the view from Nowhere: Indiana University Meets Red Canyon Ranch

We spent the third and final ten-day session of our field school down south at Red Canyon Ranch, just shy of Thermopolis, Wyoming (the self-appointed World’s Largest Mineral Hot Springs). Red Canyon Ranch is the immediate neighbor of the Wind River Indian Reservation, the only reservation in Wyoming and current home to several bands of Shoshones as well as the Arapahoes.

(At the head of Red Canyon looking down into the ranch. The Owl Creek Mountains are the backdrop.)

Red Canyon is a functioning buffalo ranch owned by the infamous Michael and Kathy Gear (authors of the First Peoples series), the most gracious, kind hosts in the history of nice people. We were invited onto their ranch and into their home to conduct excavations at a historic stage stop.

Our crew was greatly reduced during the third session. Each of the participating institutions conducted separate fieldwork (the University of Memphis students went south to do backcountry work near Dubois, while the St. Cloud State students conducted an ethnographic session based in Lodge Grass on the Crow Reservation), leaving about 11 of us at Red Canyon.

The stage stop was occupied at the turn of the century by the Nostrum family, and later by the Thierons (we like to think of the Thierons as a gang of gun-slinging bootleggers). Today the stage stop is home to a large colony of ants.

(The first disturbance of the colony was accidental, all other times I attribute to heat insanity.)

This session was mainly focused on teaching the students a variety of excavations techniques. Our goals were to determine the variety of activities conducted at the stage stop as well as learn more about the stop’s inhabitants.

(Working hard or hardly working? The RTK gave us lots of trouble at this location.)

I think the highlight of this particular session was our Summer Solstice Celebration, where we all sat around the campfire with some popcorn and contemplated the gifts we were given in the past year and hoped to see the end of the next round of seasons.