Day 3: Motorin’ thru Montana

Pony @ Little Bighorn Battlefield

We dipped our toe into the Great State of Montana today when we headed up to the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. Located on the Crow Reservation in southeastern Montana, the site was pretty small — and pretty crowded. We stopped at a gas station before we entered the park, looking for batteries (damned camera!) and water. I ended up buying some postcards from the Native American clerk, which felt really awkward to me, considering that one of the cards was of Custer’s grave. Turns out that the joke was on me — I learned later that Custer’s body had been dug up and shipped back east to be buried at West Point.

I am so not a military historian.

However, I am interested in politics, civil rights, and historic preservation. So, I have to admit that I thought it was rather cool that former U.S. Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell pushed to have the battlefield’s name changed from Custer Battlefield National Monument to Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument [1]. Personally, I would have changed it to “We Kicked Custer’s Ass” National Battlefield, but then, that wouldn’t have been politically correct. {LOL} I also found it interesting that the legend of Custer was really just a creation of his wife — talk about your massive framing effect, eh?

The site was crowded. Really, really crowded. I tried to look through the museum at the visitors’ center, but being short was an obstacle. All those people, standing in front of me. Standing too close to me. Ack! I left The Coach behind and wandered through the gift shop for a while where I picked up a comprehensive guide to the battlefield. I also found this nifty non-academic book about Indian sovereignty which came home with me. The Coach picked up the audio tour so we could listen to it as we drove through the battlefield.

Critic’s Corner: We have used these audio tours at other battlefields and have, generally, enjoyed them. This CD, however, provided us with way too much information for a five-mile road. It took us 45 minutes to get through the whole thing and required us to sit at various locations for a long, long time. Now, The Coach liked it more than I did, but even he said that he’d have to listen to it again when he had some free time because he couldn’t absorb the barrage of information. What was really hysterical is that the CD talked about new archaeological findings — and then stated that we needed to skip some of the markers along the road because the information on them was wrong!

Because the visitors’ center was so crowded we opted out of watching the video. Instead, we attended a ranger talk given by a member of the Crow Nation. That woman was excellent — listening to her talk reminded me of a story told around a campfire. It definitely held my attention. It’s just too bad that The Coach’s cell phone rang in the middle of her talk. [2] On the other end of the connection? A football player wanting to know about camp. Seriously? How in the world was The Coach supposed to know that information when he was thousands of miles from home? Argh! 

Marker, Hidden in Yucca
Little Bighorn Battlefield

After her talk, we headed out for the driving tour, taking our time to listen to the CD. The battlefield was dotted with white markers indicating each spot where a U.S. soldier fell. Here and there, a splash of pinkish-red would appear designating a spot where a Native American died during the fight. [3] We stopped to take pictures of cows and horses – a good portion of the road actually ran through private property, so there was some serious livestock roaming the battlefield.

In many ways, this was a depressing site. Sure, the Native Americans would win this particular battle. Yet, as the National Park Service’s website states:

The essential irony of the Battle of the Little Bighorn is that the victors lost their nomadic way of life after their victory.” 

Our government lied and broke treaties. Some of this was driven by greed – after all, there was gold to be found in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Not to be cynical, but our government — one that is supposed to be based on liberty and justice — really has a bad track record when it comes to human rights. It’s frustrating and sad and it makes me mad just to think about it.

Eventually, we made it back to the visitors’ center parking lot where we made our lunches (more turkey, more salami) and then we aimed the car towards Devils Tower. This took us through some of the most remote land I’ve ever been on. Miles and miles of nothing but grass and cows, grass and cows. It’s a good thing I didn’t have to pee because we only encountered one rest area along the way. At one point, we stopped in a small town to buy groceries at the tiniest grocery store I have ever been in and that’s including grocery stores in Europe. [4]

We only stopped one other time and that was to take our pictures with the Montana sign — proof that we had been to the state, even if it was only for 12 hours. We didn’t have a chance to take pictures of the Wyoming sign because someone had blasted it with buckshot, knocked it into a ditch along the side of the road. {Sigh} About an hour later, we arrived at the Devils Tower KOA, where we would spend the next two nights in a cabin along the Belle Fourche River — but that’s for my next blog entry.

In which Garrett Hardin was right: Selfish people who think that the rules don’t apply to them ruin the national parks experience for the rest of us. I cannot begin to tell you how many people we saw on our trip who were blatantly ignoring signs. For example, this sign at the Little Bighorn Battlefield seems pretty self-explanatory to me: Don’t walk onto the battlefield. Leave no trace. We will fine you. Of course, do people actually read these things? Uh, no. Do people who read the signs actually follow directions? Uh, no. Did I see any rangers out and about, busting people? Uh, no.

Signs without monitoring — and without a credible threat that you will actually be sanctioned for being stupid – really don’t work all that well. And it wasn’t just at the battlefield. We also saw people doing all sorts of stupid stuff at the prairie dog town in Devils Tower. {Really, you think you’re going to get a good picture of that wild animal by trotting up to the hole? More likely, you’re gonna’ get bitten by a black widow or a rattlesnake — and it would serve you right!}  

I don’t want to sound self-righteous, but that type of behavior irks me. You might think that your little path through the sensitive area won’t make that much of a difference. I’m sure that all of the people who picked up little bits of petrified wood in the Crystal Forest thought the same thing, and yet, that place has been completely ruined. I just wish people would think before they act, if you know what I mean.

P.S. Not all of the parks had a lack of ranger presence. Later in our trip, a ranger pulled over two different cars on the road through the Badlands National Park. Bwah, ha, ha, ha!

Notes:

1. Okay, this is what the park ranger at Devils Tower told us.
2. I guess The Coach didn’t think about turning off his phone because we didn’t have a signal for the longest time. Who knew that there would be a cell tower somewhere in range of the battlefield?
3. I tried to get a shot of one of these, but there weren’t many. The ones that did exist were in awkward places and I couldn’t get a decent shot.
4. For such a small store, they had a surprising variety of beer!