BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Tribal rangers from southern Idaho and northern Nevada American Indian tribes will fly in a helicopter over their ancestral homeland in the Owyhee Front this holiday weekend, to keep watch on important cultural resources and help protect them from vandals and thieves.
The Shoshone-Paiute Tribes on the Duck Valley Indian Reservation are descended from Western Shoshone and Northern Paiute groups that have made the Great Basin region home for thousands of years.
They have many sacred sites within the new 517,000-acre federally protected Owyhee wilderness created in 2009, as well as across the entire canyon-laced region that includes parts of Oregon, Idaho and Nevada.
Ted Howard, tribal cultural resources head, says the flights will provide a status report on ancient fishing villages, burial grounds, even “vision quest” sites that the tribes still aim to keep secret.
