Grateful and Proud: Writing-on-Stone

Here starts a new series in the blog (yes, I know, yet another, but I hope this one will stick). I’m calling it Grateful and Proud because it’s a retrospective of special places I’ve been in the Airstream, but not an “I’m so sad that I gave that up” but a “Yay look what I did” type of retrospective. At least that is the plan.

I’m taking past blog entries about a location and combining them into one entry, or, if there’s just one entry I think you might enjoy, I’m reposting just that. I’ll provide a little background in the intro, clean up typos, and, as with this location where I’d just started using my camera, edit a couple of photos to give you a better idea of what I saw when I was there. I’m not including all the photos or text, but I am including a link to the original post(s).

If you have the time, let me know what you think of this series idea.

Writing-on-Stone

This is a provincial park in southern Alberta, Canada, and it’s on the gorgeous Milk River. According to Wikipedia, “it is one of the largest areas of protected prairie in the Alberta park system, and […] is sacred to the Blackfoot and other Indigenous peoples.” It’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site, named Áísínai’pi, a Blackfoot word meaning “it is pictured” (or, “it is written”).

We were there in spring 2023 (on our red route), on our way up to Alaska.

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Initial Impressions

I often feel like spirituality is something other people experience. I’ve never felt connected to a greater being, and I wonder if my feelings about the land and nature aren’t a little forced. And when I get emotional while witnessing indigenous ceremonies, my tears are probably a whole lot of racial guilt. 

Some places are so beautiful, though, that I wonder if they’re portals to the spirit. When I spoke with Svea back in Hecla, Manitoba, I was I impressed with her open heartedness about her sacred places being available to all who want a spiritual experience. Maybe I just have to be open, too. 

Here at Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park in Alberta, I feel like I may have stepped through the looking glass to a spiritual place.

The topography helps. Everywhere you look are hoodoos, geologic formations made as the Milk River has eroded the land, revealing sediment in shapes like people and tables. The Blackfoot call them matápiiksi, or earth beings. 

The river itself is visible as far as you can see, a consistent, winding, pale reflection of the sky.

We were the only humans on the hoodoo trail one morning, and the land and sky beings (rabbits, deer, birds, and snakes) would not give way to us. It’s like we had to pay them homage before we could pass.

The Blackfoot believe that their spiritual elders live here, so this land is their most scared place. People occasionally still visit to leave offerings and for vision quests.

They believe that the 2,000-year-old petroglyphs and pictographs are messages from the spirit world, and, as such, the images are not static. They change with light and time to guide you.

Remains of a sweat lodge lie in the grass outside the visitor’s center, which is designed to blend with the horizontal shelves of rock it sits on. 

Tracy and I hiked to the top of the upland prairie, where winds gusted so strongly that I turned around for lower ground before I could be blown away. 

The next day, Tracy obtained a back-country pass and hiked across the Milk River, up Humphrey Coulee.

Maybe he made a connection with the land that he’s been missing since we left the kayaks behind. 

There’s so much to take in here that I have sensation overload by each afternoon. Perhaps the spirits here are telling me to slow down again. Sit by the Milk River and stop trying so hard to find meaning.

Back-Country Hiking

I ended my previous post thinking the spirits in this sacred place were telling me to slow down. Well, perhaps I misunderstood that message, because the hike I went on the next day seemed spectacular. 

First thing, I signed in with the visitor’s center for back-country hiking, then I joined Tracy in fording the Milk River, which was higher and faster than the previous day. Really, I swear.

I tied my shoes to my backpack, put my camera in there in a ziplock bag, and followed Tracy’s strides until the water was at my waist. At which point I yelled over the current, “WAIT UP!” I got a little scared, but there was nothing else to do but keep walking forward slowly, wrestling my hiking pole in and out of the current before I took each small step.

So totally worth it, for as soon as we put our hiking gear back to rights and walked up the coulee (small valley), we hit a slot canyon. 

Not as dramatic as the ones we’ve hiked in places like Borrego Springs, California, but lovely because it was so unexpected. (Coyote skull on the ledge there?)

Above the canyon, we walked along the prairie, admiring the views of southern Alberta’s sweeping geology.

We hiked back down a different coulee, scaring mule deer as they were resting in the shade of cliffs.

I barely know how to turn my new camera on, much less produce landscape shots that show the huge distances and beauty here. You’ll have to imagine how far the eye can see, especially when there’s no haze from wildfires. 

As we were hiking back to the river to ford it again, we saw our campground neighbors: a family with small children who were also on my guided hike yesterday all about the petroglyphs here. The girls waved wildly at me and called out. They were perched on huge rocks eating Cheeze-its like any regular day. 

Of course, they’d forded the river as well, the dad carrying each child on his back for a couple of trips and the mom carrying their picnic lunch. I felt a bit deflated. 

There’s a saying I see a lot on social media:

Just to rub it in, our camp host then ran by us holding water bottles in each hand. He’s a retired ultra-marathoner, but still, he’s clearly older than we are. And he was running. 

I am nevertheless pleased with myself!

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The first of these posts in the original blog is here, and you can browse ahead for more from this location.