Tribal perspectives in Glacier exhibit

Tribal life focus of new Glacier exhibitA new Glacier National Park exhibit seeks to educate visitors about tribal perspectives on the area.

The exhibit, "At Home in This Place," at the St. Mary Visitor Center was dedicated earlier this month during a ceremony that featured remarks from area Native American tribal leaders. The exhibit is on permanent display at the St. Mary Visitor Center, which is open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily in the summer.

There are five parts that make up the new exhibit. The first is welcome panels for each of the tribes that had a historic and current relationship with the park land, including the Blackfeet, Kootenai and Salish, and Pend d'Oreille tribes.

Another section, "Bittersweet Meanings," looks at changes that these tribes faced with the creation of the park—some good, others difficult. "Backbone of the World" provides Native American perspectives on the land, mountains, creation stories and place names, according to a press release.

"The Wisdom in Spoken Words" features oral histories and traditions with video of stories about Glacier Park by tribal elders in an indoor setting for sitting and listening.

Finally, "Animal Lessons" is a large winter scene diorama featuring elk, wolves, coyote and a grizzly bear with animal stories told by tribal leaders.
Comment:  For more on the subject, see Before There Were Parks and Blackfeet Tours of Glacier.

Before There Were Parks

I recently watched this half-hour documentary, which aired on my local PBS station February 1.

Before There Were Parks:  Yellowstone and Glacier Through Native EyesFor more than 12,000 years, the intermountain West's native peoples have called the lands known as Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks "home." This program explores modern indigenous perspectives on these great wilderness areas and explores both the cultural divide that separates modern times from the not-so-distant past and recent efforts by the National Park Service and native peoples to bring these disparate visions into greater harmony.

An Indigenous Perspective

From time immemorial the lands we now call Yellowstone and Glacier have been regarded by Native Americans as significant and sacred. Today nearly 30 tribal nations maintain official ties to these National Parks, and on-going Native involvement in these areas is considered necessary to the long-term health of America's endangered indigenous cultures by many tribal leaders.

In this unique film, more than a dozen of these leaders and experts from all across the region offer a respectful introduction to the knowledge that tribal people have passed down here for at least the past 12,000 years. Viewers will discover why Glacier and Yellowstone are so important to American Indians--for reasons far beyond their recent status as National Parks.Comment:  The phrase "respectful introduction" is accurate. The speakers don't delve deeply into their tribal cultures or the parks' history. And they skirt anything too negative or controversial. The result is a feel-good film about the Indians' spiritual connection to the land.

I can't tell for sure, but everyone who speaks in the program may have been an Indian. If that isn't a first, it's probably pretty rare. On the other hand, having ordinary folks speak isn't always the best way to go. A good writer can craft a narration that works better than your average speaker.

I wouldn't suggest watching Before There Were Parks instead of The Scripture of Nature and The Empire of Grandeur. These two episodes of Ken Burns's National Parks dealt with Yellowstone and Glacier in more depth. But Before There Were Parks is a decent supplement to them.

For more on the subject, see Native America Speaks at Glacier and Native Documentaries and News.

Below:  "St. Mary's Lake is one of the sources of the Blackfeet's sacred Beaver Bundle."

Indians in The Empire of Grandeur

In October I posted an overview of Ken Burns's documentary National Parks: America's Best Idea. The first and second episodes, The Scripture of Nature and The Last Refuge, included segments on Indians. So did the third, The Empire of Grandeur.

A segment on Glacier National Park begins with a Blackfeet Indian legend:Napi, the old man, came down from his home in the sun to help his people, the Blackfeet. When his work was done, he went up into the mountains, where he came to two lakes. There he said to himself, "I believe I will go up on that highest mountain and change myself into stone." In the crevice in the mountain, he lay down, with just his face peeking out, and turned himself into a rock. He is still there, watching for people to come looking for him.Peter Coyote's narration continues:On the border of Montana and Canada, in the northern reaches of the Rockies, where glaciers could still be found sculpting and polishing mountains rising 10,000 feet into the sky, and alpine cascades tumbled down to form more than 650 lakes, was Glacier National Park, established by Congress in 1910. For centuries the Blackfeet Indians had claimed the land as their own, but during a mining boom that brought in swarms of prospectors, they had been pressured into signing a new treaty, giving up the mountain portion of their reservation.

"The mountains have been my last refuge. Chief Mountain is my head. Now my head is cut off."

--White CalfMt. Rushmore superintendent Gerard Baker (Hidatsa-Mandan) gives us a Native perspective:When you walk into any natural national park, you're walking into somebody's homeland. You're walking into somebody's house. You're walking into somebody's church. You're walking into somebody's place where they lived since the time the Creator made it for them. And so you're walking into some place that has been utilized for generations upon generations in every form you could imagine. This was their homeland.Good stuff. Curiously, the PBS website doesn't mention any of it. According to PBS, The Empire of Grandeur is all about expanding the park system and making it accessible to the public. There's enough room on the website to tell about two brothers who helped publicize the Grand Canyon with their photographs, but not about the Blackfeet's plight.

The Blackfeet story

Another article tells us what the PBS website doesn't:

Book, exhibit highlight human stories in Glacier Park centennial

By Dan ElliottGlacier's centennial committee published a book, "A View Inside Glacier National Park: 100 Years, 100 Stories," with recollections from visitors, residents, park employees and others. The Montana Historical Society Museum in Helena, about 130 miles south, has an exhibit called "Land of Many Stories: The People & Histories of Glacier National Park."

Some of the park's stories are ugly. In 1895, under pressure from miners hoping to find copper and gold, the federal government pressed the Blackfeet into selling the government thousands of acres, land that would later become the east side of the park.

"They forced a sale upon us," said Jack Gladstone, a Blackfeet Indian singer/songwriter who specializes in Native American myth, legend and history.

But the land grab had a silver lining, he said. Had the area remained under Indian control, it might have been "sliced and diced and sold off" when federal law allowed tribal members to sell their individual land allotments. Instead, when no valuable minerals were found, it was kept intact.

"What was in the short-term a curse and really a debacle turned into probably about as good as it could have been because of the enhanced protection afforded by Glacier as a national park, a national treasure," he said.Below:  "President Franklin D. Roosevelt and first lady Eleanor Roosevelt were inducted into the Blackfeet Tribe near Glacier National Park’s Two Medicine Chalet on Aug. 5." (Photo by Associated Press)



What PBS considers important

To its credit, The Empire of Grandeur notes the Indian origins of Acadia, McKinley (Denali), and Grand Canyon National Parks. But only the following notes made it onto the PBS website:

The Railways, the National Parks and the "See America First" CampaignOn every Great Northern Railway brochure and billboard were three words: "See America First." The slogan was part of a promotional campaign aimed at upper-middle-class white Americans from the East Coast who were collectively spending $500 million each year visiting Europe. The Great Northern promoted Glacier National Park as "America's Switzerland."

When World War I broke out in 1914, closing off overseas travel, the railroads saw their chance to promote "See America First" as never before. As a publicity stunt, the Great Northern arranged for a group of Blackfeet Indians to tour the East, performing war dances. They attracted huge crowds and wherever they went, the press referred to them as "the Indians of Glacier National Park."Albright and the Creation of Zion National ParkDuring the war, Albright traveled to southern Utah to view a beautiful canyon of sandstone cliffs that had been set aside as Mukuntuweap National Monument in 1909, and ignored by the federal government ever since.

For Albright, it was love at first sight. He was so impressed with the "towering rock walls, splashed with brilliant hues of tans and reds interspersed with whites," that he wanted it to be expanded into a national park. He felt that the name Mukuntuweap, from a Paiute word for "canyon" was too hard to remember; he suggested that it be changed to Zion, the name the local Mormons used for it. Albright's enthusiasm persuaded President Wilson and at the end of 1919, Congress created Zion National Park.Comment:  Although it isn't blatant in the episode itself, the website gives us some insight into the thinking of Ken Burns and company. They're more into the positive, rah-rah aspects of the park system than its dark, destructive side. Gerard Baker discusses the parks' essential wrongness and Burns uses his comments, but there's no follow-up. Tourists are stomping all over the Indians' sacred land--oh, well...on with the story.

For photographs of my visit to Zion, see Colorado Trip Pix--Day 1 and Colorado Trip Pix--Day 2. For more on the series, see Review of Burns's National Parks and Burns on Our National Parks.

Below:  "Blackfeet Indians on promotional tour for Glacier National Park, 1924."

Blackfeet tours of Glacier

Tribal culture lights up Sun Tours

By Jessica GrayTravelers looking for insights into Glacier National Park's ancient cultural past can find it among the many Native American influences in the park.

One option is to go on an interpretive tour over Going-to-the-Sun Road with Sun Tours. Sun Tours offers daily tours, which include a narrative on Glacier's natural features and the relevance to the Blackfeet Indian Nation in the past and the present. The Blackfeet call Glacier's landscape the "Backbone of the World." This tour shows you why.

The tours concentrate on the awe-inspiring landscape, as well as the seasonal changes to habitat, the various ecosystems, the glaciers, animals and the history of the famous Going-to-the-Sun Road. The interpretive guides are members of the Blackfeet Tribe who provide first-hand knowledge of tribal history, culture and lifestyle. The guides share spiritual and philosophical perspectives as well.Comment:  Sounds like a tour I'd enjoy.

For more on the subject, see Native America Speaks at Glacier.

Blackfeet paintings, photos, and operas

New OKC exhibits feature Blackfeet IndiansPaintings and photographs of Blackfeet Indians, riders on horseback and big-sky landscapes fit most people’s expectations of artwork they would find at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.

Blackfeet split-horn headdress, circa 1890, from the exhibit "Guardians of Glacier Park: The Blackfeet in Artistic Imagination.” Horned headdresses were popular with Blackfeet men in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

But the opera playing in the Robert S. and Grayce B. Kerr Gallery probably doesn’t sound particularly Western to most modern-day art lovers.

"As bizarre as it sounds to us, there was this race on at the beginning of the 20th century by composers to create what was uniquely American music before jazz became jazz,” said Steve Grafe, the museum’s curator of American Indian art. "So, there are actually in the first two, three decades of the 20th century a dozen or more operas that are based on American Indian stories and music.”

Music from the opera "Poia: The Blackfeet Legend of Scarface” accompany the museum’s new exhibit "Guardians of Glacier Park: The Blackfeet in Artistic Imagination,” featuring photos, paintings, clothing and advertising art such as calendars, matchbooks and playing cards.Comment:  For more on Native operas, see Review of Ponca Opera and Native Music = Symphonies and Operas.

Native America Speaks at Glacier

Native American influences a big part of Glacier's allureIn general, visitors to Glacier National Park come with a superficial awareness of the region's Native American heritage and the Blackfeet Nation, said Jack Gladstone as he prepared for his 24th summer as a presenter in the Native America Speaks program.

"There is an interest and fascination with our tribal identity," the Blackfeet singer-songwriter from St. Mary and Kalispell said.

By attending the 45-minute evening presentations at hotels, campgrounds and other sites in and near the park, Gladstone said, visitors accept an invitation to deepen their understanding of the cultural identity of the native people.Comment:  Good to hear there's a strong Native presence at Glacier. Those who have read American Indians and National Parks know that isn't always the case at our national parks.