In Missoula Jessie and I searched for a ride to the Rainbow Gathering.  We had little luck on a dreary day in the cultural center of Montana.  As we sat playing guitar with another rainbow kid, Jessie was on my phone looking to see if she could find a ride through her network of friends.  Suddenly she handed me my phone – it was ringing.  She said “this is a guy who has room for two in his truck to Rainbow.”  A man picked up and I introduced myself.  I stumbled through the conversation because I didn’t really know where she found out about this ride, but eventually we were on the same page.  He posted an ad on Craigslist.  He said his name was Alex and that he’d be happy to give us a ride.  We set up a meeting at a coffee shop down the street.

We made our way down to the coffee shop and a short time later a young guy wanders into the shop.  He had an untamed beard that hid his neck and long brown hair hardly contained by a baseball cap.  His attire was simple, jeans cut above the knees and a tight t-shirt.  On his hip he had two handcrafted sheathes.  One contained a trowel with a custom handle made from a deer antler with two tines sticking out the end giving it a lot of character..  The second contained a blade with a more modest custom antler handle.  His feet were protected by old tires that were refashioned into sandals with strips of leather wrapping them functionally to his feet and ankles.  I knew this guy had to be my ride.  As he passed I called out his name and he stopped and turned towards me.  I introduced myself and we talked for a few minutes.  We got along well enough and nothing seemed off about him, so we set up where to meet in the morning to leave for the Rainbow Gathering.  He was off to do some last minute errands before leaving tomorrow, so we parted ways.

Shortly after it became apparent Jessie and I didn’t have a place to stay that evening, so we decided to see if Alex would be willing to let us stay at wherever he was staying for the night.  I sent him a text and he explained that he was staying at his sister’s place because he’s not from Missoula.  He checked to see if it’d be alright if we stayed, and she was okay with it.  An hour or so later he returned back to the coffee shop with his sister.  She was quite pretty and Jessie and her immediately hit it off.  As they spoke I could tell that Alex was happy to have her distracted.  We made our way to Alex’s truck and were soon on our way to his sister’s place.

Alex’s truck was an extension of his image.  It was a small manual truck with a cap on the back to protect his worldly possessions.  Alex lived a nomadic lifestyle and this was basically his home.  On the front he had a deer skull wrapped to the grill with leather strap.  Through the windows of the truck bed cap you could see wrapped animal skins, a bison skull, several large woodcutting saws and a rifle half wrapped in a deer skin.  The truck bed was packed almost to the roof with the most interesting things.  Inside the cab there was a dream catcher with dangling feathers hanging from his rear view mirror.  His seats were backed with wolf pelts and his dashboard was  covered with various bundles of sage, bird feathers, arrowheads, animal teeth, and trinkets.  The air was thick with the smell of nature.  I wanted to learn as much as I could about this guy.

After a short ride we arrived at his sister’s place.  We learned she shared the house with four other people.  Two of them were brothers who worked for an adventure company and were on two different adventure trips.  The other two were, as far as I could tell, a strange couple that just worked in Missoula.  Something about the two rubbed me the wrong way, but I was polite to them and things went well. I also met Alex’s dog, a German short hair pointer named Lucy.  She had a lot of energy but was very well behaved.  You could tell that whatever it was that Alex did, this dog was a companion and needed to be obedient.  Alex briefly explained that Lucy was technically his girlfriend’s dog and that they parted ways a month or two ago and she left the dog with him.  Alex went on to say that was his main motivation for going to this Rainbow Gathering – his girlfriend, who did not have a vehicle, knew they could fairly easily meet back up with one another at the event.

I didn’t get to talk too much more with Alex that evening because his sister dominated the conversation, but I did learn that his sister thought he was one of the only people who could pull off jean shorts and has complimented Alex on his good looks his whole life.  Oh yeah, and that Alex could squeeze himself into her jeans.  That was impressive.  We all had a few beers together and while Jessie and Alex’s sister traded some clothing (Jessie was doing a little pre-Rainbow bartering), Alex cooked up some delicious bison meat.  As I ate, Jessie wrapped a black bandana around Lucy’s neck.  Jessie said “she loves it!” and Alex seemed surprised because Lucy normally hates stuff around her neck.  Something just seemed right about that bandana, so Jessie gifted it to her and the rest of the night Lucy seemed to strut around as if she was a peacock showing his feathers.  As the night progressed, I tried striking up conversation with Alex but he wasn’t very talkative.  He asked me to forgive him, but explained his mind wasn’t all there right now and that he’d be more talkative tomorrow.

That evening Jessie and I shared a room in the basement across from Alex.  The bed he slept in was covered in animal skins that he had tanned himself for blankets.  I still didn’t know what his story was, and hoped to talk at length with him during our four hour ride the next day about it.

The next morning we packed up Alex’s truck.  Alex and I sat up front and Jessie and Lucy shared the back seat.  It took only minutes before you could see the stress leave Alex’s body.  He again said sorry for acting somewhat closed the previous night.  He explained that there was a lot of tension between him and his sister.  Although she was very friendly and kind towards Jessie and I, Alex knew another side to her and it ate at him as he watched her interact with us.  Alex began to talk with confidence and the conversations started.

I asked Alex about what he did for a living and how he acquired all of these interesting belongings.  He told me he was a rewilder.  Not having a clue what that was, he began to explain without needing me to ask.  The process of rewilding involves restoring and protecting wilderness areas.  Alex and the group he worked with focused on roots and plants that were abundant during Native American times.  They go into large forests and find where these plants are abundant and then dig some of it up and replant it in areas where it is not.  Well, that’s what he did to the best of my understanding anyways.

He went on to explain to tell me about how he got started with rewilding.  The leader of the collective, who he referred to as his mentor, was a woman who was extremely strict and hard on her team.  When he arrived at her home in Washington looking to work with her, she started the process by berating him and making him feel like trash for how he was a materialistic pig ruled by a consumerist mentality.  She made him weep for his wrong doings.  Once he was knocked down a few notches, she taught him everything she knows about conservation and rewilding.  Alex told me about how he met his girlfriend, Chelsea, through this group and the nomadic lifestyle it entailed.  He told me about how his dog had to start carrying his own food after their work horse fell off a cliff and about the two donkeys he was given by a farmer after hearing about the loss of his horse.  He pointed to the hills and called out the names of plants and their values, how he was unable to utilize them because they were on protected Native American lands operated by individuals who were too far disconnected from their heritage to know the kinds of resources they were letting go to waste.  It was all so interesting.

Eventually the topics turned to music.  As it turned out we shared similar tastes in music.  We conversed about bands such as The Mountain Goats which most people give me a blank stare when I mention.  It was nice being able to talk about things such as what we liked and disliked about John Darnielle’s musical style.  We were soon listening to one of my Pandora stations listening to tunes my friends typically tolerate but he actually enjoyed.  Alex later told me he was part of a band called Mirror Fauna with Chelsea.  He explained their style and I wished I could hear some of their work.  After awhile he remembered he had a copy of their latest album and soon we were listening to the sweet voice of Chelsea accompanied by talented musicians as they sang their themed album about the destruction of the environment.  I really, really liked it.

While Alex and I were talking Jessie was in the back finishing some postcards she wanted to mail out.  When she finished we stopped in a small town to mail them before we got to Rainbow.  As Jessie was in the post office we noticed a tannery next door that looked open.  Alex and I went over to talk to the tanner.  He gave us a tour of his small facility.  The tanner was working on a lot of about 15 bear pelts at the time.  Alex and the tanner talked about their tanning styles.  Alex’s process was a lot more basic since he basically did it out of the back of his truck.  As we were preparing to leave, the tanner gave Alex a large deer fur that was scrap to the tanner.  Alex happily accepted and threw it over his shoulders like a shawl.  His face brightened up immensely and, like his dog, wore it with such pride.  We returned to his truck and we were on our way again.

We drove for a few more hours and eventually we arrived at the Rainbow Gathering.  We scoped out the parking situation and eventually we found a spot he needed to engage his 4WD for, which I had to give him encouragement for since I am experienced in driving places one normally doesn’t go.  We unloaded our gear and loaded ourselves up, including Lucy.  Alex explained that he was looking for a camp called Green Paths, which focuses on green initiative activities.  That sounded like a camp for me, so we traveled into the gathering together.  We soon lost Jessie because she got caught up in conversations with several people, but I figured I’d run into her within the next week.  The walk was pretty easy, but the elevation and my extra heavy pack made keeping up with Alex difficult.  We found Green Paths had not yet set up, so we decided to part ways ourselves.  I heard about a place called Turtle Soup I wanted to check out and he wanted to continue searching for Green Pathers.

I thanked Alex for his help and went on my way.  I ran into him three more times throughout the Rainbow Gathering, but you could tell our time together was done and he was glad to move onto the next thing.  I eventually met his girlfriend Chelsea as well.  She was frolicking through a muddy field with some others completely nude and completely happy.  That’s one way to be introduced.  I was happy to see they were reunited.  They planned to drive to Washington and fly up to Alaska to spend a month exploring the great state.  I wished them luck on their travels and hoped people would be as good to them as Alex had been to me.