A New Chapter

This morning we continued with our last stage of construction this week – putting the floor in place on the joists and beams and walls we had been building all week.

We spent some time with Charlie getting it all straight and square, and then heaving the heavy structural flooring sheets into place.  Deb enhanced her mountain goat status, balancing and leaping about on joists laying down construction glue, while Melissa and others helped wrestle the boards in place and tacked them down with nails.

Then it was down to a crew of hammerers, nailing the boards finally into position with nails 4 inches apart.  It was a huge job, and by our finish time of 12.30pm we were half way done.  It was hard to drag ourselves away, but by 1.00pm we stopped at the end of a row of boards, took a group photo and had a group hug with Charlie to celebrate our achievement.

Then it was time for a frantic pack, before breaking camp and heading to our mountain retreat.  We drove into Browning and met our guide, Pauline Matt, outside the De La Salle Blackfeet School, then followed her up the road towards the mountains for half an hour.

Our camp site was originally planned to be in the mountains, but the smoke from the fires near St Mary’s was still so strong we moved down to the foothills to stay on the property of a local Blackfeet family.

We arrived to find four lodges (tipis) set up in a beautiful wide field, surrounded by Aspens and Diamond Willows, with the foothills of the Rocky Mountains and wild forests behind us.  We met a few challenges in our first few hours – a hive of wild bees showed great interest in our arrival, although the fly swatters and a tented eating area kept them mostly at bay!  And after the luxury of porta-potty’s at our last camp site, we went even more outdoors – with a pit toilet made up of a hole in the ground and a bench with a toilet seat on it!  At least the view was spectacular!

After settling into camp, Pauline introduced herself and our other leader for the retreat, Mari King. Pauline and Mari are both pipe holders in the Blackfeet tribe, which gives them special responsibilities for caring for others in the tribe who need help.  Pauline has lived a diverse life, raising children, building houses, running a herbal business selling products based on Blackfeet traditional knowledge and running wilderness retreats for women.  She now only runs one retreat a year, and we were honoured that she chose our group for this year.

Mari is a talented painter, and holds many degrees including criminology, counseling and psychology, and is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Montana.  After introductions on the first evening, we were set our first task – Mari taught us how to make our own parfleche bag.

Parfleche bags are made from rawhide and come in all shapes and sizes to carry your belongings.  We made small ones to wear around our necks, and started by sanding the rawhide to soften it, then folding and painting the bags, before stitching them up and decorating them with beads.  As we worked, Mari told us stories of the Blackfeet and their beliefs. 

For many of us this was the first art project we had attempted since childhood, and we chose from traditional designs for our decorations, or ones that had a more personal meaning for us.

Late that night we retired to our tipis, set to continue our adventure the next day.