I stayed 2 days in a very low-key little casino-hotel called the Shoshone Rose a few miles out of town.
Compared to the INSANITY of Caesar’s Palace in Vegas, where Ellen and I had stayed for a conference a few weeks ago, this was totally quaint and very mellow, with a backyard facing the Great Plains.
There was no doubt about where I was. Sometime the clues were overt...
Sometimes more subtle… such as a mouthless Native in the monument as you entered the town (see first photo after the map, above).
I saw two major highlights at Lander.
One was the Pioneer Museum, which houses maps and historical artefacts next to an outdoor reconstructed pioneer village.
This is Chief Washakie, a legendary warrior and leader who is a local hero because of the treaties he signed and his friendly relations with the white settlers (“emigrants”). Washakie converted to Mormonism then to Episcopalianism.
Treaties and land cessions led to Shoshone lands diminishing from 45 million acres in 1863, extending over what are now Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming, to 800,000 acres by 1905 in central Wyoming.
The other highlight was Sinks Canyon, a gorgeous state park a short ride out of town. You can read about the canyon and its curious main attraction—a rushing river that disappears underground (“sinks”) then resurfaces (“rises") 1/4 mile downstream... 2 hours later!
You can see the cavern the river sinks into…
And the “rise” where it emerges, a pool inhabited by trout.
Then there’s a hike up to the waterfalls, which is… well, you can see.
Less spectacular, but still worth a visit, was the cemetery where Sacajawea is presumably buried. Sacajawea was the young Indian woman who accompanied Lewis & Clark on their famous expedition to what is now Oregon.
Chief Washakie and Sacajawea are recalled as heroes, but that’s of course from the perspective of the “emigrants" who gradually and inexorably came to occupy most of the continent.
The Museum of the Mountain Man in Pinedale celebrates another encroachment into the territory Natives lived in and depended upon for their livelihoods. It was news to me that the beaver fur trade, carried on by the “mountain men," flourished during just over a decade, from 1822 to 1833. Beaver fur was prized for men’s top hats. But the beaver fur trade tanked when styles changed, and top hats made of Chinese silk became more fashionable. The mountain men (think: “The Revenant”) then became guides and scouts, further aiding the European westward expansion and contributing to the demise of the Native populations.
Finally, last stop in WY was Green River, a small nondescript town (as far as i could tell) bisected by the, what else? Green River.