She left out one very good beader: Mary Jane Charlo.
“There's no guarantee anyone would buy anything of mine because I'm not that good,” she insists.
This year, at the insistence of one of the women who showed and sold work last year, Charlo will join other Salish artisans for “Women and the Wild” Saturday at Lolo Pass.
The event also includes a book-signing by Jean Carroll, author of “I Never Felt Poor Except in Town: Selway Saga 1932-48,” plus Lolo Pass interpreter Danna Hartman telling the story of the Carlin Hunting Party.
Hartman plays Fanny Colgate, widow of George, who lost his life on the banks of the Lochsa River during the ill-fated trip.
“Women in the Wild” is just part of a chance to throw yourself into history this weekend. At Travelers' Rest State Park at Lolo, Traditional Trades Days will poke into the Lewis and Clark Expedition and more.
Starting at 10 a.m. both days, the Travelers' Rest Brigade will be on site demonstrating the tools and other equipment used by Lewis and Clark and their men.
There will be several programs throughout both days, kids' activities from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday and Native American games from 3-7 p.m. Saturday and noon-5 p.m. Sunday.
Traditional Trades Days celebrate the 203rd anniversary of Lewis and Clark's visit to the area from Sept. 9-11, 1805.
The hope is that folks take in events at both Travelers' Rest, and Lolo Pass.
Sarah Wahl rolls her eyes when Mary Jane Charlo complains her work isn't “good enough.”
Charlo taught Wahl, her daughter, how to do beadwork.
“And I did real good last year, way better than I expected,” Wahl says.
The women make medicine pouches, moccasins, necklaces, dreamcatchers, crosses, miniature cradleboards, dolls - and Charlo does wonderful flatwork that Wahl says she doesn't have the patience for.
They'll be joined by Racheal Bowers, who also does beadwork - “amazing stuff,” Charlo says - and Sashay Camel, whose watercolor landscapes blend her passion for botany with its relevance to tribal lifestyles.
The 59-year-old Charlo began beadwork when she was 7, taught by her mother.
“I used to do moccasins and stuff,” she says. “I didn't know what I was doing. It was probably pretty ugly.”
Today her flatwork and the beading she does on everything from dresses to belts is beautiful and intricate, and part of the beauty may shine through because she doesn't normally sell her work.
“If I make something really beautiful, it's because it's for my family,” she says. “I don't make a lot that I sell. I just don't have the time, and I don't think I do enough to make any money at it.”
It is difficult to put a price on a handmade item, Wahl agrees.
She charges $20 to $25 for one of her smaller dreamcatchers, which takes her three to four hours to make.
To try to do it full time, she says, would make it a minimum wage job.
“I make more by the hour at my job,” says Charlo, who works for Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribal Preservation. “It takes a long time to bead.”
Her job is fascinating, anyway, Charlo says. She is currently compiling a pictoral history of the tribes for a traveling exhibit, and has been busy soliciting contributions from across the reservation - and beyond.
One of her “finds” was a donation of photographs by a Columbia Falls man whose mother had lived on the reservation in the 1940s, and befriended many Indians.
So the beadwork is a hobby, as it is for Wahl, who works at Salish Kootenai College and is raising three children, including a 7-month-old baby.
But they still find the time to bead - and Saturday, on an even rarer occasion, they'll make the time to show and sell their art.
‘Women and the Wild'
The Northwest Interpretive Center and the Clearwater National Forest invite you to “Women and the Wild” at the Lolo Pass Visitors Center on Saturday to experience art, history and storytelling from a woman's point of view. Salish artisans from the Flathead Indian Reservation will have their work on display and for sale from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; author Jean Carroll will sign “I Never Felt Poor Except in Town: Selway Saga 1932-48” from 9 a.m. to noon; and Danna Hartman will provide an interpretive demonstration of Fannie Colgate, an 1890s-era widow, at 12:30 p.m. and 1:30 p.m. Mountain Time.
There's more history to be found at Travelers' Rest State Park in Lolo Saturday and Sunday during Traditional Trades Days. On Saturday, events begin at 10 a.m. and culminate at 7 p.m. with the final Summer Campfire Program, re-enactor Tom Lukomski's “Living History with Joseph Whitehouse,” detailing the Lewis and Clark Expedition from the perspective of the only private on the journey to keep a journal. Sunday's events run from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. For a complete schedule, visit www.travelersrest.org.
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