Over 30 geography, natural resources and wildlife students travelled to Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, one of the largest and most important pieces of the National Wildlife Refuge System in the western United States, with three professors (Nicholas Perdue and Rosemary Sherriff – geography, and Dan Barton – wildlife) as part of two courses GEOG 357M and GEOG 472M. Primary goals of the field experience was to study the unique landscape and the larger context and specific events of the 2016 Malheur occupation by anti-government extremists. The Malheur National Wildlife Refuge is a space where issues of federal lands, ecosystem conservation, rural economics, libertarian politics, indigenous rights, and human-animal relationships converge in a unique, but not entirely isolated way in the broader geographic region of the American West. The students and faculty met and had independent discussions with the Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and a Paiute Tribal member who was outspoken in resistance to the occupation. During this trip, they experienced the remote high desert of southeastern Oregon, had interactions with local experts to understand more about the site and the recent conflict, and learned about ecosystem restoration and wildlife in one of the country’s premier bird habitats. The trip revealed the intersection of cultural, historical, and ecological processes.