Photo by William Illingworth--A slightly different version of the famous photo with Custer lesser than two of his companions behind him and wagons coming and going in the background. On August 7th, 1874, George Armstrong Custer shot a grizzly bear. At the time, he was trespassing in the Black Hills of the Great Sioux Nation along with more than 1000 heavily-armed soldiers and sundry civilians. To be accurate, he shot the bear as part of a fusillade delivered by two other soldiers and an Arikara scout. According to published accounts, the bear was innocently browsing on berries in a small draw prior to the ambush. Custer’s verdict on the incident was delivered in a letter to his wife: “I have
Its a warm day in a spring beset by snow. A day when carrion beetles proceed about their work with renewed vigor, and the ticks begin to stir. A day when spring greens grow another inch up through last year’s debris. A day of birth and death. The winter snow is mostly gone down low, but persists in the shade and as drifts on lee slopes. A rotten ice mantles ponds and lakes. I walk among leafless aspens and willows, and noisy chickadees. The elk have fared the winter well and few have died. Deprived of carrion, the coyotes hunt for mice and ravens hunt for insects and spiders. I reach the outer point of my circuit, above the confluence of the Lamar and Yellowstone Rivers, and above a s
