Hal Cannon
Where are you Henry?
Henry Real Bird
I’m over here along the Missouri River. I been ridin’ here
since Tuesday…so I’ve been on the road about 9 days. And I stayed last
night at a town called Fraser.
Hal Cannon
Are you on a horse right now?
Henry Real Bird
Yeah I’m riding a horse right now along Highway 2 in Montana. What they call High Line.
Hal Cannon
Can you describe what you’re looking at right now?
Henry Real Bird
Oh gosh, just a vast amount of land…just rolling hills all over
to the north, and then on over to the south I’ve got cottonwood trees
in the valley floor of the Missouri River, north of the river. Then
across the Missouri to the south we’ve got them hills there..the
breaks…just beautiful.
Hal Cannon
Henry I’m hearing cars just speeding past you. What’s the
difference between the way you’re seeing what’s going on and people
going 60 miles an hour?
Henry Real Bird
Oh yeah. The slow pace..you see more. I saw hills and creeks
that I didn’t know existed. I mean I’ve been on this road before but I
never paid attention to it but now you see all this beautiful landscape.
And uh..I mean this is good traveling here.
Hal Cannon
So where did you start out Henry?
Henry Real Bird
I started out from the Fort Berthold Indian Revervation. We
started out along the Missouri there on the trail of the buffalo, and
uh, going through patches of sweet sage, eating juneberries. And I was
saying that life cannot get any sweeter than this. To be able to ride a
horse for the day and then just eat the juneberries. And when I got
over here yesterday, they stopped me on the road and took me over and
gave me some juneberry pie. And I had some more again last night and I
went over to the sweat lodge over here in Frazer, and prayed. They say
the sweat lodge…you use that to remember who you are. But the whole
thing is…places where my great grandfather rode over on Fort Berthold
and over to Fort Union and then I just wanted to ride a horse right
where they rode horses too, along the Missouri. And that’s what I’m
doing, and then giving out books of poetry along the way. ...
More here...
And here... where Henry Real Bird was asked what the Montana sky looked like: "It's so big that you can't really put in edge to it. That's how it is today in a vast sea of buffalo grass."