In the Blackfoot lands

Today we did a field trip from the field. North to the Blackfoot reservation between the Canada line and west Glacier National Park. We have read so much in our book, Fools Crow, by James Welch, about the Blackfoot people from a first hand piece of fiction that we feel compelled to see what the story is now...

The land is still beautiful - rolling flat grassy plains that abut the hulking ice capped spires of the Rocky Mountain front range rolling off into the distance. An empire of grass, endless sky, and cold blowing winds. We pass road signs with funny names and historical markers commemorating the Lewis & Clark expedition. There are many horses and cattle, but no buffalo anymore. And the reservation...

A sobering place full of poverty and squalor, and front what we hear from all accounts a dangerous place as well. We tread carefully and only stop through to visit the Museum of the Plains Indian - an educational tool, but the real education for us is just to see the reservation. It is a searing contrast from the dignity and wonder that came to life in Fools Crow, set at the convergence of invading settlers on their lands, military aggression, and the pestilence of smallpox.

Filling up on gas at a busy service station in the Rez we picked up a few friendly strays attention. We must be the friendliest people they've ever met and seriously they tried to follow us home. I had to distract them with food just to pull out of the parking lot to make a get-away! That brought a smile to our face, if nothing else. I snapped this shot taking a walk near our camp on by Ear Mountain...