Week 6 Blog

I enjoyed this book very much more on a personal level than on one that I would use for school.  Chapter 1 which refers to spiritual reference and jobs of the woman vs. the men is what I would refer to as my background knowledge when doing my lesson plan.  I was so hopeful to find the Salish Medicine Wheel in this book as well.  I have searched for it online and in some other books, but I know just from oral descriptions that I am not finding the one I would like for our area.  The ones on line for the Salish people are the coastal clans and they pray clockwise; the direction of the water flow.  I am pretty sure from what I have learned of my community is that we pray counter clock wise in the direction of water flow for our area.  If any one has any advise they would like to share, I would be so grateful as this is the focus of my lesson plan.

On a personal note, reading and absorbing the photos in this book reminded me of my grandfather's stories.  The Fort Peck Dam days were during his early adult and he was a barber who was also the first aid station.  The blood letting, the bodily repairs were up to him and his partners as doctors were so scares.  He talked of many lives lost in the horrific accidents.  We would take Sunday drives around the lake when I was a child.  He would stop the car and tell a story or we would have a picnic in those areas on Fathers Day that meant so much to him.  He always got to choose where we went on that large area and rarley in his younger days was it the same area.

My other Grandfather would also tell me stories of building roads there.  If my memeory serves me right it was in the 1940s.  He would have to move cemeteries to a new location in order to build roads.  These stories were not always remembered fondly, but it did give me a perspective of how life must of been in the days of the people who died. 

Most of all it makes me wonder if tribal employment was also a preference here too as stated in this book about Kerr Dam.  It would be interesting to research that end of the history too about Fort Peck Dam.