Let's Talk Wyoming - 71 A Journey Through Weather, Wildlife, and Historical Wonders

Ready to embark on a journey through the diverse landscapes of Wyoming? From its unpredictable weather patterns, rich history, and the thrilling wildlife, this episode promises to take you on a rollercoaster ride you'll never forget. We'll discuss Wyoming's recent rainfall and its implications on harvests and hay crops. If you're a fan of county and state fairs, you'll love our rundown of the local events. But not everything is sunshine and rainbows; we'll also delve into the heart-wrenching stories of missing persons, including the latest on the young woman, Brianna Mitchell. We'll also explore the fascinating markings left by ancient civilizations, possibly guiding us to a brighter future.

In our second segment, we switch gears and explore the increase in bear activity and recount a thrilling survival tale. Ever wondered about the ancient people who left their mark on Wyoming? We'll discuss the petrographs they left behind, and how modern archaeologists are working alongside the Shoshone people to decipher these marvels. Finally, we'll guide you through Wyoming's archaeological treasures, impressing upon you the importance of preserving these sites. If you're eager to learn more, we'll direct you to the best places to gain more insight into Wyoming's vibrant history. So buckle up and join us on this incredible journey through Wyoming's weather, wildlife, and historical wonders.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:21

Good morning and welcome to let's Talk Wyoming. I'm Mark Hamilton, your host, and today we'll take a look at Wyoming weather and, yes, we did get rain over the weekend. Also, the grizzly bears are back in the news. We'll talk about some county and state fairs going on here in the state and finally, we'll take a look at some ancient signs that are left behind. Are they our direction for the future? Thanks for joining us today and we hope you enjoy the show.

Speaker 1: 1:01

We'll look at Wyoming weather here on the 7th day of August. What a weekend we had. It started raining Thursday night. It is unbelievable the amount of moisture that we received. On my last count or last check of our rain gauge, we had over two and a quarter inches of rain and it's been cool. The weather's been seems more like middle of September, kind of getting to a little cooler at night right now. But here in hot springs county we got a great rain and storms kept coming in and we definitely needed it. Was dry out everywhere and well, I'll tell you what I'm thankful for this moisture. It really helped our countryside. I think these areas that have got the moisture it's really going to make a difference as far as potential fire danger. Our temperatures are still cool here today, in the 70s I see later in the week we'll get in the 80s, but just the 80s, which is very bearable. But it is cooling off at night and I should have closed the windows the other night, saturday night, it was just so cool that I had to pull the covers up and stay warm. So weather right now having an effect on talked. Last week some of the barley harvest here in the basin got shut down due to moisture. But as soon as it warms back up they'll be back out in the field. And who said with their equipment that they have, they can get out and get barley harvested pretty quick. So I think they'll be okay.

Speaker 1: 2:34

One thing that's happening right now I see hay crops are a little behind, quite a bit behind, I should say. I guess that's kind of understatement that first cutting a lot of areas didn't get it out till just a you know a week or two ago. It's pretty late for that first cutting. So I've even seen some of the people aren't even irrigating for a second cutting. A lot of time left where we're now into August and first frost could be probably a month away, potentially the first part of September. So definitely weather has been strange, but we don't know what we're gonna have. But I guess we'll wait and see what's next and what this got in store for us. When we wake up tomorrow it'll be a totally different world.

Speaker 1: 3:20

Taking a look at happenings around the state of Wyoming here, the first part of August Most the county fair is included around the area over the weekend. They actually started in the middle of last week, finished on Saturday. Then on to the state fair which will be coming up in Douglas, wyoming, and that will include the 4-H events for the year. It's always kind of rewarding. Those kids go to a lot of work for their 4-H animals. They have their livestock auction at these local sites and the kids get an auction off their animals, earn some money and also maybe to buy their next one for next year, make enough money maybe to help with college or whatever their plans are in the future. So it's kind of a bittersweet moment for a lot of those kids to sell those animals. They have spent a lot of time with them. But the 4-H events they have besides livestock they do other events. They do some cooking and some other things. I have a family member, a young family member that actually made a loaf of bread, so a loaf of I cornbread, and got a blue ribbon. So congratulations to him and great job for all those kids that put all that effort out for the state fair. And again it's on to Douglas. Wyoming, which they've had the state fair at Douglas for as long as I know, has been there from the start, I think, and I'm gonna do some research on that but the winners from each one of the events end up going down and competing for the state fair event.

Speaker 1: 4:55

In other news we talked about our missing young lady around here around the area down in Worland. They still have not founded the young lady. We talked about her last week. Brianna Mitchell, they have tried quite a few different search methods. They did thought they had I should say they thought they had a lead with a dog coming in and sent dog and maybe going to a reservoir out there, thinking maybe she got into the reservoir. They did get permission to drain that reservoir and there was no bodies in the reservoir. So that did not lead to anything. I did read today from the sheriff's report that they have a group coming out of Cody Wyoming that specializes in recovery. They use drones and other methods. They'll be coming out and starting their search in the next day and then after that, if they're not successful, they've got one more effort, with some of the local agencies and counties around the area coming out and taking a look. So again, right now, as the sheriff said, it's really a recovery effort.

Speaker 1: 6:09

If the young lady is still in that area, of course there's a lot of conjecture what could happen to her. I've heard a lot of different things, a lot of different rumors. Of course they're all just rumors, but the search continues and we did have a local gentleman here, an older gentleman, that has went missing and it's amazing right now. You see the amount of missing people. We have a Facebook site where they talk about and keep track of the missing people. Unbelievable the amount of people that have gone missing, especially the youth. I know how many of those are just runaways. What happens to them? I just feel for these kids that their life is such that they want to run away and try to find something better. They usually aren't going to find anything better, but just deeper trouble when they do the runaway. But a lot of those kids they do find and come home. But kind of a plight right now in our area and I think it's a plight everywhere in the US with the missing. And again, as I said last week, it's got to be really tough when you lose somebody like that and do not find them. Just that uncertainty that people have Wondering what's happened to those loved ones.

Speaker 1: 7:27

In our bear news of the area, we talked about the lady that was killed here recently over by West Yellowstone. That was a tragic event. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Also, the same thing happened here recently, but the gentleman was lucky enough to survive. He was a surveyor and he was out up here in this part of our area of Wyoming and got attacked by a grizzly. He was smart enough that he couldn't get to his repellent but he did as they're talking about in training Go to the ground and cover your back of your neck, of your head and just sit still and the bear. If you're not doing anything or not moving, they give up pretty quick and that's what happened In this case. The guy was able to get up and walk out and get help Smart enough, I guess, to follow the training for it, but it seems to be on the uptick.

Speaker 1: 8:24

The other one that I got to chuck a lot of, had a place called Luther Montana, which is on the border of Montana and Wyoming. Up in the northwestern part of Wyoming, the southeastern part of Montana, central part, little town of Luther, a couple hundred people. The next bear actually got into some people's house and they woke up and heard the noise and the gentleman ended up shooting the black bear. It shot it in one room, it went to another room and finished shooting it and killed the bear, called the game and fish. So that would be definitely a start. If you woke up and you had a bear in your house, that would be a shock and be kind of sleepless nights in the future. I'm wondering when the next bear is coming. It's definitely bear season we're at that time of the year with everything happening, but the bears are definitely active right now in the area. But again, when you're out and about, when you're here in Wyoming, these other states, there are animals out there. You've got to be aware at all times of what's going on Because you just never know when they could attack. Today we're going to take a look at petrographs and there are some pretty cool ones here in the state and today's article comes from Tom Rae WowHistoryorg pictures on rock.

Speaker 1: 9:46

The earliest people appeared to have come to Wyoming from Asia about 11,000 years ago. For thousands of years they roamed the plains hunting big game on foot. Some of the animals were enormous Mammoths and giant bison. The earliest people appeared to have come to Wyoming from Asia about 11,000 years ago. For thousands of years they roamed the plains hunting big game on foot. Some of the animals were enormous Mammoths and giant bison, for example. Such others as camels and horses were about the size they are now Probably. The people worked in small groups and ambushing prey at springs or streams, preferring the younger and smaller mammoths and butchering two or three at a time. Many of the big mammals went extinct 11 or 10,000 years ago. About 7,000 years ago, a drought began that lasted 2,000 years. Bison and people seemed to have disappeared from the plains altogether.

Speaker 1: 10:43

In Wyoming the people moved up into the mountains, where it was cooler and where there was water. By 4,500 years ago people had returned to the plains. Sometimes they stayed in caves and rock shelters. They gathered plants and ground the seed. They fished in the 108 small mammal and reptiles and amphibians. By that time the giant bison had been replaced by the modern bison, which we call buffalo.

Speaker 1: 11:10

Around 500 AD people began using bows and arrows In Wyoming. They left rings of stones where they had pitched their tepees. They had much larger stone circles orientated to the sun and stars. They left pictures in carvings on rocks. When we look at those carvings now we can help but wonder about the ancient people who made them. Who were they? What was important to them, how did they make these pictures and why? Archeologists now think there is a good chance that the people were direct ancestors of the Shoshone people who lived in Wyoming, now Many of them on the Wind River Indian Reservation. In recent years the mostly white archaeologists have realized it makes sense to ask Shoshone people for help understanding the pictures and carvings their ancestors left on the rock.

Speaker 1: 11:58

Take, for example, the water ghost woman whose image is on a rock face in Hot Springs County, northomopolis. She may be Pawap, a spiritual woman that she's shown stories. She is definitely female, as can be seen from her breasts, a detail admitted from most rock images. She lived in watery places rivers, lakes, hot springs. If you look closely you can see what may be a streak of tears below her eyes. She was known to cry and wail to trick men to come into the water to get to know her better. Then she would drown them. In her left hand she may be holding a turtle. You can see the roundest shape of the shell and the four feet, because she wouldn't leave the water. Pawaw's depended on turtles to travel out on land to do favors for her. But if we look closely we see the turtle has no head. So perhaps it wasn't a turtle, perhaps it was a child. Those four turtle feet are actually two human hands and two human feet. Sometimes she would grab children and bite their hands off. She wasn't only a threat, she could also help people, learn to help and heal each other. Their powers were particularly helpful against diseases like epilepsy, which can cause seizures in people.

Speaker 1: 13:17

These images are called pictographs, and if they are painted on the rocks or petrolifts, if they are pecked or carved into the rocks, for a long time white people thought of them as art, that is, they assumed the people who made them did so. For the same reason, europeans and Euro-Americans paint, traw or sculpt To make beautiful things that last and that may be returned to when a person wants to fill the pleasures of beauty. But our archaeologists now understand. The rock pictures have for a long time been used as a source of spiritual power and are still used that way now. This allows us to think of the images as windows connecting past and present, connecting the spiritual world with a material world at hand, like churches, temples or cathedrals of Europeans and Euro-Americans. They may be ancient, but they can still be used for their original purposes. This is different from simply admiring them for their beauty.

Speaker 1: 14:18

People went to the pictographs and the petroglyphs seeking the power they needed for a successful life. Take, for example, the wing figure from the canyon of Torrey Creek, a tributary of the Wind River in Central Wyoming. Before approaching a picture like this, the people would bathe in a stream or lake. Then they would wait in front of it, perhaps for days, without food or water, waiting and praying for a vision or a dream to show them their power. Vision seeking is common to all tribes, not just to Shoshone. If the vision instructed them to do so, they would make a new image on the rock to record what they had seen. The detail would be useful for future visions, both for the original dreamers and for later vision seekers.

Speaker 1: 15:05

Archeologists and anthropologists more or less agree that image making of all kinds in plains. Indian culture on rocks, on clothing or tepees and household goods is connected with the same kind of vision, seeking the spear point of the ancient people left behind them, and the arrowheads or even the big nets used to trap wild sheep show how they managed to survive in a material world where people get hungry and need to eat every day. In the same way, the rock pictures are tools they use to help maintain a strong and confident sense of the world and their part in it. Confidence, is as important to survive as eating. White people have been curious for some time about the rock images and their makers. In 1873, captain William A Jones of the US Army led an expedition north from Fort Bridger on the new Transcontinental Railroad to Yellowstone Park. On the way he passed the Wind River and its tributaries in what is now Fremont County in Erlander, he noticed rock images at four different places and reported on them in detail. Jones speculated that the first of these places may have been used as a place of incantation by some Indian medicine man, but he was convinced to show people did not make the image. To him they were only signs of the past, not places that had a spiritual purpose in the present.

Speaker 1: 16:26

In the late 1920s an alert teenager named David Love left his family ranch on Muscrack Creek in a dry, remote part of Fremont County to attend the University of Wyoming. There he learned that a French archaeologist, edanine Renold from the University of Denver, would survey and pictographs and petroglyph sites all over the high plains. Renold had studied the ancient cave paintings of France and Spain and was eager to see how ancient American images compared. Love knew of a spot packed full of Indian images. It was near his family ranch and called Castle Gardens because it had stands, sewn cliffs and cedar trees Reminded people of castles. Were gardens growing on top of the walls? Love wrote Renold several times and finally persuaded the archaeologist to come have a look. Renold arrived in 1831 and returned the next year. He was so impressed by Love's knowledge that he included Love's description in his own report.

Speaker 1: 17:25

Love's favorite among the huge variety of images was a big, bright colored turtle. It was a foot high, 9 inches across, with a circle drawn around it. The shell was divided into sections by incised lines, that is, lines cut deeply into the rock. The crisscrossing lines divided the turtle's shell into about 50 different sections, each colored differently from the next one next to it. Each of the turtle's four legs were also divided by incised lines with sections Scales. They looked like each leg, love noticed, had the same number of scales and corresponding scale on each leg was the same color and each foot had five claws. The sections were green, yellow and reddish purple. They had was triangular and red. The length of the tail on the triangle ahead convinced Love the people who made the images new turtles. Well, though turtles are rare in Cisteri country, the triangular head made Renault believe it was a snapping turtle. He knew that snapping turtles along the Mississippi and Missouri River can grow to 120 pounds and that turtles show up in many ancient images in those valleys.

Speaker 1: 18:34

Turtles show up too in ancient rock images throughout the high plains of the west. Clearly they've been important to people for thousands of years, like people who became skilled in moving between the spiritual and material world Turtles easily between water and land. Renault published his report in 1936. A few years later Ted Sowers, an archaeologist working for the state of Wyoming, returned to Castle Gardens to photograph the turtle. He found the image gone and only a hole in the rock left to show where it had been. Bandels had stolen it. What happened next is unclear, but the story goes that word went out among the people of Fremont County that the turtle had better turn up again if no one wants their legs broken.

Speaker 1: 19:18

The turtle did resurface and was doing edge of the Wyoming State Museum in Cheyenne on September 20th 1941. There it may be seen as colors have dulled since love first subscribed it. This well worth the trip For love and Renault. However, all these rock images were pictures of the past culture made by the imaginations of people no longer among us. But in 1983, mary Helen Henry, a central Wyoming rancher, artist and anthropologist and longtime member of the Neutrona County School Board, published a book full of photographs and descriptions of pictographs and petroglyphs in Wyoming. She photographed a site that had first been sketched by an army officer in 1882, but she noticed the headdress that one of the figures had been added to. Clearly, indians were continuing to use the images in the late 1800s and early 1990s, perhaps down to the present.

Speaker 1: 20:16

Books and websites where you can learn more about Wammings, ancient people and images are available. Better, however, would be to visit the State Museum for a look at the Great Turtle, and better still would be to visit the sites themselves. Three best are Castle Garden, the Legend Rock Petroglyph site and the Medicine State Archaeological Site. The sites that they talked about, the two closest to us here in Hot Springs County, are the one out on the road to Tetsi Cody that is open in the summer months, and up at Hyattville. The petroglyphs are up. There are just outstanding at what they call the Game and Fish. There are two great sites here locally for people to go visit. Thanks for joining us today and we hope you enjoy our podcast. As per the Code of the West, we ride for the brand and we ride for Wyoming. We try, we try.