Back in the West with all the Characters

I am writing this blog at the desk Owen Wister used when he stayed at this hotel.  I don't usually rave about hotels we have stayed at, although we have stayed at some great ones.  But this hotel is the best, on a par with the View in Monument Valley and the Hamilton-Turner in Savannah.  It's more like staying in a museum than a hotel.  We are in Buffalo, Wyoming after a very long drive from Chamberlain, SD yesterday.  Back in the West, in so many ways!

This morning, we visited St Joseph's Indian School in South Dakota.  I was a little wary, because of the horror stories of the American Indian Schools that were so abusive and practiced a form of cultural genocide.  But this school, on the surface at least, seems to be the exact opposite.  It's a boarding school, all right, but it's been redesigned and set up in a circular shape, to mimic the circles of the Native American Villages.  The students actually learn the Lakota language at the school, and are encouraged to speak it.  If you know anything about the history of Indian schools, this is the exact opposite of what used to happen.  Every September, they have a big pow-wow and invite everyone from the neighboring communities.  The teachers are Sacred Heart priests, and they seem like wacky Maryknoll or Jesuit Fathers, running around participating in sweat lodges and baptizing you with cedar branches and encouraging the kids to learn about their traditions and be proud of them.  You should see the phenomenal art that has been produced by the students and alumni - paintings, sculptures, bead and leather work, all based on the Lakota traditions.  They have now created a museum, the Alta Lakota museum, for the public to come view.

I asked them if they ever did exchanges, or had sister schools, and they said "NO!"  They were a little vehement, and when I asked why, they said it was because their school was unique and really unusual, and they wanted to keep it that way.  I  have to admit it was really rad, but I was a little taken aback at how isolated they seemed to be.  It seems like a lovely place of healing, of preserving culture and language, of helping the kids to succeed in this tough modern world while at the same time not letting them forget they are Lakota.  It made me see that teaching about Indians has got to be so much more than teaching about broken treaties and massacres and smallpox, even though that stuff is important to know about.

We drove and drove.  We were planning to stop at the Crazy Horse memorial down in the Black Hills, but I guess I hadn't really read or researched about it.  I thought it was some sort of Native American tribute to Crazy Horse, but it's a late Polish immigrant and now his family, who charge 27 dollars for you to see a view of the statue that you can see from the road, and then watch a video about the guy who started carving it and then died, and they spend the entire time talking about how they don't take any government handouts.  You should have seen the reviews on Yelp!  They were hilarious, all about how angry they were that they even went to the monument at all, how it's a rip off, how Crazy Horse's descendants hate it because it's carving into the Black Hills, and on and on.  We gave it a miss and stopped at Wall Drug instead.  For some reason, I thought this was just a drug store, but it's a giant city full of every made-in-China item, every piece of wall art with Buffalo and Eagles in it, some actual original paintings by great illustrators like N.C. Wyeth, a lot of cool Western Wear, some rides, some statues, some restaurants, and basically you could spend the whole day there without even buying anything, just browsing.  I highly recommend it, even though you think it's going to be all touristy with the millions of signs as you are approaching.

We were worried about the approaching thunderstorms, but we just had a few showers as we drove into our final destination for the night, Buffalo, Wyoming.  Full of antique furniture, taxidermy heads, and all kinds of artifacts from the writers, adventurers, outlaws, gamblers and US presidents who have stayed here!  I selected the Owen Wister suite, of course.  I love to teach about the triumvirate of Owen Wister, Frederic Remington and Teddy Roosevelt, who created the myth of the West although none of them spent much time out here.  What time they did spend, apparently, they spent at this very hotel!  We had dinner (bison and elk) at the Virginian Restaurant which is part of the hotel and saloon here, and it was great!  It's fantastic being back in the West and I think we're going to read an Annie Proulx story or two to celebrate.  Tomorrow it's on to Montana, my favorite state of all.