Devils Tower Vs. Bear Lodge: How A Name Shapes The Way Westerners Approach Holy Ground
Just because one culture dismisses the sacredness of a site does that mean it isn't? A young climber reflects on native reverence for a monolith that mountaineers regard as a fine place to play
"Bear Lodge" or "Devils Tower"? Many place names in the West offer no hint of how those pieces of landscape for referenced by humans for thousands of years. Photo courtesy National Park Service
“To encounter the sacred is to be alive at the deepest center of human existence. Sacred places are the truest definitions of the earth; they stand for the earth immediately and forever; they are its flags and shields. If you would know the earth for what it really is, learn it through its sacred places. At Devils Tower or Canyon de Chelly or the Cahokia Mounds, you touch the pulse of the living planet; you feel its breath upon you. You become one with a spirit that pervades geologic time and space.” —N. Scott Momaday
by Lorea Zabaleta
Standing 867 feet tall, equal roughly to a 62-story building, Devils Tower in northeastern Wyoming is an awe-inspiring site. To many of the indigeous tribes with a connection to the monolith, it is known as Bear Lodge Butte and considered sacred.
It’s easy to look upon the soaring mass of rock, classified as a national monument administered by the National Park Service, and desire to scale it as was first done over a century ago. With more than 100 routes listed on Mountain Project it is clear that it’s a common sentiment amongst climbers.
Devils Tower was the first national monument ever created, done with the stroke of a pen by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. You can learn more about the creation story of Bear Lodge from an indigenous perspective by clicking on this link from Indian Country Today.
The modern climbing relationship with Devils Tower as a popular destination is merely a blip in its long history as a religious site affiliated with at least 27 Native American tribes. However, with the exception of one voluntary closure in June, there seems to be little concern as to this fact and very little circumspection about the reverence it has commanded for indigenous plains peoples going back thousands of years.
Should there be a more serious discussion surrounding climbing at Bear Lodge? How should climbers, particularly those who claim to be conservationists and respectful of the original inhabitants of the land they use for fun, reconcile their sport hobby with the possibility of disrupting or disrespecting a site sacred to so many? Is the June closure on climbing enough? Does a single month of prohibiting recreation even come close to adequacy if the sacredness of a site itself is not temporary but perpetual?
A climber ascends Devils Tower (Bear Lodge) Photo courtesy National Park Service
I am a young climber myself and these are all questions that I believe ought to be asked when thinking about the act of scaling Bear Lodge.
First, the notions of sacredness and spirituality must be fully considered, as they tend to hold different interpretations for Native Americans whose cultures have evolved with them than non-natives particularly in relation to natural spaces.
“Native people in the Black Hills area have had a very deep spiritual connection with the Tower since the beginning of time. For tribal people spirituality is a way of life. As far as the non-tribal (white) perspective most understand that the Tower is a special place and individuals seem to have their own connection with the Tower,” says Nancy Stimson, a member of the Choctaw nation who worked as chief of interpretation at the monument for seven years.
Change is hard, even something seemingly as simple as restoring a more meaningful name. Back in 2005, not long after the Custer Battlefield was renamed Little Bighorn Battlefield, an effort was made to call Devils Tower Bear Lodge National Historic Landmark but then Congresswoman Barbara Cubin of Wyoming opposed it. She claimed a "name change will harm the tourist trade and bringing economic hardship to area communities."
“The Tower is a special place. While I worked there I could feel the power everyday. " —Nancy Stimson (Choctaw) former Chief of Interpretation at Devils Tower National Monument
According to government figures, only about 1 percent of the 400,000 visitors to Devils Tower climb it but it happens throughout the year even when indigenous people go there for spiritual pilgrimage. If you are the federal government and claim to be sensitive and respectful of multi-cultural perspectives, an obvious question is how do you "manage" a holy site when there are many other places to climb?
Although it may be difficult to draw an accurate comparison between white (specifically Judeo/Christian) concepts of sacredness and the indigenous version, a simple analogy could perhaps paint a better picture. If, persay, climbing a building became the newest trend, it seems highly unlikely that anyone would attempt to climb a place such as the Vatican, or any church or temple for that matter.
Although it may be difficult to draw an accurate comparison between white (specifically Judeo/Christian) concepts of sacredness and the indigenous version, a simple analogy could perhaps paint a better picture. If, persay, climbing a building became the newest trend, it seems highly unlikely that anyone would attempt to climb a place such as the Vatican, or any church or temple for that matter.
It would not matter if it were during a service or not because chances are any recreation of these holy places would be seen as highly disrespectful and met with backlash. Obviously, the two are not the same and I would not want them to be thought of as such, however, it does not seem unreasonable to at the very least treat a place with such historical, cultural, and religious importance to so many native tribes with the same respect that would be attributed to a space of similar significance in another culture.
“The Tower is a special place,” Stimson said of her own relationship with Bear Lodge. “While I worked there I could feel the power everyday. As a member of the Choctaw Nation I recognize and respect the sacredness of the Tower to those tribes that have a closer connection with the Tower.”
A full moon begins its rise toward to the flat-topped pinnacle of Devils Tower (Bear Lodge). A number of indigenous tribes not only treated Bear Lodge as a holy destination but together with charting the stars navigated their way around the high plains according to the seasons. Photo courtesy National Park Service
It is clear that the spiritual essence of Bear Lodge does not start nor end with the sundances and vision quests during the month of June, and so while the voluntary closure may be beneficial in some ways to protecting prayer, it does not protect the place entirely from disruption.
When asked about his thoughts on climbing the Tower, Ben Ridgely of the Northern Arapaho Tribe, said, “I wouldn’t say don’t climb it or do climb it but I would tell them that as a Native American I wouldn’t want to disturb [it]...” Ridgely emphasized many times that the site was a place he respected deeply, with a history and importance to many people, which factored into his feeling that he personally would not want to climb or do other potentially disruptive activities near it.
Stimson echoed this notion and said that “many tribal people feel it is a sacrilege to deface the Tower, and climbing is seen as one of those ways to deface it and even detract the efforts of those seeking spiritual guidance during a ceremony.” She also noted that for indigenous peoples a ceremony “may consist of one person in prayer and even knowing that a climber may be on the Tower can have negative ramifications on the prayer.”
Stimson did maintain that the closure remains a good thing and mentioned that it was actually the result of a lawsuit in which she says some climbing guides claimed a spiritual connection to Bear Lodge in response to a question about where a climber’s opinion falls in importance in this matter.
While the lawsuit found no injury to the climbers in the case and upheld Native Americans’ First Amendment right to freedom of religion it should also be noted that there was also an attempt by the National Parks Service to ban commercial climbing (see full lawsuit text page 14) during June which was shot down by the climbers. “The Climbers filed a motion to enjoin NPS from imposing the ban on commercial climbing during the month of June. The district court granted the motion in June 1996,” it reads.
As someone familiar with the monument and having worked there Stimson does acknowledge that from a managerial standpoint, climbing is the “correct tool” but that “during the past five to 10 years climbing statistics show the voluntary closure has proven to not be as successful as initially thought. Through the education of the climbing public, it is thought the voluntary climbing closure could be successful.”
This points to an interesting phenomenon, that some climbers themselves are more respectful, in desiring to avoid the social scorn of their own community, than they are toward honoring restrictions imposed on their self interest in order to be respectful of native people.
There is some evidence as to why the Park Service's voluntary closure is not successful. In a survey performed in June and July of 1992 by a group independent of the federal agency, climbers were asked specifically if their “views of climbing would change if they knew that Native Americans considered it a sacred site and objected to climbing?” Sixty-seven percent said their view of climbing would not change out of respect for the religious beliefs of some Native Americans and that they would continue to climb the tower.” This data comes from the text of the lawsuit itself and while it contains information from nearly 30 years ago, it speaks volumes.
In this clash of culture, there is no doubt that the climbing community is overwhelmingly white and privileged and while neither of these are inherently a mark of a bad individual, the blatant disregard for the requests of communities to whom this monument is sacred is not a good look. As climbers, particularly non-Native climbers, it is always –and particularly now as the nation faces a racial reckoning—our job to to listen to the voices of people like Ridgely and Stimson who belong to cultures that have been respecting and conserving the places we so love for millennia.
We need to educate ourselves and question whether we are simply using rock for our enjoyment or if our hobby (and perhaps profession) actually leads to advocacy for protecting the spirit of place and stewardship, not just for the preservation of lands themselves but for their original inhabitants as well.
As we watch the world outside climbing wrestle with legacies of racism and colonization, we should look inwards at ourselves and the community and ask where we see these stains within it and what we can do about it.
One answer could be ending climbing at Bear Lodge entirely and action of the sort is not unprecedented. In late 2019, a national park in Australia moved to ban mountain climbing entirely on Uluru, a sandstone formation sacred to the Anangu.
Tim Wentz of the Standing Rock Sioux once remarked: “There is a price to pay, a payment that has to happen to protect sacred places.” The question is what sort of price will those with the power accept? Are the climbers willing to give up climbing good rock to respect the religious practices and cultures of indigenous peoples? And if they aren’t, why?
About Lorea Zabaleta
Lorea Zabaleta is a writer who grew up in Bozeman, Montana as the daughter of a professional conservationist mother who has also been an elected member of the local school board and a European father who is well known as a climber, carpenter and advocate of human rights. Lorea herself is an avid mountaineer, skier, wildlife advocate and lover of the great outdoors. After attending prep school in the East, she enrolled at Colorado College where she is studying international political economy and journalism. She is Mountain Journal's summer intern for 2020.
