Uncategorized
The New West: For 10,000 years, Sheepeaters knew how to live with nature
Published
6 years agoon
Posted By
Outlaw PartnersBy Todd Wilkinson EBS Environmental Columnist
Earlier this year, tantalizing new research based on mastodon bones was reported, suggesting that humans might have been in North America far longer than we’ve been long lead to believe—for 130,000 years rather than the much shorter post-Pleistocene estimate of 13,000.
Whether for 130 millennia or 13, it’s a long, long time of human presence on the continent. Epic, in fact, compared to the superficial way we flag-waving “Americans” are taught to think about history, even in our own backyards of the northern Rockies.
If you’re in southwest Montana, non-pre-history “started” with the arrival of Lewis and Clark passing through in 1804 or, if in Jackson Hole, with the brief wanderings of Davey Jackson, Jim Bridger, or with the first permanent white settlers to take root five, maybe six generations ago.
We treat true native inhabitation as exotic, as if it’s an “other,” as if we still can’t seem to wrap our minds around the fact that long before the Egyptian pyramids were getting built, the Roman and Greek empires rose and fell, and “civilization” was blossoming in Mesopotamia, people were here—within viewshot of where you’re reading this, making a living.
° ° °
Tory Taylor is a man of the mountains. For 30 years, he and his wife Meredith operated a backcountry outfitting and guide service based in Dubois, Idaho, and they’ve ventured into many of the wildest corners of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
While Taylor understands and venerates the proud tradition of outfitters and guides, some of whom have been doing it for generations, he struggles mightily with the notion of “pre-history”, as if the tenure of what happened before we got here doesn’t matter.
In 1994, Taylor was on a horseback ride through the high ramparts of the Wind River Range when his boot kicked up something buried in a mat of pine-needle duff. What emerged was not a mastodon bone but a soapstone bowl. Hand-carved, its date of creation still isn’t exactly known, but it likely belonged to a member of the Mountain Shoshone, also known as “the Sheepeaters.”
In fact, additional evidence continues to be unearthed showing how the Sheepeaters roamed our region, toting a sophisticated understanding of how the natural parts of Greater Yellowstone worked because their survival, across generation after generation after generation, depended upon it.
Taylor’s book “On the Trail of the Mountain Shoshone Sheepeaters: A High Altitude Archaeological Odyssey” is not a scientific treatise. It is a breezy, 140-page volume of discovery as the author reveals where the artifacts he found led him. The trail includes his interaction with experts in archaeology and paleontology who pull back layers of human connection to the land that are invisible to most of us.
Apart from William Henry Jackson’s probably misleading and widely circulated black and white photograph of the Sheepeaters, showing a family in a wikiup, little, relatively speaking, is known about this subset of Shoshonean people.
Where Taylor’s book succeeds is in applying his own perspective as a mountain wanderer, possessing a keen appreciation for the challenges, nuances and topography of the high country. A modern hunter and gatherer himself, he contemplates nutrition via “the Paleo diet,” and travel with and without the aid of horses, and clothing and portable shelter prior to the advent of North Face.
He ponders vistas that were about staying alive instead of merely satisfying our modern, self-focused indulgence of recreating simply to have fun.
How is the ken of place different between Greater Yellowstone’s self-proclaimed 21st century “explorers” and “adventurers” and the Sheepeaters’ depth of knowledge in their era without Google maps on the cell phone and real-time weather reports warning one that it’s time to take cover?
All of this is not a total knock on our sense of reality, in which a 10,000-square-foot trophy home, hot tub and dram of Scotch awaits after a “hard mountain bike ride” or afternoon of making turns off-piste.
Taylor’s book forces us to think, to imagine the long, long, long span of time when the skills learned by living as a community in sync with nature and not in defiance of it, was the norm, not the exception.
“On the Trail of the Mountain Sheep Eaters” prompts more questions than it answers. Taylor takes us to places we think we know like the back of our hand but what we discover is something far more breathtaking.
Todd Wilkinson, founder of Mountain Journal (mountainjournal.org), is author of “Grizzlies of Pilgrim Creek” about famous Greater Yellowstone grizzly bear 399 featuring 150 photographs by Tom Mangelsen, available only at mangelsen.com/grizzly. His profile of Montana politician Max Baucus appears in the summer 2017 issue of Mountain Outlaw and is now on newsstands.
The Outlaw Partners is a creative marketing, media and events company based in Big Sky, Montana.
Upcoming Events
april, 2024
Event Type :
All
All
Arts
Education
Music
Other
Sports
Event Details
We all are familiar with using a limited palette, but do you use one? Do you know how to use a
more
Event Details
We all are familiar with using a limited palette, but do you use one? Do you know how to use a limited palette to create different color combinations? Are you tired of carrying around 15-20 different tubes when you paint plein air? Have you ever wanted to create a certain “mood” in a painting but failed? Do you create a lot of mud? Do you struggle to achieve color harmony? All these problems are addressed in John’s workbook in clear and concise language!
Based on the bestselling “Limited Palatte, Unlimited Color” workbook written by John Pototschnik, the workshop is run by Maggie Shane and Annie McCoy, accomplished landscape (acrylic) and plein air (oil) artists,exhibitors at the Big Sky Artists’ Studio & Gallery and members of the Big Sky Artists Collective.
Each student will receive a copy of “Limited Palette, Unlimited Color” to keep and take home to continue your limited palette journey. We will show you how to use the color wheel and mix your own clean mixtures to successfully create a mood for your paintings.
Each day, we will create a different limited palette color chart and paint a version of a simple landscape using John’s directives. You will then be able to go home and paint more schemes using the book for guidance.
Workshop is open to painters (oil or acrylic) of any level although students must have some basic knowledge of the medium he or she uses. Students will be provided the book ($92 value), color wheel, value scale and canvas papers to complete the daily exercises.
Sundays, April 14, 21 and 28, 2024
Noon until 6PM.
$170.
Time
14 (Sunday) 12:00 pm - 28 (Sunday) 6:00 pm