I am served a true feast cooked by Fran: Home Made Borsch Feta Cheese Salad Smashed Potatoes Bison Steaks Home Made Rhubarb Pie

As the sun drifts down in the west the Peaks of the Mission Mountain take on a pink hue, then blink out to slate gray. It is time for me to go to bed. I sleep in a 6 man tent with a rug, a cot, a clean sleeping bag, a table and a lamp…and I do not get up to ride today. Breakfast is home made sourdough pancakes, eggs, bacon, coffee, and huckleberry syrup. In the past 24 hours two worlds have collided in my intestines…”cheapo on the road food mixed with granola protein bars” and real gourmet food…I do not want to leave today to restart the trip…I think I will live in their back yard and pay for room and board…I have no pictures of her food because I ate it all (except Rick’s Borsch)…

Earlier in the morning waiting for breakfast I did find an apricot tree burdened with fruit and of course had to have my fill…

After breakfast we go the see the Mission, a true miracle of this valley.

Founded in 1854 by Jesuits, hence the name St. Ignatius, it was the first Jesuit school in the Northwest with a hospital, sawmill, flour mill, printing press, carpenter and blacksmith shop. At the invitation of 4 delegations of Flathead Indians to the Catholic Bishop of St. Louis Missouri in the 1830s and 1840s a petition to Rome finally resulted in allowing Fr. DeSmet to work with the tribes. The initial church was set up in 1841 on the Bitter Root River south of St. Ignatius but later moved to its present site. By 1855 more than 1000 Indians had decided to locate close to the Mission for economic, educational, and perhaps religious reasons. In 1864 Nuns arrived to further the education of both boys and girls.

Between 1875 and 1900 the Mission flourished with expansion of the schools, a hospital and a printing center with publication of Narratives from the Holy Scripture in the Indian native tongue along with a Indian/ English Dictionary. In 1891 a new church was built and to this day remains standing and in regular use. It’s interior is decorated with 50 frescos painted by Brother Joseph Carignano, the cook of the Mission…a man who had no artistic training and was allowed to paint only in his free time…

Over the century and a half there has been a close working relationship between the Salish Tribe and the Jesuits for the betterment of all

and finally in the early 1970 the Church became a U.S. National Heritage Site. Walking though the Mission today my jaw drops in absolute awe at the paintings of a “cook in his spare time”.

Two out building still exist, one a museum with exhibits of both the early Jesuits and Salish Indians sitting side by side…two worlds which did collide… We leave the church and ride up to the Bison preserve where a herd of Buffalo live protected in the wild.

Looking down from their hills we can see St Ignatius against the backdrop of the Mission Mountains. Riding north on a bus to Whitefish through the Reservation we make several stops, some with time to get off and walk a bit. The Reservation is thriving with businesses, a college, two hospitals, shops, golf courses, and water front property along Flathead Lake.

I see no intoxicated Indians like in Browning but a group of people busy at work bettering their lives and homes. I read through their weekly newspaper, the Char-Koosta News to see their local,issues with a positive slant towards solving each concern. The reservation oozes responsibility and as a result positivity not seen east of here. I wonder back to the original Salish delegation to St.Louis in 1831 and then the next two when the Salish were killed by the Sioux as they returned. I wonder at the tenacity of the tribes to send a fourth delegation for final success. I think of the Jesuits who dared to tread where others would not dare…and I think of the two worlds that collided not into war or destruction but a very positive place… Somebody did something right here…

Truly, it was painfully sad for me to sit at the bus station waiting to ride back to Whitefish….I felt that I was in a uniquely special place…

beneath the Mission Mountains…

in a town named for a Jesuit Priest…

next to a Bison Range…. where the Indians and White Man made and still make things work…

and in a place where I was so well cared for…

I am just not ready to ride again…but time does not stop for any cyclist on this trip… Tomorrow we head North to Eureka..