moving them up the mountain...a story about summer sheep camp

Tomorrow is Saturday, she will rise early to go high in the mountains,
a place called Lake Canyon way up in the Uintahs South of the Duchesne
River. The summer comes slow here, the snow stays long and about this
time of the year it is time for cattle to graze. She will wake him her
husband, and son and tell them let's get ready to go. 179 head she
has, 8 bulls and 9 horses. The roads up the mountain fall away into
deep ruts but she said we will get up there, time for Indian cattle,
them cows to graze way up high.

Way back in 1897, they came with their horses, whitemen who said this
is a good place and took the land, the mountains, the forests and
trees, the lakes of sweet water and tall grass and said this is the
Uinta Forest, named for them Indians who used to camp there, but were
there anymore. They live on the rez now, but insome old books, it
says, this is your land from Mountaintop to Mountaintop. The is what
was promised them way back then. The United States said we will use
your forest but we will remember it was your land, and you and your
people can graze your animals up here, there is enough room for 2000
or so, and so the made the words on paper back in 1906.


There came a time when the grass was lean and the cows many, more
white farmers and cattlemencame into the valley, and they said we need
to graze with your herds up in the forest. So the US said, there their
forest service, let us borrow your grazing there is enough to go
around, just for year or so, which lasted 7 winters and 8 summers. The
Indians took their cows up high and found that there was only short
grass and other cattle with strange brands. Where shall we put our
animals they said to the forest people. They said, we looked at the
place and since you havenot been here for a long time we said to
ourselves the indians don't want this place any more they have other
places and so we put those with a greater need for feed on this land.
Look there is still more than enough grass for you and they pointed to
the mountains to the morht and said go there. It was about 1938 or so,
a generation had lost the land to the south.


Over the years, the grass grew and then came the forest men, we need
to borrow some of your grazing for just a short while and so they took
the land away from those indians with faith in the words written in
paper from 1906 and said out father in washingtion will look out for
us. It was after the big war, maybe 1949 when they found out that the
borrowed grass was gone forever. So it went day after day, month after
month year after year, until 1969 when Lake Canyon came back to them,
for just a little bit, it was theirs but for a small fee, they said.
We know about what we said in 1906, and just to let you know we see
that there were words written back then, but we are letting you know
that we agree with you that the words are there but that we say we
agree to disagree. The Indians said what does that mean. The forest
men said it means we will look to the wisdom of our people in
washington to say what is right in the way of working the land with
you, bring your cattle and use it there, just sign this paper and pay
a little bit to help out the money pot in Washington. So the tribe
said ok we will follow along and put our trust in these words.


It is May and the time has gone by, in the old days they hitched the
wagons and brought food, the family gathered taking their horses with
them and made camp moving those lazy cows up the mountain. The indian
woman stood there and said to me, I remember my grandmother cooking
for us, and we would dance and play riding horses, all my undles came
and worked hard, but at night we would sing and play and listen to the
stories about soldier summit how the cavalry put those old indians
high on the mountain, a campsite that was so cold by fall that nothing
could live and so the old indians slipped away. Look up there to the
South on the Mountain beyond the trees, a small valley taht is the
place where it happened they say. It is where she learned to ride a
horse, to stand in the saddle, where she dreamed she would name her
child a long time before he was ever born for the way the sun burst
over the mountain and rushed into the valley like a charging warrior
racing to the other side of the valley, he was a dog soldier but when
he was born she called him Long Soldier and he stood there a short
ways away listening to his mother talk abouthim years ago at the place
on the mountain. Her eyes were gleeming, and they were bright. She
stood there with her long black hair and said we will move the cattle
up there and camp this weekend like we used to. She had made good for
the journey.


She woke up early, way before dawn and with her man and his cousins,
her sons and aunts and uncles headed those cattle to travel miles
across the valley and up the mountain where the roads are steep and
gullies deep and wide, using chains and come alongs to keep the trucks
from falling down the mountain. They will get there tomorrow evening,
partway. I stood there and listened to her tell it to me, the way they
would go. She was born to ride a horse, an indian cow woman, ready for
anything.


I stood there and listened to them, but I knew as I stood there that
the forest men, from the United States, had said, the indians don't
need that place anymore and so we have others who need it more, and so
they gave the forest service grazing permit, the one given for the
forest on the reservation boundary to a white man. I listened to her
and then said, I heard the permit is not yours anymore. She stood
there, her eyes flashing ans looked at me and said no one has said it
to us and we are going up there like we have always done and that is
what we are doing in the morning. I said maybe you should check first
and she said, it is our land, our forest and the bones of my fathers
are buried there and we are going, and so she walked away from me and
will make ready to push her cattle up the mountain and in a small
valley way up high in the Uintahs at a place called Lake Canyon in the
Uinta forest will see if the words written in 1906 are true or whether
they are a lie. So it goes on the Uintah and Ouray. The forest service
has revoked the Lake Canyon permit that belonged to the Ute Tribe and
has given it to non-Indina despite an agreement made with them that
this would never happen for their grazing area in this rough canyon
country used by their people for centuries.