When the pandemic hit, Scott Henderson launched Project Tumbleweed with an epic road trip
By Scott Henderson (’95)
Managing Director, NMotion Accelerator Studio
What’s the natural thing to do when a pandemic breaks out? Who knows, but I chose to load up my car and take a five-week road trip across 14 states while conducting 36 video interviews with mostly strangers.
My original plans for 2020 didn’t pan out. I was set to live as a digital nomad wandering from Austin to Alberta with stops in between. A sabbatical of sorts to help me sort through an amicable, mutual parting of ways on both the professional and personal fronts.
As COVID-19 emerged, I decided to shoot a real-time documentary about life in America during a pandemic. Project Tumbleweed, as it would be named, combined daily journal entries, social media posts, and a series of six 10-to-15 minute video episodes. My thesis was that resilience and hope will get us through the pandemic. I believed I could find stories that would provide us with lessons for how we can move forward.
Lesson 1: Every solo act is a team effort
Since I had to travel to Oregon to pick up items my son left in his dorm room in Eugene for what turned out to be more than just Spring Break, I decided to reach out to my friends and family to see who would want to live ‘ through me for a few weeks. When 118 people said yes by donating $25 or more, I knew I had the green light to proceed.
It’s worth mentioning I had never produced a one-person crew documentary, let alone any type of documentary. I felt like I was dropping into the deep part of the ocean for my first solo swim. Fortunately, I had a strong support network behind me and the editing genius of my partners at VidLoft.
Lesson 2: American history lives in the present, not the past
The route I charted allowed me to experience historical and prehistoric trails firsthand with an intention to unfold their complexities and hidden layers. Manifest destiny is heroic to some and violent for others.
This became more clear to me with every mile. One moment in particular was on my return eastward from Washington. What started as a day to trace the Lewis and Clark Route became an exploration of the Nez Perce Trail, which chronicles the culture and history of a sovereign nation.
The Nimiipuu, as they call themselves, welcomed and traded with the Americans after helping Lewis and Clark. In time, they lost most of their homeland and went to war in 1887 against the U.S. Refreshing my memory of these facts challenged my perspective of the adventure. None of us alive today were part of those events directly. However, the past is never in the past. We see the reverberations of the culture clash between European and Asian empires and indigenous people around the globe.
We’re seeing this as the COVID-19 pandemic lays bare the legacy these clashes and erasures have for all of us who inherited this system. It is up to us to determine how to carry it forward.
Do we continue to gloss over these facts or do we put names to them? Do we begin to see the “others” as “brothers and sisters” or do we continue to treat them like “things” and “its”? We cannot control the past but we can shape the future.
Lesson 3: The American dream is alive
When I was in Laramie, Wyo., I had the chance to interview Amandeep Pandher. She and her husband, Mintu, are immigrants from India who own five truck stops and their own fuel shipping truck fleet. She was also weeks away from welcoming their third child into the world.
In Twin Falls, Idaho, I interviewed Liyah Babyan and her son Dominic. She came to America at 10 years old with her family who were resettled from Azerbaijan to escape the ethnic cleansing and war. Her family owns Ooh La La! Boutique and she is a community leader helping those in the refugee and immigrant communities.
Both of them spoke effusively of the American dream, while reminding me that this imperfect union needs constant care and tending. That is the truth that I faced when finishing up the documentary.
I came out of this journey more optimistic about life in America. Ancient wounds have come to the surface and people don’t want to go back to their lives pre-pandemic.
The people I interviewed all have hope for their future and their local communities. More importantly, they have a hope for America as a country.
If each of us carry that hope forward and take local actions, we can collectively grow and prosper again. I hope you will join the journey at projecttumbleweed.com and help spread the word about what you discover there.