Helena, Montana

Day 28, We boarded our luxury motor coach and headed to the city of Helena, which used to be called Last Chance Gulch. Since it is now the state capital, thank goodness they changed the name. Starting at the Historical Society Museum for a self-guided tour. The museum was set up in themes for each section. One section was devoted to CM Russell, the artist, so you know where a lot of our guests started. This was one of his most famous works. “Waiting for a Chinook.” This was his response to his friend who asked how the cattle were faring during the harsh winter of 1886-1887. This picture made national headlines when it appeared in newspapers across the country.

I found “the white bull” most interesting. Native Americans felt the white bison calf carried sacred significance. The man who killed a white bison received his power from the sun and the “good medicine” held by the white hide extended to the hunter’s family and his entire band. In 1933, on the Flathead Indian Reservation, a white calf was born to a naturally brown mother. His fame spread thru Nat’l media and he became known as “Big Medicine.” He was not a true albino, he had blue eyes, tan hoofs, and had a topknot of dark brown hair. Normaly bisons live about 20 years, but special care was given to Big Medicine to prolong his life. He died in 1959 at the age of 26., weighing 1,193 pounds (dropping considerable weight). His hide is on display.
Here are some other favorites. I thought my son, Billy who plays hockey, would appreciate the ice skates. The beaded tennis shoes are used by the modern day Indians when performing in gymnasiums. The tennis shoes are more comfortable and they bead them to keep with tradition.

Outside the museum, we boarded the Helena Tour Train for a narrated tour of the city.

Our tour of the Capitol Building proved to be correct when North Dakota told us they used the plans from Montana to build their capitol building because they are VERY MUCH alike. Montana’s State Capitol Building was the first to have electricity.

CM Russell was commissioned to create a painting in 1911. The huge canvas, 25 ft. by 12 ft. was painted in his log cabin studio in Great Falls. Notice the wolf at the bottom in the middle of the painting. The painting is not insured as it is so expensive that the cost of the insurance would be astronomical.
After lunch, we walked over to the Great Northern Carousel where everyone got to ride it. If you ever go there, hop onto one of the “outside” animals because as you go around, you have a change to grab a ring & throw it into the basket. If you grab a “gold” ring, you get a free ride. You should have seen all the seniors riding the carousel! I think the kiddies thought we were nuts.

The cornerstone of the Cathedral of St. Helena was laid in 1908 and completed in 1913.
Col. Thomas Cruse, a well-known local miner and businessman pledged $100,000 toward the interior work of the Cathedral in memory of his recently deceased daughter. The total cost to build the Cathedral was $645,590.44. If the same structure were built today, it would cost tens of millions of dollars.

Our last tour of the day was the original Governor’s Mansion, built in 1888.

The Queen Anne style house was built by the Chessman family to reflect their wealth and influence.

It has 3 indoor bathrooms!

The Chessman family were forced to give up this lifestyle due to financial difficulties, and ended up moving across the street to the apartments that he built and once owned. His banker who foreclosed on him bought the Chessman house. I can only imagine how they must have felt watching someone else live in their home. Eventually, it became the official residence for the Governor in 1913. The daughters of the first governor to live in the house helped the historical society restore the house to resemble as it was when they lived there as children.

Day 29, headed out for Dillon, Montana. The scenic route we took was a little scary around the bend of overhanging rocks and narrow road, but it sure was beautiful.

Ft. Benton, Montana

Day 24, It was definitely cold last night and lucky for us, no snow. But you can see in this picture the rain off in a distance.

Driving to Ft. Benton, alongside the road much of the way was a railroad track with railroad cars that haul ship containers just sitting there totally empty. Miles and miles of empty cars. Someone in our group figured there were 80 cars per mile and there were about 14 miles of cars. That’s 1,120 empty cargo train cars!!!The only thing we could figure is that the economy is so bad for shipping items right now, that they just parked them, which is what one of the locals confirmed. On our way to Great Falls, Montana, we stopped at Fort Benton, known as the birthplace of Montana.

When we got into town, we found that one of the locals, Jay who is a wheat farmer and owns 4,000 acres, saw all these RVs headed to town, so he hopped in his truck and came to see what we were up to. Of course he knew the lady who gave us the tour of Fort Benton, Jay’s great aunt was one of her grade school teachers. We adopted Jay so he could take the tour with us. He was very interesting to talk to. His ancestors were homesteaders and got 320 acres from the government for living on it for 5 years. After that when people couldn’t make ends meet & starting selling their property, Jay’s ancestors bought it all up. I don’t know how much the rest of his family owns.

Fort Benton is a quaint little town. Right alongside the Missouri River with some of the original buildings.

The fort was used as a trade station. The picture on the right below is how the walls were built.

The statute above on the right is George Montgomery. He was born in the area, the youngest of 15 and headed for Hollywood as soon as he graduated from high school. He starred in 87 movies and the Cimarron City Television series.

There is a small museum where we saw the rifle Chief Joseph had in his possession when he surrendered.

There’s also another museum that houses the Smithsonian Hornaday buffalo (pictured right), which was used as the model for the Buffalo Nickel.

This is what the town looks like from the highway.

Driving towards our destination of Great Falls were some wonderful sites, like this house out in the middle of now where on the side of a hill!

We arrived in Great Falls just in time for a wonderful 1805 Dinner Theme at a local restaurant.

Day 25, starting early, we headed out to visit Portage Creek. Once Lewis and Clark got to this area and discovered the “great falls of the Missouri” was a series of five scenic and unique waterfalls that cascade through a subtle prairie canyon that the water has carved from the prehistoric glacial clays. The falls encompass a ten mile stretch of river, beginning at Black Eagle Falls and culminate at the Great Falls, which was first witnessed by Lewis and his advance scouting party. Lewis was only expecting to see a single fall, which would have meant a one or two day portage (that’s when they had to unload the boats & transport the boats & cargo on land without the use of horses).

Today the five falls are known as Great Falls, Crooked, Rainbow, Colter and Black Eagle Falls. They do not look the same today as dams have been put in to control the water flow. The water was much shallower than it is today.
Now: ..............................................................................Then:

We visited the area where their portage began and followed pretty closely where they had to go to get above the falls. Clark laid out the 18 ¼ mile portage, making it as short and easy as possible. Hard ground, prickly pear cactus, heat, wind, rain, hail, and mosquitos sure didn’t help the men of the expedition. In order to transport all the canoes and baggage they had to make 8 trips, it amounted to 150 miles. It’s hard to believe they accomplished this task in 26 days. At the upper portage camp, they celebrated the 29th anniversary of our nation’s independence on July 4th.

We visited the Interpretive Center. I didn’t realize there were so many Lewis and Clark interpretive centers. But everyone is different and you learn something new every time! Day 26, The C.M. Russell Museum was our first stop. Russell was an artist from the last 1800s.

When I heard we were going to spend 2 hours at an art museum, I have to admit I wasn’t thrilled. But when I got in there, it was hard to leave when our time was up. He’s work is very impressive. He had oil paintings, watercolors, bronze statutes, wax statutes, he does everything!

And he does it well! They even had on display letters he wrote to his friends over the years and in his letters, he had drawings. Look how they used to address the envelope. Only the name, city and state!

It was awesome. He painted a huge oil painting of elks and donated the painting to the Elk’s Lodge. Well, the Elk’s Lodge needed money, so it was sold. There is a plague listing all the people who bought a square inch of the painting and I can’t tell you how many names were on that plague, but there was A LOT.

At his studio, right next to the museum,

we met a wonderful woman who told us a little about him and his family. He painted an oil for the Governor, which is hanging in the State Capitol Building, which is so big that he had to raise the roof of his studio in order to paint it. Then they rolled it up to get it out the door & loaded it on a railroad car for transportation to Helena. He had a real funny sense of humor. When he did the painting, he put a wolf in it who looks like he ready to attack the speaker of the house and as it hangs in the capitol building.

We ended our day at the Great Falls Heritage Center, where we saw the buffalo used in “Dancing With Wolves”


and viewing the People’s Buffalo Jump. Buffalo Jumps, and there are many of them, is where the Indians would trick the buffalo into jumping off the cliff, they would be maimed and easier for the Indians to catch.

Many times it was the younger Indians, as young as 11 and 12 years old, would dress up like a buffalo and start a stampede toward the cliffs. The young ones dressed like buffalo would jump off the cliff, but hang under the ledge just below the edge and hold one until the buffalos fell below. Sometimes the Indians would get so excited and the adrenaline would flow and would end up getting stampeded to death themselves.