Through the Heart of It

by Erica Bloom 

The Kootenai people have always been on this land," Vernon tells me and sits back on his brown leather chair. "For 10,000 generations we have wandered through this region, traveling with the seasons to hunt for buffalo."  Though he speaks slowly I write frantically, careful not to miss the details of his stories, aware that these words will be spoken many more times this year in honor of the Glacier Park Centennial. It's early March and I've come to Elmo, Montana, today to listen to a man whose ancestral history weaves through Glacier like the roads that now cut through its forests. With a population of 150, by the time I realized I was in Elmo I had already passed through. The town sits on the banks of Flathead Lake. The front of the Kootenai Cultural Center building faces northeast, the direction of Glacier National Park. Vernon Finely, the language specialist for the Kootenai Cultural Committee, works in the carpeted trailer behind the Center. With his graying ponytail and warm smile he describes his job as a preservation of culture, a teacher of an endangered language. Though I know he's told the story of the Kootenai people's relationship with Glacier many times before, when I ask him today he takes a slow sip of coffee from his Starbucks mug and begins like it is the first time. 

"This region is the only place in the world where the Kootenai language is spoken." Vernon tells me that because his language is an isolate, it indicates that the Kootenai have always been on this land and their creation story is testament to this. He continues, "In ancestral times a sea monster by the name of Yawunik killed many animals. A council was called by the chief animal, Natmuqin, to destroy the monster and a war party was formed. Natmuqin was so tall that when he stood up his head hit the sky. A chase proceeded down the Kootenai River, past Wasa, British Colombia, then to where the St. Mary's River empties into the Kootenai River. When they finally captured Yawunik, Natmuqin scattered his flesh in all directions forming the white, black and yellow people. He then reached down to the grass to wipe his bloody hands. Letting the blood fall to the ground he said, ‘these will be the red people, they will remain here forever.' Natmuqin, in all his excitement rose up and knocked himself dead on the ceiling of the sky. When he fell back to Earth his head became the geysers in Yellowstone Park, his feet fell in British Columbia, and his body the spine of the Rocky Mountains." 

Vernon laughs at the image of a giant's brain bubbling up as geysers, but then becomes serious and says, "You see, this whole region is special to the Kootenai people, but the Europeans decided that the land of what is now Glacier was special, and so that part has become preserved."  It's a sentiment felt by many tribal people; though this land is protected today as a park, people lived peacefully within it for generations. 

 Before the establishment of Glacier, native people used this land for food, homes, and spirituality; the land sustained them and they in turn sustained the land. In 1910 President Taft signed the bill to set aside Glacier as the 10^th National Park. The tribes that inhabited the land, the Kootenai, the Salish, the Pend d'Oreille and the Blackfeet, were put on reservations to the west and east of the park and have lived in those places ever since. "We have become guests in our aboriginal homeland. We can show our tribal ID and get in for free, but we wait in line with the rest of the tourists."  Vernon tells me this but quickly praises the current park administration for acknowledging the presence of tribal people. He says that Chas Cartwright, current Superintendent for Glacier, understands that the park has only existed for 100 years, while the Kootenai people have been here for 10,000 generations. In honor of the Centennial Commemoration the Park Service has plans to include native perspectives through movies, speakers and visitor center exhibitions.

            "The place was preserved because of the visitors, not because of the spiritual presence of the Kootenai people. But what's important is the preservation, not the reason why." Vernon pauses and looks out his window where clouds roll low off the lake. For this time of the year the snow is lighter than normal, and the warming air hints at an early spring. 70 miles north of here the snow in Glacier is beginning to melt, and the grizzlies are already awake from hibernation. Though the park is protected against logging and mining, the boundaries are powerless against the threat of global climate change. Since 1910 the park has lost most of its glaciers. In the next twenty years these large ice masses are expected to recede completely. One more piece of the park's history will be its glaciers.

Vernon turns back to me, his eyes are serious. "We appreciate the visitors. Without them this place would not be preserved. But to preserve the place they had to put a strip of pavement right through the heart of it."  The road represents this dichotomy in life, that preservation and destruction usually coexist. "My uncle always talked about looking for the humor in tragedy, because those things are always together."  This irony, inherent in Vernon's words, extends further than the road.  The Kootenai people's sacred places in the park, the sites for ritual dances, have now been converted to facilities for tourists: campgrounds, gift shops, and restaurants.

There is an understanding in the Kootenai culture that everything has a spirit-every bump on the land, every waterfall and every tree.  The elders believe that if you seek the help of the spirits they will allow you to hear their spirit song. For 10,000 years the Kootenai people called on the spirits for guidance by dancing at what is now Apgar Village. Vernon says, "We call it ‘the place where we danced,' and when we danced we heard the songs of the spirits who guided us towards health, food, and materials." As the Kootenai people wandered throughout this region, more and more spirits revealed themselves to individuals and helped humans survive. Over the generations a certain world view formed: that people are the last of all creation, and that because everything was here before us, we should carry ourselves as if everything is our older brother.

But when the Park became official, the administration told the people they could no longer dance there. However, over the years the park service began to recognize the importance of the Kootenai's connection to their sacred places. Vernon says, "Fifteen years ago the park superintendent said to me, ‘we'll close the park so you can dance at Apgar' and I went back and told the elders, told them that we could go to Glacier in January and perform our dance, and you know what the elders said? They said, there's a lot of snow out there."  Vernon laughs at the irony of this.  Now the elders dance in the Kootenai Cultural Center, appreciative for the outreach, but even more grateful for a heated building, something that Western technologies brought along with them. 

"So what about your children? Do they see Glacier as their home too?" I ask Vernon.

"Many people in the younger generation do not view the world the way I described it. Many of our children don't know the language or our history. And without language you have no culture, no understanding of the landscape."

            Vernon tells me that his own grandparents spoke fluent Kootenai and Salish, but that they did not teach him because they wanted him to be successful in the English speaking world.  Now, as an adult, Vernon spends his days cultivating the last of the Kootenai language, preserving a piece of his culture and in turn his original land. But despite the shift towards a more Western way of thinking in younger generations, many Kootenai people still maintain a strong connection with the land and the spirits that reside here.

            Vernon knows that his culture is shifting, and has been for generations. But he also knows that the land that sustained his people will continue to exist because of the Park's protection.  "The stands of Cedars at Avalanche Lake could hear my ancestors dancing at the lake long before they could envision Europeans coming. I tell my children there is nowhere you can go in this region that you will not step on soil made from the bones and bodies of my ancestors. That's the connection you have to this territory.  Some of the blood that pumps through your body was there that first winter dancing."