The 5-year-old even adds her own flourish to “The Star-Spangled Banner” when she practices.
“At the end she always says, ‘And the crowd goes wild,' ” said her mother, Felicite Rose McDonald. “Because they do.”
Starblanket, by now a veteran anthem singer at powwows in the area, will thrill a new audience Thursday morning when she helps launch the 19-day Lewis and Clark in the Rockies Bicentennial Festival in Missoula.
Starblanket sings the anthem at the 10 a.m. opening ceremony of the National Park Service's Tent of Many Voices at Southgate Mall, ushering in four days of activities, presentations and displays at the mall.
Thursday is the second day of the festival. Opening day on Wednesday includes a kickoff event at Out to Lunch in Caras Park, also with a Native American theme that includes drumming, dancing, singing and interpretation.
Then it's off and running - nearly three weeks of songs and dances, hikes and rides, talks and displays, games and races, exhibitions, demonstrations and re-enactments. They conclude on July 9 with closing ceremonies at Travelers' Rest State Park in Lolo.
Activities stretch from downtown Missoula to the top of Lolo Pass, to the Arlee Fourth of July Powwow, to Gibbons Pass and the Big Hole Valley, and up the Blackfoot through Lincoln and over Lewis and Clark Pass.
You can go birding and roast marshmallows at Travelers' Rest, and hear Pierre Cruzatte's fiddle playing in a couple of spots.
You can ogle replicas of the Corps of Discovery's keelboats at the Missoula mall, and gunsmith and blacksmith tools of the era at the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. You can experience reenactments by a modern-day William Clark, a York and Touissant Charbonneau (Sacagawea's husband).
There'll be guided hikes on the Lolo Trail, the Mount Jumbo saddle, and on the Blackfoot road. There'll be botanical and wildlife strolls at the Lee Metcalf Wildlife Refuge.
For Scott Sproull, coordinator of the festival, it's the climax of a lifetime of enchantment with the Lewis and Clark story, and more than five years of planning, worrying, sweating and promoting.
Still, Sproull terms this a “modest” bicentennial undertaking. Nearly every town along the explorers' route - from Monticello in Virginia to the Pacific Ocean and back to St. Louis - wants to be a considered a “don't miss” stop during the bicentennial, he said.
“Our group went into this looking at it more as a community event rather than to bring a lot of tourism people to Missoula,” Sproull said. “Our definition of success is if we can get people who are interested in this kind of thing to go to more than one event over the 19 days. We're just giving everyone options.”
One of the big drawing points, Sproull emphasized, is the cost of admission - there is none, to any of the festival events.
“The big watchword is we're free, free, free,” he said.
That differs from the nation's big-budget “signature” bicentennial commemorations of the past three years, including one in Great Falls and Fort Benton a year ago and three more to come this summer. The final event is in St. Louis on Sept. 20-24.
Last summer, western Montana activities marking the Corps of Discovery's westbound trip of 1805 were centered at Travelers' Rest. The state park will play a major supporting role this year by doing “things that we normally do,” said Loren Flynn, executive director of the Travelers' Rest Preservation and Heritage Association.
That includes an emphasis on activities for kids and families and “getting them involved with history,” Flynn said.
“From the historical standpoint, our focus is really on the trails that led to Travelers' Rest, Lewis and Clark on those trails, and the decisions they made here on the trails,” he said. “Lewis actually collected the bitterroot here and took it back with him.”
The scientific name for the Montana state flower, not coincidentally, is Lewisa rediviva.
Meriwether Lewis, William Clark and the Corps of Discovery topped Lolo Pass on their homeward journey on June 29, 1806. For the next six weeks, they were in what's now Montana, splintering into as many as five segments.
Of the two captains, only Lewis saw the Missoula Valley. With nine men, 17 horses and his Newfoundland, Seaman, he traveled the ancient Indian trail known as the “road to the buffalo” that led up the Blackfoot River, over the Continental Divide and on to the Great Falls via the Sun River.
Clark bid Lewis adieu on July 3 at Travelers' Rest, then headed up the Bitterroot Valley, crossing into the Big Hole and eventually the Yellowstone Valley.
Their time in western Montana in 1806 was brief - 10 days for Lewis, nine for Clark. Actual contact with the natives was limited to the Nez Perce scouts who guided them up and over Lolo Pass and pointed Lewis' party to the Blackfoot road on July 4.
Still, the Indians' presence was everywhere in the form of well-marked roads, the horses they provided, the knowledge they imparted, and the trepidation they presented to the intruders in their country.
Their presence will be front and center in the 200-year commemoration activities as well. Sproull said the National Park Service sets guidelines for its Tent of Many Voices, which will be at Southgate Mall Thursday through Sunday and in Lincoln June 30-July 2. At least two presentations a day are oriented to Native Americans.
The national Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Commission established Native American history and culture as its No. 1 priority.
Sproull was encouraged when the western Montana commission began distributing festival programs in early June and there was an immediate cry for more.
“I had thousands of them go away the first day,” he said. “I gave the Convention and Visitors Bureau hundreds of those things and they're gone.”
“We don't have a goal of this many thousand or that many thousand (people),” Sproull said.
Starblanket isn't worried about the size of the crowd Thursday morning.
The 5-year-old isn't nervous, she said, “because I sing a lot of places.”
“I think I'm more of a wreck than she is,” agreed McDonald.
Her daughter was with friends at the Arlee Powwow on the Fourth of July last year when she was asked to sing the anthem.
“They were sitting behind our drum group there, just being little girls and playing. When they asked her would she sing she said, yeah, like it was nothing,” McDonald recalled. “The place was crazy, packed with people. She went from playing with her friends to getting up in front of everybody and singing. It was nothing to her.
“She had everybody in tears. It was just unbelievable. Then she just went back to playing.”
Starblanket is a member of the Salish and Kootenai Tribes and the Starblanket Cree nation in Saskatchewan, as well as San Felipe Pueblo of New Mexico.
She's already into basketball, volleyball and soccer, and goes to cheerleading camps in Ronan and at the University of Montana. Last year, when she was still in Headstart, she was named Tiny Tot Princess at the Kyi-Yo Powwow at the University of Montana based on her dancing and speaking ability, a remarkable achievement for someone so young.
Starblanket likes to dance at powwows - fancy, jingle and some traditional, McDonald said.
And now she sings at them as well.
The Arlee Powwow wasn't her first public vocal performance. That happened a couple of days before, when her grandfather, Rudy King, recruited her to sing the national anthem at a benefit auction for the Arlee Fire Department.
Starblanket was asked how she thought she did.
“I can't remember,” she said. “It was a long time ago.”
Lewis and Clark in the Rockies Festival highlights
Reenactments
Hal Stearns presents “An Evening With Clark” at the Wilma Theatre (June 21)
David Casteal presents “An Evening with York” at the Wilma Theatre (June 23)
Garry Bush presents “An Evening with Touissant Charbonneau” at Wilma Theatre (June 24)
Native Americans
Opening ceremony at Caras Park, including Ulali Singers (June 21)
108th Arlee Powwow and Celebration (June 29-July 4)
Activities for kids
at Travelers' Rest
Bike parade, Florence to Travelers' Rest (June 30)
Native American Games, (June 30-July 3)
Help Lewis and Clark set up camp (July 1-3)
Marshmallow Roast (July 2)
Music
Daniel Slosberg plays Pierre Cruzatte, Travelers' Rest (July 1-2)
Pioneer Musicology, Rick Strohmyer, Tent of Many Voices, Lincoln (July 1-2)
Ellie Nuno presents Pierre Cruzatte's Fiddle, Tent of Many Voices, Lincoln (July 2)
Walks and hikes
Lolo Trail, Lolo National Forest, (June 26-28)
Birding and Wildlife Programs, Lee Metcalf Wildlife Refuge (June 26-28)
Blue Mountain Nature Trail, with Ritchie Doyle as Capt. Clark (June 27)
Walk/Ride With Lewis, Blackfoot Valley (July 5-7)
Lewis and Clark Pass, northeast of Lincoln (July 7-8, Aug. 12)
Outdoor interpretive programs
Josiah Pinkham at Packer Meadows (June 29-30)
Wayne Phillips, Glade Creek Campsite (June 30)
Lunch with Lewis, Monture Creek Fishing Access (July 8)
Exhibits
Tent of Many Voices, hourly presentations, 9 a.m.-4 p.m., Southgate Mall (June 22-25)
Northwest Treat Trail: 1854-1856, Southgate Mall (June 22-25)
Landscapes Along the Lewis and Clark Trail, University of Montana's Museum of Art and Culture (May 5-Aug. 19; extended hours June 22-25)
Guided tours of Edgar S. Paxson murals, Missoula County Courthouse (June 22-25)
Following in the Footsteps: Before and After Lewis and Clark, Historical Museum at Fort Missoula (June 21-Aug. 21)
Lewis and Clark-related replica collection, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation (June 22-25)
Tent of Many Voices, hourly presentations, Hooper Park in Lincoln (June 30-July 2)
Fourth of July
Captain Meriwether Lewis monument re-dedication, Hellgate Canyon, 10 a.m.
Games, demonstrations, activities, food at the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Commemorations
Clark's return trip, Gibbons Pass, Hogan Cabin (July 6)
Clark's return trip, tours and program, Jackson Hot Springs (July 7)
Other
Known Artifacts of the Expedition, lecture and slides, UM Montana Theatre (July 7)
Closing Ceremony, Travelers' Rest State Park, Lolo (July 9)
For a full schedule of events, go online to http://www.lewisandclarkintherockies.com
Proceeding on
Lewis & Clark In the Rockies Bicentennial Festival runs June 21-July 9 in and around Missoula. For information and a complete schedule of events, check out http://www.lewisandclarkintherockies.com
|
 |
 |
Add your comment now! Write your comment in the form below.
(Email address is for verification only. If you'd like to email a story, look for the link above)