A photograph by Thomas D. Mangelsen of Jackson Hole grizzly mother 399 leading her four cubs in a swim across the Snake River. Image used with permission. To see more of Mangelsen's amazing photographs, including those of grizzlies in Jackson Hole, go to mangelsen.com
EDITOR'S NOTE: Many readers here have heard of "salmon nation" and "bison nation"—indigenous tribes and cultures closely associated and co-evolved with non-human animals that provided their people with sustenance—of existential survival, cultural and spiritual. In fact, most indigenous cultures around the world have close ties to other animals in the all-encompassing web of life, including tribes that hold grizzly bears in high regard. A few years ago, over 200 tribes in the US and Canada signed a treaty unveiled at Jackson Lake in Grand Teton National Park that opposes the lifting of federal protection for grizzlies in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. It also demands that the US federal government engage in formal respectful consultation with tribes to arrive at a forward-thinking conservation strategy aimed at perpetuating recovery of grizzlies generations into the future, recognizing that climate change and human development pressures are bringing more conflict and impacts on bear habitat. In her brand new poem, below, Mountain Journal columnist Lois Red Elk (Dakota/Lakota), our poet in residence, notes that Matho's Message was inspired Jackson Hole grizzly mother 399 who this spring emerged from the den with all four of her year-old cubs in good health and notably with 399 being 25 years old.
Dear MoJo Friends,
It is so dry up this way. Put in one of my gardens last weekend and hit dry earth a foot deep. Wishing for rain and more rain. Please send some this way. Already we are finding full-grown grasshoppers. Have been so inspired by your bears in Greater Yellowstone and all they teach. At one time we had bears here on the high plains of eastern Montana along the river corridors of the Missouri, Yellowstone and their side feeding streams, even grizzly bears.
The grandmas of our tribes had so many stories to share-stories of respect going back many, many generations. A few years ago a bear traveled down from Canada to visit our rez, probably to visit our buffalo. Bears have so much to teach us. Not only are stories told here but also all around the earth. And, the story is the same.
My best wishes to you in this time of spring and new life.
Lois
A detail of a limited edition collectible photograph by Thomas D. Mangelsen titled "Eyes of the Grizzly." This grizzly is among several dozen that today call the greater Jackson Hole area home—an area from which grizzlies had largely been eradicated in 1975, when the Greater Yellowstone population was given federal protection as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. This image used with permission. To see a large version of this print and other Mangelsen photographs, go to mangelsen.com
EDITOR'S NOTE: A few things you may not know about Mountain Journal poet in residence Lois Red Elk (Dakota/Lakota). Living in Wolf Point, Montana, she is an elder at Fort Peck and an adjunct professor teaching in the local community college. On her mother's side of the family she has Isanti roots and from her father's Hunkpapa and Ihanktonwa blood line, she is descended from Sitting Bull. During her earlier years living in Los Angeles, Red Elk was an actress, film technical advisor, TV talk show host, and an FM radio host at Pasadena City College.
We are pleased that Lois is working away on a new collection of poems and will let you know when it is published. In the meantime, ask for her other volumes at your favorite local bookseller: Our Blood Remembers, winner of the best non-fiction award from Woodcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers; Dragonfly Weather; and Why I Return to Makoce with a foreword from Montana's recent state poet laureate Lowell Jaeger and nominated for a High Plains Book Award in poetry.
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About Lois Red Elk-Reed
Lois Red Elk-Reed is a poet who calls the high plains home. She is Mountain Journal's poet in residence.
