DAY 292 Friday 27th JUNE 2008

Rapid City, South Dakota (Miles to Date: 30655)

We depart early from our hotel in Livingston, Montana along Interstate 94, the on to Interstate 90 at Billings. After some 3 hours we pass signs for the Battle of the Little Bighorn, National Monument. This was not a planned stop but we had made good progress on the way so we decided to pull off and see what was going on. Another chance for Jack and Emily to do a Junior Ranger programme!

This is a national monument with museum exhibits, an interpretive centre, and ranger-led programs that commemorates the site of the Indian victory over Custer's 7th Cavalry which was one of the last armed efforts of the Northern Plains Indians to preserve their ancestral way of life. Here in the valley of the Little Bighorn River on June 25 and 26, 1876, more than 260 US Army soldiers and attached personnel met defeat and death at the hands of several thousand Lakota and Cheyenne warriors. Among the dead were Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and every member of his immediate command.

Although the Indians won this battle, they lost the war against the white man's efforts to end their independent plains culture.

We were lucky enough to arrive in time for the Ranger led presentation on the battle. Apart from the memorial and markers in the fields there is little here to distinguish this hillside from any other in the surrounding country. Fortunately for us the Ranger was an excellent raconteur and bought the story to life. The events leading to this battle began when the Civil War ended when settlers encroached on the Indian hunting grounds or the terms of former treaties. The Indians resisted. In 1868, at Fort Laramie, Wyoming, representatives of the Lakota, Cheyenne and other tribes of the Great Plains signed a treaty with the U.S. government. Just six years later, in 1874, gold was discovered in the Black Hills, the heart of the new Indian reservation. News of the strike spread quickly, and soon thousands of fortune seekers moved in on the region in violation of the Fort Laramie Treaty. The Army tried to keep them out, but to no avail. The peace agreement in 1868 was dishonored when the Lakota and Cheyenne, in growing defiance, began to leave the reservation. In December 1875, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs ordered them to return before January 31, 1876, or thereafter be regarded as hostiles to be "treated accordingly by the military force." When the Indians did not comply, the Army was called in to enforce the order.

The Indians moved west toward the Little Bighorn. In June the 7th Cavalry, numbering about 600 men, located the Indian camp on June 25. Custer, probably underestimating the fighting power of the Indian forces, believed it safe to divide his regiment into three battalions. In the ensuing battle, the 7th Cavalry lost the five companies that were under Custer, about 210 men. The Indian losses were no more than 100 men killed. The tribes and families scattered, some going south, some north. Most of them returned to the reservations and surrendered in the next few years.

It is quite an eerie feeling to walk across a battlefield, knowing many men lost their lives possibly on the spot where you are now standing. Jack and Emily have not been exposed to the Western genre but Mark in particular is well versed and the experience for him is all the more moving. At the summit of the hill of Custer’s last stand is a monument to the 7^th Cavalry, listing the names of the fallen. Just a short walk is another monument; this time for the Native American, which in someway is much more poignant with quotations from participants in the battle and scenes depicted in wrought iron statues.

We spent longer than expected at the Big Horn so we had to make a dash as Mark had planned a visit, this time to America’s first National Monument, the Devils Tower in Wyoming. This tower of rock rises 1267 feet straight up from the Belle Fourche river. Most of the landscape surrounding Devils Tower is composed of sedimentary rocks. About 65 million years ago, during the Tertiary period, the Rocky Mountains and the Black Hills were uplifted. Molten magma rose through the crust, intruding into the already existing sedimentary rock layers. Geologists agree that Devils Tower was formed by the intrusion of igneous material. What they cannot agree upon is how, exactly, that process took place. As the lava cooled columns formed. As the rock continued to cool, the vertical columns shrank horizontally in volume and cracks began to occur at 120 degree angles, forming the 6-sided columns, which gives us the “grooved” appearance of today’s Devil’s Tower.

Arapaho, Crow, Cheyenne, Kiowa, Lakota, and Shoshone had cultural and geographical ties to the monolith before European and early American immigrants reached Wyoming. Today it is visited by over 400,000 people annually and is a popular spot for technical climbers to try out their skills. Some people may recognise this edifice as it was used extensively in Steven Spielberg’s film “Close Encounter of the Third Kind”, as the location where Richard Dreyfuss and others were summoned to by the alien visitors. Karen had believed the rock tower in the film to computer generated and was amazed to find it was real!

Unless you are a skilled climber getting to the top is not easy so instead we settled for a more sedate mile long self-guided tour around the base and the chance to listen to a Park Ranger explain the geology, geography and cultural history of the Tower. It was then time to move along to our next stop over; Rapid City, South Dakota.