SHERIDAN — After Antelope Butte Mountain Recreation Area Lodge’s 17-year hiatus, it is now open and will be celebrated this weekend.
The new lodge was built on the bones of the old one. The old structure was taken down to the studs and rebuilt into a 9,200-square-foot lodge that will facilitate mountain recreation during all seasons.
“We’re excited to offer safety, shelter and entertainment beyond just the outdoor recreation,” said Vice President of the Antelope Butte Foundation, Sandy Scott Suzor.
The ceremony will also thank the many contributors who made the lodge possible financially, and those who volunteered their time and abilities.
About five years ago, Antelope Butte asked members of the Crow Tribe to come to the mountain recreation area and bless summer activities.
“We wanted them to come up and share some of their stories and medicine,” said Mark Weitz, founding Antelope Butte Board member. “I’ve felt their blessing was a key part to the success we had.”
Leonard Bends and other members of the Crow Tribe blessed the new building, people and animals.
Henry Real Bird told stories about the mountain and what it means to him and the Apsáalooke, or Crow, people.
Butch Jellis, who was adopted into the Crow Tribe, shared the importance of blessings to his people: stories had been passed down from his older brothers and clan uncles.
Jellis said long ago the Crow people needed to separate from their sister tribe, the Hidatsa, due to worsening winters, and they settled in these valleys, the corner of the Bighorn Mountains.
In the late 1800s, Sen. Walsh from Montana wanted to break up the Crow Nation. The chiefs were to state their cause in Washington, D.C., yet none of them spoke English. Robert Yellowtail traveled with the Crow chiefs to interpret and defend the Apsáalooke people, Jellis said.
The night before this hearing, the chiefs wanted to make medicine, but needed bison scat, which was scarce in Washington, D.C.
The chiefs then went to the Washington, D.C., Zoo, gathered dried bison scat and made medicine in the middle of a hotel lobby. They smudged everyone and prayed to the creator for Yellowtail to say the right words and appeal to those wanting to break up the Crow Nation.
Smudging is a ritual in Apsáalooke culture in which herbs and resins are burned in a small bowl during prayer. The resulting cloud of smoke is believed to cleanse the air and those within it.
In this meeting — attended by influential Wyomingites like John B. Kendrick — they allowed Walsh 45 minutes to speak.
Yellowtail was only allotted 15.
After Walsh’s speech, Yellowtail pointed out the unjustly rationed time and the judge allowed him time to tell the history of the Apsáalooke people, lifestyle and beliefs, Jellis recounted.
Walsh ultimately conceded to Yellowtail. The Crow Nation remained unbroken.
The lodge dedication ceremony at Antelope Butte will feature a similar blessing. Coals of cedar will be burned, and the ashes will be used to ask the creator to bless the lodge. The resulting smoke will cleanse the area.
“May good stories come from here, Antelope Butte. May all of you people return safely to your lodges,” Real Bird wrote in the Apsáalooke blessing in 2016.
Apsáalooke culture will be embraced in all parts of the ceremony.
“One of the great connections for me as a Sherdanite is that their school system is very active in the mountains,” Suzor shared.
Four buses of Wyola skiers have visited Antelope Butte so far this season; it has been the highest number of one school recreating on the mountain.
At the last blessing in 2016, Leonard Bends, Medicine Rock Chief, said, in the old days, the Apsáalooke would bring their boys up to the Antelope Butte area to become men.
He looked forward to bringing boys and girls up here to become adults, learn about the mountain and learn how to snowboard.
“I’ve always felt, regardless of where the political boundaries are, that this is an area for us all to share. The Crows shared with us, and now we are going to continue to share good will and the beautiful space,” Weitz said.
