What is 'The West'?
Ethan's September Response*
When I first thought of the west before this first league of the trip, I thought mainly of three things. Cows, Cowboys, and lots, no, TONS of wild land. The thing is, those aren’t the only things out there. There is an amazing influence of culture and civilization that have blended together to form the real west. Sure, you’ll always have cities and American influence, but Native Americans have shaped the west in the past, and you can see their influence today. From Sitting Bull to Red Cloud, their battles, broken treaties, and culture changed the west forever. They are what we know of the west, and what we should know more of. They have a culture that have lived off the land, and have used the land to survive for THOUSANDS of years. There is an immense history behind the Native Americans, and we learned that partly by going into the Rogues Gallery, in Hullet, Wyoming. Rogues Gallery is a museum with a collection of the culture of the Native Americans, and the expansion into the west. It had everything from rifles to ghost dance shirts, and was an awesome way to learn about the west. We learned a lot about the Plains culture and battles of the Sioux, Blackfeet, and Nez Pearce tribes, and a TON of stuff about the cruelty of frontier life, on both sides.
I think that we should also take in the geologic history of the west as well. From Badlands to Wind Cave, and from the Grand Canyon to the Gila Cliff Dwellings, the American west has a diverse landscape of rocks and caves. Our first understanding of the awe-inspiring land of the west, was our first National Park itself, The Badlands. The Badlands is a geologic miracle, an erosion shaped wall that goes for 60 miles, and is humbling to look at. At some parts of the wall, you could see the 5 layers of rock that have been dug away by rain and water, and are still getting eroded today. Needless to say, it was a spectacular first National Park, and we saw our first actual Bison there! Our second (and final) stop on this geologic tour is Wind Cave National Park, the first National Park to be designated to protecting a cave. As the name states, there is a cave under the National Park, a 144 mile long cave to be precise. We were lucking enough to get a tour there, and learned some interesting facts along the way. One of the interesting facts was that Wind Cave had 95 percent of all the box work formations in the world! The reason for that is that Wind Cave was NOT formed by flowing river, it was formed in an ocean, millions of years ago! And since Wind Cave is a dry cave without stalagmites or stalagmites, box work, a fragile formation, did not get washed away.
There are millions of things to learn by just being out there in the west, and even more things to learn if you go searching for them. So remember to take all the information in about a cultural or geologic event, and you’ll be surprised about how much you can learn.
*Note: This was Ethan’s rewrite of his original post which, unfortunately, cannot be found.
When I first thought of the west before this first league of the trip, I thought mainly of three things. Cows, Cowboys, and lots, no, TONS of wild land. The thing is, those aren’t the only things out there. There is an amazing influence of culture and civilization that have blended together to form the real west. Sure, you’ll always have cities and American influence, but Native Americans have shaped the west in the past, and you can see their influence today. From Sitting Bull to Red Cloud, their battles, broken treaties, and culture changed the west forever. They are what we know of the west, and what we should know more of. They have a culture that have lived off the land, and have used the land to survive for THOUSANDS of years. There is an immense history behind the Native Americans, and we learned that partly by going into the Rogues Gallery, in Hullet, Wyoming. Rogues Gallery is a museum with a collection of the culture of the Native Americans, and the expansion into the west. It had everything from rifles to ghost dance shirts, and was an awesome way to learn about the west. We learned a lot about the Plains culture and battles of the Sioux, Blackfeet, and Nez Pearce tribes, and a TON of stuff about the cruelty of frontier life, on both sides.
I think that we should also take in the geologic history of the west as well. From Badlands to Wind Cave, and from the Grand Canyon to the Gila Cliff Dwellings, the American west has a diverse landscape of rocks and caves. Our first understanding of the awe-inspiring land of the west, was our first National Park itself, The Badlands. The Badlands is a geologic miracle, an erosion shaped wall that goes for 60 miles, and is humbling to look at. At some parts of the wall, you could see the 5 layers of rock that have been dug away by rain and water, and are still getting eroded today. Needless to say, it was a spectacular first National Park, and we saw our first actual Bison there! Our second (and final) stop on this geologic tour is Wind Cave National Park, the first National Park to be designated to protecting a cave. As the name states, there is a cave under the National Park, a 144 mile long cave to be precise. We were lucking enough to get a tour there, and learned some interesting facts along the way. One of the interesting facts was that Wind Cave had 95 percent of all the box work formations in the world! The reason for that is that Wind Cave was NOT formed by flowing river, it was formed in an ocean, millions of years ago! And since Wind Cave is a dry cave without stalagmites or stalagmites, box work, a fragile formation, did not get washed away.
There are millions of things to learn by just being out there in the west, and even more things to learn if you go searching for them. So remember to take all the information in about a cultural or geologic event, and you’ll be surprised about how much you can learn.
*Note: This was Ethan’s rewrite of his original post which, unfortunately, cannot be found.