Farley Ketchum

Hello, I’m Farley Ketchum Sr, from the Ute Mountain Tribe. My job title is a biologist technician with 4 years’ experience working for the environmental department. I’m passionate about my community as I’m the Bear Dance and Sundance chief, father, and husband. As the chairman of the Brunot Hunting Treaty commission, I’ve been dedicated for many years working on bettering the tribal lands and preserving areas for traditional harvesting, but this is more easily said than done and I’ve faced many battles along the way. The battles I’ve faced were seeing my land dry with little to no growth to our plant species and wildlife. I look forward to the future as I want to preserve our lands to grow more trees and store more water from runoff so that down the road children of the future can see how we tried to conserve the land that we live on. I say conserve because I grew up seeing big snows and big rains living with my grandparents where we used to live in our shade structured houses of cotton woods leaves, living simply off the land harvesting numerous plants as our ancestors did. I am very honored to have witnessed a lot in my time from a kid to now. I strive to bring back traditional roots that were implanted in me for others to learn from as I present all my knowledge through my line of work and my home life with my family. I remain fully compassionate about my Tribe’s tradition and ceremonies and the future for my community and family. In all, I hope for the betterment for the tribe, as I try my best in everything I do from my work, to home to, keeping our Ute ways alive.