More than 200 years ago, John Colter earned his street cred as Montana's first TBA. He was surrounded by a tribe of Blackfeet warriors on the banks of a river in Southwest Montana. The Blackfeet, their weapons drawn and ready, had caught Colter and his companion John Potts by surprise. Colter had to come up with a plan.....like really fast.
Colter may or may not have been known to the Blackfeet, but he had already developed a reputation among the very few Europeans who were trapping, hunting, and scouting The West. He first caught the attention of two French trappers when he was a buck private in the US Army and under the command of two captains - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. As part of the military-led Lewis & Clark Expedition, Colter helped map the West and provide an incredibly detailed and rich real estate report on the Louisiana Purchase to President Thomas Jefferson.
The Lewis & Clark Expedition was the Mars voyage of its day. They were sent to explore a huge expanse of newly acquired American land entirely unknown to the Europeans-cum-Americans running the show of a new country in Washington D.C. The three-year journey resulted in exceptionally professional maps, volumes of scientific data, and rich anthropological reports of Native American tribes. Only one member died (of an appendix attack) thanks in no small part to a female TBA on the Expedition named Sacajawea (she's a topic for a future newsletter). It was an amazing group of soldiers and they were TBAs all.
The French trappers perhaps recognized a higher caliber of TBA-ness in Colter. They were paddling up the Missouri River as the Expedition was paddling downstream toward St. Louis. Lewis & Clark were in a hurry. They had been gone for three years and figured, accurately, that President Jefferson and the rest of Congress probably thought they had all died. Soldiers to the end, they wanted to finish their mission and report to their Commander in Chief.
The Frenchmen requested permission to hire Colter as their guide and go back up the river and into Montana. They needed a guide who knew the territory and Colter was their man. Colter wanted to go, but he had to follow orders. Lewis & Clark had also recognized Colter's TBA-ness. They wanted to show their respect and honor to his service (by allowing him to leave with the trappers), but were worried that the other Expedition members would request the same deal or simply abandon ship (canoe) and go AWOL. In the end, all the Expedition members pledged to stay with Lewis & Clark if they allowed Colter to go with the Frenchmen.
Obviously, TBAs recognize higher calibers of TBA-ness amongst their brethren. Colter was formally and honorably discharged from the US Army. He turned his canoe around and started paddling upstream ....again. He would go on to, among other things, be the first European-looking dude to see the geysers of Yellowstone. The place would be named, if but temporarily, Colter's Hell.
But, back to the river bank and how he became Montana's first TBA and why this is relevant to the GYAS other than being a very cool Montana story.
Colter was no dumbass.
Potts? Not so much. While Colter stayed in the canoe and did not move a muscle, Potts lunged for his rifle. The Blackfeet responded and Potts was quickly riddled with arrows and bullets. He died on the spot. One dumbass down. What do you do with the other guy?
The Blackfeet decided to have some fun.
They stripped Colter of all his clothes including his moccasins. In some accounts of this story, they also sliced his feet. They then told him to start running across a vast prairie and indicated that after a decent head start the rest of the tribe, especially their strongest warriors, would run him down and kill him. He had a chance though if he could run fast enough.
And you all thought BQing was tough!
Colter slowly walked away from the tribe, picking his way among the prickly pear cactus. He kept walking slowly and pretended to be limping along because of the cactus. Slowly, slowly with no intentions of bursting into a sprint until the last minute.
He eventually heard a whoop and knew the warriors were in pursuit. Colter broke into a run. As it turns out, he was fast. Like really fast. He had a long stride and kept up a faster than expected pace. The Blackfeet were TBAs as well and quickly followed, but were out distanced within the first couple miles. Except for one guy. He was also fast. Faster than Colter. In addition to wearing clothes and moccasins, he also had a spear with full intentions of running it through Colter's back.
When a TBA is literally running for his life, he really runs fast and he runs smart. He knew where he was and knew where he wanted to go which was a river on the other side of the broad prairie. If he could make it to the river, he thought he would have a better chance of hiding and surviving. So he kept up the pace. He started hemorrhaging blood out of his nose and mouth, but he kept up the pace. Despite this, the Blackfeet warrior was catching up and Colter knew he had to do something.
His plan was simple. When the Blackfeet was within several paces of him, Colter suddenly stopped and quickly turned around with his arms spread out. He had blood pouring out of his nose and mouth and it had splashed all over his chest. This no doubt shocked the warrior who also must have been winded. He paused in surprise. Colter grabbed his spear, ran it through him, turned back around, and kept running for the river.
Imagine the reaction of the rest of the tribe when they came upon their best warrior. They took off in pursuit. Colter made it to the river, dove in, and hid under a log jam using a reed to stay under water while being able to breathe. They never found him that day, but Colter was a few hundred miles away from the nearest European fort. He was naked, weaponless, and totally alone. It took him 11 days, but he made it to the fort and had one hell of a story to tell. And thus is the story of Montana's first TBA.
Today, Colter is all over the place in the Yellowstone and in Montana and Wyoming. There is an annual race - the John Colter Run - held on the site of his famed run near the town of Three Forks. There's a Colter Bay in Teton National Park, Colter's Run at Bridger Bowl Ski hill, and a bunch of Colter campgrounds. There's a handful of guys named Colter in Montana. One of them even grew up to be a Yellowstone race director!
To this list, we want to add
The John Colter Club. This is an exclusive club of athletes who have shown TBA qualities befitting of the name of this legendary Montanan TBA. Qualifying is pretty simple to understand, but not very easy to do. It is also fee-based but you get something for a little bit of money in addition to the glory of earning your way into the club.
To become a member of the
John Colter Club, you have to have achieved just one of three possible membership criteria:
