At the top of the Big Horn Mountains, 9,642 feet above sea level, on the west ridge of Medicine Mountain, lies the Big Horn Medicine Wheel. The wheel sits about twenty yards away from a limestone cliff face, where visitors can look down upon the Big Horn Basin, the Wind River, and the Pryor Mountains of Montana. Using a piece of wood found built into the structure, archaeologists dated the Medicine Wheel itself to around 1760 AD. Other archaeological research carbon-dated charcoal and wood fragments found near the Medicine Wheel to 4,529 BCE. The wheel is made of hundreds of white limestone rocks arranged in roughly in the circular shape of a wheel. Spanning eighty feet in diameter, the wheel is a true marvel, as most rocks used as material for the massive wheel originate from the bottom of the mountain, meaning the builders carried them to the top. At the center of the wheel lies another smaller circle, and 28 “spokes” radiate from this smaller center circle, connecting the center to the perimeter of the wheel. Small hollow cairns surround the wheel. Although much research has been done on the wheel, archaeologists, astronomers, and other scholars have been unable to determine its origin and function. One astronomer suggests the indigenous builders might have designed the wheel to track celestial bodies, having found the cairns are in astronomical alignment with the summer solstice sunset and sunrise as well as the rise of the stars Alderbaran, Serius, and Rigel. Another astronomer disagrees, saying that had the medicine wheel’s purpose been to track the solstice and stars, the structure’s design would have been more precise and astronomical alignments with the wheel would be more obvious and practical. An archaeologist suggests that the cairns could have been small shelters for vision quest participants while another archaeologist believes the wheel is a model of a Cheyenne medicine lodge. A Crow legend tells the story of a boy that was able to find healing and tribal acceptance through the power connected to the wheel. The Cheyenne believe that the Legend of Sweet Medicine inspired the Big Horn Medicine Wheel. Many theories have been proposed and disputed, but no theory has provided irrefutable evidence for a single explanation. The Big Horn Medicine Wheel is a national historical landmark and is still used by tribes for religious purposes. Visitors are allowed to view the Big Horn Medicine Wheel but are asked to respect the ancient site as it holds both religious and historical significance to many Native Americans.

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The oldest feature in Bighorn Canyon is the 10,000-year-old walking trail that indigenous Plains people once traversed. Extending all the way to the Wind River mountains in the south, this trail serves as a reminder that humans used the canyon and its resources long before it became the recreation area of today. The Crow people’s relationship with Bighorn Canyon extends to the very beginnings of their own histories, and the Crow consider the land to be an inseparable part of their heritage. The canyon gains its name from the legend of Big Metal, in which the metal-horned and hooved chief of the bighorn sheep tells a rescued boy, Big Iron, that the canyon must never lose the name “Bighorn” or the Crow people will cease to exist. Records show that the modern Crow took up residence in the canyon in the early 1700s. However, the Crow found themselves facing conflict from many different groups. Other tribes wanted access to the canyon’s rich hunting grounds, and the Crow warred with many of them. Among these tribes were the Sioux and the Cheyenne, who the Crow continued to find themselves at odds with as United States colonization encroached on their territory. The Sioux and Cheyenne fought against the US Army defend their lands while the Crow tried to preserve their territory by negotiating with the United States and acting as guides and mail carriers. As white settler encroachment in the area escalated during the nineteenth century, so did the ire of many Plains tribes, were rapidly pushed out of their lands by the whites. Montana boundary disputes increased the already present tensions between settlers and Plains peoples. The federal government designated large segments of Montana land as Crow territory in 1851, part of which became the Crow Reservation in 1868, but nearby miners refused to honor these secessions. Bands of Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe rallied together to fight back against this encroachment. Facing old foes once again, the Crow chose to ally with US troops, even fruitlessly warning Custer of his odds before the Battle of Little Bighorn. In exchange, the government promised the Crow land rights in the Bighorn area. In 1966, five years after the groundbreaking on Yellowtail Dam, Bighorn Canyon became an official national recreation area. However, the park’s coverage included some Crow reservation land that the Bureau of Reclamation had previously acquired. In 1967, the Crow requested the return of land surrounding the newly completed Yellowtail Dam reservoir and the two entities formed a joint arrangement. Though this area still lies within the park’s boundaries, the Crow people retain control over assets such as the sale of fishing and hunting licenses and manage a fairly cooperative relationship with state and federal governments. The story of the Crow people shows that tribal history is not unilateral: rather, it is a complex series of relationships, with the land always at the center.

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The Crow, also known as the Apsaalooke or Absaroka, historically lived in parts of Northern Wyoming and Southern Montana. The largest division, the Mountain Crow, claim a region including the eastern half of Yellowstone National Park as their aboriginal territory. Crow Leader Iron Bull said that the “Great Spirit had put us right in the middle of the earth, because we are the best people in the world.”

The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 marked the western edge of Crow territory at the Yellowstone River, designating the eastern portion of what would become Yellowstone National Park as Crow land. In the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, the Crow lost all lands in Wyoming. They gave up 38 million acres, keeping only 8 million acres that included a narrow strip on the northern edge of Yellowstone. Crow leader Sits in the Middle of the Land said, “we asked whether we might eat the buffalo for a long time. They said yes. That is not in the treaty. We told them we wanted a big country. They said we should have it; and that is not in the treaty. They said, ‘will you sell the Powder River country, Judith Basin and Wind River country?’ I told them ‘No’; but that is not in the treaty.”

Yellowstone National Park was created in 1872. By the early 1880s, the Northern Pacific Railroad had cut through Crow land in an attempt to bring tourists to the park. Nearly 2,000 Crow were invited to attend the last-spike ceremony in Yellowstone. Iron Bull was assigned to give the last spike to the president of the Railroad during the ceremony. At the end of the ceremony, Iron Bull gave a speech and was reported to have said that he understood the “meaning in [his] part of the ceremony” and that the days of his people were “almost numbered.”

Further cuts to their territory occurred in the late 19th and early 20th century, bringing the reservation to its current size of about 2 million acres. Like other Native Americans in the area, they were not allowed to use the park as they had traditionally for hunting, trading, and gathering food and other supplies.

In the early 20th century, Superintendent Horace Albright hoped to create a relationship between the Crow and Yellowstone National Park similar to that of the Blackfeet and Glacier National Park. Albright chose the Crow over the ‘timid’ Sheepeaters, historically the only full-time residents of the Park, because they seemed to better fit the American stereotype of Western American Indians and would be better for tourism and marketing campaigns. In 1925, he invited them to round up the Yellowstone bison herd in “hunting costumes.” He often invited them to participate in opening ceremonies or special occasions. However, the relationship Albright had hoped for never developed, largely because the Crow were not the only group associated with residence in the Yellowstone area.

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