Main Street, Wyoming; 204; Medicine Wheel

The. Program made possible by a grant from U.S. energy and Crested Butte corporation part of a family of companies in the mining and minerals business providing jobs for Wyoming people since 1966. This is Jeff Aguero welcome to Main Street Wyoming in the Big Horn Mountains east of level.

So it's a design of rocks in the shape of a wheel with spokes radiating out from the center. The medicine relies on federal land in big or national forest and over the years it's attracted tourists from around the country and around the world. But it is also revered by Native Americans as a sacred site and they have expressed concern about a forest service plan for managing the wheel. With me today is Mary Randolph a public affairs specialist with Big Horn National Forest from Sheridan. Welcome Mary. Also here today is Francis Brown in northern Iraq who is president of the medicine wheel Coalition for sacred sites of North America. Thanks for being here Francis. And on my right is Linda simulacra who has made presentations around the state for the Wyoming Humanities Council on the medicine wheel. Linda thanks for being here. Let's start with you Linda. Maybe you could give us just the Describe the description that every person could give as they come to the medicine wheel and see it.

It's an incredibly spectacular slide located on. A mountain peak about nine thousand six hundred feet. From that side you can see the surrounding area and the area is incredible and I think that's a great part of the attraction for the slide. The wheel itself is a circle of stones with a hub at the center and the spokes waiting to the outside room. It's encircled by. At this time by a fence sign a wire fence to protect the side. Often when people go there they will see where feathers are our medicine bags attached to the fans. As evidence that Native American people have been there but I've never been there and seen any of you Native Americans there they seem to be very private in their worship services. I know that you've collected those what you call an itinerant high store historian. Different impressions of the

origins of the site you want to give us an idea of what people tell you about it. Looking back through history it's interesting because back at the turn of the century and from there on forward people have developed a number of theories concerning the medicine wheel everything. From the fact that they can see it as a prehistoric curse or other Masonic lodge some people have seen it as an ancient numerical system that's required within that and they try to date. They try to date back according to those theories and some of these are scientific theories that have come out unproven but scientific people have developed these theories and a number of people have claimed that it is an astrological astronomical type of calendar device like Stonehenge or something. Yes for Francis maybe you can give us some idea of how Native Americans view that site. Well like an evil you can think of the secret police. We know it is a sacred place and the place to take offerings and stuff like that

in a place to do vision quests and stuff like that is what we use it for and that's what has been used for. Do you have some notion of who who might be given responsibility for putting it there in the first place. Well let's just say in Finland that Indian people made you know and we don't know exactly who those ancient people are at this point. Well before Columbus days you know we didn't have no names like Raffles or shy or crows or whatever and we did we were. Guess but. Reservation you know it was called concentration can you put a hue their name to it the more they go through the base and the tribes weren't segregated in that way that you wouldn't distinguish one from the other the way we know you live in the interim time Mary maybe you could give some of the Forest Service insight into

the site. Well the forest service has gone really has no claims on who built it or how it was built. We've done some archaeological work up there with some carbon dating that dates back to A. We know that there was evidence of people there about seventy five hundred years ago. And but as far as has any theories on who did it you know we don't go one way or another. But you've been responsible for many years for managing the site and as such as custodians. Tell me what's been happening to the wheel the Forest Service as you say have been as custodians of the wheel for for many many years as the Forest Service was in existence up on the big or national forest. There's been a lot of changes up at the wheel back in the 30s there was a stone wall around the fence that Linda said today now we have a wire type fence around it. At times the road was in different places the parking lot was in different places if you look in photographs you can see the different vegetations and what has all happened up there. Through our monitoring and through our forest

plan has identified that this site is an area that needs to be protected. You can look back and see the degradation that has happened over the years. There are not as many rocks there or some acts of nature the wind or whatever has changed the features of the wheel and what the Forest Service is looking at is trying to do some protection measures and interpretation measures at the wheel. Right now when you go up to visit it all there is is one interpretive sign just a small sign right outside the fence. And thats all that really explains what the wheel is and what we would like to try to do some other things to let people know the significance of the wheel to the Native Americans and to the American people what real means. Can you tell us what the level of visitation is and how thats risen over the years. Yes visitation has increased greatly in the last five years or 990 counts were 30000 visitors at the wheel in 1990. And so we're looking at an increase of probably about 20 percent every year and it's gone up quite a bit and I think I believe mostly because of the popularity and the interest that we all have

gotten in the last three to five years. Francis can you can you tell me how much that has affected used by Native Americans aside in other words the fact that there are more and more people coming to the site and the uses that you're talking about such as vision quests. How is that affected by these these non-Indians who are well I think nowadays everything is done after hours when they're not anybody at the living room right now and I mean that's the way things are done now for the Indian people live in. Has there been any disturbance at the sight of things that Indian people have left there. Anything that has been rooted in law the mockery of being the head in around the fence up there that I mean beard came under closer than the brother of the man hanging on the fence which is you know a mockery. What we do when we believe in the earth thinking all through the cloth you know I know in one visit that I made there I actually saw somebody tampering with some of the things that

were on the fence. So people do get involved there. Francis is right about the mockery. We were up two weeks ago and and had taken some pictures of the wheel and there were tennis shoes a pair of dice hanging on the wheel the things that you know were not offering something. Let's talk a little bit about the Forest Service plans for the site you're currently have a draft environmental impact statement out on the new plan for managing the site and we're doing we are still in the comment period which lasts through the end of the writer. What do we find in that document that we released the draft last May and we had a public comment period tell August 30 first. Well during this time period we had several requests from people that they just did not have enough time to comment on the draft. And we also had planned a series of open houses during the week of July. We did not know that the American Indians the Shoshone the Arapaho were having ceremonial times during that week. So our turnout was not real good so we decided to extend the comment period and an additional 90 days to November 30th now. So people have a longer opportunity to comment. Are you

getting a lot of comments. Yes we are and we're getting many comments they're still coming in even though people might have thought that August 30 first was the ending we're still getting quite a few comments. You have a preferred alternative in the draft to your names. We identify six alternatives in the draft environmental impact statement and those alternatives range all the way from doing nothing at the side leaving it exactly as it is now to closing the site down completely and the only way anyone could go up there would be on a tour bus type system we would have a concessionaire up there. Let's narrow in on the preferred alternative. The preferred alternative is identified as alternative see in the document and we're what we re doing up at the wheel is a few minimal changes up there. We would be looking at improving the existing road and moving it about fourteen hundred feet away from the wheel and doing some improvements in turnouts on the way on the road turned out so people can pass by. Right now it's a very narrow unimproved road and not a real safe road to go up so we put some turnouts on that road. We also are looking at moving the

parking lot about 800 feet away from the existing parking lot. The reason we're looking at that is hopefully it would get the noise level away from the wheel and people would have to walk up to the wheel maybe with it more of a sense of reverence than the existing parking lot of such a loose is right because like right we're used to the real you know. Right now the road runs right alongside the wheel and the parking is right beside it so we're trying to move both of those things away but not to do to really develop any I'm just do some improvements on both of them and to enlarge the parking lot. And we would have toilet facilities near that parking lot. And we're also looking at doing some more interpretation. Like I said we only have the one sign there right now on the fans. And we're looking at doing interpretation down at five spring saddle and also more up at the wheel. Francis let's let's turn to you I know that your group the medicine will coalition has made a proposal for an alternative to the forest service approach. And there are other groups as well that have put forth ideas. Tell me some of the problems that you have with this preferred alternative and

some of the alternatives that you'd suggest. Well I think we've been working with the four stories now for about three three and a half years and over the wind up in a dead end or I think the fourth service never really addresses any of our concerns like we suggested that parking lot be a half a mile down the road be rerouted from the north side of through porcupine campground back up the north. We even hired surveyor professional surveyor to go up there and look for an alternative road by the name of the name a black item of the little and we've been quite a few things to show that the Forest Service that those things can be done. Do you have areas of agreement with this alternative. We talked earlier about the days that are set aside. I don't think we really have any concrete. Anything on paper that says that these things are going to happen there only you know it but that's

just that's just a draft is the draft and that's all there is no nothing on paper which says those things are going to happen. I mean for concerned when the when you listen to these things as something of an outsider to the immediate argument what do you hear and you hear areas that concern you that you'd want to see attended to and you know finally I asked. Yes I do. I'm. Really interested in seeing the area Patrik it and. It is a very. Anyone who's been there is has experienced great feeling there. It's a really inspiring place and I would like to see. I would like to think it protected as far as the beauty of the place but also a reference for that place. It is a very it's a very moving spot to be and I would like to see the beauty of it enhanced. There is talk in the draftee I.S. of taking down this this

metal fans and putting up a rock fence which goes back to the way it was in earlier years and that was an attractive fans. But I'm concerned also that the wheel be protected and that someone not be allowed to just jump over the fence and rearrange the stones in that kind of you know work. And there it's it's not just the medicine wheel itself. There are so many other sites around on that mountain that need our need of protection as well there are other stones as people tend to pick up stones and make. Little medicine wheeled out in the grassy area surrounding that and sometimes they're taking stones which were part of a previous TV arena or another structure there and so I think it's important to protect it in that way as well. But one of the responses to that kind of concern that I've heard came from you Francis and that was talk about monitoring about having somebody at the site getting out I think that in a way can be protected there's got to be somebody there in force or to

consider that very strongly because the wheel was rebuilt by the force for the bad. 38 of the. Redone because it's been carried away. No protection and nobody there to monitor the people who grew up there. The medicine will be will be shared with you so you're thinking of something like that in somebodies house in New York and all points in between and I think that person would not just be someone there for protection of the site but interpretation of the site too to be able to explain to people the significance of that site and why it is there what it exactly is and what significant it has to the American Indian possibly a Native American person to the right and that is addressed in one of our top one of the attack alternatives it's not in the preferred one. But again as we said earlier this is a draft and you know we can still look at different combinations of alternatives. A whole nother alternative you

know. We're still way open right. I've talked to a number of persons from communities in the vicinity of the medicine wheel and they have expressed some concern about having too many days set aside having access little less easy. Any number of things that mainly have to do with their sense that this is the place that they too have been going for years as non-Indians and want to maintain the kind of relationship with what I'd like to get to here would be what are some of the other pressures that the Forest Service is under. Well we're hearing a lot from the communities that are in the basin area. Lovell Cody Powell the areas over there that the medicine wheel is part of tourism for them it's a spot that that they promote and they try to market into their area. It's also a place as you mentioned for them that it is in a sense a historical spiritual place for them. It's a place where they have come years and years with their families also. So they have a genuine feeling for that wheel too that's not just a commercial type feeling that they're trying to do. Are there any other pressure points for the Forest Service other people that feel they have to have a voice in

this. You know that's basically we've kind of had the film with the two sides that were working you know and there's some there's some commodity interest to I think one of the concerns that the various tribes have expressed is with timbering right in the disappearing to St. Francis maybe you could tell us a little bit about your feelings about the plan as it stands now in regard to timbering. Well I think I mean when you look at the place you see were timber in and from their worth to timber and timber sailed right next to them it is and will with one wood timber within a quarter mile of it on one side would be within a half mile of it with the drop and the political timbers over there and talking to some of the fourth of the people. Those things are on hold. They're not completely abandoned in some time that they will be and what we're playing is in our response back to it is that we do

one that two and a half mile buffer zone around the medicine wheel where there will be no disturbance because as we look at these things here the Indian people you know look at Bear Butte where Bear Butte. The Indian people still use it but you can see people climbing all over the place to you know when you go to doubles that work which is another sacred place to Indian people way and that same thing is happening there. And so the medicine we are in I think is the last thing for Indian people that there isn't going to happen that you're focusing on the medicine wheel and that's our subject here but your group has based itself a little more broadly you're working on some of these other sites as well. We're working with sites all over the country we're working with some patches down there in Mount Graham where they're trying to build a telescope there with the Apaches there and we're working with people in Montana with the bed to do medicine and. There's another one there. There's a

fall there for get what they call it with a company. Oh you think the cleaning people were were working with them into trying to protect those places. And we did have a meeting and then realized when there were there was 52 sites under siege by the federal government and private industry is this is this a matter of just a new awareness of the threats to these sites or is it just is it an increase of activism about sites that people were already aware of the other was the Seems to be an upsurge of concern and activism to protect these sites. Well I think what brought the end in people in light of all this stuff is that you know we don't really go around telling everybody we're sacred sites or until there is some development there then we then we get involved and try to start stop it or try to make some of their arrangements. I've heard a lot of talk of it in the about the medicine wheel that we

didn't want anybody up there we wanted it shut down but that has never been the case with the Indian people. It's not that we're not trying to stop tourism from being there or anybody from going there is what we're trying to do is to get some of the things that we are concerned with and that would we want to do that. If if we were to go with say the preferred alternative what would the experience be of a PC coming to that site a non-Indian wants to go up and look at the medicine wheel What what exactly would they go through Can you describe their experience. If they just just say if you wanted to drive up to the way I was driving from low I want to come up and visit the wheel I've heard it's a sight to see and we've accepted the preferred alternative and done that type of work you know. Well hopefully when you would drive up you would drive up and see interpretive signs that it's going to explain what the wheel is and where there is nothing like that now. You could come up to the wheel and we would have the stone fence back up again. Might just

mention the reasoning on the stone fence was to get it back into the state that we had in the 1930s when we were doing our scoping and meeting with the American Indians in the communities surrounding it was mutually agreed that that would put it back to a more natural looking state. And that's where the rock wall comes back to. So you have the rock wall you wouldn't drive right up to the wheel you would have to park a ways away from the wheel and walk up to it. So you'd have a little bit more exercise to see the wheel right. Instead of being able to drive right up would there be any kind of permitting process. Well we've addressed that in the document that there would be a permit required but we've had a lot of controversy and a lot of discussion over the permit system and it's not acceptable to American and me as what we're looking at and so we are willing to look at a different option. Were you looking at. We were looking at it requiring a permit 72 hours in advance a written permit is what was required and one of that why would that not be acceptable.

No but I am going to go to church and I don't see why Indian people have to get a permit from the government the words are good and I think that it's you know when you want to pray you don't really plan 72 hours in advance. You know it's just not something I mean we all do that. You know you don't just well three days from now I'm going to go and do this. And we're very open to changing that policy. You know we can be flexible. There was a time when there was talk about an interpretive center down by the highway that was at one point talked about by the bleachers of some kind near the medicine wheel itself or maybe up on the Hill. Oh ok you're talking about a platform the platform is right by the way we threw that out right at the beginning. No one liked that idea and that went out right away. But you asked also about the visitor from Asian Center that still is in the plans. It was not included into this document it's going to be a several environmental document and that still is in the planning stages and we're still working on that project and the

visitor center would not be strictly limited to explaining the medicine we know more broadly based right. It would be more of a winter sports rest kind of an area up on 14th day. Originally we had talked about the junction of Highway 14 A and a turn off to the medicine wheel but that is an archaeological site that we can't go into. And so the plans have been to Van abandon for that area. Linda do you have do you have any other hopes for the site things that you'd like to see happen to and we haven't discussed here the additional elements that might be added to a plan like this. No I really don't. I I have I sit back and watch this very cautiously and very hopefully that so many people go there and so many people stay at it and there really is a great number of American people as well as Native American people that view this is a special place that goes back within their historical background as well. And so I think. I think we need to look for what we

have in common in this place rather than the differences that could divide our opinions and we need to seek some kind of common ground. Linda is right when she says that it's that people all over the world are interested and will get letters from Spain Greece and Italy about how we'll you know so it is international in scope. It isn't just a local issue that we have right here. But what is the level of comment. I mean how many people have you heard from so far. We we don't count. So I really don't have a number. Don't you at the end have to kill. No we don't know. You know the Forest Service does not do that we just look at the issues that are out there and what are the prevalent issues that are coming out of it so we don't do counting. We're getting a lot of comments in there both ways some people really like the alternative see some people or don't want to do anything of the way that you know they just want to tell and they stay away and leave it alone. And then we have comments that we've gotten like from France this group you know they have some very specific issues and things that they're looking at. And from these kind of comments we can develop other alternatives and other other issues in this document

this kind of input that Francis's group has given us is a very good input in the kind that we're looking for. Francis there are a couple of groups representing Native Americans in the debate over management of medicine. We'll there's your group. There's the medicine wheel alliance. There may be others I don't know about. How in sync are the various groups representing the various tribes and various people. Well I think the medicine will and lines represent almost the same amount of people that we represent. Do you know and like Mary was saying that this thing is not only locally but it's internationally because we had a petition drive here a nationwide petition drive with we get a petition signed from all over the every state in the union and also from Germany. So I do get letters back from different countries you know inquiring about what the progress is on the medicine we're hearing and

so it's an international clean here with started out you know what we try to do three years ago was keep it a local thing. And the Forest Service just didn't want to listen. So then we said maybe even a little thing and got to be an international problem. It's interesting you said earlier how native peoples tend to keep quiet about sacred sites until they're sort of forced out into the open this way. You're going to see a real change here you're going from a site that was in a sense a well-kept secret to a site that will be managed in the sense that the Forest Service manages things. What's that going to take away from it in terms of its power as a sacred site. Well I think what we're trying to do is keep the parking lot at least a half mile away and so that you know people won't be driving up to it if you are going to go there in the river and just to go up there to see what it is

you have to walk up there you know. And that's the thing that we don't want it to be disturbed like the other three great places that are sacred to the plains and into you and your hope is that this can still be a sacred site and still have those qualities. Yes I think that's what we're trying to protect. Do you think there's a way to do that working with the Forest Service. I hope so. OK good. We've run out of time so I want to thank you Mary Frances and Linda for being with us. The location of the medicine wheel that's designed and the mystery of its past and its significance. Hundreds of people to this remote ridge in the Big Horn Mountains every year better land managers are now moving toward a decision on how to manage the site. Preservation I think we've heard tonight is assured. The question is how to go about it. Thanks for joining us on mainstreet Wyoming. Thank you. I am

I am. I am. This program made possible by a grant from U.S. energy and Crested Butte corporation part of a family of companies in the mining and minerals business providing jobs for Wyoming people since 1966.