Head
for the Mountains
Colorado,
Montana, Utah, and Wyoming beckon to Western travelers
in search of high mountain adventure.
By
Candy Moulton
Photographs
by
Candy Moulton
MONTANA
- After the fight at the Little Bighorn—which
the Lakotas called the Greasy Grass—in June
of 1876, Sitting Bull and his followers migrated
north. They would
spend the next five years in far northern Montana
and southern Canada before eventually surrendering
at Fort Buford in western North Dakota and being
relocated to a reservation in South Dakota.
In
the years after Little Bighorn, Sitting Bull kept
his camps north of the Milk River—named by Meriwether
Lewis, who wrote on May 8, 1805: “The water of
this river possesses a peculiar whiteness, being about
the color of a cup of tea with the admixture of a tablespoon
of milk. From the colour of its water we called it Milk
River.”
While
still free, Sitting Bull established camps near Wood
River, Alberta, where he was living in October of
1877 when the Nez Perce tribe sought aid after their
fight with the United States Army at the Battle of
the
Bear’s Paw. Although some Nez Perces escaped the
attack and went north to Sitting Bull’s camp, they
did not reach the Hunkpapa camp and make it clear where
the Nez Perce camp was located until it was too late
for the Lakota warriors to ride south to aid the people
being led by Chief Joseph and Chief Whitebird.
Even
so, occasionally Sitting Bull and his people ventured
back across the Medicine Line, as they called the United
States-Canadian border. They hunted along the Milk
River and camped on high ridges. One place Sitting
Bull and
his followers are believed to have spent time is north
of Hinsale, Mont., where there is evidence of large
campsites located on ridges on either side of Rock
Creek.
Now
private land that is part of Rock Creek Ranch, the
sites were regularly used by Indians during the 19th
century and earlier. Land features today are known
as Papoose Hills and Papoose Coulee, and there are
two nearby
buffalo jumps.
Patti
Armbrister provided a tour of the tipi rings above
her home at Rock Creek Ranch, explaining that the Indians
camped on the high hillsides where they had a view
of the surrounding countryside, but they no doubt
allowed
their horse herds to graze in the valley where Rock
Creek now runs through the ranch headquarters. Known
mainly
for its hunting outfitters business, Rock Creek Ranch
also has regular photography tours for visitors and
offers overnight accommodations and meals.
While
Sitting Bull later lived (and died) in South Dakota,
the Assiniboine and Yanktonai Sioux remain in this
area, on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation east of
Hinsdale,
but I head west on U.S. Route 2, known as the Hi-Line.
At Chinook I detour south 16 miles to the Bear’s
Paw Battlefield, the site where Chief Joseph surrendered
following a 1,500-mile flight ahead of the army that
took him and the Nez Perces across Idaho, Montana, and
northwest Wyoming...
Find
the rest of this exciting article and more by subscribing
to American
Cowboy magazine...
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For
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the other side.
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a place where you can drown out the hubbub
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