Blackfeet Nation: PNT Pre-Hike

July 1, 2024. The following was written while I was visiting the ancestral lands of the Blackfeet people.

Cindy and I had fun in Seattle before I boarded the Empire Builder train to East Glacier, Montana. We watched the Seattle Mariners beat the Minnesota Twins in an exciting fashion after a weakly hit ground ball drove in the winning run. The next day Cindy boarded a train back home, and I boarded mine. Twelve hours later I woke in Montana as the train neared Glacier National Park. It is there I will begin my 1200-mile hike.

Specifically, I will start at the Chief Mountain trailhead in the northeast corner of the park near the base of Chief Mountain. I obtained my backcountry permit at the St. Mary Visitor Center. To get there,  I received a ride from Wyett, a member of the Blackfeet Nation. What I learned from Wyett was enlightening. “All of this is Blackfeet land,” Wyett explained, pointing toward the mountains inside the National Park. I understood this to some extent.

Two years ago, at a ranger-led program in the park, listened to a Blackfeet Nation woman describe the historical and cultural significance of the park interior after I embraced the smell of burning Sweetgrass, an important ceremonial plant. She talked about how the land inside the park was lived upon thousands of years before the park was created.

“It’s part of our origin story, all sacred land,” Wyett said proudly. “There are over 200 different plants and herbs that grow in Glacier that we used for medicinal purposes.”

The maps have a solid border line with the Blackfeet reservation on the east side of the line and Glacier NP west of the line. “It’s all Blackfeet land. The Blackfeet Nation leased the land to the Federal government, and the lease expires in 15 years,” Wyett said.

The Blackfeet people are the only indigenous people who still live on a reservation that is part of their ancestral lands. The Blackfeet Reservation is a vast grassland that provided the resourses to survive, such as bison, elk, and deer. “We have a herd of bison that are kept far away from people, vehicles and without vaccinations. The herd of 140 bison will grow naturally and resemble the wild bison that were here before they were nearly wiped out.” Informed historians tell us the nearly complete extermination of bison was intended to starve the Indigenous people. It is a disgraceful chapter of American History.

As I start hiking on July 2, I will pay close attention to nearby Chief Mountain. Wyett told me the mountain is especially sacred to the Blackfeet. Park tourists and hikers are not allowed near the base of the mountain. From Wikipedia: “Natives from all over North America travel to the base of the mountain for sweet grass ceremonies, placing of prayer flags and other religious rites. Elders from Southern Alberta’s Siksika Band (where the Great Chief Crowfoot hailed from) and other First Nation groups have an oral tradition that near the end of days, a Great White God would appear from the top of Chief Mountain and upon his departure, the mountain would crumble and be destroyed.”

While we drove back to East Glacier, Wyett learned that hikers had been observed that day entering this same sacred area. That was wrong.
I am grateful for Wyett’s lesson of Blackfeet history and culture. As always, I will tread lightly upon the ancestral land of the Blackfeet people and keep an informed eye on Chief Mountain as I pass from a distance.