Where a Basin is Next to the Mountains

It appears that the winter weather advisory I received has missed us, although some ominous clouds over the mountains tell me that others haven't been as lucky. I do believe, however, that we got the insane winds they mentioned because when I went for a walk this morning, I was almost blown away.

Why did I go for a 75-minute walk when it was barely above freezing? I'm not totally sure, maybe I don't like having 10 toes (I still have all 10, but it was questionable for a while).

I believe this would be the basin that the name refers to.

One thing I did go to see was something that I noticed on my way into town -- a sign welcoming visitors into St. Ignatius that also has a Native America translation on it. I mentioned in a previous post that St. Ignatius is on the Flathead Indian Reservation and some online digging has taught me that the reservation is home to the Bitterroot Salish, Kootenai and Pend d'Oreilles Tribes, which are tribes that I have never heard of, but like I said, they have their own name for St. Ignatius and it translates to "Where a Basin is Next to the Mountains." I was very interested in this, so I went to get a picture of the sign!

I took one wide shot so that you could get a feel for the area and one of just the sign so that you could fully appreciate what the Kutenai language looks like, because it definitely isn't English. If you look to the left on the second picture you can see some of the mountains that the name also refers to, I didn't get a real picture of them as the currently look like the absolute doom and gloom of a winter weather advisory.

Now, I am warming up and getting ready for another day of workshops and rehearsal!