Day 6 June 21st Driving the High Line Road

 

Day 6  Friday, June 21^st

Surprisingly it rained overnight. 

It didn’t take long for us to break camp and be on our way.

We headed west to Williston and then proceeded on to visit the Confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers.  We stopped at the Visitor’s Center to look at the nice display they had on Sitting Bull.  I was surprised to see his signature,  and it was extremely legible.  I was told that Sitting Bull sold his signature for $2/each.  Possibly while he was with the Wild West Show.  That would amount to $50-75 in today’s money.  A search on the internet found a copy of his signature recently sold for $5,000!

It was way to wet to get out and walk around, but we did look where the rivers joined together. 

Next, we went to Fort Buford.  This was actually a military fort and the location in which Sitting Bull surrendered.  There are numerous stories about his surrender.  One of my favorites is that Sitting Bull says he did not actually surrender.  He gave his gun to his son, Crow Foot.  His son gave an officer the gun.  So, in Sitting Bull’s mind, he did not surrender, but his gun did. 

Fort Buford was actually established to protect the mineral resources coming out the Blackhills, in addition to protecting the settlers from the Indians as they ventured West.

Our last stop in this area was at Fort Union.  This was a trading fort established by the American Fur Company.  The AFC was the American equivalent to the Hudson Bay Company in Canada.  They were in competition for the furs that the Indians were trading at the time. 

Finally as we headed west into Montana the clouds lifted and the rain stopped.  As we crossed into Montana we went on Mountain Time, now two hours behind home.  We also passed into the Fort Peck Indian Reservation. 

We were driving across the top of Montana on the Highline Road.  It was commissioned in 1919 by the Duluth, Minnesota Chamber of Commerce and  originally called the Theodore Roosevelt International highway, named in honor of the recently deceased President.  An early interstate highway that ran 4000 miles from Portland Maine to Portland Oregon.  It originally was just an improved dirt road, almost impassable during wet weather.  In 1926 the Bureau of Public Roads renames is as US Highway 2.  

The road followed a railroad track and soon we came upon the Amtrak train that runs from Chicago to Seattle.  We were keeping up with each other, so I would estimate the speed of the train to be between 70-75 mph.  Pretty soon it slowed and I realized that this was a single track and a freight train was coming east, so the Amtrak had to defer while the other train went by.

We stopped at a Rest Area and a semi trailer pulled in with something you don’t see every day.  The trailer was full of bee hives.  White’s Bee Hives out of Washington.  I spoke to the driver and he said he was headed north of Williston.  I told him I saw lots of Canola blooming up there.  He said the bees were used to pollinate the Canola and Alfalfa.  They would spend the Summer here and then in the Winter they would go back to California.

As we passed through the town of Saco, we came upon a memorial for Charles M Russell, the cowboy painter.  One of my favorite western artists.  Russell started out as a cowboy working the night shift watching the cattle.  That left him plenty of time during the day to draw and paint.  He watched the horses, cows, pronghorn and deer.  Studying their muscle structure and colorations.  He also studied the landscape which made his paintings more realistic than other painters.  This memorial is for an event that happened in 1904.  During the Spring roundup a couple of cowhands successfully lassoed a grizzly bear.  One cowboy lassoed two of his paws, while another dropped a loop over his head.  Another cowboy threw some well placed rocks and then applied a knife.  The bear was captured without firing a shot.  Russell made one of his famous paintings "Loops and Swift Horses are surer than Lead". The memorial was dedicated on the 50th anniversary of the event. 

Stopped to see Sleeping Buffalo Rock.  This rock is revered by many Indian tribes.  It is said the rock resembled a Bison and fooled many Indians.  One time the rock was moved to the city park in Malta and people said the rock would move and bellow, so it was returned to its current resting place and put with another rock taken from the same area.    There were many offerings left on the rock, ribbons, tobacco, braided sweetgrass.  I left a feather that I had found earlier in the day.

Finally, we made it to our campsite for the night in Malta, Montana.  A small city park in an out way place.