By Minnie Two Shoes
Life on the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Reservation – with 10,000 people on 2.2 million acres in Montana – means looking forward to visitors. And visitors they’ll get during festivities this year to commemorate the area’s visit 200 years ago by the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
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The Fort Peck Reservation is 5000 square miles of Missouri River valley timberlands and high prairie plains. A hundred miles from the interstate highway and 300 miles from any major city, the reservation’s largest town has 4000 people, the only 24-hour gas station and three stoplights. |
The sun came through a large window in a cozy home on the Fort Peck Reservation, as Bonnie Red Elk sewed tiny seed beads in geometric patterns onto buckskin that she’ll fashion into a purse. When it’s done she’ll have a work of art in the traditional Northern Plains style.
Bonnie stops for a moment to survey her work and to show it to her visitors, including Karla Dubois, another expert bead-worker. They’re waiting “as usual,” said Red Elk, for Marian Clincher.
Once Clincher arrives the three women meet as a business entity, Survivors’ Series, founded to use the skills taught them by their mutual grandmother, who survived through the sale of her beadwork and traditional foods. Topping their agenda is planning for the traditional Native food stand they’re creating from a travel trailer.
The women will sell their art, crafts and foods during the Lewis and Clark commemoration when hundreds of history buffs retracing their path are expected, said Red Elk, who hopes they’ll be in the market for authentic Native arts.
Survivors’ Series aren’t the only ones making items to sell, she said. “It’s a golden opportunity for all of us here on the rez!” exclaims Red Elk,” There are so many talented people here, now’s their chance to make some money, while making beautiful things those tourists will never see other places.”
Red Elk said they hope to build a fund to promote Native arts and to create a cultural arts publication.
Cultural arts are a growing interest for Native nations in remote areas, said Curley Youpee, director of the Fort Peck Tribes’ Cultural Resources Department. “That’s especially true when national events such as the commemoration come to the reservation.”
That visit coincides with the Sixth Annual Spring Fest and Wacipi (dance) in Poplar held the first Saturday in May and sponsored by the Fort Peck Tribal Cultural Arts Council, he said. With help from the Army Corp of Engineers, the Spring Fest will expand to four days of lectures, dance demonstrations, arts/crafts booths and food stands in Poplar May 5-8, said Youpee.
Many issues face the Fort Peck Tribes because of the commemoration, said Youpee. “Congestion of people and (automobile) traffic, adequate toilet facilities, outside parking – there’s been a great deal of meetings with all the various agencies.”
Youpee said some question what Natives are celebrating, after all, the Lewis and Clark expedition led to further exploration and encroachment of Native lands. He takes an alternative view. “We’re still here! Despite everything that’s happened to us. There’s a lot of victories for the (Fort Peck) Tribes to celebrate,” said Youpee, “We’ve got many different histories we can share and celebrate.”
There’s a history to the staging of the commemoration, said Richard Peterson, acting editor of the Wotanin Wowapi, a weekly newspaper published by the Fort Peck Tribes. The National Park Service met with the Tribes two years ago and recommended they boost their tourism efforts, he said.
There are so many meetings he’s had a hard time keeping up with them, said Peterson from his tiny office tucked into the Poplar Activity Center. At those meetings, Peterson’s heard hotel rooms are scarce for a hundred miles at certain times, but there’s still plenty of camping. One enterprising man with land along the Missouri River has set up 20 tipis for canoe travelers and others are thinking about jumping into that, he said. The newspaper’s been told to print more newspapers, he said, and to expect many tourists this summer.
The Fort Peck Reservation will be ready and waiting for those visitors, said Mark Sansaver, director of the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribal Community Enterprise, a US Dept. of Agriculture funded entity, administered by the Fort Peck Community College.
Annual Earth Day activities in late April include a reservation-wide spring clean up, said Sansaver, and this year it will be particularly thorough. The six communities along the 100-mile commemoration route – Fort Kipp, Brockton, Poplar, Wolf Point, Oswego, and Frazer – also plant flowers, he said.
During the commemoration visitors can tour the Tribes’ buffalo ranch and the Tribes’ farm and bed/breakfast, said Sansaver. For those who arrive after the commemoration, each of the six communities’ sponsor celebrations (powwows).
“On any one weekend in the summer, something is going on – some where on the reservation – if you include rodeos, hot chili cookouts, etc,” said Sansaver, “The tribes are developing a booklet of those events that’ll be readily available.”
While some wonder how the price of gas will affect attendance, Sansaver was confident crowd size will be good, even if it’s just the locals turning out. Many schools from around the area are sending their students and many reservation homes will be hosting out of town guests, he said.
Sansaver said not only is the commemoration coming through in May, the St. Louis Expedition – a large flotilla of boats – will arrive a week earlier. He’d just attended a coordination meeting between the tribal and state fish and game departments because the Missouri River is low.
“They say some of those boats are quite large – they called them ‘yachts’ actually – and there are concerns that some of them could get stuck,” said Sansaver, “The fish and game departments have the fast boats needed to handle situations such as that.”
Other areas of concern – the many sacred and community use sites scattered across the reservation, including the many 1000-year-old tipi rings and buffalo jumps, said Sansaver.
Sansaver said no-fee camping sites at the traditional dance arbors and campgrounds located in each community are available. When told of community comments about smudging those areas ‘before, after and during’ the activities, he admitted that many of those campgrounds are adjacent to areas where sweat lodges and other ceremonies are held and he expressed hope that visitors will respect those areas and not disturb them.
Sansaver said a local veterans’ group, the Silent Warrior Society, will keep some areas clean and secure, including the veteran’s flagpole area in Poplar, that’ll be a focal point during the actual commemoration, he said.
What ever happens Sansaver believes the people and the tribal government of the Fort Peck Reservation will be gracious hosts – what ever comes their way. After all, he said, how many chances are there to have lots of visitors, show off their culture and their big beautiful world of clean air, water and skies?
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