Stu Jenks: Fezziwig Photography, Music, and Writing

"The God of Love (Confounding)" (c) 2007

"The God of Love (Confounding), Off Wyoming Route 34" (c) 2007 Stu Jenks

[For Catalina]

"The Albany County Buffalo" (c) 2007

"The Albany County Buffalo, Wyoming" (c) Stu Jenks 2007

Shame I don't have a MP3 module on this blog. I recorded this big boy's breathing on a small handheld digital recorder while I was photographing him. He was both curious and mildly irritated with me as I shot him. He did allow me to pet him a couple of times but he was not too fond of my camera. His fellow corral-mate was only mildly interested in me. He, on the other hand, came right over and said hello. But it was the sound that I wish I could play for you on this blog. He and I just stood together for a while. I wasn't shooting. I was just leaning on the fence and he was leaning toward me from his side. His breath rattled loudly through his throat and his huge head, sounding much like water going down a bathtub drain. He wasn't angry (then). He was just breathing. Actually, he was never was really angry with me. He just got spooked by the sound of my camera shutter a couple of times.

 

As I said in an earlier post, the sadness I felt of the absence of the herds of Bison was profound. The roving street gangs of Antelope didn't make up for the lack of the Ocean of Buffalo that had once lived on these plains. Don't get me wrong. I don't romanticize these creatures, at least not too much. They are not the sharpest pencils in the pack and they can be a bit ornery. But there is something about them, like boulders that slowly move through the grass. They are, after all, the largest land mammals in North America. Like a cross between a dog and a mountain.

And I may be projecting this, but when I looked in his eye, and I did a number of times, it was as if I could see him thinking, wanting, wishing for this:

"Please let me out of here."

I wish I could.

I wish I could raise the all the Buffalo from the dead.

I wish there were scenic overlooks on the Interstate where you could watch a Sea of Bison run by.

I wish for a lot of things.

Only a few of them come true.

 

[The top two images are mine and the buffalo's. The bottom image is of William Jacob Hays' painting "Herd of Buffalo", Circa 1862. It's part of the permanent collection at the Denver Art Museum.]

"Devils Tower National Monument, Bear's Lodge, Wyoming" (c) 2007

"Devils Tower National Monument, Bear's Lodge, Wyoming" (c) 2007 Stu Jenks

        Bing, bing, bing.....bing, bing. A musical hint I so badly want to send to friends back home via my cell phone, when I first saw this majestic peak in front of me yesterday. But alas, I haven't had cell phone coverage since Colorado.
        Hint: In a movie, I'm carving a mountain out of mashed potatoes. I'm Richard Dreyfuss. Where am I?

        25 years ago, I kept on driving on my way to the Pacific Ocean and didn't stop here. I regretted that for years. Today, I hadn't planned on stopping but I asked myself this simple question when I was a
couple of hours away. Question: When will I be within a hundred miles of Devils Tower again? Answer: Who the hell knows. I'm so glad I stopped. I haven't been disappointed in the least, in my twenty-four hours at this holy and funny spot.

        Stu's Fun Facts:

1)      Devils Tower was the United States' first National Monument (Yellowstone was the first National Park). Teddy Roosevelt made it a Monument in 1906, for he didn't want this unusual igneous intrusion to be harmed or abused.

2)      The Monument is quite tiny by National Park standards (Yellowstone and The Grand Canyon are huge in comparison.) Just the Tower, the land below it, and parts of the Belle Fourche River are inside of the Monument boundaries.

3)      Devils Tower rises 1267 feet above the surround land. Straight up.

4)      The Monument contains a very large Prairie Dog town. Sweet Jesus Christ, they are the funniest, most mesmerizing creatures I have ever seen in the Wild. I promised my friend Annie that I will take her there someday simply for the Prairie Dogs, (which she can get easy access to from the modest but beautiful campground that sits on the banks of the Belle Fourche.) Annie loves baby creatures, little wild
animals. This place would be a Mecca for her.

5)      Devils Tower is a holy peak for the surrounding tribes: Cheyenne, Lakota, Arapaho, Shoshone, Kiowa and others. Everyone of these tribes call the mountain, Bear's Lodge, or Bear's Tipi, or Bear's House or variations of that (even though one tribe does call it 'Penis Mountain".) But an ignorant arrogant smart-assed white guy showed up back in the day, and said that an Indian told him that the peak was
called "Bad God's Tower", so he called it "Devils Tower" and it stuck. No one, but him, had ever called it that before. The park system is thinking of changing the name to Bear's Lodge National Monument after being petitioned by the neighboring tribes. I'm on the tribe's side in this one. I don't think the French would like it too much of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris was called Black Magic Woman Church because a Nazi called it that in World War Two.

6)      Also, numerous Indians are a bit pissed off that so many people climb Devils Tower. A couple thousand people a year do. A compromise has been reached by the Park Service. Even though they can't mandated that no one climb during the month of June (A heavily ceremonial month for many of the tribes) they have asked that people not climb the Tower during that time and they have gotten 90% voluntary compliance. (Separation of Church and State prohibits the Service from doing anymore than asking.) High marks to those who agree to stay off the mountain at least one month a year. Brief aside: It did bamboozle me when I saw the lamps of flashlights of those bivouacking on the sheer
face of the Tower, the night I spent there. Brief flash of light in the dark at 1000 feet above the ground. Very bizarre.

7)      Some say that Sweet Medicine, the Cheyenne Hero, was buried at Bear's Lodge.

8)      The Crows come to Devils Tower to worship and fast. They built small stone "dream houses" as part of the vision quests, structures that are as long and as wide as a man. A worshiper would recline in his or her structure, head to the east as part of his vision quest (Crows I understand are matriarchal, so I bet women vision quest too.)

9)     I had a couple of pretty powerful experiences with the Tower and its tall Grasses, its moist Sage, and its very big Day and Night Sky. I'm going to keep mum about them, but I hope you enjoy the images I took.

10)     Lastly, odd as it might sound, the Prairie Dog town is worth the trip alone. Praying to God And To-All-There-Is, is all well and good, but laughing out loud at the antics of the Dogs is just as heaven-sent.

"Sundance, Wyoming" (c) 2007

"Sundance, Wyoming" (c) 2007 Stu Jenks