This post has been moved to OpenChutes.com. All future postings of Powwows, Indian Relay Races, Rodeos and Rendezvous will be posted there from now on exclusively. So if you’re looking for new images and posts for all those events attended this year, plus all the old posts posted on BigShotsNow.com check out OpenChutes.com. See you there!

Walking through the Crow camp on a moonless night, watching your footing as your eyes are having difficulty adjusting to the darkness, you find yourself entering and leaving one oasis of light after another. Flashlights help but do little to overcome the inky blackness between one set of lodges and another.

The lodges have been set up in a random fashion in rows and groups generally following the banks of the Little Bighorn river as it winds its way from Custer’s battlefield down to the town of Crow Agency. It is one of those places where you have to know where you are before you can get where you’re going. It is very easy to get turned around in the labyrinth that is Crow camp, especially at night. The people living here know where they are. Little kids are out running around, darting like lightning bugs into one campsite after another and back home again as if they had built-in direction finders, which you suspect they do.

The sound of the camp varies from very noisy where one group may be playing the drum and singing, to quieter areas where small groups of the people are sitting around the fire, talking, laughing, enjoying each others company, and on to the stillness of the darkness when you leave the campsites.

Each of these places is a small area where the only light is from the fire and the occasional lantern. These islands of brightness scattered in the sea of blackness are welcoming, making you wish you could enter and sit and be a part of the festivities. Then you’d be home and wouldn’t have to walk and walk until you found your way back to your car and your own temporary home.

At every fireside there is one lodge that is nearest the fire. The flickering light from the burning logs changes the dull white of the lodge, covering it in a wavering, shimmering shade of gold. The lodge poles are highlighted against the darkness, the faint green of the surrounding trees barely visible in the background, the surrounding teepees just catching enough light to show you they are there.

The experience of being in the Crow Camp is one that has many layers, some loud and boisterous, others quieter and filled with subtle visions and sounds. The contrast of night and day is filled with excitement and wonder for someone new to the experience. Perhaps next time you can sit with the people in front of the lodge nearest the fire. What a memory that would be.