FLOW
"Living In Harmony on the Yellowstone"
Video Response to the Yellowstone River Cultural Inventory by Ariel Grossfield and Bonney Beth Luhman
HOME EXHIBITION VOICES OF THE RIVER SYMPOSIUM MIXING OIL & WATER FILM NIGHT WORDS ON WATER: POETRY & JAZZ IN CONCERT LIVING IN HARMONY ON THE YELLOWSTONE FILM
YOUTH OUTREACH READING AREAS YELLOWSTONE RIVER CUMULATIVE EFFECTS ANALYSIS MORE
YOUTH OUTREACH READING AREAS YELLOWSTONE RIVER CUMULATIVE EFFECTS ANALYSIS MORE
Video Still
Digital Media
6 minutes
This film was inspired by the Yellowstone River Cultural Inventory (2008), which is part of the 16 year Cumulative Effects Analysis (CEA). Copies of the Recommended Practices, which constitute a small portion of that study, are available for viewing in the gallery.
In Living in Harmony on the Yellowstone, all creatures, big and small, work together to create an environment sustainable for co-existence. This short film represents perspectives of different fish, including catfish, minnows, and the pre-historic Pallid Sturgeon that is unique to the Yellowstone! The film also represents mammals such as beavers, birds, and elk, along with the perspectives of people from the five different River User Groups mentioned in the study which include: a recreationalist/fisherman, agriculturalist/farmer, residentialist/rancher, a civic leader, and a Native American. The film offers an opportunity to contemplate the significance of the river—how it affects everyone and everything that lives next to it, and how we must all live in harmony.
Dr. Susan Gilbertz (Director of the Environmental Studies Program, MSUB) and colleagues conducted the Yellowstone River Cultural Inventory (2006) (full cultural study accessible here).
6 minutes
This film was inspired by the Yellowstone River Cultural Inventory (2008), which is part of the 16 year Cumulative Effects Analysis (CEA). Copies of the Recommended Practices, which constitute a small portion of that study, are available for viewing in the gallery.
In Living in Harmony on the Yellowstone, all creatures, big and small, work together to create an environment sustainable for co-existence. This short film represents perspectives of different fish, including catfish, minnows, and the pre-historic Pallid Sturgeon that is unique to the Yellowstone! The film also represents mammals such as beavers, birds, and elk, along with the perspectives of people from the five different River User Groups mentioned in the study which include: a recreationalist/fisherman, agriculturalist/farmer, residentialist/rancher, a civic leader, and a Native American. The film offers an opportunity to contemplate the significance of the river—how it affects everyone and everything that lives next to it, and how we must all live in harmony.
Dr. Susan Gilbertz (Director of the Environmental Studies Program, MSUB) and colleagues conducted the Yellowstone River Cultural Inventory (2006) (full cultural study accessible here).
Bonny Beth Luhman, Director
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Ariel Grossfield, Editor/Producer
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Sample Quotes from Interviews Conducted during the Yellowstone River Cultural Inventory (2006)
Interviews were conducted within five eco-regions along the river and with five user groups: Recreationalist, Native Americans, Residentialists, Agriculturalists, and Public Officials
Interviews were conducted within five eco-regions along the river and with five user groups: Recreationalist, Native Americans, Residentialists, Agriculturalists, and Public Officials
"It is a belief system. It is not something you can look at scientifically. It is so important that it is part of our religious belief. You can’t separate it [water] into farming, etcetera; it goes way beyond. You can’t separate the importance of water in our belief system. It is who we are and you can’t separate that. The western world is very segmented...[but from] the holistic view...you can’t have a coherent system broken into parts." -Native American/Northern Cheyenne
I enjoy looking at the river, because water is life. That’s what we’ve been taught. And it’s precious, the water is . . . no matter what race we are, what culture we come from, water should be important. - Native American/Crow
“It's absolutely beautiful..... It is a wild and uncontrolled river.” - Stillwater County Agriculturist
“There is a relationship that forms working with the land. You learn to love it, and it becomes part of you. It becomes part of your character, part of your soul.” - Park County Agriculturalist
"Erosion is constant… The problem is, if we addressed erosion here, we're affecting everything downstream. They have learned that small changes on this river cause major changes downstream...” - Dawson County public official
“I grew up in a community that I loved enough that I wanted to come back to it. I would hope that my kids and grandkids would have that opportunity.... I just would like to see all our communities...keep the Yellowstone as pristine a river as they can.” - Stillwater County Local Civic Leader
“The river is going to do what is going to do, and you have to live with it the best way you can.” - Sweet Grass County Agriculturist
“Our community is kind of dying. The high school have 30 students. The town is turning into a retirement community. There is nothing to keep the youth here. It is a typical Eastern Montana town. Hunting is getting to be a big deal. We are getting a lot of non-agricultural people buying for hunting. It is hard to compete when you were trying to make the land pay.” - Treasure County agriculturalist
“The Yellowstone is a wild river, and, ....to me, it sort of comes with the territory....we should try to achieve a balance, and not be overly regulatory with citizens as far as.... what they can and can't do with their property, but, on the other hand, realize that, hey, you're not just doing something that's going to perhaps impact a little piece of property; you're doing something that could have potential impact on a resource that has significant economic impact, and social impact... on a whole bunch of people. So, people need to understand it is a lot broader than their little piece of property on the river.” -Stillwater County Recreationalist
“I know a lot of people who will go down and do recreation on the river. A lot of people fish on the river… It gives people an opportunity to get away from the everyday stress and just go sit at the riverbanks without having to drive a long distance.” - Richland County public official
“Anybody that lives alongside the river has to have problems with bank erosion.
So, as the river moves, if both creates and destroys, as it always has done…" - Rosebud County Public Official
"What resonates from both sides...is water quality....[But what is] water quality? Is it simply the chemical analysis?...Or is water quality [connected to] the system?...If you started from water quality, and worked gently outward...describing the mountains that create water quality, then there may be an incremental way to bring people into consensus. They [need to]...fundamentally understand why this water is good and why it is bad. Start from why is water so important to us. It may sound elementary." - Park County Recreationalist
What resonates from both sides...is water quality....[But what is] water quality? Is it simply the chemical analysis?...Or is water quality [connected to] the system?...If you started from water quality, and worked gently outward...describing the mountains that create water quality, then there may be an incremental way to bring people into consensus. They [need to]...fundamentally understand why this water is good and why it is bad. Start from why is water so important to us. It may sound elementary. (Park County Recreationalist)
"The pelicans keep coming back and increasing....The bald eagles seem to be doing well. And we had a couple of osprey nests on the bridge over the river....I hope the people don’t get overpopulated and push the animals away....[Maybe we should be] making areas along the river where nobody can go for a short ways because it’s closed as a pelican relief or something. There must be a way we can give the rare animals...or endangered ones a private place to hide, [or] at least nest." - Rosebud County Residentialist
“From our standpoint as commissioners, the river provides economic benefits for the local area… It provides irrigation for the farmers, it brings the hunting and fishing people, and it serves our own recreational uses.” - Rosebud county public official
"You can look at the native fish that used to be coming up from the Yellowstone, the sturgeons and there are other species. [We need to] try and increase the water flow....I think that is a benefit to the tribe as well as others." - Northern Cheyenne
"A medicine man took us in there, he was an elder. Before he took us in there he explained the importance of the water. And back then, when I was young, maybe the water wasn’t so polluted because we did jump in. He took a dipper of the water, and he prayed over it. He said, ‘This water is life to us human beings, and to the natural resources that grow around here, and to the animals who depend on this water.’ He said, ‘Don’t ever be cruel to this water. No matter what form, whether if comes out of your faucet or if it is free running like this.’" - Native American/Crow
“Occasionally, you'll see boats. That's always kind of a highlight when you're down there hanging out, to see a boat or a raft go by. You wave, they way back.” - Prairie County agriculturalists
“I think it's part of the American spirit that the land, as Thomas Jefferson said,....is the only pure thing. The only pure way to live was the agrarian existence, and he saw America as an agrarian society, and Alexander Hamilton saw it as a manufacturing city environment, a developed environment. Of course Jefferson was wrong. I mean, what developed was Hamilton's. But I still think there is this Jeffersonian spirit in America where the land is fundamental to their happy existence. That's what Jefferson in effect said, and it's changing, of course, isn't it?” -Sweetgrass County Agriculturist
“What is so interesting about the river is that sometimes, you glorify it and sometimes you think, boy, that is a monster. I just learned to accept what it does.” Stillwater County Agriculturist
“I think the important thing is to recognize the importance of the Yellowstone River, nationally, but mainly for the future of Montana and its people.” - Sweetgrass County Agriculturist
"The Yellowstone [River] is my cathedral. That’s my church; that’s my spirituality....It’s where I charge my batteries. It’s my connection to the natural world." - Park County Recreationalist
"The only other issue that’s the big one is the noxious weeds....There’s just about every horrible weed you can find on the Yellowstone....I don’t know how it got started, but it definitely goes down the river. If you just go on the riverbanks and look, that salt cedar is just about everywhere now. We can’t hardly go anywhere without seeing leafy spurge and...it’s a very competitive plant. It’ll take a field over....You can’t just kill...knapweed and spurge....I can only imagine if we don’t get a handle on that how that will look in ten years....Salt cedar is an issue we used to only talk about around Sidney. Now...it’s all over the Big Horn." - Yellowstone County Local Civic Leader
“The good old Yellowstone is a cantankerous old thing. That river is wonderful, but it's also wonderful to watch. It's going to go wherever it wants to go. I'm kind of torn... because we have people who defy us to do any rip-rapping, or to save a public structure, or anything like that. We're not supposed to do that, I guess. That's what I'm hearing. But, darn it, you've got a two million dollar bridge sitting there, and the things washing out, you better do something. They brought in a lot of rock and fixed it. It's fine.” - Stillwater County Local Civic Leader
“If you lived somewhere where you didn't have rivers then maybe you would realize how valuable they can be. It never stops and you have the wildlife that needs the river and a lot of the cover that rivers provide. Nature and we have to live in harmony as much as we can for everybody's benefit and everything. You can't always look at it.... financially. Is it financially profitable for you to do something that may harm the river? You can't do things to harm the river.” - Stillwater County Local Civic Leader
“You got to allow the owner of the land to do what is in his interest and the land's best interest. And if you start stepping on that, then you're violating their property rights and their personal rights, and that isn't quite what this country was founded on.” - Yellowstone County Agriculturalists
“I like it here… I never wanted to do anything besides be a farmer or rancher.” - Carbon County agriculturalist
“It's the people’s river. So, that is what got me on the Task Force in the first place… If my dog goes over to the neighbors, and causes difficulty, it is my responsibility. If that is the people’s river, it is their responsibility to keep it within the bounds.” - Park County agriculturalists
“I am not the expert, but I have lived here, and I have seen the river do some strange things. It may work for a few years if you do it right, but you get a bad year, and it will wash it all out.” - Dawson County agriculturalists
“We are third and fourth generation. We are farmers and we are stewards of the land. We don't really want to give that up.…” Rosebud County Agriculturalist
“We are almost a bedroom community and to Bozeman. And, as fishing becomes more popular, we'll see 20, 30 boats go past year and a day at least. That's a lot. And fishing is meant to help people get away from crowds… They don't want to play bumper boats.” - Park County agriculturalists
“I think even the people that live in Billings and in Yellowstone County to the east consider us their playground, which is fine. If I lived over there, I want to come over here, too.”
“It's very special to have this river here, and, of course, we do want to protect it. We want to make sure that any housing developments follow the DEQ rules. I guess I don't believe in setbacks. I think the property owners have the right to be as close the river as they want, without damaging the river. If they do not damage the river, I think it's their property line.” - Stillwater County Local Civic Leader
"Bad policy...makes people angry. And the one thing that we found out is that you don’t force things down people’s throats. You sit and work with them and you work on a solution to get it done. That is what creates the balance....We sit down and work it out.... - Yellowstone County Local Civic Leader
"The question is, should there be coordination? And who’s responsible for doing that? You can have a Federal program, you can have a State program, you can do all that, [but] those only work if people want them to work. It has to come from the people. You cannot mandate that stuff....If this report ends up saying that there are a lot of issues and that there is no consensus, well, we already know that....There needs to be time to process and think about something and not make snap decisions. " - Rosebud County Public Official
"It’s a very beautiful river. You can start in the western side of the state, and it is very mountainous and beautiful, [and] when you come here, it is more calming and soothing. It is more restful....The sunsets here are gorgeous. A friend of mine took a picture that is just breathtaking....It shows the hillsides reflecting on the water. It’s just gorgeous....It’s so fun to go exploring on. You can find anything, from recently dead animals, to skeletons, to fossils. So, it is always a pleasure to be out there." - Richland County Recreationalist
I enjoy looking at the river, because water is life. That’s what we’ve been taught. And it’s precious, the water is . . . no matter what race we are, what culture we come from, water should be important. - Native American/Crow
“It's absolutely beautiful..... It is a wild and uncontrolled river.” - Stillwater County Agriculturist
“There is a relationship that forms working with the land. You learn to love it, and it becomes part of you. It becomes part of your character, part of your soul.” - Park County Agriculturalist
"Erosion is constant… The problem is, if we addressed erosion here, we're affecting everything downstream. They have learned that small changes on this river cause major changes downstream...” - Dawson County public official
“I grew up in a community that I loved enough that I wanted to come back to it. I would hope that my kids and grandkids would have that opportunity.... I just would like to see all our communities...keep the Yellowstone as pristine a river as they can.” - Stillwater County Local Civic Leader
“The river is going to do what is going to do, and you have to live with it the best way you can.” - Sweet Grass County Agriculturist
“Our community is kind of dying. The high school have 30 students. The town is turning into a retirement community. There is nothing to keep the youth here. It is a typical Eastern Montana town. Hunting is getting to be a big deal. We are getting a lot of non-agricultural people buying for hunting. It is hard to compete when you were trying to make the land pay.” - Treasure County agriculturalist
“The Yellowstone is a wild river, and, ....to me, it sort of comes with the territory....we should try to achieve a balance, and not be overly regulatory with citizens as far as.... what they can and can't do with their property, but, on the other hand, realize that, hey, you're not just doing something that's going to perhaps impact a little piece of property; you're doing something that could have potential impact on a resource that has significant economic impact, and social impact... on a whole bunch of people. So, people need to understand it is a lot broader than their little piece of property on the river.” -Stillwater County Recreationalist
“I know a lot of people who will go down and do recreation on the river. A lot of people fish on the river… It gives people an opportunity to get away from the everyday stress and just go sit at the riverbanks without having to drive a long distance.” - Richland County public official
“Anybody that lives alongside the river has to have problems with bank erosion.
So, as the river moves, if both creates and destroys, as it always has done…" - Rosebud County Public Official
"What resonates from both sides...is water quality....[But what is] water quality? Is it simply the chemical analysis?...Or is water quality [connected to] the system?...If you started from water quality, and worked gently outward...describing the mountains that create water quality, then there may be an incremental way to bring people into consensus. They [need to]...fundamentally understand why this water is good and why it is bad. Start from why is water so important to us. It may sound elementary." - Park County Recreationalist
What resonates from both sides...is water quality....[But what is] water quality? Is it simply the chemical analysis?...Or is water quality [connected to] the system?...If you started from water quality, and worked gently outward...describing the mountains that create water quality, then there may be an incremental way to bring people into consensus. They [need to]...fundamentally understand why this water is good and why it is bad. Start from why is water so important to us. It may sound elementary. (Park County Recreationalist)
"The pelicans keep coming back and increasing....The bald eagles seem to be doing well. And we had a couple of osprey nests on the bridge over the river....I hope the people don’t get overpopulated and push the animals away....[Maybe we should be] making areas along the river where nobody can go for a short ways because it’s closed as a pelican relief or something. There must be a way we can give the rare animals...or endangered ones a private place to hide, [or] at least nest." - Rosebud County Residentialist
“From our standpoint as commissioners, the river provides economic benefits for the local area… It provides irrigation for the farmers, it brings the hunting and fishing people, and it serves our own recreational uses.” - Rosebud county public official
"You can look at the native fish that used to be coming up from the Yellowstone, the sturgeons and there are other species. [We need to] try and increase the water flow....I think that is a benefit to the tribe as well as others." - Northern Cheyenne
"A medicine man took us in there, he was an elder. Before he took us in there he explained the importance of the water. And back then, when I was young, maybe the water wasn’t so polluted because we did jump in. He took a dipper of the water, and he prayed over it. He said, ‘This water is life to us human beings, and to the natural resources that grow around here, and to the animals who depend on this water.’ He said, ‘Don’t ever be cruel to this water. No matter what form, whether if comes out of your faucet or if it is free running like this.’" - Native American/Crow
“Occasionally, you'll see boats. That's always kind of a highlight when you're down there hanging out, to see a boat or a raft go by. You wave, they way back.” - Prairie County agriculturalists
“I think it's part of the American spirit that the land, as Thomas Jefferson said,....is the only pure thing. The only pure way to live was the agrarian existence, and he saw America as an agrarian society, and Alexander Hamilton saw it as a manufacturing city environment, a developed environment. Of course Jefferson was wrong. I mean, what developed was Hamilton's. But I still think there is this Jeffersonian spirit in America where the land is fundamental to their happy existence. That's what Jefferson in effect said, and it's changing, of course, isn't it?” -Sweetgrass County Agriculturist
“What is so interesting about the river is that sometimes, you glorify it and sometimes you think, boy, that is a monster. I just learned to accept what it does.” Stillwater County Agriculturist
“I think the important thing is to recognize the importance of the Yellowstone River, nationally, but mainly for the future of Montana and its people.” - Sweetgrass County Agriculturist
"The Yellowstone [River] is my cathedral. That’s my church; that’s my spirituality....It’s where I charge my batteries. It’s my connection to the natural world." - Park County Recreationalist
"The only other issue that’s the big one is the noxious weeds....There’s just about every horrible weed you can find on the Yellowstone....I don’t know how it got started, but it definitely goes down the river. If you just go on the riverbanks and look, that salt cedar is just about everywhere now. We can’t hardly go anywhere without seeing leafy spurge and...it’s a very competitive plant. It’ll take a field over....You can’t just kill...knapweed and spurge....I can only imagine if we don’t get a handle on that how that will look in ten years....Salt cedar is an issue we used to only talk about around Sidney. Now...it’s all over the Big Horn." - Yellowstone County Local Civic Leader
“The good old Yellowstone is a cantankerous old thing. That river is wonderful, but it's also wonderful to watch. It's going to go wherever it wants to go. I'm kind of torn... because we have people who defy us to do any rip-rapping, or to save a public structure, or anything like that. We're not supposed to do that, I guess. That's what I'm hearing. But, darn it, you've got a two million dollar bridge sitting there, and the things washing out, you better do something. They brought in a lot of rock and fixed it. It's fine.” - Stillwater County Local Civic Leader
“If you lived somewhere where you didn't have rivers then maybe you would realize how valuable they can be. It never stops and you have the wildlife that needs the river and a lot of the cover that rivers provide. Nature and we have to live in harmony as much as we can for everybody's benefit and everything. You can't always look at it.... financially. Is it financially profitable for you to do something that may harm the river? You can't do things to harm the river.” - Stillwater County Local Civic Leader
“You got to allow the owner of the land to do what is in his interest and the land's best interest. And if you start stepping on that, then you're violating their property rights and their personal rights, and that isn't quite what this country was founded on.” - Yellowstone County Agriculturalists
“I like it here… I never wanted to do anything besides be a farmer or rancher.” - Carbon County agriculturalist
“It's the people’s river. So, that is what got me on the Task Force in the first place… If my dog goes over to the neighbors, and causes difficulty, it is my responsibility. If that is the people’s river, it is their responsibility to keep it within the bounds.” - Park County agriculturalists
“I am not the expert, but I have lived here, and I have seen the river do some strange things. It may work for a few years if you do it right, but you get a bad year, and it will wash it all out.” - Dawson County agriculturalists
“We are third and fourth generation. We are farmers and we are stewards of the land. We don't really want to give that up.…” Rosebud County Agriculturalist
“We are almost a bedroom community and to Bozeman. And, as fishing becomes more popular, we'll see 20, 30 boats go past year and a day at least. That's a lot. And fishing is meant to help people get away from crowds… They don't want to play bumper boats.” - Park County agriculturalists
“I think even the people that live in Billings and in Yellowstone County to the east consider us their playground, which is fine. If I lived over there, I want to come over here, too.”
“It's very special to have this river here, and, of course, we do want to protect it. We want to make sure that any housing developments follow the DEQ rules. I guess I don't believe in setbacks. I think the property owners have the right to be as close the river as they want, without damaging the river. If they do not damage the river, I think it's their property line.” - Stillwater County Local Civic Leader
"Bad policy...makes people angry. And the one thing that we found out is that you don’t force things down people’s throats. You sit and work with them and you work on a solution to get it done. That is what creates the balance....We sit down and work it out.... - Yellowstone County Local Civic Leader
"The question is, should there be coordination? And who’s responsible for doing that? You can have a Federal program, you can have a State program, you can do all that, [but] those only work if people want them to work. It has to come from the people. You cannot mandate that stuff....If this report ends up saying that there are a lot of issues and that there is no consensus, well, we already know that....There needs to be time to process and think about something and not make snap decisions. " - Rosebud County Public Official
"It’s a very beautiful river. You can start in the western side of the state, and it is very mountainous and beautiful, [and] when you come here, it is more calming and soothing. It is more restful....The sunsets here are gorgeous. A friend of mine took a picture that is just breathtaking....It shows the hillsides reflecting on the water. It’s just gorgeous....It’s so fun to go exploring on. You can find anything, from recently dead animals, to skeletons, to fossils. So, it is always a pleasure to be out there." - Richland County Recreationalist