Bighorn National Forest officials have issued their
Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Medicine Wheel,
located in north central Wyoming. This sacred area has long
been used by members of the Cheyenne, Crow, Shoshone,
Arapahoe, Sioux, Kiowa, Blackfeet and Salish-Kootenai peoples
for spiritual reasons. According to Alliance for the Wild
Rockies member organization the Medicine Wheel Alliance, the
EIS is a disaster.
The EIS calls for logging on Medicine Mountain around
the Medicine Wheel site, and would require native peoples to
obtain written permission to use the area for spiritual use
and give 72 hours notice! Northern Cheyenne spiritual leader
Bill Tall Bull has compared this to being required to obtain
Forest Service permission to attend the church services of
your choice. Other plans call for a new visitor center and
parking facility, as well as viewing areas for tourists.
The Medicine Wheel Alliance recently received a $15,000
grant to pay for a studey of the area's cultural importance.
The Forest Service EIS appears to be yet another attempt
by the Forest Service to reduce traditional cultural use to a
couriosity event for tourists. No effort has been made to
protect the cultural significance of the area or endure that
its intergrity for spiritual use will be kept intact.
Comment of the Draft EIS must be received by August 31.
Send them to : Lloyd Todd, Bighorn National Forest
Supervisor, 1969 South Sheridan Ave., Sheridan, WY 82801.
For more informaction contact: Nicole Price, Medicine Wheel
Alliance, Box 37, Huntly, MT 59037 406-348-2079
from the Alliance for the Wild Rockies
Box 8731
Missoula, MY 59807
via The Wild Rockies News Service