TerrieMiller.com

I’m almost done getting all of my vacation photos organized, but here’s an interesting subset of them, from our stop at Thunder Mountain Monument. Here’s a random selection from the set…more details about the monument and photos from our visit are on the Flickr set page

www.flickr.com terriem’s Thunder Mountain Monument photoset

Posted to Flickr:

Thunder Mountain Monument is perfectly
set in the desert along I-80 near Imlay,
Nevada. It’s the life work of Frank
Dean Van Zant, born in 1921 in Okmulgee,
Oklahoma. Van Zant considered himself a
Native American member of the Creek
Nation and later became known as Chief
Rolling Mountain Thunder.

Van Zant served in the Civilian
Conservation Corps in his early teens
and later served in World War II. After
the war he studied theology and became
an assistant pastor for a Methodist
congregation, turned to law enforcement
for two decades as a sheriff’s deputy,
and finally became a private
investigator before retiring. (And, I
would add, beginning his
"real" work).

Chief Rolling Mountain Thunder wanted
to memorialize the plight and suffering
of Native Americans. From a sign at the
memorial, "I don’t have the
financial means to do anything other
than build with what the Great Spirit
has provided to me. That is the junk
that has been cast away by the white
man. The Indian used everything and the
white man is wasteful. I will build a
Monument to the Indian people from the
refuse of our white society."

The main monument began as a travel
trailer that was continually built
around. Among the structures that
survive today are a glass bottle house,
inspired by the bottle house in Rhyolite, NV, near Death Valley.

The sculptures and structures of the
monument are striking and ghostly.
There are fences built of junk, ladders,
and sculptures of women and warriors who
look as though they’ll come to life in
your dreams. Steve visited here in the
1970’s, a decade when the site became a
popular destination for the counter
culture…I’m grateful that he thought
to stop on our trip this time. Steve’s got excellent photos here also.

Dan Van Zant, Chief Rolling Mountain
Thunder’s son, is working to keep the
monument alive. You can read more about
it, and the history of the place and its
creator’s life, at thundermountainmonument.com.

I found the monument to be very moving, even haunting. And it was inspiring to me as a symbol of what can be accomplished when one follows oneself in the process of creating from the heart.

Laika and I walked around to the front of the main monument while Steve circled around another way. She stopped, stared into a spot inside the fence where I could discern nothing, and barked…looked at me, looked back at the spot, and barked again.

Steve asked me later, “What was she barking at?”

“Ghosts.”