Big Wall and The Big Wall Dragon
By Pierce Perez
(7th Grade Grandson of Bill and Dana Milton)
11/18/16
Around 85 million years ago, there lived a dragon named Big Wall Dragon. Big Wall Dragon lived in modern day Mexico with his parents. He enjoyed a peaceful life until he began to notice that everything around him was dying. His whole world was shaking and turning to ashes. He didn’t understand what was happening. Little did Big Wall Dragon know that this was the Mesozoic Era where folding, faulting, mountain building and volcanic activity was affecting his world. All Big Wall dragon could remember was going into hiding.
When Big Wall Dragon emerged, everything was different from how he had remembered it. He found himself living in this beautiful place where Montana and Yellowstone is now. Granted this was still 80 million years ago, but he found peace here. He soon found a place to lie in wait for the next big change to happen. During this time, there were dinosaurs and the breakup of Pangea was happening. Big Wall Dragon had a feeling more was coming. Eventually, the dinosaurs died out and Big Wall Dragon watched as the world grew, changed, and died.
Around this time (80-60 million years ago) the last major tectonic plates shifted creating the Rocky Mountains. Big Wall Dragon loved flying over the Rockies and was amazed at how they grew! Around 60 million years ago, Big Wall Dragon felt an earth-shattering shake as Yellowstone erupted! Fortunately, Big Wall Dragon managed to escape, but with a grievous tail injury. In his escape, he headed a couple hundred miles east and found his new home.
This new place became known as Big Wall. A perfect place for Big Wall Dragon to reside. Now Big Wall was not immune from the many changes affecting the world. First came the massive dry period around 40 million years ago. Imagine the dust bowl except about 20 times larger and worse. This sent the whole country into a dry period and it specially affected where Big Wall was located in what is now known as Montana. This killed out a multitude of species and made all the gorgeous prairies dusty and almost unlivable.
Big Wall Dragon knew if he could wait out this dry spell, the world would change again. It only took another 20 million years for this place to begin to recover from the dry period. Big Wall had now turned into a tropical area with new species. Big Wall Dragon enjoyed this time on Big Wall. Fortunately, there wasn’t much upheaval during this time, so I’ll move on.
The next big change that Big Wall Dragon experienced was the great ice age that happened 2 million years ago. Big Wall Dragon really enjoyed seeing these new species thrive like the Sabre Tooth Tiger and the Woolly Mammoth. Although Big Wall Dragon enjoyed watching these animals, he knew he had to stay out of sight to survive. It is a bad way to go for a dragon to be injured by a Sabre Tooth Tiger or mauled by a woolly mammoth. So Big Wall Dragon hid inside Big Wall and hibernated until about 10,000 years ago. While he was sleeping, lakes and rivers were created around Big Wall like the Musselshell.
At this time, Montana was back to prairies and Big Wall Dragon saw the buffalo roaming these great prairies. But every year these weird two legged creatures showed up carrying weapons and did the strangest thing. They would chase the great hairy buffalo of the cliffs of Big Wall. After the buffalo, had died from the fall, they would take all the parts of the buffalo with them. Big Wall Dragon realized they were using Big Wall to provide food for the hard winters. Later his friend Nesse, a water dragon, told him that these creatures were called humans. At this point, Big Wall Dragon was getting used to his environment changing around him. Fortunately, he was pretty flexible at adapting to the world around him.
About 150 years ago, people with these four legged animals that carried things showed at Big Wall. These humans did not pass through like the last ones he saw, they built settlements. These humans herded and tamed the animals and looked like they were going to be staying around for a while. These humans would use Big Wall to view the vast land below and keep watch on their herds of animals. They also used Big Wall to watch for danger approaching. Every once in a while, Big Wall Dragon would swoop down during the night and take a few of their sheep. Dragons have to adapt too, you know. The winters were cold and long but never as long as the ice age.
About 60 odd years ago, I saw a new family move onto the land around Big Wall. They stayed for about thirty years but then moved on. Soon a family named the Milton’s came. They were nice people who seemed to appreciate the land that Big Wall Dragon had been enjoying for many years! They had three young children who were very curious and would always ask their mom and dad about Big Wall. As Big Wall Dragon watched the children grow and question their environment, he began to realize that maybe the Dad knew of his existence because every night he would tell them stories about Big Wall Dragon. Finally, Big Wall Dragon thought, it only took 80 million years to get some recognition!
Soon Big Wall Dragon decided to venture out of Big Wall and met the father. This new friendship began a partnership to help the land and people around Big Wall. Big Wall Dragon would help melt snow when huge snow storms blew in and the cattle couldn’t get to food. He would scoop great amount of water out of the reservoir to help put out grass fires started by lightning during the dry times. What Big Wall Dragon loved most was the cherry pies made for him as a sign of gratitude for his help. The Milton Family and Big Wall Dragon worked together to keep Big Wall and the land around it well cared for. These great times of teamwork would become bedtime stories for the many generations to come.