"Tomorrow is Saturday. She will rise early to go high in the mountains, a place called Lake Canyon way up in the Uintah’s South of the Duchesne River. The summer comes slow here, the snow stays long, and about this time of the year it is time for cattle to graze.

She will wake her husband and son and tell them let's get ready to go. A hundred and seventy-nine head she has, eight bulls and nine horses. The roads up the mountain fall away into deep ruts but she said we will get up there, time for Indian cattle, them cows to graze way up high.

Way back in 1897, they came with their horses, white men who said this is a good place and took the land, the mountains, the forests and trees, the lakes of sweet water and tall grass and said this is the Uinta Forest, named for them Indians who used to camp there, but are not there anymore.

They live in the valley below on the rez, now, but the boundary line includes the forest in some old books. It says, this is your land from Mountaintop to Mountaintop. This is what was promised the Utes way back then."

Get the Story:
Moving Them Up the Mountain (Indian Country Today 2/3)

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