In mid-August, 2024, the Rocinantes embarked on a Western adventure. Starting from their home base in Lansing, Michigan, they traversed Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Montana to meet up with their children near the Glacier National Park. I wrote about that adventure here, complete with photos.https://www.rocinanteroad.com/post/a-road-trip-40-years-in-the-making-rocinantes-take-to-the-road-to-celebrate-40-years-of-marriage
From Montana, we headed south to Yellowstone, Salt Lake City, & the red rocks of Utah with friends - our daughter-in-law’s mom and her partner, both from Michigan. In this blog post, I want to talk a bit about what we learned along the way. In subsequent posts, I’ll explore our adventures in Utah, and then after we left Las Vegas and headed to Arizona, Colorado, and beyond.
I would say the first part of our trip West has left me with 3 big impressions.
First, we were impressed by the presence of so many indigenous nations on this land.
We passed through lands owned by Native American tribes in every state we traversed. 574 tribes are recognized by the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) in the United States. These tribes represent rich and diverse cultures, some dating back tens of thousands of years. There are rich oral histories of these people. The earliest written records describing them date back to the 15th century, when Europeans from Spain first encountered local people. Adopting an aggressive “doctrine of discovery”, Europeans refused to recognize the rights of indigenous people to the lands they had inhabited for millennia. This history is complex, but suffice it to say, a huge percentage of indigenous people lost their lives (to disease and warfare) as well as their land between the 15th and 19th centuries. In the Western U.S., plains Indians lost much of their way of life when their land was fractured by European ideas of property rights. Approximately 374 treaties were made between Indian nations and the U.S. government, and many of those were ignored or broken. In the 19th century, particularly, the U.S. government took steps to assimilate Indian people by removing their children to boarding schools, robbing them of language and culture. In the 20th and 21st centuries, tribes have made huge efforts to reestablish language and culture and pass traditions on to their children. While native control of land is a shadow of what it once was, there are still large reservations in the West, many with their own judicial systems and local governance. In Montana, for example, tribes own about ⅓ of the land they held prior to European settlement. You can see the scale of the 7 reservations in Montana in this picture, both before and after European settlement:
The second big impression we had traversing the region is the richness of immigrant cultures that settled the area.
French (and some English and Dutch) trappers traveled to what is now Canada, engaging with indigenous cultures there, in the 16th century. Later, they spread into the Great Lakes regions of what are now Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, and eventually into North Dakota and Montana. There was a lot of contact and trading between native people and these European immigrants, and in some of this region mixed marriages between Cree people and fur traders created an ethnic group called Métis, whose descendants live in the prairie regions of Canada and the U.S. Later, immigrants from Scandinavia, Germany, Poland, Bohemia and other European countries came to log in the great forests and mine the minerals of the Great Lakes and upper Midwest. In the 19th century, immigrants from China, Southeast Asia, the Philippines, East India and other countries came to the upper Midwest to work. Meanwhile, in the Southwest region of the U.S., explorers from Spain settled throughout the region, which became part of New Spain, or Mexico. These conquistadors, as they were known, were also not a monolithic ethnic group. They consisted of Spanish & Portuguese, yes, but many of them were ethnically Muslim or Jewish (hiding that fact as an after-effect of the Inquisition), or from other regions of Europe. They spoke Spanish, Portuguese, Basque, Catalan, Italian, & Languedoc. Some of the Conquistador groups included people from Africa. The first English settlers in Arizona did not arrive until 1825. Half of today’s New Mexico citizens identify as Hispanic, and Spanish/Mexican ancestry goes back generations there. New Mexico has a unique dialect of Spanish, which includes some indigenous words and phrases. African-Americans also immigrated to the American West after the Civil War. Contrary to our perception of the West as an enclave of English-speaking settlers with a little Spanish thrown in, from the 16th to the 19th century, one would have heard a mix of many languages in the region, and seen a mix of many cultures. These cultural exchanges - sometimes peaceful, sometimes violent - shaped the American West.
The third impression of this region is the breathtaking beauty of the landscapes.
From the plains to the Rockies, the Western Landscape is remarkable. The use of the land varies greatly by who its caretaker is. Native tribes traditionally lived off the land, and continue to regard much of its presence as sacred, thus leaving it less molded by human hands. Immigrant settlers in the upper Midwest chopped down trees, mined the ground, and created large farms, molding the land to fit their idea of a well-lived life. The U.S. government created a series of National Parks to preserve land. One fact that is virtually unparalleled in modern U.S. life, is that almost 9 out of 10 Americans view the National Park Service and its stewardship of the land favorably, according to a survey taken in 2019. Recently, the National Park Service has been partnering with Tribes for a co-stewardship model. In East Glacier, we heard a talk by Elk Robe (whose English name is Robert Hall), a Blackfoot educator and linguist. He told a series of stories to convey aspects of his culture. One of his stories was about buffalo stones, which are sacred in traditional Blackfoot culture. The stones are ammonite fossils that naturally break into buffalo shapes.
In this post, I will discuss our visit to America’s first national park, Yellowstone, and our journey from there to Salt Lake City.
Yellowstone National Park was the first national park, and it was created in 1872. According to the National Park website, people have lived in that area for over 11,000 years. European-Americans began exploring the area in the 19th century. Legislation establishing the park stated:
AN ACT to set apart a certain tract of land lying near the headwaters of the Yellowstone River as a public park. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the tract of land in the Territories of Montana and Wyoming ... is hereby reserved and withdrawn from settlement, occupancy, or sale under the laws of the United States, and dedicated and set apart as a public park or pleasuring ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people; and all persons who shall locate, or settle upon, or occupy the same or any part thereof, except as hereinafter provided, shall be considered trespassers and removed there from ...
Glacier National Park was not far behind, established in 1910. In 1916, The National Park Service was established to "... preserve and protect natural and cultural resources".
Paul and I had visited Yellowstone in 2012, to celebrate our 28th anniversary. We were impressed by the history, wildlife, and natural wonders we saw there.
We were excited to go back this year, with our son, daughter-in-law, and friends. We drove from Glacier National Park to Bozeman, where our friends Julie & Pat were flying in from Michigan.
From there, we drove to the north entrance of the park in Gardiner, Montana. There, you see a stone Roosevelt Arch where then-President Theodore Roosevelt laid the cornerstone in 1903.
When you drive in, you enter Wyoming, then you see buildings that were part of Fort Yellowstone, where the military managed the park from the late 19th century until the National Park Service was set up. The key feature of this entrance are the Mammoth Hot Springs. Here, you see dramatic mineral formations and pools. You can hike through them or drive an upper path to get a better view.
From there, we drove east and then south to Tower Fall. The view was spectacular.
Then, we drove to the middle of the park, headed west and drove to our Airbnb in Island Park, Idaho. On the way to the Airbnb, I saw a moose on the river bank!
After a restful night in a spacious Airbnb, the 6 of us (in two cars) drove back to the West Entrance and drove south to the artist’s paint pots. You can walk along a boardwalk interspersed among these colorful hot springs. Just before we got there, we saw a lone buffalo off the side of the road.
From there, we drove to Old Faithful. We got lucky - it was erupting a little over every two hours, and we got there about 20 minutes before the next eruption. It was just what you might imagine and it rose so high everyone got a great view.
After Old Faithful, we drove east then north along Yellowstone Lake. At one point, we stopped because a lot of people had stopped on the road. We walked over and saw a huge elk with a large rack resting in the grass near the trees.
Just past the elk, we stopped at an view area and saw a huge herd of buffalo down below, on the plains.
From there, we went to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, watching the sun set over the large waterfall at Artist's point.
Here's a waterfall from the other side of the canyon.
On the way home, we drove very close to a herd of female elk (called cows).
Then, a buffalo walked right past our car! We were careful to keep all limbs inside the car and keep driving!
That night, our son, James, treated us to a light show with some relaxing music after we soaked in the hot tub. A lovely last night with this group.
The next morning we parted from our son and daughter-in-law.
With Julie & Pat, we headed south to Jackson Hole. I saw another moose in a river down below from the side of the highway, but we were unable to stop. Just before arriving in Jackson Hole, we saw the Grand Tetons looking east from the top of a mountain pass. It was breathtaking.
In Jackson Hole, we ate lunch near the central square and then drove far enough into the Grand Tetons National Park to see the mountain range from the front.
That night we stayed at a hotel in Afton, Wyoming. The next day we saw mule deer right outside the hotel! Downtown Afton has what they claim is the longest elk antler arch in the world!
Then, we traversed Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah to Salt Lake City. On the way, we saw a huge lake (Bear Lake) half of which was in Idaho, and the other half in Utah.
Then, we traveled at the floor of a huge canyon, emerging at a highway and traveling to Salt Lake City.
We arrived too early to check into our hotel, so we went to the Great Salt Lake State Park VIsitor Center to see and learn about the lake. It was big, blue, and beautiful. Julie scooped up some sand for her collection.
The next day, we went to Antelope Island State Park where we saw antelope and many more buffalo!
We toured a historic ranch on the island, then ate lunch before heading back.
We had hoped to see the LDS temple in Salt Lake City, but it was closed for renovations. We got a few pictures of downtown SLC, where we were staying.
Salt Lake City ended our time “on the range”. We did, in fact, see deer & antelope play, and buffalo roaming (as well as elk, moose and many birds).
From there, we headed south to the red rocks of Utah, which I’ll discuss in the next blog post.
As an homage to our time “on the range”, I’ve recorded the song, “Home on the Range”. The lyrics to this song were written by Dr. Brewster M. Higley in 1872, and his friend Daniel E. Kelley wrote the music a few years later. The words have been changed slightly over the years by the many cowboys who sang it. To see Kim sing “Home on the Range”, click here.
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