Montana Cherishes Its Wide Open Spaces

As an expatriate Montanan, I appreciated your story on Montana and the Montana outlook. It’s a great and beautiful state, but is quite limited in opportunities to make a living.

Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce Indians were not massacred at the Big Hole. Joseph was trying to lead his band in an escape from the whites with the idea of living in Canada. Colonel Gibbons forced a battle at the Big Hole but it was not really a victory for either side. In fact, Joseph captured some of the Army’s guns.

Joseph evaded the troops after that battle and led his people southeast across Montana into Yellowstone Park where his presence frightened the pants off the tourists. Joseph led the Indians north across Montana but stopped at the Bear Paw Mountains approximately 50 miles south of Canada, perhaps thinking that he had reached his goal. This long journey from eastern Washington had exhausted the women and children and they badly needed rest.

At this point Col. Nelson Miles and his troops caught up with the Indians and forced their surrender. It was here that Joseph made his declaration “From where the sun stands I will fight no more forever.” Joseph was such a skilled strategist that he could have risen high in the Army officer corps had he been white.

RAY BRACY

Tustin