I grew up in northern Nevada, and around many basque families. Robert Laxalt wrote many books and article for National Geogrpahic Magazine on the Basque. His fist book in the late 1950": "Sweet Promised Land" is fabulous. His brother was (Bob made is transformation a few years ago). Paul Laxalt is the former senator from Nevada as well as two term governor (at the same time as his close friend Ronald Regan was governor if California. Bob Laxalt was the publicher for the University Press at the University of Nevada in Reno.

Off the top of my head:
The Basques are one of the most ancient people in Europe. They have a different DNA haplotype than all other European peoples, meaning their genes mutated, and they split off from their "parent" people much earlier than other Europeans. Their language is unique in the world. It is not related to any other modern language, although there are linguists who theorize that it could be distantly related to Kartvelian (I think), or some such language spoken in Eurasia. There is a common opinion that Basque is probably descended from the ancient Iberian language that was spoken on the Iberian Peninsula before the Greeks, Romans, Carthaginians ever arrived. They cannot prove this satisfactorily because the remants of the Iberian language are so very few.
Basques were traditionally great sailors and fisherman, and they were quite prevalent in the cod (I think) fishing industry off of the coast of Newfoundland after the Americas were "discovered". There are some people that believe that the Basques actually had small settlements in Canada and the northeast American seacoast long before Columbus dragged his butt across the Atlantic.
Later, when the codfishing industry took a dive from overfishing, the Basques migrated to North America and became well known as shepherds. Large numbers of Basque people migrated to and settled in Northern Nevada (like Elko), and in Idaho (there is a cool little Basque grocery/specialty/gift shop in Boise). I suppose they also went into mining as well as sheepherding.
The Basques of Spain have been trying to separate from Spain and become an independent country for quite a long time, sometimes, unfortunately, resorting to terrorism.
My grandmother's Basque last name was Mayagoitia, which apparently means something like 'high meadow' (high as in altitude).
As far as traditions, culture...I haven't read about those so much. One thing I've noticed about modern young Basques, which surprises me (I don't know why, really) is that they are really into heavy industrail metal bands...Basque lyrics, naturally.

Anyway, I hope that I got most of that right, and that you find it edifying and eager to find out more.

Kenneth