Video
Peoples of the Niobrara Lesson
Transcript
Susan Cook: Hi, my name is Susan Cook. I'm the Program Manager for Interpretation, Education and Volunteers at Niobrara National Scenic River in Valentine, Nebraska. We are a national park site that is here to preserve 76-miles of wild and scenic river. We protect this along with its six ecosystems and over 200 waterfalls that are found along this beautiful river. It's an amazing place to visit. So today you're going to be learning more about the Niobrara River Valley and the people that have lived here. It has been cared for and maintained for centuries, by different groups of people who had been here. So you're first going to learn about the Native Americans that have lived along this land. And they consider this to be, water is life, as their theme, because everything that comes in life is alive because of the water that's here. Then you're going to learn about the homesteaders, the people that came here with the lure of free land, and getting their own land. They came from everywhere, they became the ranchers, also. So the homesteaders and ranchers who are caring for this land and raising beautiful cattle, it's amazing to see the prairie and the cattle, that -- and horses and sheep that were raised in this area.
So they cared for this land in another way. And now in this current generation, we're going to learn about the current people too. There are land owners who were also outfitters. Back in the '70s, in the 1970s-1980s, all of a sudden, people realize this river is a wonderful place for recreation. It is a beautiful, and it's family friendly, and you can float in on kayaks, tubes, canoes. But it's a wonderful, it's so peaceful, so quiet, and yet there's rapids that make it exciting. So it has everything for everyone. So those outfitters are now the current caretakers along with all the other people. We're going to be asking you as you go through these activities, that you will become the caretakers of this beautiful valley and that river, because as part of the National Park Service, it belongs to you.
Phyllis Stone: My heart is happy, and I very gladly shake your hands. I am happy to be doing this for you. I got my name from a medicine man from a long time ago, a long time ago. My cousin, who is a leader at our sun dance gave my granddaughter her name. And we don't ordinarily have our names, until we are, I don't know, maybe 10-years-old. But I have him give my granddaughter her name when she was just a baby, so that she would grow up knowing us.
I did, I'm Sicangu [Indiscernible] [00:02:57] from the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. But I live here now in Lincoln, Nebraska. I -- many years ago, pre-reservation times, a storyteller, or a messenger, an Oglala would set up in a teepee and tell stories. We don't have that opportunity anymore, because too many people don't believe that you can tell a worthwhile story unless you have a degree behind your name. And a lot of our people who knows so much and have so much knowledge don't have that degree. But a lot of our star knowledge was lost, because it was with those old people.
Some of us have picked up some things through a lot of work, but primarily from astronomy, you know, and then relating it to our own stars, to our own stories that we were told. Ours is an oral tradition, and things were told in stories all the time. And they were not just stories, they were messages on how we should live our lives and all that. Because of our star knowledge just went -- it just went away, like I said, my grandpa Iron Shell even relocated from our reservation, from our homeland, to Hastings, Nebraska, so that his children would learn to live the washitu, the white way. And a lot of the knowledge that even he had was not passed on because they were so busy learning how to live the white way. But for some reason, I picked up on what my grandpa said. And my grandpa related to me a lot of ways from a long time ago that we are not supposed to pass on to be general knowledge, we're supposed to keep to ourselves and pass on to our children.
A long time ago, we trusted our leaders and they went by the stars. And when they said it was time to break camp to move somewhere else, we were a nomadic people, we did. We didn't question them, we just moved, when they said, we stopped, when they said. We put up our camps and we did whatever they said, our medicine men. And we moved camp when it was a good time to move, not necessarily during the winter, because we like hunkered down for the winter, in a place where they said it was good for us to camp. And then it was during the spring when we would make this long journey to the Black Hills. Now, the Black Hills is very important to us, because we think of it as our heart, our chante [Phonetic] [0:05:55]. And we would do our ceremonies and live within our heart. And we would do a big ceremony outside of the Black Hills -- near in Mato Tipila, you know it as a Devils Tower. And we would have a huge sun dance, a huge sun dance and that's where we would -- the dancers would form a vortex. A vortex is the only word that we can use for the teepee shape of our doings would work, because it was movement.
And we like to think of tunkashila [Phonetic] [00:06:38], the creator, as [Native American language] a fast movement. And he would make sure that that movement was up in the stars. And we were doing -- the sun dancers were on the bottom, doing the same thing with their prayers and with their singing, and with their sacrifices. I am so grateful to have been part of that, to have been one of those sun dancers. Doing that knowing that my prayers were going up there and they were being danced everywhere in the stars. Because we think our being in the stars is a great thing. When we die, we don't -- we don't dread passing away, because we know we are going to become a star. We know that we are going to be in the Milky Way. And we know when we go up there when after we pass away, we will go away, our spirit will go away and we will meet all of our relatives, and all of our friends. And it will be a great time. A great time.
Anymore, people don't like to talk about going away, about dying. But it's not something that we look forward to. It's just that we know that it's going to happen. And we know that because the stars told us that, the stars are very welcoming to us. You know, the stars -- some people say that the stars move all the time. It's not the stars that are moving, it's us the earth that is moving. The North Star is basically constant. The North Star stays in the north. And the other stars move just incrementally around it into their different shapes, at different times of the year. And we -- some of us say when we are leaving somebody, we don't have a word for goodbye. So well say tókša akhé, later. And we know that if you are looking at the star, the North Star, know that I am looking at the star. And that, that's one way that we will be communicating always, tókša akhé, later. Because like I said, we don't have a word for goodbye. And I will say [Native American language], all my relatives [Native American language].
Female Speaker: Native American cultures have cared for this land for generations. One of their poems is the Passamaquoddy Song. "We are the stars who sing, we sing with our light. We are the birds of fire, we fly over the sky. Our light is a voice. We make a road for the spirits, for the spirits to pass over. Among us are three hunters who chase a bear. There never was a time when they were not hunting. We look down on the mountains.” This is the song of the stars. This poem talks about what the heavens see about us people here on the earth. So for -- thinking about what the Native American culture when they think of the skies and the stars, and the planets, and the earth, and we people who walk on it, start thinking about the Milky Way as how it can be seen over the Niobrara River Valley. It can be seen so clear as day because there's no light pollution here. Then take your knowledge of the stars. Where did you learn it from? Was it your grandparents who taught it to you like Phyllis Stone, whose grandfather taught her? Did you learn it in school? Have a discussion about where did you learn your star knowledge, and what do you know about it. Create a story, how your family taught you about the stars. And if it wasn't your family, use your school. Feel free to share your stories. We want to hear from you. Native Americans cared for this land for generations. In the 1900s homesteaders and ranchers began caring for this land and the Niobrara River, as it provided what they needed to survive life.
Debby Galloway: Hi, I'm Debby Galloway. And I married August Galloway who -- and we own the homestead ranch South of Kilgore at this time. And we were married in 1970. I grew up in California and moved to the Sandhills and fell in love with them. We lived in a community at that time that we were 60 miles from Gordon, and I -- all I needed was my horse and a book, and I was perfectly happy. I was 11-years-old, and I fell in love with the Sandhills spirit and the Sandhills family. When my husband and I married we were high school sweethearts. We moved on to this place after a stint in the service. We were in Germany, when we finally got this place. And we moved into a community that was unlike anything, it was just being phased out in society. We were secluded. Each rancher considered him your neighbor. And we had a sewing bee quilting club, and we got together every month. And it was just phenomenal to be able to learn quilting in that atmosphere. And to know the Sandhills people and their spirit, and their generosity. I have -- I truly loved it.
And, so when we were first married, I didn't have a sewing machine. I didn't have many avenues, no TV, no phone. And so I learned to entertain myself and I did genealogy. So I have a lot of stories from the family about the place and the area, and I'm kind of a historian. Anyway, Amelia brought her family to this area. She had married Peter Galloway back in Pennsylvania. And she was a widowed woman, she lost her husband in the Danville Prison in the Civil War. She had three children at the time. And Peter was 62 and she was 30 when they married. And that's like he had a whole life before he met her. But anyway, they lived in Pennsylvania for a short time. And they decided to move on west, I suppose the lure of land at that time of the homesteading and they were in the process about 12 years living there, and coming west. They show up again, I find them in Columbus, Nebraska where Peter died and was buried. And I said, I feel that this woman was so strong.
She brought her boys on to the Valentine area. And they show up here in 1886. And her son, oldest son was married in Pennsylvania. And I'm sure that he had a lot to do with moving that young family this way. And a lot of their -- a lot of the kin of those four boys are buried in our local cemetery just as Whispering Pines is located along the edge of the river here. So it's our family cemetery. But they all settled here and Peter stayed with his mom. He took care of her and they didn't homestead as early as the rest of the boys, the three other boys did. But Peter took out a homestead, I believe his application was in 1904. Amelia had taken hers out quite a little before that. But he was 32 when he married a 16-year-old girl. Over here on the meadow they had a great big wedding. And her family was a little bit more prosperous. We still have the cabin that they dismantled up on the Mecan [Phonetic] [0:15:37] edge, and brought down here for her to live in because she could not live in a dugout. It's just amazing what they had to put up with back in that time. And they had a large family of nine.
And then in 1916, Jim Galloway, who lived up the river, just about a mile, lost cattle in a brutal storm. And that made the decline of his rather large holdings. And he eventually sold and Peter picked up land at that time. And Peter raised hogs and cattle. And when he was first here, and they had settled in that pond area, north there in Valentine where the pond is located on the Minnechaduza. He was a bullwhacker. He's -- he cut and hauled wood to the fort. And so anything that would work, you know, they lived with family, they lived in an old, abandoned house there. And then the boys came down here and made their claims on this land. And eventually, Peter was the only one that was left. You know, everyone was seeking, you know, as to the 1930s, it was so hard that I think our branch of the family is just so stubborn. They wanted to keep the ranch in the family. And August's father, Walter bought the ranch in 1939. And he married August mother, Margaret. And they lived on the south side, when Emma and Pete lived here on the north side.
And that there was a house, a really nice cabin on the south side that Amelia used as her prove up for her homestead on the south side. And eventually, Walter and Margaret moved to the north side. And they lived here a short time. And Walter was ill. And they were off the place, working a job to keep the place, move back, find another job. And they were determined to keep the place. Walter died of Bright's disease in 1965, and left Margaret with the place. And she did everything she possibly could to hold the place, and eventually, they foreclosed on her. And we were destined to have the place. It was understood that we would take the place, but we were in the army in Germany. And so August sister took the place, and held it for, I think about three years. And then we moved back and took the place. And we've been here since 1974. And it's been a struggle back in the early days, when we first lived here. There wasn't good buildings at all. And we really struggled to make a living because there was no cash flow in this area. The ranches borrowed their money from the banks and paid off in the fall. And so there wasn't much of a cash flow at all. And the day work was terrible.
Just before we got married, Augie [Phonetic] [00:19:12] was working for, you know, $15 a day and $1 a stack, in the summer he was doing [Indiscernible] [00:19:21]. So my father at that same time, was working for $263 a month and had a family of seven children. So, you know, things weren't flowing here, we all struggled. But as we've gone through the years, and we've managed to find a way to make a living, we got a sawmill. And I worked out eventually after my boys were probably about eighth graders getting into high school. And my husband has found a way to make a living here and he fenced for a lot of years, construction fencing, and then also doing work for the Forest Service clearing cedar trees. But home -- this homestead place has meant everything to us. It's a way to keep our extended family together, keep them coming back, knowing that they have roots, and sharing the history that has happened to this family and to every branch that started here.
Homesteading along a river was fabulous. I have never been anywhere in my life, that there wasn't water. I was hooked water, you know, it's a play thing. It's a necessity. Its live water for our cattle, knowing that in the hard times, that we would have water for our cattle and water to survive on. And so it was entertainment. There wasn't a time when my children couldn't go down and play in the water. The Sandhills of Nebraska are my heart. And the Niobrara, living on the Niobrara has just been an unbelievable experience.
Female Speaker: Debby spoke of the community that exists around the Niobrara River Valley, and all the people that made it a community and the impact it had on their family being able to stay on this land for many generations. Generations of the Galloway family were able to stay here because of the sense of community. For a prewriting discussion; consider the community of people who live around the Niobrara River. And what does that mean today for helping each other? They were also considered to have grit, which means you have courage and spunk in the face of hardship and danger. They had to have grit to survive and thrive in this area. So talk about struggles your family has overcome like these homesteaders and ranchers have overcome.
So Debby makes two important statements. She says, "You can't beat the Niobrara River and that water is a plaything, a necessity and that the water was necessary for the family livelihood." She also quotes, "The Sandhills of Nebraska is my heart and living on the Niobrara has just been an unbelievable experience." So within our writing prompts, pick one of these to work on. Write about how water is an essential, and impacts your life. Or write about a place and, or an experience that exemplifies your heart. So in the 1980s, the Niobrara River began to gain a reputation as a great place to recreate. Its beauty, biodiversity and all it had to offer was the beginning of our current chapter. Landowners or ranchers, outfitters, and the outfitters are today's caretakers.
Steve Breuklander: I've got a lot of history in this area. My grandparents both homesteaded in this area, actually South of Valentine. One on the Boardman Creek and one on the Snake River out there. Their homestead -- where they homesteaded is under Merritt Reservoir now. An interesting part of how we got into the canoe outfitting business, when dad bought the place just for ranching, but we were putting up hay and there were some people come along and they were needing rides back up to their cars. They didn't realize how remote it was going to be down there and how much traffic there wasn't going to be. And so they were needing rides and then they were asking about renting canoes and such. And I'll back up a little bit more because before we bought the place down there, every weekend, our family and some of my cousins would all get together and they would camp different places along the river down there. And we would take two tractor and our tubes, and tie them together, put a piece of plywood on top of there. And dad would have a lawn chair on there and, you know, a pole 10-12 foot long to push off in the bank and, you know, we kind of thought we were going down the river in style with that.
And I can remember the first canoe that I ever seen on a river. I was too small to have a tube of my own and so I was riding on the raft with dad and there was two canoes come around the corner about a quarter or a half a mile behind us. And I was like, "What's that?" And so then, you know, eventually then, like I said dad bought the place and then we -- to get into the canoe business then, he had the money to buy three used canoes. And they went into the bank here in Valentine to borrow the money to buy three more used canoes, and the canoe trailer. And the banker sat there and pointed his finger at dad and said, "Oh, you just watch, they're going to build that Norden Dam, your place is going to be under 60 foot of water down there. It's a waste of time, energy, money, effort, don't even think about it, forget about it. It's, you know, don't even consider it." It kind of made dad mad, so he kind of got up, told the banker, "You know, I came in here to borrow money, not to get advice," and he walked out.
And so when dad was a kid, he did quite a bit of trapping. And he had a bunch of traps, and so we went and got the traps ready, we dyed them and everything. And we got permission to trap right across the river from where Sunny Brook Camp is today, there's a bunch of beaver dams over there. And so we got permission to trap over there. And we trapped beaver, and coon, and coyote, and bobcat. And dad caught more than enough fur that winter to pay for those other three canoes and the canoe trailer. And so then it just evolved, he just kept putting money back into it to, and to what it is today. Well, there weren't very many other outfitters on the river when we started. The Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, they had some canoes that they would ran out. There really wasn't any other local outfitters in Valentine. There was another one that started up, right in that same period of time though.
You know, what a boost for this community, it's been, I mean, back in the '80s, were some really rough years. We had 11 banks that went bankrupt here. Ranching, you know, ranchers all around were selling out because prices have dropped and the way the economy was. And with the canoeing is one of the other industries that helped keep Valentine more viable. There was also the recreation on Merritt Reservoir. And so between Merritt Reservoir and the Niobrara River, the two different types of recreation, you had the canoeing, you had the flowing water, and then you had the fishing, and the boating on a big lake. And then, you know, it's still an agricultural base that it takes to keep this community going. But you need these other industries to supplement it as well. This is the best place to winter cattle that there is because you've got all the protection, it'll be three to five degrees warmer down on the river bottom than what it is up on the top. The wind doesn't hit in there, you get the direct sunshine. The water is, you know, that's just a key issue of what is there. As far as hay production goes, and it's always been, you know, a source of, I want to say livelihood too, but, you know, the water and the trees and the protection, there's always been the outdoor aspect of it.
But when my dad bought the place down there, he really had no intentions of getting into the recreation, it was more for the ranching. And, of course, I run cattle there today and to know that it's protected with Scenic River designation, is just -- it's always going to be there. And it will always leave this area with the diversity. Like I mentioned earlier, we have the Merritt Reservoir, we have the river, and the uniqueness of the valley, the different ecosystems that all come together there. And just being able to preserve it for the future generations, knowing that it's not all going to get developed. You know, I've been involved with the hunting outfitting business as well. And when I have hunters that come out here and they see this area, and, you know, they're used to hunting in very confined areas out there, and we go hunt in one pasture all day, and never leave that pasture. And they can't believe the vastness of it and the openness, you know, it's not all developed. It doesn't have houses everywhere. And just the appreciation that they have for it gives me gratification or satisfaction that we're doing something here where people are going to be able to come and enjoy it.
Female Speaker: Mr. Breuklander and his family lived for generations along the Niobrara River. Not all of it was right there on the river, but they were always near the river. So the Niobrara River has supported the people and animals, both domesticated and wild, and helped them survive and thrive in this usual ecological region. Recreation in the Niobrara River with its beautiful and wild environment has made it possible for regional economic success. So consider this before -- in your discussion. Consider how to use the environment and all its factors, and how they contribute to a town whether it barely exists or thrives? And then also think about where you live and what businesses recreational facilities and agricultural endeavors, influence your city or town, do they define what your town is, and what it is to you? For your writing prompt pick one of these two. Write about the Niobrara as if it had a voice and can tell a story, and how it sees the history of the area and where it exists. What would it say about itself, and of this community? Or write about the place where you live the buildings, the city or town, the area that surrounds you, give it a voice about how it impacts the economy of your region, and the livelihood of your own family.
Susan Cook: Special people have cared for this special place for centuries, now it's your turn. The Niobrara National Scenic River has been entrusted to the citizens of the United States through the National Park Service. So what will your legacy be? How will you care for the Niobrara National Scenic River and all of nature?
[Video Ends] [0:32:01]
Description
Peoples of the Niobrara River Valley Writing Lesson
60 minutes classroom time, or split into two 30 minute lessons
Students will learn about the many different caretakers of the Niobrara River through-out history and examine the impact that the river had on their families and culture at those times. Each era of Niobrara Caretakers is followed by a discussion and writing prompt asking students to examine their own experiences of family and culture today.
Duration
32 minutes, 1 second
Credit
NPS and Nebraska Writing Project, Funded by the National Writing Project
Date Created
03/09/2021
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