A Few Days In Fort Bidwell

We made it to Fort Bidwell in time for dinner, but it was dark out. We joined the kids in the “cabin” that Nate is building for the family. It is basically a large kitchen with a loft. The plan is to add a bedroom on the back side and have kids sleeping in the loft. Once he has the roof on and windows in, the room should be lots cozier for winter.

Friday was busy for all of us.

Nate and Bekki have 3 Icelandic sheep, unfortunately, with coats all matted up. Another friend has several sheep and she arranged for a sheep shearer to shear all of the coats.

The shearer, his wife and 4 kids came from Ukiah to do the shearing. I didn’t realize this, but shearing is the man’s profession. He shears for about 6 months of the year then has 6 months off. And of interest to me, the whole family is Gluten Free. So the sheep were sheared and then we all had a meal together.

On Saturday the local Northern Paiute tribe were celebrating Mount Bidwell Days. The tribe refers to the community as Mt. Bidwell, which is the Mountain behind Nate and Bekki’s land. This year’s celebration was to honor the “Survivors of the Indian School”.

Like many areas in the U.S., the Native American children were removed from their families and put into schools, in order to make them more like the western person. This is, however, a subject that is not for this blog.

The celebration started with a parade. The parade included 4 vehicles, a truck with an elder, a car protesting the North Dakota pipeline, a flatbed truck with drummers and singers and a car with a Native American movie star. There was a small group of dancers both adult and a young girl and 3 children followed the truck with the drummers. The parade wasn’t large and there were few people to watch, mostly Native American from the reservation.

The reservation has a community center, which held the POW WOW and festivities.

We went in the afternoon and watched some singing and dancing. Unfortunately, we missed the recognition of the Survivors. I would have love to have seen that.

A storm was coming in and it was freezing outside, it was time for us to clear out. Our RV tanks were full, water and batteries empty. Time to find a warm RV park with hookups.