A Woman's Tools

I have been fascinated at the last two historical sites we’ve visited with the tools and crafts of women.  From food preparation to decorative beading, it is interesting to see the feminine influence within these pages of history.

Presuming that women were involved with food preparation and crafting while men hunted (as we’ve been told and without doing further research right now) I want to share some tools that I saw at Pictograph State Park and what the experts shared of their knowledge about them: 

The mano and the matate were a two-piece tool set (shown above) used for grinding seeds, nuts and roots to produce a flour or meal used in cooking.  The mano was rolling pin shaped and held in one hand and rolled against the food to be ground on the flat matate.  Pestles were used to pound and pulverize meat, which could be mixed with berries and animal fat to make a sun-dried, nutritious food called pemmican. 

Sticks with fire-hardened ends were used to dig roots.  Bone and chipped stone scrapers were used to remove hair and flesh from deer, elk and buffalo hides.  Knives were fashioned for cutting by attaching chipped stone to sticks called hafting which creates leverage to make the cutting of meat, antler or wood easier.

Bone beads, pendants, and pierced animal teeth were used as bracelets, necklaces or clothing decoration.

Awls were made of bone for stitching hides and clothing.

Remember, this is 9,000-year old technology created from the natural elements found in their environment.  They already knew what types of stone worked for making these tools, what berries and grains they could safely eat, how to preserve meat and other foodstuffs and most important of all how to make fire.

Jumping ahead 8,000 years we come to the culture of Native Americans who defeated Custer in 1876.  Add all of the above skills to these below:

They knew gray thistle could be used as a diuretic, tonic and astringent.  Hairy golden aster tops were used to make a tea that helped with sleeping.

Plains prickly pear was used to make candies, jelly or a refreshing drink.

Yucca (soap weed) flowers and pods were added to salads and other dishes.  The petals are a little sweet and nutty tasting.

Elaborate beading work was used to decorate belts, leggings (first photo below) and other clothing items along with moccasins, pouches, jewelry or pendants they hung over teepee entry doors.

If you suddenly found yourself “beamed up" into this same environment, could you survive?  And this is just the tip of the iceberg of what they knew about their natural world and what it could provide for them.  These two sites are fascinating to me because of a culture that is revealed not because of a battle that was fought.  I am glad I spent time at both.

  

Custer's Last Stand

Today we left Billings, Montana after spending three nights there.  Leaving early ahead of a low pressure system working its way east from Idaho, we got on the road amid a few sprinkles of rain hoping to stay ahead of the forecasted heavier weather including some possible wind gusts.  Not far out of Billings, I-90 turns due south winding like a silver ribbon toward the Wyoming border crossing over rolling, golden hills that are muted under the gray sky without a building to be seen for miles.  Occasionally the hills become flat topped and it is easy to imagine it is the 1800s with either pioneers or Crow warriors riding horses along the ridges scouting for one another.

We reach the Crow Reservation and the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument just off I-90 and stop to tour the Custer Battlefield.  This is the site of the infamous Lt. Col. George Custer and the 7^th Cavalry’s last stand on June 25, 1876, resulting in 263 men including Custer dying when they were defeated by warriors of the Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes.  The battlefield is on the Crow Indian Reservation and the landscape remains unchanged other than the addition of the Visitors Center and monuments, a cemetery and some paved road.  There is a walking tour throughout the site drawing visitors into imaging the events of 138 years ago.  The Visitor's Center was a wealth of information with great exhibits and a fabulous selection of reading material I could easily wish to possess.  As we were finishing our tour, the rain caught up with us pelting us with big, juicy drops of water. 

We crossed the border into Wyoming and the highways were paved in red tinted pavement with patches of the same shade of stone visible in the surrounding hills.  The golden color of the rolling terrain turns greener and we see more grazing cattle and horses along the highway.  We have outrun the rain and the sky turns blue with white puffy clouds temporarily.

We stop in Buffalo, Wyoming for the night and have a wonderful late lunch at the Historic Occidental Hotel’s Saloon founded in 1880.  This historic hotel building and saloon served the likes of Buffalo Bill, Teddy Roosevelt, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to name just a few of those who early on frequented the establishment known for its hospitality and fine food.  Restored to its original status as one of the great hotels of the Old West, their hospitality and fine food continue with the burgers we enjoyed.

A drive around Buffalo finished our day during which we encountered three deer wandering its streets with their final goal before we parted ways apparently an apple tree I suspect they’ve visited before.  Tonight the rain has returned in a downpour and we are safely settled into the RV.  Tomorrow we head for South Dakota and Mount Rushmore.

Pictograph Cave

Pictograph Cave State Park is a short drive from Billings, Montana- the town where we have elected to spend three nights.  Today we visited this park and viewed living quarters of prehistoric hunters and gatherers from 9,000 years ago.  In the first excavation on the Northern Plains beginning here in 1937 over 30,000 artifacts were found.  The site suggests long distance travel and trade occurred here at the time.  Southwestern style basket fragments were found as well as Pacific Northwest harpoon points made of Caribou horns.  Seashells and soapstone carvings were also found here-neither being indigenous to the site. 

The cliffs at this site are made of sandstone and were not suitable for making stone tools.  Rocks such as chert, flint and obsidian known to be easy to shape into tools and arrowheads as sharp as surgical steel were sought after over long distances by traveling tribes.  This area also offered medicinal plants like mint, sunflower seeds, wild rose, rose hips, white sage and juniper to name just a few.  A lodge uncovered here may have been used for rituals such as the “bear dance” and for fasting to purify the body and prepare the mind for spiritual dreaming.

 Pictographs are painted onto the rock in this cave as opposed to petroglyphs, which are carved into the rock found in other locations.  The Crow word for this place was “Alahpalaaxawaalaatuua” which translates as “where there is spirit writing”-the Crow people believed the souls of deceased humans produced the pictographs along with living people.  Some of the images are visible only during periods of heavy moisture or rapid snow melt particularly charcoal paintings as water percolates through out the cave lifting a “veil” of calcium that has formed over the pictographs for generations.  The red pigment was made from a mineral called hematite (a concentrated iron ore) ground up and mixed with animal fat, blood, berries, water or urine.  This mixture was then heated to a common consistency before being applied with fingers or a stick to the rock.  Charcoal pigment from the pictographs has been carbon dated to 250 B.C. or the time of the Roman Empire and when Cleopatra reigned in Egypt.  The surrounding marine sandstone cliffs containing seashells were created during a time when most of the central U.S. was covered by an inland sea.  During periods of heavy rainfall massive waterfalls pour down off the cliffs and create black streaks in the sandstone.

 This awesome trek through ancient history was incredibly interesting and we are pleased with what we have learned at another stop along the road.  Inspiration to study more is a constant influence when we are able to see history first hand.

Sunrise Campground

Sunrise Campground in Bozeman reflects the love of its owners in a multitude of decorative touches about the grounds.  The photographer in me enjoyed multiple opportunities to see and photograph creative bird feeders, a soothing water fountain, beautiful flowers and comfy seating areas about the grounds.  Mary Jo was so accommodating I felt like I had arrived home rather than at another campground stop for the night.

These are the places that stay in your memory long after the trip has ended and the owners seem more like friends than the person behind a desk checking you in for the night.  We collected a sample of Montana dirt here for Jim’s sister’s collection because she was missing Montana.  Mary Jo told us the soil here is a clay-like soil and when it gets wet it sticks to everything.

You just never truly know when you look at the Good Sam Travel Directory and pick a campground what you will find.  Relying upon the rating system helps, but it’s the little things not described that I enjoy.  Taking away ideas for plantings in my own yard or just experiencing the beauty of someone else’s creativity is always such an added pleasure.  I am glad we stayed there and shared in a few moments of their lives.

Rendezvous

Like two comets crossing the sky in opposite directions, what are the chances they will intersect?  Seemingly, I would have bet on zero.  Such was not the case when we arrived in Bozeman, MT and learned Jim’s grandson, Matt was only an hour away traveling on Interstate-90 in the opposite direction toward Seattle.

Describing where they could find us, we waited at the coach to see Matt and his traveling partner for driving named Dan along with Matt’s two handsome hounds that seem to be enjoying the trip as much as their master.

At a third our age, they are driving and camping along the same route we are following, traveling in the opposite direction at a much faster rate.  They are completing the trip in a week while we will take over a month.  Pausing for a short visit with us, we shared in the hearing of their tales and recounted a few of our adventures to them about our mutual experience.  Being the first journey for Matt along this route, he too is enjoying the wonders of the West.  Wishing them Godspeed, we parted ways and they disappeared into the impending night.  But we are still under the same stars on the same route and connected as a family and that is what matters.

This has been a great year for seeing family.  And for that we are grateful. 

Missoula to Bozeman

Today we are traveling through the remainder of mountainous western Montana, crossing over the Continental Divide and then easing down the eastern slopes testing our newly installed breaks.  We pass even larger areas of forest fire damage and the Clark Fork River continues to keep us company on either side of the Interstate.

About noon we pause at a rest stop only a mile and a half from where the first gold discovery in Montana was made by Francois Finlay in 1852 at a site where a creek flowing from the southwest joins the Clark Fork River.  While Finlay was no expert in prospecting possessing only a small amount of knowledge he gained in California and working with only a few inferior tools for the task at hand, he nevertheless found evidence that gold was present in the creek.  Others verifying his find by 1858 started the Montana gold rush in the general area and Findlay’s creek was renamed Gold Creek.

On July 2, 1864, President Lincoln signed a charter granting funds for the construction of the Northern Transcontinental Railroad.  Work began from both ends of the proposed rail line in Minnesota (by 1870) and in Washington (by 1871.)  Approximately 25,000 Chinese were employed on the western division alone!  The slow and tedious work in areas of isolation made the task of maintaining labor crews difficult, especially in the east but year after year both divisions continued working toward each other.  In spite of a delay also caused by a financial panic in 1873, the rail line was finally completed on August 22, 1883.  The last spike in the rails was driven at the site of where Gold Creek joins the Clark Fork River.  Interestingly, they brought the first spike driven in Minnesota out to Gold Creek to serve again as the last spike driven.  A huge celebration ensued at a cost of $250,000 for the workers and five trainloads of invited guests from the U.S. and abroad who traveled to Gold Creek to mark man’s triumph over nature and financial adversity.  In just thirteen years a connection between both sides of the country was completed and the dream of serving military and commercial needs of the settlers in these isolated and rugged lands could now be met.

Passing through Butte we see a statue from the highway high atop the mountains to our north.  From the highway we could not tell exactly what we were viewing.  Wondering what it represented provides another interesting story from along our route.  Called “Our Lady of the Rockies”-the statute is a 90-foot tall rendition of the Virgin Mary placed upon the peak above I-90 in a location situated on the Continental Divide.  In 1979, Bob O’Bill, a resident of Butte, was struggling with his wife’s struggle with cancer.  He made a promise that if she recovered he would put a five-foot statue of the Virgin Mary in his yard in gratitude.  When folks in Butte learned of his promise, the project grew into a 90-foot mountain statue collaborative effort with Butte’s townspeople donating materials and funds for the project.  By September 1985, a 400-ton concrete base was constructed on the mountaintop.  Then in December the four parts of the statue were airlifted by helicopter by the Air National Guard of Nevada and put into place to complete a statue that would have to endure the powerful wind sheers that buffet the ridge top where the statue would stand.  The statue is dedicated to women, regardless of their religion.  A memorial wall for women at the base lists 13,000 women from around the world.  Tourists can access the site only by bus on a two-hour tour from Butte between June and September.

The valley we follow between the mountain ranges widens into golden meadows even as we see more mountains in the distance with snow gracing their summits.  We are aware that in just a few weeks this area will start to feel the breath of winter bearing down upon it.  The firs have given way to the beginnings of vast ranches across the valley dotted with grazing cattle and horses.  Harvested hay in huge rolls is being gathered while corn in adjacent fields awaits its harvest in a sequence that seems to follow after the hay.  The mystery of ranching is intriguing to me and I yearn to read more about the hard lives and harsh environment the people of Montana have endured here, both native and immigrating settlers alike.

Post Falls to Missoula

Leaving Lake Coeur d’Alene, we continued along Interstate-90 crossing Idaho and entering Montana following the Clark Ford River through fir-covered valleys that follow the river between mountains on either side of the coach.  The coach climbs and then descends the early phases of the Rocky Mountains with ease and we are glad we had her serviced and new rear brakes installed before leaving Everett.

In places past battles of the terrain with forest fires are evident revealing the craggy rocks and sudden rises hidden below the firs.  The power of fire is evident with acres of hillsides charred naked of trees with only the fallen remnants of huge trunks clinging to the slopes as if a child’s “pick-up-sticks” game was played here by giants.

The river meanders from one side of the road to the other, dancing with the ribbon of silver rail lines that form the lifeblood of transportation here along the Northern Transcontinental Railroad that stretches from Lake Superior to Puget Sound completed in 1883.  The rail lines are still very active and we see trains on a regular basis and hear them through the night as we stay in towns dominated by the rail lines and the Interstate alike.  Our elevation has climbed back into the mile-high range give or take.

The original draw to this area was trapping, followed by the lure of gold prospecting that established many of the towns in this area and finally logging that sustained the growth of the frontiersman population.  Their arrival disrupted the 14,000-year inhabitants of western Montana-Native Americans called the Kootenai.  Staying mostly west of the Continental Divide, the Kootenai only ventured east for buffalo hunts seasonally.  They were later joined by the Salish, the Pend d’Oreille and the Crow tribes with all sharing in common hunting and gathering grounds across the state.  By 1700 they had acquired horses from Spaniards in the Southwest to aid them in their bison-based economy.  Their customs and overall quality of life survived until the late-1800s as bison were hunted to almost extinction by newly arriving white men and white men’s diseases decimated their populations.  Driven to reservations by various treaties and executive orders, they now occupy only 9 percent of the Montana land base.

And so we arrive in Missoula, in awe of the grand topography and history that lured so many here before us.  Aside from the winters and the threat of forest fires caused most often by lightening strikes, this area’s scenic beauty is a huge draw for even us leisurely traversing the terrain in modern, air-conditioned comfort.  Aside from the bugs plastering themselves on the windshield impeding my photography, this is a fine portion of our trip in lovely mid-70s sunny weather.

Lake Coeur d'Alene

Leaving Post Falls, the first sight we see is Lake Coeur d’Alene.  The formation of this natural lake has an interesting history that relates back to the Columbia River Gorge we described to you while we were back in Portland, Oregon and will continue as we travel down the road ahead on our trip through Montana following the Clark Fork River.

We are following in the path of the Missoula Floods, which occurred several times during the last Ice Age about 13,000 to 15,000 years ago.  During the Ice Age a huge lake called Glacial Lake Missoula was formed in Montana as an ice dam blocked the flow of water on the Clark Fork River.  Whenever the climate warmed periodically during the 2,000 years at the end of the last Ice Age, the ice dam would suddenly and catastrophically give way (and this is estimated to have occurred as many as twenty five times!)  Suddenly, water running 300 feet deep and traveling at 80 miles per hour (that’s thirteen times the amount of water flowing in the Amazon River) rushed across Montana, through Idaho and eastern Washington and down the Columbia River Gorge to the Willamette Valley in Eastern Oregon and out the Columbia River or practically the whole course in one day!  Just imagine the sound and fury of such an event!

The serene view of azure Lake Coeur d’Alene under sunny skies belies its fascinating birth during the death throws of the Ice Age.  Knowing this history explains some of the remarkable sights of geography we have seen.  Combining volcanoes, earthquakes and water events like these that shaped our world, I feel very minor in the scheme of the universe.  But I am grateful that people study these things so I can learn about them, especially as I see these miraculous sights traveling down the road and put together the larger picture.

Twenty-five miles long and between one and three miles wide, Lake Coeur d’Alene has long been useful to mankind upon his arrival on the scene.  The Native American Coeur d’Alene Tribe settled the area and were friendly with Frederick Post who established Post Falls.  With the growth of the lumber industry here, the lake was used for transporting logs to mills in Post Falls and later the growing town of Coeur d’Alene.  Interestingly, Ford Model T cars can be found on the bottom of the lake.  The cars sunk in the early 1900s as people attempted to drive across lake ice to save the distance of driving around the circumference of the lake in the winter.  Ferries once used to transport people around the lake are also found on the bottom-burned and sunk when they were no longer useful as ferries.  Now divers frequently enjoy these underwater sights.  But if we ever have another Ice Age, Mother Nature will probably clean house here (I mean “clean lake” here) in short order!   

Post Falls, ID

We traveled from Moses Lake in central Washington to just inside the Idaho border to stay in the town of Post Falls tonight just west of Spokane.  To the east of us is Lake Coeur d’Alene.  Situated just off I-90, Post Falls is known as Idaho’s River City with the Spokane River passing through the heart of town.  Here the Spokane River splits into three channels each with a natural falls.  Pioneer Frederick Post who first settled in the area in the late 1800s named the town after these falls.  Further down stream the three river channels recombine to form one channel near Spokane.

French-speaking traders named the local native peoples the Coeur d’Alene Indian Tribe (a name meaning “heart of an awl” in French) in recognition of their superb trading skills.  They also chose the same name for their original settlement along the expansive Lake Coeur d’Alene to the south of Post Falls.  The river provided transportation options for the logging business that sprung up here with the arrival of settlers.  Further growth occurred with the discovery of gold in the area.

Frederick Post recognized the need for milling lumber and grinding wheat and he constructed a wooden dam and built a mill for both endeavors.  By 1904 Washington Water Power acquired the dam from Post and rebuilt it, ultimately providing electricity to mines as far as 100 miles away over the longest high-voltage power lines in existence at the time.

We took a brief excursion over to the falls and dam to discover a beautiful park built around them with walking paths that give easy access to viewing both.  This town seems wonderful in the RV’s surrounding area.  The Walmart was terrific just down the street.  If it were not for the winters, I’d put this neighborhood on my short list for retirement.  Over the summer we’ve seen many such places to file away in our memories, wondering what the people who actually live in such places are like and what things there are to do.  Imagination runs wild with placing oneself in the midst of each of them.  But now as we are on the way to Florida, the endpoint becomes more desired and settling into “our place” for the winter is a much anticipated luxury.