I can’t remember much of what I learned about Jim Bridger in school. I seem to be able to remember two things. His middle name was Felix. (How’s that for a bit of trivia that I don’t get to use very often?) And he was the first non-native to see the geysers of Yellowstone Park. I’m not completely confident in either of these facts, so you might want to look them up yourself. Some of the things I learned in grade school weren’t completely accurate at the time that I learned them and my memory has a way of twisting facts to meet the story. We learned about jim Bridger in Montana History and he was an important person in our local area because Bridger Pass and the Bridger Mountains both bore his name. So did Bridger Bowl, our favorite ski area. Bridger pass is somewhere in Wyoming and figures somehow in the process of driving cattle from Colorado to the Canadian border. I don’t think jim Bridger was much for herding cattle, but he was a famous mountain man and explorer and perhaps he scouted the trail. The Bridger trail passes through Park and Gallitan counties, just west of my home town.

When you drive over Bozeman pass, which we did frequently, the Gallatin Mountains are to the south and the Bridgers to the north.

All of that gives me no clue as to how Bridger, South Dakota got its name. I guess I assume that it has come connection with the mountain man jim Bridger, but I don’t know if I made that up because of where I grew up or if it is really true.

As towns go, Bridger isn’t one of the big ones. It is little more than a housing development with a couple of churches and a small community center thrown in. I think that it might more appropriately be called Takini, but that name is given to the school up on the hill above Bridger. The claim to fame of Bridger is that it is the place where the survivors of the Wounded Knee massacre spent the rest of the winter. Stricken with grief over the loss of their loved ones and horror over the wantonness and randomness of the killings, the Lakota survivors headed north toward Dakota country in the hopes that Sitting Bull might give them assistance to make it through the winter. They didn’t make it to Green Grass, but finally ran out of energy and the ability to keep walking near the site of present day Bridger. They had been following the Cheyenne River and after the Belle Fourche river flowed into it they kept going, a bit uncertain where they had to start cutting across ground to get the the Moreau and Green Grass. They didn’t even know if Sitting Bull was at Green Grass. But the journey was too strenuous for the dispirited, grieving, injured and nearly frozen people. So they stopped by the river. There, in the partial shelter of the cottonwood trees, they settled in to try to survive the winter. Later some food came from Green Grass and somehow they survived.

It must have been a miserable winter.

Grief and cold and poor nutrition don’t make for comfortable surroundings and pleasant dreams.

Takini school was started to provide an education for the children of the survivors. I don’t speak Lakota. I only know a few words, so I usually ask a native speaker, most often an elder, to tell me what the words are and what they mean. I get different answers when I ask for a translation of Takini. I guess that the dictionary translation is “survivor.” Byron Buffalo once told me that it has a deeper meaning than that, something like “barely surviving,” or “nearly dead.” Matt Iron Hawk once told me it means “one who has survived the worst,” or sometimes that “the worst is behind.” Another Lakota speaker once told me it means, “We’re still here!”

People have lived at or near Bridger ever since that terrible winter of 1890. Many of the people who live in the area can trace their lineage to one of the survivors.

But there are no services at Bridger. No store, no gas station, no food bank, no social services - there’s nothing except a group of houses. Folks can drive the 10 miles to Howe’s for gas and a few convenience store items. It’s 90 miles to Pierre. There’s a Walmart in Pierre. Rapid is over a hundred miles. Eagle Butte is about 80 on the paved road, less than 70 on the gravel. There are some shops and services at Faith, about 35 miles away. In the summer, folks take their kids up to faith to swim in the pool. The river is pretty muddy and often very mosquito-infested most of the summer.

Byron Buffalo is the pastor of our little church at Bridger. I think he usually drives on the gravel from his home in Eagle Butte. That’s maybe 130 miles each trip - hard on tires, hard on windshields, hard on the driver, too. But they have an active and growing ministry down there. It seems to me as if the church always has some special project going each time I visit. They have a wind generator so they can provide heat and shelter and hot showers when the electricity goes out in the community. They raise chickens. They garden. They have a few horses. They provide a place for people to gather and community to grow. And Byron speaks Lakota. He has listened first-hand to the stories of the elders in their own language. He can preach in a language they understand.

So today we get to drive up to Bridger and meet with Byron. We’ve got a little convoy of trucks and trailers hauling firewood. It is good to get the wood to those who need it. It is even better to meet our friends and partners in a pace of deep spiritual meaning and memory.

It is, as they say, a good way to spend a day.

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