We called on the ancestral spirits and those that once shared these Little Rocky Mountains. We paid tribute to the families, healers and medicine people with tobacco offerings at their grave sites and within the Lodge.  We asked them for guidance and to help us recover the lost teachings and how we had lost our way.  Robert Gopher shared his own family history as an Ojibwe who had utilized this area as well. He had many stories of how special the Little Rockies were to them. We honored the wildlife and sacred buffalo that once roamed the area in great herds and revived a tradition that had been silenced in their absence.   

He had us keep our focus on the children so that they were every bit a part of this project as the adults.  They were the ones after all, that would continue to fight the battle to preserve what precious resources of air, land and water that have not become toxic and work on corporate and government accountability to clean up what has been contaminated.