Crow Fair 2015 Camp Life

Posted on September 5, 2015 by Dwight Lutsey

This post has been moved to OpenChutes.com. All future postings of Powwows, Indian Relay Races, Rodeos and Rendezvous will be posted there from now on exclusively. So if you’re looking for new images and posts for all those events attended this year, plus all the old posts posted on BigShotsNow.com check out OpenChutes.com. See you there!

Camp life at the Crow Fair is filled with opposites. Some times the camp is a wash of chaotic activity as everyone gets ready to attend the dance ceremonies or the parades and other times, like this morning, which happened to be a Sunday morning, everything was calm and serene.

Walking through the camp in the early morning just after sunup everything is still. There are no motor sounds yet from vehicles, or people calling from one area to another. It is quiet. The only sounds you hear are the horses gently calling to each other and the quiet sounds of camp life where people are just stirring, thinking about getting breakfast going, standing out by their lodges seeing what kind of day it is going to be. It is a good time to see the camp.

Horses are feeding, taking advantage of this quiet time. Soon enough they’ll be as excited as anyone else in the camp to be getting ready to attend the various activities.

The teepees are clustered closely together which usually means a large family group are all settled in next to one another.

Many groups fly the American flag above their camp.

A horse is waiting for someone to come and take him the river for a long drink. He’s just heard some other horses go by as early risers get a start on the day.

This is 2015 not 1876 and the rides are different for some of the people. It’s likely there is a horse tucked away somewhere but there is also a new breed of horse, a mechanized one, and it seems fitting to see it tied up in front of the lodge.

It’s unsure whether these folks that occupy this lodge are coming or going as it looks vacant. The topping to go on the arbor isn’t all in place up on the roof yet, so we’re betting on their coming.

Horses resting up for the day to come. Their owners lodge is just visible up over the hill.

There are many of these wall tents in the camp. Someone told me they serve as overflow if the teepees are overcrowded. He also told me he’d rather be in a teepee as the tents were too hot. The opening at the top of the teepees can be adjusted to let the hot air out so they were cooler to be in. After 100+ degree days any thing that would offer coolness was in high demand.

Placed against the tree line for shade and to block any wind this is a well placed group of lodges.

These riders are taking their horses down to the river for a drink. It’s also a good time to talk about whatever young women talk about.

The doors of the lodges are all facing the trees. you can see extra lodge poles leaning against the tree line.

There were some teepees that were decorated or painted but the majority were of white weathered canvas.

One evening after the dances ended very late, it seems that my vehicle misplaced itself and I wandered for several hours through the maze of teepees trying to find it. By about 1:30 in the morning I had found all 1200 of the tepees but not my Jeep. Of course never having been lost before in my life I neglected to bring a flashlight and since there is a major absence of street lights in a Crow camp, finding ones way about was difficult. Fortunately I learned an old Indian trick that night and turned on my flashlight app on my cell phone and eventually I found this red striped teepee that I remembered seeing on the way in and shortly after found the Jeep. There are always adventures on these trips, some big, some little. This was a little one even though it didn’t feel that way as it was happening.

There were some teepees whose decoration had an unmistakable meaning

Horses picketed amongst the lodges was an amazing sight to see. The mix of old ways and new was constantly presented to the observer.

The patina on these lodges indicated that they had seen plenty of use. The ivory color was perfect for the setting.

It’s getting a little later in the morning now and this horse was definitely interested in going to the river. Shortly after this picture was taken he got his wish.

This is the Little Bighorn river as it wends its way through the camp. It’s quite shallow here so it’s easy to ride the horses down to the edge.

Some of the horses were eager to wade out in the water where it was slightly deeper, others preferred to drink at the bank.

Boys bringing ponies down to get their drink. There was no horse-play here, pardon the pun, as these guys proceeded to get the stock watered. No rock throwing or goofing around, they got the job done well and were soon on their way back to camp.

A teepee set up along the river. They had shade all day and you could hear the river running by as well. A bonus for picking a great spot.

An overview of a small portion of the camp from a little ridge that ran along the back of the camp.

While out on the edge of the camp and looking towards the plains a flock of Prairie chickens passed by going swiftly over the exposed hilltop to the safety of the ravine on the other side.

This is a panorama made up of 25 pictures stitched together to try and show the size of the camp. If the picture were printed out it would be over 8′ long. Consequently to compress it down to this size so it would fit on to the page of the blog, details are very small indeed. If you click on it to see the slightly larger version you can see a little more. But as it was only intended to give you a sense of scale and an overview of just how large the encampment is, hopefully it does that, even if you can’t make out who it is sitting in front of that back teepee is.

It is a good feeling to see that many lodges together and the people that fill them living together in harmony. When you think that there might be an average of four people to a lodge that is 4800 people. That’s a small town any where you want one.. What a great experience to have, to be able to see and take part in this get together. Crow Fair 2015.

Blackfeet North American Indian Days – Parade

Posted on July 25, 2015 by Dwight Lutsey

The North American Indian Days is an annual event held on the Blackfeet Indian reservation usually in July and is billed as one of the biggest tribal get-togethers in North America. They say North American instead of the Unites States because some of the participants are from tribes that live in Canada. It lasts for about a week, four days according to the advertisements, but everybody’s there early and leaves late so plan on at least five or six days if you want the full experience.

Parades are special events. Whether they’re in New York city or Browning Montana they’re first and foremost about people. Who they are, what they’re like, what they do, what they love, what they believe in. It’s all about gathering together and sharing their lives. The North American Indian Days parade is no different. On a slightly overcast morning everyone that wasn’t in the parade gathered to watch it. The street filled up early with spectators and there wasn’t a space along the parade route that you could fit a folding chair into. Excitement began to build as you could hear the sirens of the escorts leaving the staging area a mile away. Suddenly two dogs, apparently unable to stand the suspense, took it upon themselves to open the parade by setting the pace for the oncoming participants. The crowd loved it and gave them a rousing round of applause.

As always the colors were presented and led in by the towns police cars.

First came the leaders

Then individuals

Then came the North American Indian Days royalty

Queens

and Princesses

Those who serve

Those who remember

Those who can never forget

New generations

Those who love their heritage

Those who participate

Those who value togetherness

Those who leave their mark

Those just beginning

Those who pass on their values

Those who follow in their footsteps

Those with youth and vitality

Those who are proud of their past and who they are

Those who look to the future

Those that love life

And those that bridge the past and the present.

This was a splendid parade, a handmade parade, full of all the strength and enthusiasm of a people who know who they are and celebrate it. It wasn’t a big flashy money driven parade with huge balloons and large floats but it didn’t need those. This parade was created with love and pride and a sense of continuity of people who have lived this life for a long time and will continue to live it no matter how they adapt to the future. Their past, their heritage, will always be a part of how they face whatever comes next.

The Word’s Out

Posted on May 14, 2015 by Dwight Lutsey

When we, and the we would be me, The Director of the World Famous Institute and any of the many staffers and interns we choose to bring along, attempt to slip into Yellowstone National Park for our annual inspection tour, we try to do it on the sly. We don’t want the usual Pomp And Circumstance, the parades, the cheering crowds, we want to be able to travel anonymously through out the park without everyone coming up for autographs and offers of sexual favors and incredible investment possibilities. We’re here to work.

But somehow and to this date I have never figured out how, the word gets out. No matter how carefully we tell people that we’re going back to the park and it’s like a secret, don’t tell anybody kind of thing, the animals, the park personnel, the wait staff at all the park restaurants, they all seem to know about it before we do. As a wildlife photographer I can only assume we have a mole in our organization.

Our advance scouts that we send in to get things scoped out for us have been sending back pictures and as you can see all the major players are aware of our impending arrival. It ‘s like when a restaurant gets advance notice that the health inspector is coming, you won’t find a cleaner kitchen. You could do surgery in that kitchen. Well it’s the same in the park. The wolves clean up their act, only killing the healthy good looking elk and not showing you the carcasses of all the little rabbits, voles, dead stuff off the highway and other disgusting things they eat. This hampers our ability to get the nitty-gritty on what’s really going on.

The wolves are the smartest ones of the bunch and they post watchers around the most likely spots we’ll hit, like this one at the Cascade Creek area near Canyon. We’ve seen this guy before and he is a world-class blabbermouth. If he’s seen our scouts and you can be sure he has, he’s looking right at one, we might as well abandon any hope of getting an accurate picture of park activities. This will not keep us from making our annual inspection however. We’ll be there but this time we have a surprise in store for them. This time we’re going in disguised.

That’s right. We have created costumes for some of our intern volunteers to wear, such as a badger, a cottontail, an elk calf with a damaged leg, things that the wolves wouldn’t touch if they knew we were coming in to inspect. This will hopefully allow us to get close enough to the wolves and other predators so we can photograph them and the conditions they’re living in. Now, we’re sharing this information with you, our loyal readers, so you’re aware of how we get some of the incredible exposes, not to mention world class photos that we’re famous for, but you’ve got to keep this quiet, otherwise it is not going to work and if you’ve blabbed there’s a good chance we could lose some or even all of our interns.

OK then. That’s it. We’ll be off real soon for the Spring inspection at Yellowstone National Park and we’ll do our best to bring you first hand accounts of everything that transpires. So stay tuned and watch this space for further developments.

P.S. we are always looking for ~~bright~~ young volunteers to fill our intern ranks. Send name and working phone number to the Director, % The institute and please be able to write your name as we need it for the Release of Liability form our lawyers require of all new workers.

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BigShots Now

A conversation about Photography: Images and Commentary by Dwight Lutsey

Tag Archives: parades

Blackfeet North American Indian Days – Parade

The Word’s Out