Medicine Wheel/Medicine Mountain

One of our most significant success stories is the protection of the Bighorn Medicine Wheel/Medicine Mountain. The mountain is sacred to many tribes, particularly Plains tribes.

In 1990, the Association  helped create the Medicine Wheel Coalition, a coalition of Plains Tribes who have a traditional history of using the Medicine Wheel and Medicine Mountain for spiritual purposes. With the assistance of the Association, the Coalition negotiated and signed in 1996 a landmark Historic Preservation Plan (HPP) with the Forest Service, as well as state and local government agencies, designed to ensure that the entire area around Medicine Wheel and Medicine Mountain is managed in a manner that protects the integrity of the site as a sacred site.​

In 1999, Wyoming Sawmills, a local logging company, filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the HPP, claiming it violated the First Amendment of the Constitution and several federal laws. In this effort, Wyoming Sawmills was represented by the Mountain States Legal Foundation a right-wing legal organization consistently opposed to government efforts to voluntarily protect Native American sacred places. AAIA provided legal counsel to the Medicine Wheel Coalition, which intervened in this case. The Coalition and Forest Service ultimately prevailed, with a Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in 2004 dismissing the lawsuit and a petition to the Supreme Court for review which was ultimately denied.

Following that ruling, the Association has worked with the Coalition and other consulting parties to ensure that the HPP is fully implemented, including incorporation of the HPP into a new Forest plan.

Finally, in June 2011, the efforts of the Association and the Medicine Wheel Coalition achieved the permanent protection of the Medicine Wheel and Medicine Mountain when the entire mountain was designated as a National Historic Landmark for its traditional cultural significance.