This mountain will keep more secrets than it shares.  Enveloped in an ethereal fog, the power of the sunlight of dawn slowly dissipates the blanket revealing the steelhead red of foliage, the bright orange of mountain ash and the gold of alpine larch.

A unique sound resonates off the glacier-carved rock and migrates downward into the faults and crevices echoing loneliness. It is an ancient call, one revered by the native peoples of North America. It is part of their cultural history. This song helped inspire the Anasazi of the southwest and the Salish-Kootenai of the northwest to create artwork in the form of pictograms, pictographs (painted) and petroglyphs (carved) on the rock cliffs in the areas they inhabited and traveled through.  

It is described as a bugle, and is usually a bellow escalating to a squealing whistle ending with a grunt.  The source is the Bull Elk, (Cervis canadensis) and is emitted as a biological reaction to cooler temperatures and a shorter photo period, which stimulates the brain to emit hormones producing the behavior known as “the rut.”

Also, Neolithic petroglyphs from Asia depict antler-less female elk, which some interpret as symbolizing re-birth and sustenance.

The main function of the bull elk bellow is to attract cows for mating and to advertise their dominance and readiness to fight to other bulls. Bull elk will “cloister” or shut away from others the cows they are claiming and will grunt at cows straying from their group of mates, known as a “harem.”

Interestingly, a bull elk’s urethra is at a 90-degree angle from it’s male organ, and so it sprays urine which coats the underside of the abdomen with a “perfume” to attract cows.  

Bulls also rake and rub trees, wallow in mud to spread the urine scent and scrape the ground with antlers to get the attention of cows and to intimidate other bulls. Often, bulls may wage violent battles for a harem, occasionally even fighting to the death.

Kootenai, Cree, Blackfeet, Ojibwa and Pawnee tribes produced blankets and robes from elk hides. Lakota peoples held elk in high esteem, and this animal played a spiritual role in their cultures. Some Lakota males were given an elk’s tooth at birth to promote a long life as the teeth were the last part of a dead elk to rot away.

Elk were seen as having strong sexual potency, and sometimes young men who dreamed of elk would have an image of mythical elk on their “courting coats” as a sign of sexual prowess.

Lakota peoples also believed that the spiritual elk was the teacher of men and the embodiment of strength, sexual powers and courage.

In parts of Asia, antlers and their velvet are used in traditional medicines. Elk meat is leaner and higher in protein than beef or chicken.

I am proud to say that some of my research source is our very own Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation started by Bob Munson, Dan Bull, Bill Munson and Charlie Decker. In 1984, the first office was in the back room of a trailer house in Troy.  

It was good to see Charlie in Libby recently. We have some of the best elk hunters in the world right here in our area, and I am proud to know some of these hearty individuals.

Yes, the mountain will keep more secrets than it shares, but it will share some of them. Will you be listening when it whispers?

— Brian Baxter is an outdoors educational programs instructor and coordinator.