White Girl in Indian Country

Billings, MT -- Every time I come near an Indian Reservation, white people start warning me about it. They tell me to be careful riding through and ask if I’ve thought about taking a different road. I'll probably be fine, they say, but don't ride through on a weekend and don't spend the night. Be careful. There's a lot of unemployment in those parts, they tell me, and that means people have more time to get into trouble.

I don't know if they have any reason to say those things. I'm skeptical, because isn't it what white people say about ethnic neighborhoods all over the country? But I'm wary, because I'm not from here and all I know about the places I go is what people tell me. Maybe traveling by myself on a bicycle isn't the best time to test the line between caution and prejudice, I tell myself.

I stopped just short of the Northern Cheyenne Reservation on Wednesday, rather than ride another 20 miles to the reservation town of Lame Deer, and spent the night in Ashland, MT. Even there, people made me nervous. I was told not to camp in the city park or almost anywhere else in town because of safety concerns -- people get drunk and wander around at night around here, the clerk at the post office said. I ended up camping on a nice woman's lawn before setting off to ride across the Northern Cheyenne and Crow reservations on Thursday.

The road towards Lame Deer went over an awfully big ridge right away. It took me about an hour to go the five steep miles up it, and I was sweating, grumpy, and trying to catch my breath at the peak when a car pulled over to talk to me. There were three men in it, and the driver was very friendly. He introduced himself, said he was from Lame Deer, and I chatted with the three of them about my trip. He he and his younger passengers started telling me about the road ahead. The worst of the climb was over, they said, and I was glad to hear it. I had a big downhill into Lame Deer to look forward to, and then rolling hills most of the rest of the way through the Cheyenne Reservation.

The driver also told me that if I took the next gravel road on my right, it would loop past some ice wells, where the water stayed frozen all year. A little further down the road was Crazy Head Springs, where there was a Cheyenne Language Immersion
program and a spring. He told me that Cheyenne water was good water, and that if I took some with me it would get me where I was going. The other two men in the car laughed at that, and he said that they didn't believe it, but that I should get some water anyway. He told me his name again and said that I should tell people in Lame Deer I knew him. They'd treat me well, he said.

It was just what I needed after that climb -- a talk with some locals and the prospect of some neat sights off the beaten path. It lifted my spirits. As I turned down the gravel road, though, I thought about what I was doing. Somewhere in the unwritten handbook for solo female travelers there is probably a line that specifically advises against going down bumpy gravel roads in reputedly unsafe areas that no one knows you're taking except for three strange men you've just met. I kept riding, though. I didn't want to pre-judge the reservation, and tips from locals have led me to some fun sights in the past.

I came to some cows in the road and saw two people on horseback riding on a hill with the rest of the herd. They must have seen me, but didn't acknowledge the probably unusual sight of a white girl on a loaded bicycle riding towards their herd. They were too far away to call out to, but I found myself wanting to yell the driver’s name to them, and tell them that I had been invited. Instead, I turned around and rode back to the highway. Perhaps despite the invitation, this was not my country to explore. There are plenty of other roads out there, already stolen, for me to ride down without invading a cattle pasture on Native land.

Or was I just scared? Maybe. By the time I got to the turn-off for Crazy Head Springs I had convinced myself that I was just afraid of those horsemen's anger or disapproval. Crazy Head had a sign on the highway, and there was that school I could look for. I could explain myself to someone, drop the driver's name, get some water, and then continue my ride. No reason to be scared. No reason to believe that the reservation was more threatening than anywhere else. No reason to treat the place or the people with anything other than my usual friendly and open approach.

I took the turn down a dusty dirt road and rode to the sign for the school, which was directly after a sign informing visitors that non-members of the tribe needed a permit from an office in Lame Deer to use the area. I was thinking about whether it was more oblivious to go get a permit or to wander around without one when I realized that the most oblivious thing I could possibly do would be to show up asking, in English, for special water at a Native language immersion school. I turned around again.

I think there is a reason to treat the reservations differently, but it doesn't have to be fear. My usual approach to people assumes that I'm entitled to be there talking to them, and though this whole country is stolen land I'm not entitled to explore, I'm especially not entitled to explore these reservations.

The ride into Lame Deer was all down hill, like the men in the car had told me. I bought a liter of Aquafina at the grocery store, chatted with an old man outside, and stayed on the highway until I was out of the Northern Cheyenne and the adjacent Crow Reservation, fifty miles later.