Louis YMCA Director) in 1926 as an integral part of Association work. He organized the first Indian Guide tribe in Richmond Heights, Missouri, with the help of his good friend, Joe Friday, an Ojibway Indian, and William H. Hefelfinger, Chief of the first Y-Indian Guide tribe. Inspired by his experiences with Joe Friday, who was his guide on fishing and hunting trips into Canada, Harold Keltner ini
tiated a program of parent-child experiences that now involves over a million children and adults annually in the YMCA. While Keltner was on a fishing trip in Canada, one evening, Joe Friday said to his white colleague as they relaxed around the campfire:
“The Indian FATHER raises his son. He teaches him to hunt, to track, to fish, to walk softly and silently in the forest, to know the meaning and purpose of life and all he must know, while the white man allows the mother to raise the son.”
