SEELEY LAKE — At the edge of the water with the Swan Range sprawling across the skyline, Miah Real Bird was painting a figure on horseback on a square of newspaper from the Livingston area that was around a hundred years old.

Ledger art, a Plains Indian tradition, that can be painstaking, she said. The antique paper, which her ancestors began to use in place of buffalo hide to record stories, is fragile. Each sheet responds differently to pens and brushes. It requires intention when you begin to make a mark.

“There's no going back. There's not really any erasing, or any mistakes, it's letting that energy flow through you,” Real Bird said.

The stillness on the water seemed ideal for concentration. She was here at Camp Paxson for four days as part of Ways of Water, a new annual retreat fo

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