This is a study of my friend and neighbor dressed in his fancy regalia. Hobo feeds my horses when I am away. We talk quite a bit about the Creator, the problems of the world and our own lives.
Hobo is proud to be Native American and has great hope for the future although not much for the present. His people have been here for generations beyond counting. He hopes we can survive today and that the future doesn't repeat the mistakes of the past.
He snags salmon 100 miles away at Chief Joeseph Dam, a wall where sea run salmon can't get beyond. Hobo lives on the Sanpoil River where, in days gone by, his great aunt would stop on the Sanpoil to catch Salmon on her way with her family from their home in Conconully above Omak, Wa., on their way to hunt buffalo with the Kalispell in Montana He gigles as he says, "Brother Salmon was so big Auntie would ride them like a horse out of the Sanpoil onto the grass." I can believe that. There were King Salmon weighing 70 lbs in a stream 4 feet wide. All gone today. There is a whole ecology of grizzley, wolf and pine marten gone today. Who knows what flowers and special plants no longer exist. There was a whole ecology based around the annual deposit of nutrients from migrating salmon that were so big and plentiful, their dead bodies fertilized the landscape after they spent their life on their progeny.
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