I lived and worked in Hays for two years.  I was doing my dissertation research in cultural anthropology and I was teaching at St. Paul’s Mission and the Intertribal Education Center.  I lived in a trailer at the mouth of Mission Canyon at the base of the Little Rocky Mountains.  The trailer sat in a bowl with the ridges of the Little Rockies surrounding us on three sides and the entire Ft. Belknap Reservation opening to the north of us, including a great view of the Bear Paw Mountains to the northwest.  Almost all the mountains are below tree line.  It would be hard to imagine living in a more beautiful place.  Hays was a community of about 600 people.  I made friendships there that have lasted a lifetime.  I could have easily settled there, but life circumstances dictated otherwise.