4 Days Going North

Tuesday, July 12: Departure to the Rocky Mountain Front

By 8am we loaded up to the vans and ready to left Missoula for the next four days. At around noon we stopped in Ovando for a session with Mr. Gary Burnett from 'The Blackfoot Challenge', an organization established by people who own lands along the Blackfoot River (website: www.blackfootchallenge.org). The Blackfoot Challenge is nationally known for its community‐based work on fire management, forest restoration, water quality, fish habitat, weed

management, education, and economic development. Mr. Burnett and his mates shared about what compelled people to create the Blackfoot Challenge, what enables it to be successful, what constrains it, and what sustains it.

at Ovando

After lunch, we departed for Teddy Roosevelt Memorial Ranch through a long straight road with rocky mountains and great plains on the both sides. Teddy Roosevelt was the pioneer of animal conservation in the US, also the founder of the 'Boone and Crockett Club' (website: www.boone-crockett.org). We had a free time to hike around the vast ranch before the sun sets. Mike Briggs (Ranch Manager) and Lisa Flowers (Director of Conservation Education) provided an overview of the ranch after dinner. Not only overview, they later put on a DVD of a fiction movie titled 'And a River Runs Through It', it is about how people's life are so much attached to the river, especially here in Montana.

Wednesday, July 13: Rocky Mountain and Tipi Camp

Gene Sentz and Jennifer Ferenstein shared their experience on the work of the Coalition of the Rocky Mountain Front and highlight lessons learned about community‐based collaboration (website: www.savethefront.org). Then Ms. Flowers took us down to the river, she taught us how to measure the stream flows before we left the ranch.

By 3pm we were up in Browning to have another case study about Negotiating State-Tribal Agreements Over Water with Ms. Jeanne Whiteing (attorney representing the Blackfeet Indian Reservation) and Mr. Jay Weiner (attorney representing the State of Montana) we discussed the multiple values of water and lessons learned during the process of negotiating a compact between the Blackfeet, State of Montana, and United States over use of water resources arising on or flowing through the Blackfeet Reservation. 

saying in Tipi

 

That night we stayed in Blackfoot Tipi Village, a lodging place where instead of having rooms, the guests are provided with Tipis (Indian traditional house, a conical tent supported by wood-sticks and surrounded with bull skin). It was a wonderful experience, to feel like living Indian life. The owner who is a true Indian man came along at the dinner, where we had bull-meat soup and trout fish, and he told us many things about his culture.

Thursday, July 14: Glacier National Park

We started early today because everyone was so excited to get to the glacier as soon as possible; well, actually we could already see the snowy peaks from Browning. After we arrived at Logan Pass, we walked the trail along St. Mary's glacial lake while Dr. Broberg explain to us about ecological diversity in Glacier National Park and examine the impacts of climate change on the landscape. Glacier Park's varied climate influences and its location at the headwaters of the Pacific, Atlantic, and Hudson Bay drainages have given rise to an incredible variety of plants and animals. In the space of a few miles, we will travel from the western prairie through alpine meadows and into lush cedar/hemlock forests. These diverse habitats are home to nearly 70 species of mammals including the grizzly bear, wolverine, gray wolf and lynx. Over 270 species of birds visit or reside in the park, including such varied species as harlequin ducks, dippers and golden eagles.

st.Mary's lake, GNP

We had lunch just around the Logan Pass before we continued to the most exciting part of this program: the snow. The place where we can play in the snow is called the Avalanche Creek, which is just a few miles away from Canada. We were so lucky the road up there was opened the day before, because it had been closed for almost half a year due to the heavy winter and snowfall. Even though it was summertime, we could still see piles of freshly drudged snow piles and the people working on it. The site was so crowded, there were people from everywhere; we saw white people, Blacks, Asians, Middle-Eastern, and many more. Those people came there not merely for the snow like we did, but many of them brought snow-boards, ski-shoes, and other sport equipments.

in the snow!!

That was the first snow for all 20 of us, so the vast landscape of snowy plains and rocks made us totally struck with amazement. Being over-excited, we ran to the snow plains right away, and we did not care if people see us as if we came from another planet. We played snow-war, made snowmen, and took lots of pictures together. We were extremely happy, and we cherished our time in the snow as best as we can because we never know if we could meet any snow again in the future. We stayed overnight in Whitefish, a small town not far from the glacier.

Friday, July 15: Evaluation and Garden of Buddhas

After breakfast in the hotel, we had a case study about 'Negotiating Trans-boundary Agreements: North Fork of the Flathead River' with Mr. Wayne Stetski from East Kootenay Conservation Program, Mr. Clayton Matt from Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes, and Mr. Michael Jamison from National Parks Conservation Association. We had a dialogue on the merits of the Memorandum of Understanding between British Columbia (Canada) and Montana to protect the natural and cultural heritage on the North Fork of the Flathead River, where once people discover a huge amount of lead but they decided to to have a mining to preserve the river. Following the session, Dr. McKinney had a seminar to synthesize lessons and explore applications, and also relate them with environmental problems that we have in Southeast Asia.

Buddha statues in the making

Going back to Missoula, we stooped in Arlee where The Garden of 1000 Buddhas is located. This interesting site in western Montana’s Jocko Valley is being created through the guidance of Gochen Tulku Sang‐ngag Rinpoche, an incarnate Tibetan Buddhist Lama. Nestled in a peaceful valley on land of the Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation, one thousand hand‐cast Buddha statues will be arrayed around the central figure of Yum Chenmo, or the ‘Great Mother’ of perfect wisdom. Another 1000 stupas -representations of the enlightened mind- will enshrine 1000 images of the female Buddha Tara and line the outer circle.