West Old & New April Edition

THE

A p r i l 2 0 1 3 V o l u m e I I I s s u e I V

The odds of two people being attacked and

killed by grizzlies on the same night were

1,000,000,000,000 : 1.

It happened.

Jeannette Rankin, a Montanan born in the early part of

the Twenty-first century leaves a legacy of peace

and unity for the new millennium.

Trudy Berge - Jeannette Carr - Janell Clarke

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[email protected]

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Close to town but in a quiet, rural area.

To the left an old photograph of

Glacier National Park’s

Going-to-the Sun road built in 1932.

Every June crews spend weeks

cleaning the snow drifts off the road

for the millions of tourists who come

to see nature in its première state.

8

The summer of 1967 two young women were

killed by Urus arctos horribilis .

The book, “The Night of the Grizzlies,”

was published in 1969 with the facts that show the

series of events leading to the terrible tragedy in the

mountains of western Montana and how it changed

bear policies in Glacier National Park.

9

“I may be the first woman member

of Congress

but I won’t be the last.”

In 1916 Jeannette Rankin was the first

woman to ever serve in the U.S. Congress.

From Montana roots she rose to give

guiding words and actions to the world on

women’s rights and peace.

6

The West Old & New

http://thewestoldandnew.wordpress.com

P a g e 3

V o l u m e I I I s s u e I V

The West Old & New

Published by Susan Faye Roberts

P.O. Box 10

Hot Springs, Montana 59845

(406) 741-5210

[email protected]

Online Blog:

http://

thewestoldandnew.wordpress.com

Recipe for the Quintessential Rhubarb Pie!

The classic spring tonic in a dessert. 19

A True Western Tale by Rick Sherman

Lightening Ridge A boy braves a mountain storm to bring home

horses that got loose. Can he prove to himself and his father he can cowboy up? 18

P a g e 4

An article about the invention by

George Lakhovsky of an

electromagnetic machine capable of

assisting the body in healing and how

Kirlian Photography is used.

11

A medicine man" is called by the Blackfeet Ni-namp'-skan.

Read a brief history about the Medicine man and the

medicine bundle containing the sacred pipe used in

healing ceremonies. 14

Old Tom, a Blackfoot Medicine

man is alleged to have made L.

Ron Hubbard a “blood brother,”

at the age of four years old in

Montana. 21

Jim Beyer writes about his Lockheed Lodestar

airplane built in 1943. The wingless plane named

‘Betty’ sits in his yard in Hot Springs, Montana. 22

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Montana

Jeannette Pickering Rankin was born in June 1880 near Missoula, Montana. She was the first woman elected from Montana to the United States Congress, first in 1916 and later in 1940. After being elected in 1916 she said, "I may be the first woman

member of Congress but I won't be the last. A lifelong pacifist she was one of the fifty members of Congress who voted against entry into WWI in 1917. She was the

only member of Congress who voted against declaring war on Japan in 1941.

As a young girl Rankin garnered a reputation for doing things most other girls did not. She helped the ranch hands with ma-chinery and built a sidewalk single handedly to help her father. She graduated from the University of Montana with a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology. Rankin never married or had children. While attending the University of Washington she became in-volved in the women's suffage movement, becoming an organizer for the New York Women's Suffrage Party and a lobbyist for the

National American Woman Suffrage Association. Rankin made no bones over the fact that she felt the corruption and dysfunction of the U.S. government was the result of a lack of feminine participation stating, "The peace problem is a woman's problem."

In her 1916 Congressional race a Missoula newspaper reported that she most certainly lost, but as results trickled in Rankin

won her seat as a Republican to the U.S. House of Representatives by over 7,500 votes. She served in the 65th Congress. Rankin died of natural cause on May 18th, 1973 in Carmel California. For over twenty years Rankin had traveled the world,

frequently visiting India, where she studied the pacifist teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. In the 1960s and 1970s new waves of paci-

fists, feminists, and civil rights advocates idolized Rankin and embraced her efforts in ways that her generation didn't. U.S. in-volvement in Vietnam mobilized her once again. In January 1968 she established the Jeannette Rankin Brigade and led five thou-sand marchers in Washington, D.C. to protest the war, culminating in the presentation of a peace petition to House Speaker John McCormack of Massachusetts.

In 1986, the Jeannette Rankin Peace Center was established by activists from a number of small peace & justice groups in the Missoula, Montana. Based on the vision of a central clearinghouse for peace information and resources, and a meeting place to gather human spirit for peacemaking. Beginning with a small loaned room in a church basement, then to a rented storefront, it now

has its own home by the Clark Fork River in downtown Missoula establishing itself as a visible and active force for a positive fu-ture.

The Center has a Fair Trade store buying from global neighbors to impact the people and planet. What we buy and where we

buy it can make a world of difference to our global neighbors. The Jeannette Rankin

Jeannette Pickering Rankin

First Woman Elected to the

U.S. Congress

Suffragist & Pacifist

A twenty-first century woman’s legacy continues into the new millennium.

P a g e 6

Visit: http://jrpc.org/

Ida Hawkins, P.I. EIGHT DAYS by S.F. Roberts

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/westerngalspeak

Ida Hawkins has a great life as a private investigator in New York City. On a Monday in

May everything is suddenly changed by circumstances and events. A few days later Ida

finds herself on the way to Montana and ultimately to the discovery of a secret that

changes her life forever. The consummate detective she finds herself knee deep in one

mystery after another. And all of it around a handsome Tribal cop and a father she has

never met.

A brilliant job of bringing our Native American characters to life. Masterfully done...when Montana and New York meet.

A story you can’t put down. Diane Griffith

Other ebooks by S.F. Roberts: The West Old & New featuring stories about

contemporary and historic Montana. The Other Side of Dead, an anthology

of short stories. Silenced, an anthology of short stories around the Montana

environment. Simple Contentment, a book showcasing the stories of home-

steaders from 1910 on the Flathead Indian Reservation.

This book contains 23 shamanic ceremonies that any child or adult can do to heal and celebrate the

childlike nature within them. It is full of information about what shamanism is and how it can be used in

everyday life to bring clarity, ease, and joy to living. It contains two stories that follow the main charac-

ter, Pete, and his horse, Breeze, on their Vision Quests.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/298087?ref=westerngalspeak">"The Magic Circle: Shamanic Ceremonies for the

Child and the Child Within

The Magic Circle: Shamanic Ceremonies for the Child and the Child Within by: Jennifer Engracio

The Ivy Portfolio: How to Invest Like the Top Endowments and Avoid Bear Markets by: shavoy ried

A do-it-yourself guide to investing like the renowned Harvard and Yale endowments. The Ivy Portfolio

shows step-by-step how to track and mimic the investment strategies of the highly successful Harvard and

Yale endowments. Using the endowment Policy Portfolios as a guide, the authors illustrate how an investor

can develop a strategic asset allocation using an ETF-based investment approach.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/298086?ref=westerngalspeak">The Ivy Portfolio: How to Invest Like the Top En-

dowments and Avoid Bear Markets

Wolfrob by: Robert Brame

The gripping journey of a boy in an orphanage who would grow up to become one of the FBI’s most hunted

fugitives; an escape artist credited with robbing more than 100 banks for $2.5 million dollars. Brilliantly writ-

ten, this is a rare and fascinating glimpse into the mind and heart of a modern-day gentleman-gangster.

Brame shares his life of cunning escapes from jail, bold crimes of robbery.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/298076?ref=westerngalspeak">Wolfrob

Glacier National Park was established as a park on May 11, 1910 along the border of Montana and Canada.. By 1932 the Go-ing-to-the Sun Road was completed and later designated as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. Going to the Sun

Road is fifty three miles long and ventures to the top of the Continental Divide at Logan Pass, 6,646 feet and midway between the east and west sides of the park. Glacier National Park borders Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada, the two parks known as the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park.

The park encompasses 1,000,000 acres and includes the parts of two mountain ranges both sub ranges of the Rocky Moun-tains. The park has 130 named lakes, over 1,000 different species of plants and hundreds of species of animals includes mammals such as the grizzly and mountain goat, wolverine, lynx and hundreds of species of birds, dozens of fish species, and a few reptiles and amphibian species.. This vast pristine ecosystem is the centerpiece of the "Crown of the Continent Ecosystem."

The ecosystem ranges from prairie to tundra. The sedimentary rock of the park is considered to contain some of the finest fos-silized examples of early life on earth.

The Blackfeet reservation was established in 1855 and includes the eastern area of the park up to the Continental Divide. The

Blackfeet consider Chief Mountain and the region in the southeast at Two Medicine the Backbone of the World and were areas used for vision quests. In 1895 Chief White Calf of the Blackfeet authorized the sale of the mountain area to the U.S. government for $1.5 million dollars with the understanding they would maintain usage right to the land for hunting.

Between 1910 and 1913 several chalets were built including the Belton, Sperry, and Granite Park. Also built were the Glacier Park Lodge, Many Glaciers Hotel. Between the years of 1913 - 14 Lake MacDonald Lodge was built. Lake MacDonald on the western side of the park is the longest lake in the park at 9.4 miles. Some of the lakes in the park are colored an opaque turquoise by the suspended glacial silt which also causes the streams to run a milky white. The lakes of the park remain cold year round with

temperatures rarely rising above 50 degrees. Visitation to Glacier National Park averages slightly less than 2 million visitors annually according to 2008 statistics. In 2012

10 million visitors visited the state, thus the numbers are probably higher.

Two hundred waterfalls are scattered thought out the park, some of which are reduced to trickles as the summer progresses. One of the tallest is Bird Woman Falls which drops 492 feet.

In the 1980s, the U.S. Geological Survey began a systematic study of the remaining glaciers. By 2010 37 glaciers remained

but only 25 are considered "active glaciers." Scientists studying the glaciers have estimated that all the glaciers may disappear by 2020.

After the end of the Little Ice Age of 1850, the glaciers in the park retreated moderately until 1910. Between 1917 and 1941 saw a acceleration in the rate as high as 330 feet a year for some of the glaciers. A slight cooling trend from the 1940s until 1979

helped slow the retreat of the glaciers, however, during the 1980s the glaciers began a steady period of loss of ice.

Photographs of Grinnell Glacier taken between 1938 and 2009 show visual confirmation of the extent of glacier retreat.

(From left to right: Grinnell Glacier in 1938, 1981, 1998 and 2009)

Glacier NationalGlacier NationalGlacier NationalGlacier National ParkParkParkPark

To the left a photograph of St. Mary’s Lake To the left a photograph of St. Mary’s Lake To the left a photograph of St. Mary’s Lake To the left a photograph of St. Mary’s Lake

P a g e 8

P a g e 9 Improbable Odds

On August 14th, 1967, two grizzly bears attacked and killed two young women twenty miles apart in Glacier Na-

tional Park. Up to that point in the park's history there had been no maulings by Urus arctos horribilis. Soon after the fateful events of that morning hit the news a statistician using

a computer reported that the odds against one such killing on a single night were 1,000,000 : 1; the odds against two such events on the same night were 1,000,000,000,000 : 1.

Summer begins in Montana's premiere park located in the

northern most point of the Rocky Mountains in early June with snow removal on the Going-to-the Sun Road which arcs through the park taking vehicles to the top of the Continental

Divide and back down. Even in mid June the snow drifts are deep and there have been times when the road did not open until the end of June.

In June 1967 I was fifteen years of age and living on the hi-line of Montana seventy-five miles east of the park. I knew it well, having spent at least one week of my life camping there from the time I was nine years of age. We often spent the

week along the banks of McDonald Lake in the Apgar Camp-grounds. Bears were a reality, not grizzlies but black bears, who raided camp sites on a regular basis. I was the only fam-

ily member sitting up most of the night, shivering in my sleep-ing bag out of fear. I have always had a great fear of bears. I remember one particular night when while we were in repose

in a tent in the middle of a busy and well used campground a bear raided out camp. Our food boxes trashed, and a rear pas-senger window cracked on the Chevy after a bear attempted to get at a cooler with raw chicken in it. I found my marshmal-

lows in the bushes the next morning, the bag ripped open and half of them gone. I heard the news reports on the radio and felt sick at heart.

The summer of 1967 was hot and dry. The incidents in the park began in early June when the Berry family from Eph-rata, Washington went to Kelly's Camp, a generational sum-mer lodging located at the northern end of Lake McDonald on

the west side of the park. Mrs. Berry began to notice a particu-lar bear that came like clockwork to salvage food out of the garbage cans near her cabin. She paid particular attention to

this bear because it looked sickly. It's head was misshapen, it was scraggly, underweight and its claws were too long, an anomaly, since grizzlies use their claws to dig for small ani-

mals and roots. The bear was coming for the trash in the mid-dle of the day, and would have fits of anger even attacking the cabin walls and windows. She mentioned the bear to local

residents and the park ranger. The same bear was reeking havoc four miles away over

Howe ridge at Trout Creek, a popular fishing and camping site.

Eight miles as the crow files from Trout Creek was Gran-

ite Park Chalet, with a convergence of trails connected to the other parts of the park. The Chalet was four miles from Going-to-the Sun Road and twenty miles by road from Trout Creek. It was located in a pristine area and a solid two story building

that housed groups of hikers for the night beginning in July. Tom Walton and his wife Nancy were managing the chalet along with Mrs. Eileen Anderson and a crew of young women.

The Walton's and Anderson were at the Chalet in June making all the preparations for a busy summer. The park service had installed a small incinerator to burn garbage since the Chalet

sat in the middle of prime grizzly habitat. In the past the gar-bage had been dumped in a gully behind the Chalet, it was well know as a great place to watch grizzlies feed. As guest began to arrive at the Chalet it became evident that the incin-

erator was too small to be capable of burning all the garbage, and so began a nightly ritual of guests, numbering sixty to sev-enty in number would watch the bears feasting on scraps fifty

or so feet away from the Chalet. All summer a large buckskin colored grizzly and a large black grizzly would come, first one and then the other, like clockwork at the same time every

night. Down at Trout Creek a girl scout troop, fishermen, horse

riders, and campers were enjoying the scenery and almost all of them were chased off by the abnormal grizzly with the odd

shaped head. Numerous complaints were lodged with the park service.

The hot summer was presenting another problem, fires,

and the forest service busy with putting out lightening strikes didn't pay much attention to the bear problem. Bears typically did not like confrontations with humans, preferring to go the other way. Campers were coached in procedures for going into

the backcountry of the park, told to tie their food up in trees and keep their camping sites clean. The early morning hours of August 14th would change park policies on bears forever.

On the night of August 13th the Granite Chalet was packed to capacity. Robert and Janet Klein decided not to pay a twenty-five dollar fee to sleep on the Chalet floor and chose

to make camp down hill near the Granite Park Campground. Janet was aware of the bears and convinced her husband Robert to set up camp in a flat spot in the shadow of a trail cabin five hundred or so feet from the campground. They set

The story of the first recorded mauling of recreationists in Glacier

National Park in August 1967. People had gone missing never to be

found again, but on this night it was all too real when the worlds

most feared predators killed not one but two people.

To the right an old photograph of the Granite Chalet.

up camp with a plan that if a bear showed up they would be able to climb onto the metal roof of the cabin. They were

joined by Don Gullette who laid out his sleeping bag near by. A little later Roy Ducat, a busboy at East Glacier Lodge, and Julie Helgeson, nineteen of Minnesota came by looking for a

camping place. The Klein's told them about the bears, and the two laughed if off setting up a sleeping area in the camp-ground.

Earlier that same day a party of young campers made

their way to Trout Creek intent on relaxing and catching some trout. Paul Dunn, a bus boy at the East Glacier Lodge accom-panied Denise Huckle, brothers Ray and Ron Noseck, and

Michele Koons, who was working at the gift shop at the McDonald Lake Lodge. The group set up a camp and immedi-ately had a run in with the abnormal marauding bear. It was

already dark and the group decided to make it through the night sleeping around a roaring fire.

Up at Granite Chalet, after the nightly show of bears feasting on garbage, Ann Lipinski, an R.N. from Kalispell was

having a hard time sleeping. She thought she heard a woman screaming and woke her husband Dr. Lipinski who tried to convince her that it was nothing. He too then heard something

and called out down to the cabin trail, hearing back that some-thing was wrong and the words, "bear attack."

Janet and Robert had heard screaming and words, but it

was Donald Gullett who was brought out of his sleeping bag when a shadowy figure collapsed on his knees and then fell flat beside him. It was Roy Ducat. Roy bloody and in bad shape and told the three that the bear had dragged Julie into

the woods. Up at Granite Chalet a rescue team was grouped soon

making its way down with flashlights and a tub filled with fire

dragged behind them. Included in this group was Dr. Olgierd Lindan, who when he saw Roy Ducat asked for a first aid kit. Ducat kept begging the rescuers to find Julie, but the group fearful of the dark and the fact a dangerous grizzly was on the

prowl focused on saving Roy. Ripping old bed springs off a window of the trail cabin they made a stretcher and worked their way back up to the Chalet.

Joan Devereaux, a young park naturalist who had brought a group into the Chalet that day, got on a pack-set radio call-ing for help. Reaching headquarters she asked for medical

supplies and helicopter. It arrived twenty to thirty minutes later and within ten minutes had Roy Ducat loaded up and headed for the Kalispell hospital. They then formed a search party to go looking for the missing girl.

At 4:30 a.m. at Trout Creek Denise woke to see a bear loping into camp. The bear was four to five feet away when she dived into her sleeping bag holding her little dog Squirt

quiet. Paul Dunn woke and seeing the bear hunkered down. The bear grabbed his sleeping bag in its jaws catching hold of the young man's sweat shirt. Paul slapped the sleeping bag

open and leaped to his feet as the bear reared onto its hind feet. He was off and running and climbing a tree near by. Freed from their sleeping bags Denise and Ron ran for trees, climbing up to yell down to Ray and Michele who were still in

their sleeping bags. Ray freed himself yelling to Michell to unzip and run for it. The bear attacked the sleeping bag with Michele in it. She was screaming, "He's ripping off my arm!"

It was 2:45, two hours after the attack at Granite Chalet when the rescue party began look-

ing for Julie. The armed ranger in the lead the party began down at Granite Park Campground where the couple had been sleep-ing and then creeping down the slope. They kept dropping down

until they heard a muted call for help. They found the girl face down in a hollow, still alive, covered in blood, her body ripped and torn. They created another stretcher from the window bed springs of the trail cabin and took Julie up to the Chalet. After

numerous attempts to save her life, Julie passed away at 4:12 a.m.

Sunday morning the three campers from Trout Creek made

it to the Ranger Station. A ranger with a loaded Magnum ac-companied Paul and Ray back to the camp site in Trout Creek to find the missing girl. They found Michele Koon in a depression

in the earth that marked where grizzlies or humans had buried garbage. She was dead and mutilated beyond recognition.

Late Sunday and early Monday morning three bears were killed up at the Granite Chalet. All were females, one with two

cubs who bawled and cried after her death. One cub was hit by a random shot to scare them away and was put down a year later, from injuries to its jaw.

On Monday August 15th two rangers went into Trout Creek to hunt the abnormal marauding bear suspected of killing Michele Koon. The two men ended up in a shelter cabin for the

night, and the next morning when Gildart stepped out to the stream a few paces from the cabin he was met by the bear. After the bear was killed with each man shooting, one to the chest, and the other to the head Gildart commented, "She was stalking

us. And that's not normal for a grizzly." The Montana Livestock Sanitary Board examined the

brains of all four bears and found none to be rabid. Blood on the

claws of the old sow Granite Park bear proved to be non-human, but she was convicted of the Julie Helgeson attack on strong circumstantial evidence. The Trout Creek grizzly had 65 hairs of Caucasian origin in her stomach.

After the summer of 1967 new more stringent rules and restraints were placed on hikers

going into the back country of the park.

The facts in this account ap-pear in Jack Olen's book,

"Night of the Grizzlies." Pub-lished in 1969 by

G.P. Putnam's Sons, of NY. To the right is a photograph of

Donald Gullett

with the bear that allegedly killed

Julie

Helgeson.

P a g e 1 0

P a g e 1 1

George Lakhovsky’s

Electrotherapy Machine

By Sandra Sitzmann-Kennedy,LMT

George Lakhovsky pioneered the MWO, using twelve oscillating rings and

two antenna. This human research tested RF radio frequencies and was done origi-nally in a French hospital. It eventually expanded around the world with participat-ing physicians and doctors using the MWO. Medical reports show results with

cancer, goiter, enlarged prostate and gastro-duodenal ulcers. One hospital recorded cancer case cited," The most striking example of a cancerous tumor cured by the Lakhovsky MWO, involving an 82 year old patient.” Before photos and after pho-tos showed that the cancer completely disappeared, and the skin showed distinct

signs of rejuvenation as well. In a New York Hospital it was noted that arthritis, congenital hip and fractures resulted in improvements ranging from good to marked improvements.

As a result of numerous successful reports, Lakhovsky declared, “As all the RF-radio frequency radiations generated by the MWO apparatus, are of an electrostatic nature, they can not overheat or burn the tissues. The action of the MWO is purely electri-cal plasma.”

Twelve rings corresponded to the twelve frequencies of the cellular structure of the human body. Why is this significant? When any frequency misfires, is out of order, or non-functioning at the cellular level, a magnetic disturbance is set up in the cell(s), thus blocking the regeneration, rejuvenation and longevity of the cell(s). Here is an understandable analogy. If you had a twelve cylinder car, and you pulled one wire off that one spark plug feeding that cylinder, the engine would continue to run on

eleven cylinders. However, it would not operate to its maximum efficiency. Similarly, if the living cell(s) in your body is/are mal-functioning, as compared to that non-functioning car cylinder, then the cell(s) of your body are not going to function optimally either. Illness may eventually set in, unless remedied, and leading to premature death.

Existing RF-radio waves are broadcast through antennae or antenna depending on the model used. The electromagnetic en-ergy charges the chakra/chakras (vortexes of energy connected to the glands). It is then distributed via the nervous system to the organs and tissues. Electromagnetisms is the first responder in the event your cell(s) encounter tragedy, emergency situations, or

are under attack (self-sabotage or otherwise), targeted for guilt, blame or depression. Create whatever scenarios you like. MWO to the rescue! How you program yourself at the mental, physical, emotional and intuitive levels significantly affects your health, one way or another, due to free will.

There is evidence that electrotherapy works, as seen in Electro-Photography called Kirlian photography. When someone gets

illness of some kind, it means that the cells of organs, tissues, and/or systems are subjected to stressors and are malfunctioning. It can be detected with Kirlian Photography, as demonstrated by Russian scientists, Semyon and Valentine Kirlian. In the 1960's. Kirlian Photography was used to identify black lung disease (a form of cancer) at the magnetic stage of six months to one year be-

fore it physically manifested in the body. Rumanians photographed miners with black lung disease. They did this every three months. The cancerous cells had changed polarity, and became illuminated among the healthy cells, so cancer was detected. What they had photographed was the vital electromagnetic energy body, which is the first and primary cause necessary in order to re-main in good health. Once the cancerous cells were spotted, the miners were treated with high frequency applications. Cancerous

cells would mutate back, or disappear without manifesting in the physical body as cancer. It shows a preview of what is going to manifest at a physical level? How can that be? It has been discovered that the cells in

the human body are coated with crystalline matter, in order for the cells to communicate with each other. Much like the RF- radio

frequency waves cells innately broadcast and receive. If you have an unhealthy condition, major or minor, or even a cold it means your cells are not communicating optimally for whatever reason.

This misfiring may start at the mental level (perhaps your Doctor says you are soon going to die and you believe it), perhaps

at the emotional level (constant anger settles in the liver so it may refuse to function properly), or the intuitive/inherited genetic level (my parents have arthritis so I will have arthritis). It is our own pre-programming that makes us healthy or ill. Just change the program to override your own unhealthy thoughts etc and conditions, even from inherited genetics. The quote, “Physician, heal thyself,” is pertinent in regards to this.

Electro-Photography can identify conditions and Electro-Therapy can be one of many effective solutions for the body to re-pair itself.

At the top is a photo of George Lakhovsky with his first Multiple Wave Oscillator Antenna machine.

Let the Power of Water Awaken a Multi-Dimensional You What exactly does that mean? The benefits are endless but some of the effects you can experience are:

Awakening your spiritual self - Consciously creating your reality - A calmness and sense of knowing what to do

and when to do it - Less worry, less stress - easily deal with any negativity in your life - Abundant living - an

opening to receive your desires - Manifesting more of what you want and less of what you don't

Are you ready to awaken? The 12th Project can be your tool to enlightenment.

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P a g e 1 2


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A Brief History on the Blackfeet Medicine Man

In 2003 I was trying to finish my novel, Ida Hawkins, “Eight Days.” In the book a young Blackfeet man talks about taking a medicine bundle which had belonged to his grandfather, after his death. To make the novel historically correct I did research on

Blackfeet medicine bundles, which contain the stem of sacred pipes used in healing ceremonies. Below is some of the information currently available regarding medicine bundles and pipes. A few years back there was a controversy regarding many of the Black-feet tribes medicine bundles, as they had been bought by a local man on the reservation and were going to be given to a museum in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada, thus leaving the country of their origin. Medicine bundles are considered sacred and they were

treated with great reverence by the owners of the bundles, which were passed down.

The person whom the whites term "medicine man" is called by the Blackfeet Ni-namp'-skan. Mr. Schultz believes this word to be compounded of nin'nah, man, and namp'-ski, horned toad (Phrynosoma), and in this he is supported by Mr. Thomas Bird, a

very intelligent half-breed, who has translated a part of the Bible into the Blackfoot language for the Rev. S. Trivett, a Church of England missionary. These gentlemen conclude that the word means "all-face man." The horned toad is called namp'-ski, all-face; and as the medicine man, with his hair done up in a huge topknot, bore a certain resemblance to this creature, he was so named. No

one among the Blackfeet appears to have any idea as to what the word means.

The medicine pipes are really only pipe stems, very long, and beautifully decorated with bright-colored feathers and the fur of the weasel and other animals. It is claimed that these stems were given to the people long, long ago, by the Sun, and that those who

own them are regarded by him with special favor.

Formerly these stems were valued at from fifteen to thirty head of horses, and were bought and sold like any other property. When not in use, they were kept rolled up in many thicknesses of fine tanned fur, and with them were invariably a quantity of tobacco, a sacred whistle, two sacred rattles,

and some dried sweet grass, and sweet pine needles. In the daytime, in pleasant weather, these sacred bundles were hung out of doors behind the owners' lodges, on tripods. At night they were suspended within, above the owners' seat It was said that

if at any time a person should walk completely around the lodge of a medicine man, some bad luck would befall him. Inside the lodge, no one was allowed to pass be-tween the fireplace and the pipe stem. No one but a medicine man and his head wife could move or unroll the bundle. The man and his wife were obliged always to keep

their faces, hands, and clothing painted with nits'-i-san, a dull red paint, made by

burning a certain clay found in the bad lands.

The Ni-namp'-skan appears to be a priest of the Sun, and prayers offered through

him are thought to be specially favored. So the sacred stem is frequently unrolled for the benefit of the sick, for those who are about to undertake a dangerous expedition, such as a party departing to war, for prayers for the general health and prosperity of the people, and for a bountiful supply of food. At the present time these ancient ceremonies have largely fallen into disuse. In fact, since the disappearance of the buffalo, most of the old customs are dying out. The photograph above is an example of what a pipe

stem would have looked like, with the hides of the totem animals and feathers.

P a g e 1 4

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John A. Rhone grew up in the Little Bitterroot Valley of western Montana. His father started the first newspaper in the valley in 1911. In the 1960s Rhone wrote a column for

the “Hot Springs Citizen Newspaper,” titled “Silver Spurs & Rawhide Ropes,” defining the early stories of the area. Rhone’s column left a record of the earliest Indian’s living in the valleys. According

to Rhone, Coyola was a Nez Perce who established a ranch where the Little Bitterroot emptied into the Flathead, now known as Sloan’s Bridge. Coyola owned quite a large

number of horses and some cattle. Coyola, as told to Rhone, was around when a band of Indians annihilated a group of emigrants in Idaho or Oregon. There was one white woman who survived and Coyola rescued her from the rest of the Indians, and took her

south to find some white people for her to stay with. After a long journey, the couple met a train of emigrants and Coyola left the woman with them returning to his people, only to find he wasn’t very popular. That is how he ended up bringing his band of po-nies to the Flathead. Rhone states after living in this valley he left here for his native Pendleton at the age of one-hundred and

three. Other Nez Perce in the valley were Ollicutt with a ranch in the Horseshoe Bend and a man named Jackson, who resided at

Jackson’s Bend below the present Buffalo Bridge. “These Nez Perce, in spite of their horses being wild, were good riders and

stockmen, as well as good neighbors and citizens. It is perhaps due to them that there were so many Appaloosa and Roan horses with white stocking feet and blaze faces. The latter noted for being good stock horses and having lots of endurance.”

In another column titled, “Dim Trails,” cites the Camas Prairie Indians, of which little information remains. One such man he liked to write about was Chief Michell, who was one of the most prominent of the group of Indians who made their homes on the

lower end of Camas Prairie. Rhone states he got his information on Chief Michell from C.H. Rittenour of Plains who had known Michell since 1902. Michell was a picturesque Indian, as Rhone remembers him. “He was an extra big Indian with long braids of hair hanging over his shoulders. He wore the large, wide brim hat popular with Indians of that day, the blanket leggings, beaded

moccasins and bright colored blanket thrown over his shoulders.” Rittenour told Rhone that Michell ran four hundred head of cat-tle and many horses. When Michell made a cattle or horse sale he would insist upon being paid in gold or silver and put the money in tin cans located in a log cabin near his teepee. The door of the cabin was fastened with a chain and padlock. One night during a

dance at his place in the fall of 1902 some one broke the chain or padlock and stole about twenty thousand in gold and silver. Rhone states that this class of Indians made an impression on him. “They use to come to Plains in groups, pitch their teepees

down by the stockyards or on some vacant lot long the main street of Plains and make life interesting for the residents. They would get drunk and have fights among themselves, and have lots of fun. They never seemed to steal anything or molest the residents,

although more than one housewife would be startled when she looked up and saw a big Indian standing in the kitchen staring at her. I know, this happened to my mother one time and the fuss she made is well remembered.” Rhone states the Camas Prairie Indians were a trusting lot, “…not yet wised up to the slick ways of the white men.” Rhone believes there was a class of men in

Plains who made a living off of these Indians, selling them whiskey and taking them in horse deals. The principal income of the Camas Prairie Indians was from their horses which they sold to professional buyers. There were a few good riders and more good ropers among them.

Old Stories about the Native Americans

by John Rhone

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Lightening RidgeLightening RidgeLightening RidgeLightening Ridge

A True Story told by Rick Sherman

A light frost clung to the grass and the brush. The early morning sun cast long fingers through the trees, warming the

ledge I sat on. It was just outside the lodge and I liked to sit there in the morning, eat my hot oatmeal and daydream about the cutthroat in the deep hole fifty feet below me in the Spot-

ted Bear River. I had a few morning chores and then the rest of the morning was mine to fish.

My dad called out the door of the lodge to let the horses out. I finished up my oatmeal and headed for the corrals. The

morning sun was cutting through the trees in shafts of light through the early mists. Birds were singing and it was warm-ing up nicely. I walked to the back of the corrals and opened

the gate that led into the woods and out into open land. I watched as all but the wrangle horse headed out the gate

and bolted for temporary freedom and a belly full of grass. My

father’s angry voice cut through my morning reverie, “Rick, you didn’t bell them!” I snapped out of my daydream too late to stop the last of the horses as they ran out the gate. “God dammit Rick, you know how hard they are to find out there

without bells. What the hell were you thinking? Go get them before they get too far.”

I quickly bridled Pete, an old stout pinto left in the corral

as this week’s wrangle horse, jumped on bareback and headed out in pursuit. I tried to kick Pete into a lope to catch up, but couldn’t get more than a brutally choppy trot out of him. I had

a skinny butt and he had a spine like a 2x6. In less than half a mile, I couldn’t take the pounding anymore, hopped off and started walking back to get a saddle. My dad rolled up in his truck, saw me walking and assumed I had been dumped.

When he found out that I had wimped out, his concern turned to anger and he tore into me again.I was humiliated and ashamed that I had blown such a simple chore with the poten-

tial consequence of jeopardizing the whole business. My frus-tration with my own foolishness was as almost as bad as my dad’s verbal beating. I walked back, saddled up and rode out again. I was glad to be riding alone.

Fortunately, twenty horses are easy to track. I had hoped they would go a short distance and then eat. Unfortunately, they picked up on the fact that someone was coming after

them and kept moving. They went about a mile up the Spotted Bear River and then turned up a draw toward Horse Ridge. I followed on Pete for hours tracking them up the mountain. I

was in an area I had never been before and I had never done this on my own. It concerned me, little jabs of doubt gnawed at my gut, but I kept my eye on the trail, determined to correct my mistake.

It was a hell of a climb up through heavy old growth tim-ber. We side-hilled it through the open parks when we could and picked our way around and through the out- crops of an-

cient red shale when we had to.

The sun was high when Pete and I broke out on Horse Ridge. I could see down on the Diamond R way below. I was

high enough to see into the Bob Marshall and get a feel for how much landscape there was to hide in. The ridge was open with long, slick rock flats skewed at steep angles, terminating

to short vertical cliffs below us. Pete chugged at a steady pace up the ridge.

We continued to climb even higher on the ridge, when the usual afternoon thunderstorm moved in on us. The clouds

boiled in around the ridge turning the sunny afternoon dark and cold. The wind picked up hard and visibility dropped to next to nothing. Then the lightning started. The flash of the

lightning and boom of the thunder was simultaneous. I could feel the concussion of the thunder and taste the bitterness of electricity in the air, like licking the electrodes on a battery. A

bolt of lightning struck a point below where we rode. At every flash I tensed and grabbed the horn, expecting Pete to blow out from under me. Pete trudged on, never flinching, just keeping that steady pace going through the wind, the thunder

and the rain. I was scared to death, but took strength from Pete’s resolve.

Eventually the trail dropped off the ridge and out of the

storm. We worked our way down into the next drainage to the north, keeping after the horses until we finally caught up with them in a meadow near the bottom. Pete and I kept pushing

them down until we hit a logging road. At that point, they seemed willing to head back home and kept a steady trot for miles down to the main South Fork road.

It was getting dark by the time I brought the herd through

the front gate of the ranch and into the corral. My father was just heading out in the truck for another attempt at finding me. The look on his face was relief, then pride, as I pushed the

herd past the lodge. The lodge guests were having dinner and they all came out to watch me wrangle the herd in. I rode tall as I passed them, pretending not to notice.

I closed the gate behind the herd, unsaddled and grained

Pete, then belled the lead horses, and let them out again. My father gave me a subdued “Atta boy” and a pat on the back. Karl, the hired

man, took me aside and said, “Good work. You did a man’s job today.” He glanced over his shoulder at my father

walking back to the lodge. “I think your dad learned something today, too.” I felt like I was eight feet tall. I corrected a foolish mistake and did a

man’s job to do it. Rick Sherman is a graphics art-

ists living in Potomac, Montana.

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The West Old & New

Follow contemporary essays on life in Montana

http://thewestoldandnew.wordpress.com

Old Tom - Blackfoot Medicine Man

Old Tom is the name of an alleged Blackfoot medicine man who lived in Montana during the early twentieth century. Some sources suggest that he may have been Piegan or Sarcee. In 1910, Harry Pollard photographed a member of the Sarcee or Tsuu

T'ina Blackfoot tribe in Calgary Alberta whom he identified as Old Tom . In 1924, T. J. Hileman photographed a member of the Piegan Blackfeet tribe of Montana whom he identified as Old Tom. Hileman's photos are notable for showing garments and hair-styles of the Kainai and South Peigan. The Glenbow Museum has 107 of T. J. Hileman's photos of Montana Blackfoot people in

their archives, dating from 1924 to 1940, and the 1924 T.J. Hileman Old Tom photo is among them. Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard claimed that as a four-year-old boy in Montana, he became the protégé of a Blackfeet Indian medicine man named Old Tom, who made him a blood brother of the tribe in 1915. Hubbard's claim has been disputed by tribal officials and archivist Hugh

Dempsey, associate director of the Glenbow Museum. In addition, Dempsey stated that the name "Old Tom" does not appear in

the 1907 Blackfeet enrollment register. However, the name does appear in the Glenbow ( Wikipedia article )

The Piegan referenced as the “Blackfeet” reside in the U.S. across the border from the “Blood” reservation in Canada who are

called Blackfoot.

Doing research on Blackfeet medicine people I came across the claim of blood brotherhood by L. Ron Hubbard. Hubbard alleg-edly stated that at the that at the age of four years old he was made a 'blood brother' of the Blackfeet Indians of Montana by a medicine man named "Old Tom. This provided Hubbard with the inspiration for the Scientology founder's first novel, "Buckskin

Brigades." But one expert on the tribe doesn't buy Hubbards account. Historian Hugh Dempsey is associated director of the Glen-bow Museum in Calgary, Canada. He has extensively researched the tribe, of which his wife is a member. He said that blood brothers are, "An old Hollywood idea" and that the act was "never

done among the Blackfeet." As for "Old Tom" Dempsey has informed doubts. For one thing, he said, the name does not appear in the 1907 Blackfeet enrollment register containing the names of hundreds of tribal members. For another "It's the kind of name, for that period (1915) that would practically not exist among the Blackfeet," he said. "At that time, Blackfeet did not have Christian

names."

In 1985, church leaders produced a document that they say proves Hubbard was not lying. Typed on Blackfeet Nation stationery, it states: "To commemorate the seventieth anniversary of L. Ron

Hubbard becoming a blood brother of the Blackfeet Nation Tree Manyfeathers in a ceremony re-

established L. Ron Hubbard as a blood brother to the Blackfeet Tribe."

The document actually is meaningless because none of the three men who signed it were authorized to take any action on the tribe's behalf, according to Blackfeet Nation officials. The document was

created by Richard Mataisz, a Scientologist of fractional Indian descent. Mataisz said in an inter-view he tried to prove that Hubbard was a Blackfeet blood brother but came up empty handed. To the right is the Glenbow Archives photograph of Old Tom.

P a g e 2 0

Never on Friday

A true story by Jerry Hansen of Anaconda, Montana

The Converter Department of the Washoe Reduction Works in Anaconda, Montana was overwhelmingly Irish.

Dominick Judge, a worker there, bragged to his coworkers that his dog would not eat meat on Friday. Finally, his co-

workers challenged him and a bet was made. The challengers agreed to stop by Judge’s home, after shift, with some

hamburger.

Arriving at the Judge’s residence on Friday, Dominick invited them into the kitchen where he spread a newspaper on the floor. The hamburger was placed on the paper. Dominick then called the dog into the house and showed the dog the

meat. The dog sniffed the goodies, licked his chops, but he did not dine! Those who had bet tried every way imaginable

to entice the dog to eat, but the mutt could not be coaxed. In amazement the visitors paid off Dominick and left.

After their departure, Dominick scooped up the newspaper and put it on the back porch where the dog wiped out the

hamburger. The dog refused to eat indoors.

P a g e 2 1

Shadow

By Bud Cheff, Jr. Excerpted from the Ninepipes Museum of

Early Montana Qtrly Newsletter #48 – Fall

2011

This week a 600 lb. old male grizzly was killed by the FWP game warden in the Swan Valley, just over the divide from the ranch. In July of 2010 this bear was caught and tagged by

the Tribal Bear Managers here on the reserva-tion, close to our ranch. It was released on the reservation, but left the valley and traveled over

the Mission Range to the Swan Valley where he lost his collar. He broke into a number of out-buildings in the Swan Valley this fall and was

killed in the interest of public safety. They said he weighed 600 lbs, was more than 20 years old and some of his teeth were worn to the gums. The age, size, and history of this old bear makes me think it had to be my friend, Shadow. The spring of 2010 was the last time we

saw him, and if he weighed 600 lbs now in his old age, he would probably have weighted 700 in his prime, which is what I guessed Shadow weighed.

In all the years he spent here he never caused us any problems, but he left us with some good memories. He made his winter

den here on the ranch four times that I knew of. It was always a treat on a sunny, warm winter day to see his tracks where he had come out of his den and checked things out, going back to his den to continue his snooze. In my mind I can see the big bear rolling and playing in the snow, and in the summer running through the sprinklers in the meadow, never breaking a sprinkler head. A cou-ple of times he scared the dickens out of me, but it was always my fault, and being a gentleman, he gave me another chance. So

long, Shadow, thanks for the memories. Ninepipes Museum of Early Montana History is located on 93 North near Ronan, Montana. The museum sits on the west side

of the Mission Mountains in a large log building and has an extensive collection of Native American photographs, beading, and

other homesteader artifacts. Above a photograph of Ninepipes with the Mission Mountains in the background. Photograph by S.F. Roberts Visit their website at: www.ninepipesmuseum.org

A Winter Story from 1887

Patricia Mullen tells the story of how her grandfather on her mother’s side, James Wishart survived a brutal blizzard in January 1887. James was from Scotland and a Hudson Bay Trader in Canada’s Selkirk

Settlement on the Red River. James had driven a pair of Indian ponies hitched to a homemade sleigh 35 miles to Gleichen and as he prepared to return home, he was advised against it because a big blizzard was on the way. James thinking he was dressed warmly enough in buffalo coat and cap, wool mittens, badger skin gaunt-lets, moose hide moccasins and wrapped in buffalo robes left for home. When he was about ten miles from his destination the bliz-

zard hit so bad he drove into a coulee and dug into a bank of snow where he spent two days and nights living on flour and snow. The snow bank grew heavy and had to be dug away every few hours. Jim had covered one pony with a tarp and tied him to the sleigh turning the other one loose. On the third day the blizzard subsided and he started home. When his legs failed he crawled

until exhausted he lay down to die just a half mile from home. Looking out the window his wife saw a dark object in the snow and calling her son; they hurried up the hill and found him.

He was unconscious, but his wife’s knowledge of Indian medicine and surgery saved her husband’s life. James toes had been frozen solid and developed gangrene. His wife to save his life, place his feet on a block of wood, and

held the butcher’s knife over them while her son struck it with a hammer. James survived and the rest of his life hobbled around in moccasins. He could never wear shoes. Above a photograph of a contemporary Montana winter scene. Photograph by S.F. Roberts

I live in a small rural Montana community and am the proud owner of a Lockheed Lodestar airplane built in 1943. I took my

first airplane ride when I was one year of age, crying all the way from Miami to Key West, a forewarning of a lengthy love hate relationship with aviation. Flying in the back of a commercial airline, I figured that if I was not going to die in an airplane, I might as well live in one."

I grew up in an aviation family, my father starting his career with Pan American in 1943. In 1962 my parents created an avia-tion consulting company, and upon graduation I was offered a job in the family firm. I have worked for the company for the last thirty-five years, writing a monthly magazine about the commercial airline businesses concerning what they buying and selling and what airplanes are worth.

Twenty years ago, the airline industry was in a deep depression and airlines were retiring perfectly good jet liners by the thou-sands. It gave him the idea that some of them could be converted into houses. "I thought this would be a better idea than crushing airplanes and turning them into beer cans."

Seven years ago he attended an auction at Hawkins & Powers Aviation in Greybull, Wyoming. "The company had filed for bankruptcy and its inventory of two dozen 1940s and 50s era Air Force transports were sold off. It was there that I discovered how cheap old airplanes were and how difficult it would be to move them. Undaunted, I decided to try to buy a big airplane of my

own." In 2008 he met Gary Hilton, whom he describes as a jolly, Santa-shaped, 'good-ol-boy' truck driver from Missouri, who hap-

pens to own a World War II, Lockheed Harpoon Navy patrol bomber. "He bought the plane in Buffalo, Wyoming and intended to truck it back to his home near Kansas City. A group of plane nuts and I, spent a week carefully unbolting the wings from his

bomber. I quickly realized I had found a person to move my plane, when ever it got it." Jim began putting feelers out to buy an airplane fuselage in the same manner of Goldilocks' testing the bear's porridge. It had

to be just right. It had to cool. "Over the next two years, I found planes that were too many things: too big, too small, too expen-

sive, or too far away. In the mean time, Gary wrote and said he bought a second Lockheed airplane. This one had been abandoned at Texarkana Airport in 1996. Gary intended to do great things with the plane, but quickly realized he had more projects than he

A Plane Nut By Jim Beyer

P a g e 2 2

could deal with. The airport authority told him to, "Get that piece of junk off our property." I commiserated with him about his dilemma and offered to help him out."

The plane was a Lockheed L-18 Lodestar that had been delivered to the U.S. Army Air Force as a C-60A military transport. It was operated in Cuba in the 1940s and was then converted into a VIP transport for U.S. Corporations, a 1950s version of an execu-tive jet. As the plane aged it was sold to more and more dubious owners. One fellow painted the name, 'Burbank Bitch," on the

planes nose and a swastika on the tail fins, and lived in the it while it was parked at the Burbank Airport. It and another L-18 were bought by a cargo airline and were converted into freighters in Texarkana, at which point the entire passenger interior was re-moved. The airline ran out of money and the planes were forsaken like a foreclosed house. Gary purchased the plane with the in-tention of taking it apart and tailoring it to his home. In January, the airport authority contacted him saying he had thirty days to

move the Lodestar or it would be crushed for scrape. I offered to buy the fuselage if he would deliver the airplane without its wings. Gary managed to sell the outer wings to a pilot in New Zealand who had crashed his Lodestar. But things got ugly. With one week and no crew to carefully remove the wings, Gary and his son used a huge skill saw cut the wings off, thereby turning the

airplane into a Dodo -- an extinct flightless bird. The wingless bird was strapped to a 30 foot gooseneck trailer and towed to a truck stop outside of Kansas City. Eventually the

staff at the truck stop got tired of answering questions about the plane and ordered it off the property. By this time, Gary and I had

made plans to truck the Lodestar to my home in Montana. Gary drove all day to Sioux Falls, South Dakota where he met Robert Knopp at the airport. You can imagine the stir it caused to the TSA when he tried to pick Rob up a the arrivals terminal, while tow-ing a 50 foot long aluminum whale.

It took them another twenty-four hours to get deep into Montana. I made elaborate plans to meet them in Missoula, but they

got there early. Tired of waiting and armed with a MapQuest map and directions to my house, they headed north. I met them on the road that evening and my reaction on seeing the big red crew-cab Dodge diesel being chased by a low flying bomber was, "Holy Cow!" This, as Gary put it, was the reaction of dozens of drivers along the way. He was constantly being barraged by ques-

tions at gas stations and restaurants about the plane and pulled over several times by people wanting to take photos. It took us approximately four hours to back the trailer onto my property, build a railroad tie crib beside the trailer and then

jack up the fuselage. Gary then pulled the trailer out from under the precariously balanced plane.

Now the question was what to do with it. The plane is both a 'Field of Dreams,' and a potential money pit. It is a blank canvas or a block of marble that awaits the artist's touch. I intend to mount the fuselage on a boat trailer so that it is mobile and towable. Other than that I have ideas, but no definite plans. The Lodestar can become a travel trailer, a hot dog stand, a movie theater, a guest cabin, a class room, a club house, or a chicken coop. I am not sure what the exterior should look like either. I can polish it to

a mirror finish, paint it like an airliner, a bomber, a graffiti scrawled train car or the Merry Prankster's bus. All it takes is time and money. I figure it is a year-long project, but projects take twice as long and cost three times as much as planned. The kind of pro-ject you know is a bad idea but you do it anyway. I would like to credit (or blame) my sweetheart for supporting my dream project.

I named the airplane, "Betty." To the left a photograph of the wingless “Betty” where it now sits in Beyer’s yard. Photograph by S.F. Roberts

P a g e 2 3



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