Alone in the Wilderness

Alone in the Wilderness

                    By Hap Gilliland

 

is set to begin with in Billings, Montana. I’m happy to say that I spent several days in Billings camped beside the Yellowstone River. Flint Red Coyote is a Native American Cheyenne fresh off the Rez attempting to cope with the cultural and social dislocation caused by the move to a big city school. He is fortunate in the friends he picks; Jose, a Mexican-American lad he knew in past years and Tobey a brilliant girl with a mix of Native American and Finnish in her background. His third friend is Roger, a local boy whose grudging respect he wins.

 

The decision to spend three months roughing it alone in the Beartooth Wilderness is occasioned by the rough and tumble of classroom life but challenges Flint in ways he couldn’t originally conceive. Whereas Flint is concerned with learning survival skills that will keep him housed, warmed, and fed in the wilderness his Grandfather Wolf Runner is more concerned with his spiritual and mental preparedness. If  you’ve met the average teen who gets antsy if separated from their i-Pod and texting device you know what I mean. Grown men have been driven mad by solitary confinement, three months alone in the wilderness for a teenager is a life sentence.

 

While Flint collects clothing, a Tipi, dried food, bow and arrows, a sled and builds his stamina by jogging and stair-running Grandfather prescribes prayer and spiritual preparation to teach Flint determination/courage/fortitude, self-confidence. Just before his departure Grandfather sets up a sweat lodge ceremony and recommends that when Flint is ready he should go on a Vision Quest, an “Indian” rite of passage that involves fasting, hallucinatory plants, leading to a dream state in which one is visited by an animal guiding spirit.

 

Flint spends his three months in the wilderness, climbs Montana’s highest peak, finds his totem during a vision quest: a night hawk, survives a blizzard without food, successfully hunts deer with bow and arrow, and after all that ends up rescuing one of his friends who gets turned around coming to bring him home.