an official Dude Ranch in 1929.

It was a sawmill.

I've heard lots of rumors what else it was.

It's both infamous and famous.

-[Josh] Okay.

-[John] But this scene right here, and you can't see it now because of the clouds, but when you sit on that deck up there, it doesn't take you long to figure out this is the place.

-[Josh] Tell me a little bit like what daily life is like here.

-[Woman] Like family, isn't it?

-[John] Well, without a doubt, the crew is a family.

This is a Dude Ranch.

We have people that are called up.

And there's a lot of great ranches on this North Fork, but it'll come up and want to experience the Western experience, the cowboy experience, the national park experience.

I mean, you're next to the biggest one around.

Daily life here revolves around these horses.

There's scheduled trail rides, and the guests get involved, actually, with the horses, with regards sometimes grooming, stuff like that, depending on their ability.

Some people, we get people that don't even want to ride the horses by the end of the week or getting on and, riding and enjoying some of these trails, but the ranch revolves around the horses.

But there's also the white water rafting that's provided by Guest Ranch or Dude Ranch.

We have the famous Cody Night Rodeo, which is a lot of fun.

Trip into the Yellowstone, day trip into the Yellowstone with some fantastic guides.

Fishing that is, Blue Ribbon trout fishing right there.

Hiking, the wildlife.

It's been so hot here, otherwise you'd probably see some bison in here.

We have our regular four, and that keeps up our fence repair crew, that's for sure.

And then, of course, you get the odd bear running through or moose down on the river, lots of deer.

So like I said, foxes.

The food is Wyoming cuisine.

We try to, you know, emulate, that as much as we can.

I've got some of the best wranglers in the world that know their stuff, know their trails, certified in every-- Well, I shouldn't say everything but anything do with the horses, because these are the lifeblood of the ranch right here, so.

I can use the word, this is God's country, so.

And more than enough wildlife.

Let's put it that way, as far as the animals are concerned.

So I found what I was looking for.

-[Bob] And I told my granddad one day, I said, "I'm never moving back to the ranch on the North Fork."

Too many people are coming in.

They're changing everything.

They're building houses all over.

This is my name, and I own a piece of what my dad called God's country, or the foothills to heaven.

I don't like that.

He says, "Bobby, you better change your attitude."

And I said, "Why?"

He says, "Change is very important.

"And when they move here, if you don't accept change, "there's a nursing home in Cody, and that's where you're going to end up."

And I've never forgotten that.

And he says there's no natives there, even the Indians migrated here.

So keep in mind that change is something you accept and you live with it, and you affect change through politics or otherwise, to maintain what you think you want.

But he said, "It's people that make the change and accept it."

I'm not happy to see it grow like that, but I'm happy that people enjoy it.

But we all recognize the tourist because he has the big cowboy hat, and when the wind blows, he's chasing it down the street.

♪♪♪ -[Josh Voice Over] You can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.

There's nothing to that.

Hemingway nailed it here.

This isn't just about geography, it's about authenticity, about facing yourself and your surroundings without distraction.

In a world obsessed with chasing the next shiny thing, be it a bigger city, a flashier job or some overpriced gadget, he's calling us out.

The more industrialized and materialistic the world gets, the harder it is to find the kind of stripped down simplicity that matters.

It's the same reason small towns, tiny fishing villages and those unpolished corners of the world always feel so damn real.

You go there and life isn't about pretentious decor or Instagram filters, it's about connection.

It's about the old guy at the bar telling war stories, the woman selling fresh bread at dawn, the sound of nothing but wind and waves at night.

That's what Hemingway was chasing, and maybe what we're all chasing, whether we realize it or not.

♪ ♪ ♪ -[Porter] It's been awesome, like we're pretty blown away.

You know, we started as just two small tables, Grab and Go sandwiches and grab and go salads with a little market.

And then people were really excited about it, so we started adding a few Middle Eastern flatbreads on the menu and it's just like snowballed and the community has been so cool for it being such a foreign style of food.

Yeah, it's been so well received, and the community has just been so supportive, Yeah.

Food, it's so like, near and dear to my heart, like we don't have the option, really, to go eat, you know, middle eastern food around here, and Jake and I would have big gatherings with all of our friends, and do big Middle Eastern dinners, and -[Josh] Oh, that's awsome.

-[Porter] Like, yeah for-- Gosh, since before my daughter was born, so, yeah, it's just need to be able to do that in this community way.

-[Josh Voice Over] I've got a soft spot for Lebanese food.

Blame it on my wife's heritage.

So stumbling across city's table in Cody was like finding a hidden treasure.

Sitti means grandma in Arabic, and that's exactly where the magic comes from.

Porter, the owner here channels all the love, soul and tradition straight out of her grandmother's cookbooks.

It's not just food, it's history on a plate, and now, she's letting the community in on it, one beautiful, soulful dish at a time.

It's the kind of place that reminds you why food matters, because it connects us to where we come from.

-Cody is, I mean, peaceful, like, I really find that to be true, like, I feel like we don't have insane traffic.

You know, people are kind to one another.

Like, it is such a beautiful, scenic, amazing-- You hear so many people coming to me, "Oh, I feel like I could just take a deep breath."

Like there's just a very unique piece, even as though it's like, it can be really-- the weather can be challenging and it can be cold and windy, and abrasive.

I feel like a lot of people find a lot of peace here.

And that to me, if I had to kind of sum it up, you know, and maybe when the wind's blowing 80 degrees, I like, might take it back, but.

But I feel like for the most part, it's a really, like, peaceful place with people that do work incredibly hard and-- and someone who works on a ranch, you know, and does what they do, may not agree, but yeah, I think there is that mutual, like, there's just something very genuine and peaceful about it.

-[Josh Voice Over] Change.

It's been the constant at every stop on this trip.

Whether you like it or not, it's everywhere, staring you down.

It's carved into the rocks, untold years of relentless transformation.

It's in every conversation I've had, every story told.

Some people fight it.

Some learn to roll with it, but there's no escaping it.

Change doesn't ask for permission.

It just shows up and leaves its mark.

And honestly, that's where the good stuff happens.

-[Norfleet] It's an old town that change isn't always embraced warmly, but it absolutely was with us that we felt, and we ended up embracing that idea and moving forward with it.

And so now, we brand all of our new beers with a pin up girl.

It was something I'd always wanted, and it just happened, and to fall, not fall into my lap, obviously, -it took a lot of hard work.

-[Josh] Sure.

-You just had that momentum.

-[Norfleet] Yeah, yeah.

It was the right time, the right place, and yeah, it all just came together in a beautiful way.

Cody is home.

It is the place that I've ever felt the safest, the most welcome.

It is a world away from the big cities, which to me, have lost their charm.

It's an equally great place to raise a family and retire, I believe.

It's full of just amazing cast of characters that make it equally awesome in the busy season and the off season.

Honestly, it was the people I met through here, you know, it just-- we have regulars that come in every single day, and you get to be involved in these people's lives, and they get to know you, and you get to know them.

And it becomes a family.

It becomes a-- and same with my employees I mean, some of my employees came out from Memphis, from the old brewery in Memphis to work for me here, because we had known each other for years and years.

It's kind of felt like I would know home when I saw it.

And I kept-- Cody kept drawing me back in.

What really drew me in is there's no waste here.

People aren't as concerned with brand new shiny things.

People will do whatever they can to take something and fix it as long as they can and make it last.

There's a lot of love and care that goes into everything from vehicles to homes to, you know, and it just, you don't find that a lot anymore.

You see a lot of people throwing things away and just buying something new if it breaks, and -[Josh] That's an interesting observation.

-[Norfleet] Yeah, and that's something I really love.

And people are so self-sufficient here.

You really do.

You fix the old and make it new again, and that is something that I really appreciate about this town.

-[Joshua VO] If there's one place that captures the idea of fixing the old and making it new again, it's the Heart Mountain interpretive center.

Here's where history gets personal, where a young Alan Simpson, a lifelong Cody local, met Norman Mineta, a Japanese-American boy imprisoned in those same barracks during one of America's darker chapters.

Somehow, against the odds, that meeting grew into a lifelong friendship.

Forget politics.

These two spent decades working together to actually make things better for everyone.

Now, their legacy isn't just a feel good story, it's a platform for voices like Johnny Tim Yellowtail to step up and tell stories that need to be heard, stories that might finally crack through the noise and bring some awareness, maybe even healing.

It's raw, it's real, and it's proof that even in a place scarred by the past, there's room for something better to grow.

-[Tim] When I first came into Wyoming, moved out of the reservation, it was really hard for me, because I was so used to my family, because I was always around my family all the time, especially my grandmother.

My grandparents are the ones that raised me.

When I moved over here, I got really homesick, you know, I wanted, I wanted to go back home, you know.

Because, like I said, I miss my family, you know.

I miss everything that we did on the reservation, you know, the pow wows, you know, the ceremonies, you know, visiting your family friends, you know, you know.

So I missed all of that, and I got really homesick, and I wanted to go home.

So I called my grandma, and I said, "Grandma, you know."

I said, "I want to, I want to come home," and she kind of laughed at me.

She kind of laughed at me, it kind of-- At first, it kind of upset me, you know, when she laughed at me, and I was like, "Why are you laughing?"

"You know, I'm telling you how I feel, you know."

And she kind of laughed, but she goes, um, she said, "Don't you know that you're home?"

She said that this is where you're at.

That's the original homeland of the great chief who we come from.

[Speaks in Native language] ♪ ♪ ♪ -[Woman] This place has a heartbeat of its own.

-[Man] You just get a vibe that you hear at home.

-[Woman] It's given me opportunities that I never thought I'd have.

That atmosphere is infectious.

-[Woman] It's a magical little place in the mountains.

[Narrator] Made with the state fruit of North Carolina.

Mighty Muscadine offers a line of super fruit supplements and juices made from the Muscadine grape, including the Cellular Health Antioxidant Beverage, Vinetastic.

More at mightymuscadine.com