Our national monuments don’t hibernate in the winter
On a sunny February day, my son Badge and I decided to take a winter road trip as we set off for the Big Hole Battlefield outside of Wisdom. It was a reminder that our national monuments and parks don’t hibernate in the winter, and with Montana spring breaks upon us, a visit to one of our 28 historic sites might be a perfect road trip for you too.
Badge is 14 and out of everyone in my family is the most likely to say yes to an adventure - no matter what it looks like. But I admit the promise of skiing on the same day is what really convinced him, a “vegetables AND ice cream adventure,” I coined it.
As an eighth-grader, Badge has already received his required Montana history lessons. This was an opportunity to see if they told the whole story of the native people, but without the requisite Friday test.
The first thing to catch Badge’s eye as we pulled into the site, a defunct phone booth. The first to catch mine, a 30’ flagpole with the American flag taught in the sharp winter wind. Both announcing our arrival at a sacred burial site of the Nez Perce people.
Upon arrival we were informed all of the trails were closed due to wildfires that had consumed the nearby forest last summer.
Nonetheless, history came to life as we pieced together the fateful night of August 9, 1877, where “by the time the smoke cleared on August 10, almost 90 Nez Perce were dead along with 31 soldiers and volunteers.” Peacefully camped on their homelands, along the banks of their Big Hole river, this band of non-treaty Nez Perce defied the 1863 Treaty to confine them to a tiny fraction of their ancestral territory.
We marveled at the history that has been collected through written military records and the deep oral tradition of the Nez Perce. A particularly striking photo sums up the complexity of it all - a Nez Perce elder at their annual remembrance gathering, wearing a US war veteran’s hat, waving an American flag against a backdrop of colorful teepees and ceremony.
While I sit in what is left of our manifest destiny, I see from those who have been forced to live and die from it, thanks to these important stories and places. I absorb that my experience is not all that is; that our way might not be the only or best path. Holding two hard things is possible - the founding of a new nation and the respect for the history and lands of the conquered.
These places, our national monuments and the history in them, are necessary. They are the fabric of a nation of many - torn, bloody, repaired and scarred.
Our national monuments help us tell those stories. We need more of them. This country is built on story - our national monuments bring those stories to life.
At the end, I was also reminded Montana kids need skiing, fun and promises kept. So I took a deep breath, promised myself to come back again, then hit the road back to Lost Trail. I spent the rest of the day alternating between a love of my state and a deep sorrow for native peoples. And grateful for the stories that bind us all.
Sara Busse is the Communications Director for Mountain Mamas.