People Before the Park: The Kootenai and Blackfeet Before Glacier National Park by Sally Thompson (review)

Telling the story of the “Crown of the Continent” from the perspective of its inhabitants is long overdue and welcome. People Before the Park: The Kootenai and Blackfeet Before Glacier National Park reminds us that “the Park” is in fact a construct and that its real value lies far beyond its recreational identity.

A joint effort of Sally Thompson, the Kootenai Culture Committee, and the Pikunni Traditional Association, this book shows the visitors who today explore the park the complex, multilayered personality of the space long before their arrival. This work is not meant to be political, but it acknowledges that the Blackfeet (Pikunni) never accepted the ruling upon establishing the park in 1910, which abrogated their 1855 treaty rights to hunt and gather on their traditional lands (28). The loss was also deeply spiritual. White Calf testified before the US Senate that “‘Chief Mountain is my head. Now my head is cut off’” (27). And the Kootenai remind us that the park is not just hiking trails and beautiful vistas but a giant network of physical and spiritual beings which has “no extra parts, inanimate objects, or coincidences” (55).

In the initial and final chapters of the book, Thompson presents the history of the land and the people both before and after the park through illustrations, archival photographs, stories, legends, and facts gleaned from multiple perspectives and sources. The central two chapters describe the seasonal rounds of these two tribes during the nineteenth century, written by each community. Readers explore the park through the circular pattern of the seasons and the tribes’ paths through them, working with, rather than against, the natural changes and resources in each locale. The division of the chapters into months and the inclusion of their traditional names chronicle the peoples’ stories, beliefs, values, and their intimate relationship with the land, while also giving tangible facts about the environment and the life it sustained. March, for example, is known by the Kootenai as “Melting snow starts flowing” and “Leaf Bud Moon” (75); July is known to the Blackfeet as “Ripe Berries” and “Thunder Moon” (159). Additionally, explanations of traditional place names such as “A Good Place to Dance” (Apgar area) (205) prove that “every place has a name that holds a cultural memory” (29).

There are only two weaknesses in the work: occasionally the placement of the stories and legends interrupted the flow of the text, and the lack of a pronunciation guide of the phonetic symbols used in Kootenai words.

This book challenges us to acknowledge that users enjoy the park today only because its original inhabitants had their access restricted, but it also invites us to share their vast knowledge. Its success is due to its truly collaborative format and its inclusion of academic as well as traditional knowledge. Giving Indigenous scholars the opportunity to steer the content of this book felt authentic and refreshing. I am awed at exactly how much the land has given the people who not only lived on it, but also with it, and their continuing desire to do so.