Trego's 'Lady Long Rider' headed to Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame

Her spurs may not "jingle, jangle, jingle," but Trego resident Bernice Ende is still going into the Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center.

Ende, as colorful a figure as one might meet, will formally be inducted next weekend in Great Falls during festivities Aug. 13-14. As with so many other things, the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the ceremony that was scheduled for last year.

Ende, also known as "Lady Long Rider," said she was surprised when she heard the news.

"I wasn't sure how it happened, but I'm certainly honored," she said. "I think Loretta Park probably read my book or a newspaper article and nominated me."

Park died in a traffic collision in January.

"I'll accept it in her name," Ende said.

In a biography shared by the Montana Hall of Fame, Ende is described as "the personification of the pioneer spirit."

BORN IN Minnesota on Nov. 16, 1954, Ende was raised on a hardscrabble dairy farm with five siblings. She was riding horses by the age of 3, but she would say she was riding before she was born, as her mother rode as well.

Before she became a long rider, Ende taught classical ballet for 25 years. Her nomadic spirit led her to teach in Portland, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Seattle and, finally, in Trego.

There, the dance studio was equipped with a wood stove and an outhouse. Families who couldn't afford to pay for lessons supplied firewood and started a fire in the stove prior to lessons.

Ende also studied and taught dressage and considered that art form "horse ballet." But she never gave up her time on horseback, often working with and training horses for others. While working with a couple of thoroughbreds, having reached a mountaintop with a view, she thought she would like to ride to New Mexico to visit her sister.

Until then, she had been aware of long-riding, but never thought of it as something she would like to do. But she was dealing with the fallout of a relationship that was not going anywhere and decided to "wash that man right out of her hair," figuratively and literally. The stress of the breakup resulted in alopecia, a severe hair loss condition, from which Ende has never recovered. She wears a bandanna much of the time as a result.

At any rate, she now had the fever to take on her next challenge. She plotted her routes, worked out the logistics as best she could and, after five months, set off for New Mexico in 2005. It soon became clear that five months of planning was not long enough and it turned out to be a study in how not to long-ride.

Around the halfway point, Ende hit a wall. Fortunately for her, "angels in disguise" came along, picked her up, gave her a place to regroup, took care of her horse and rescue dog, Claire, then sent her on her way.

Ende made it to New Mexico, nearly 2,000 miles away, twice the distance required to qualify as a long-rider. Before she arrived at her sister's, she was planning her next ride.

Ende said she got her "love of the horizon" from her mother and her "can-do" attitude from her father. She also credits her mother and grandmother — both independent women and drawn to Montana from Minnesota — for her attraction to the state.

Ende slept with her trail companions, Claire the dog and her horse. Later, she had two horses — one for her and one for Claire, who had led the way for 7,000 miles with her paws protected by leather booties fashioned by Ende. She thought Claire deserved a horse of her own; the dog then rode in her own special box on horseback.

"She became the celebrity," Ende said. "People would see us ride into town and they were usually dumbstruck seeing a dog riding on top of a horse."

Claire passed away in 2015 at age 16. She died on one of Ende's long rides while traveling home through Montana.

THERE WERE many memorable, and harrowing, occurrences during her rides.

"I've had guns pulled on me; one was a cop, another while I rode across the Flathead Reservation. A local had a shotgun pointed at me in the Mission Valley," she said. "I had permission to ride on the reservation, but he didn't know that until we spoke."

Ende packed iron of her own, a Smith & Wesson .357 revolver.

"I carried a gun for protection, but mainly because if a horse went down I wanted to be able to put it down without any prolonged suffering," she said. "Out there, a vet isn't always in easy reach."

Rattlesnakes were also a bane to her and the horses and Claire.

"New Mexico has a lot of rattlesnakes," Ende said. "There were also encounters with grizzlies, black bears, mountain lions and even moose."

Depending on the disposition of the horse, Ende would either sleep with the reins firmly wrapped around her wrist or she would picket her horses. She would lie down on a tarp with her packs on either side of her, Claire snuggled up for extra warmth and the rest of the tarp thrown over the top.

After the first few rides, in inclement weather, she began to use a tent. A small propane stove supplied hot water for tea and oatmeal. Ende supplemented store-bought supplies with dandelion greens, lamb's quarter, nettles and watercress.

ONE OF her most harrowing experiences took place on her second ride, a 5,000-mile trip through the Midwest, down through the Southwest, up the West Coast states and back to Montana.

Coming home, Ende found herself in eastern Montana in October. She still had 600 miles to go to get home with a pass to negotiate. She knew she would not be able to cross the Rockies before winter set in and she decided to ride out winter in her tent.

Fortunately, Ende knew someone who loaned her the use of his barn and that helped to keep Montana's winds at bay. It was a long, tough winter, but with the occasional home-cooked meal, and visits from friends, she made it.

Her longest ride has been from Trego to the coast of Maine, back to the West Coast, and then home to Trego, an 8,000-mile trip. It lasted 2 1/2 years.

Ende has ridden more than 30,000 miles. At the 25,000-mile mark, she felt she actually qualified as a long-rider. By this time, Ende became her own farrier and had switched to titanium horseshoes to get more mileage from them.

"The horseshoes were one of the few things I would ship ahead," Ende said. "They obviously weighed quite a bit and I'd send them somewhere, 100 miles or so. If I got there and didn't need them, I'd send them another 100 miles."

ENDE RELIED on maps and gazetteers to keep in the right direction and off major highways.

"Horses and interstates don't mix," she said.

She credited the help of others for making her adventures possible.

"I had publicity, which helped with donations, and I never could have done it all without the help of a lot of people," Ende said.

There were stops in towns where she gave talks about her riding that also resulted in many helping hands.

"Once I got out there, I couldn't stop and I wanted to get better at it," she said. "I didn't do it for fun; there was this world of uncertainty, but I kind of liked having life in my face."

Ende wrote a book, "Lady Long Rider," and Far Country Press published it in 2018.

In 2020, filmmaker Wren Winfield made a documentary about Ende's adventures. It can be found at endofthetrail.com/store/.

Today, Ende only takes "short" rides of 200 or 300 miles. She stopped her long rides in 2018.

While her trips were never easy, her memories are rich with tales very few can share.

"I called it 'riding into smiles,'" Ende said.

Reporter Scott Shindledecker may be reached at 406-758-4441 or sshindledecker@dailyinterlake.com.