Crown of the Continent, Backbone of the World: The American Wilderness ideal and Blackfeet Exclusion from Glacier National Park
Spence MD. 1996. Crown of the Continent, Backbone of the World: The American Wilderness ideal and Blackfeet Exclusion from Glacier National Park. Environmental History. 1(3):29-49
The eastern half of Glacier National Park once was part of the Blackfeet reservation, and the tribe has long maintained that an 1895 agreement with the US reserves certain usufruct rights within the park. Conversely, the Department of the Interior has argued repeatedly that the Glacier National Park legislation of 1910 extinguished all Blackfeet claims to the mountains on their reservation's western boundary. Several factors distinguish the situation there from those in other parks. The Blackfeet possessed designated rights to the Glacier area at the time of the park's establishment. Subsequent legal findings concluded that the 1910 Glacier National Park act extinguished these rights, so Indian exclusion from park lands was explicitly linked to preservation itself. The persistent efforts of the Blackfeet to restore their rights to Glacier provide a well-documented illustration of the great significance that park lands have for many tribes in the Far West. Perhaps most poignantly, an examination of the different meanings that Glacier holds for tourists, park administrators, and the Blackfeet provides an important model for understanding similar issues that currently affect key management questions at other national parks.
- Type
- Journal Article
- Authors
- Spence, Mark
- Units
- CRCO , GLAC
- Keywords
- Blackfeet, Glaciers, Indian reservations, National parks, Native Americans, Native culture, Tourism, Wilderness