Barbara Belyea serves as Professor of English at the University of Calgary. Professor Belyea's talk is titled "The Silent Past is Made to Speak." In her talk she will examine the work of several historians who have studied Hudson's Bay Company records of fur trade expansion along the Saskatchewan watershed. These historians have traced the activities of three groups: Native traders, Native wives and the common men of the posts. Ms. Belyea will discuss these three groups which are largely overlooked in contemporary accounts.				Louis W. Adams is a Salish Indian, born in 1933 in Sam (Resurrection) Kaltomee's home in Schley, Montana. Mr. Adams was in the U.S. Navy from 1951 to 1954 and was a gunner on a Navy destroyer during the Korean conflict. He will talk about the meeting between Lewis and Clark and the Salish people and will discuss place names in and around Missoula and the Bitterroot Valley.
		Harry W. Fritz is a Professor of History and Chairman of the Department of History at The University of Montana in Missoula. He has been Teacher of the Year (1972 and 1999), Distinguished Service Award winner (1985), and won the Governor's Humanities Award in 2003. He has written several articles and lectured widely on the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Professor Fritz will talk on "Native Voices: The New Lewis and Clark Expedition," in which he asserts the torch has been passed. White Americans have told us all they can about the expedition. All that is new and exciting will come from Native voices, Professor Fritz says.				Darrell Kipp is a member of the Blackfeet Nation and founded the Piegan Institute and the Nizipuhwahsin language school in Browning, Montana. Mr. Kipp will speak on the topic: "New Words - New Images from an Indian Reservation Native Son." In his talk Mr. Kipp will suggest it is time to discard many of the archaic, clichéd and dangerous words of limitation often used to speak of Native America. We must replace these words with an entirely new way of speaking and presenting Native Americans. In addition to serving as a featured speaker, Mr. Kipp will be the emcee for the conference.
		Mary Clearman Blew is a Professor of English at the University of Idaho in Moscow. She was born and raised on a small Montana cattle ranch that was her great-grandfather's original homestead. Among other books, she has authored All But the Waltz: Essays on a Montana Family, and Bone Deep in Landscape: Essays on Writing, Reading and Place. Professor Blew will speak on "River of Stories, Stories of Place," in which she will elaborate on her belief that in story lies possibility. Soon enough we may all erase our individual selves as we are hooked into the great circuits of cyberspace, she suggests. We may lose the last remnants of what Wallace Stegner called "the geography of hope." But stories need not be romantic, or despairing, or simplistic, or single-voiced. Stories need not even reflect landscape. Stories in their search for common ground, can be collective.				Roberta “Bobbie” Conner has been the Director of the Tamastslikt Cultural Institute of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation since 1998. Ms. Conner is Cayuse, Umatilla and Nez Perce and a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla. She is Secretary of the National Council of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Board of Directors and Co-chair of the Circle of Tribal Advisors. Ms. Conner will speak on “Emanating from the Earth: Belonging to a Place.” Language, diet, architecture, artistic expression and laws directly relate to the ecosystems in which tribes emanate. Interdependence between a people and their aboriginal environment is reflected in philosophy, lifestyles and technology. When a people belong to a place, how is life different?
		Joseph F. McDonald is the founder and President of Salish Kootenai College located in Pablo, Montana. President McDonald serves on the Northwest Association of Schools and Colleges’ Commission on Colleges and is a member of the President’s Board of Advisors on Tribal Colleges and Universities. He is the Board Trustee Chair of the American Indian College Fund and is a member of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium Board of Directors where he is past President. President McDonald will deliver the Opening Ceremony address, speaking on the topic “200 Years Later: Which Direction Does the Compass Point?”				James J. Holmberg presently serves as Curator of Special Collections at the Filson Historical Society in Louisville, Kentucky. Mr. Holmberg writes and lectures on the Lewis and Clark Expedition, with special focus on William Clark and York. He wrote the epilogue for the revised edition of Robert Bett's In Search of York: The Slave who went to the Pacific with Lewis and Clark and edited Dear Brother: Letters of William Clark to Jonathan Clark. Mr. Holmberg's talk is titled "Big Medison: York's Life During and After the Lewis and Clark Expedition." Mr. Holmberg will discuss the connection between York and the Indians he met and York's life after the expedition.
		Johnny Arlee is a Spiritual and Cultural Advisor for the Salish/Pend d'Oreille People. In 1975 he became the first Director of the Flathead Culture Committee comprised of five tribal members who were fluent in the Salish language. The committee began to interview and tape record elders of the tribe in order to preserve the culture of the Salish and Pend d'Orielle people. For the past seven years Mr. Arlee has been a Salish language instructor for Salish Kootenai College. The title of his talk is "A Teaching Tool Through Pageants or Plays." In September 2002 Mr. Arlee and a cast of dozens performed a pageant called "The Salish/Pend d'Orielle Meet Lewis and Clark." Thousands of people, including students from all the reservation schools attended the pageant and learned about cultural traditions dating back thousands of years as well as the tribe's encounter with Lewis and Clark as handed down by oral histories. Mr. Arlee will discuss how other tribes might consider using this method of teaching their culture and history.				Amy Mossett is the Missouri River co-chair of the National Bicentennial Council's Circle of Tribal Advisors. She is a Mandan/Hidatsa and a member of the Three Affiliated Tribes of North Dakota. Ms. Mossett is a nationally recognized consultant, spokesperson, scholar and interpreter on the life of Sacagawea. She has spent over 15 years researching the oral and written histories of Sacagawea. She has been invited to the White House on three occasions to celebrate and honor Sacagawea. Time magazine (July 8, 2002) described Ms. Mossett as "the country's foremost Sacagawea impressionist." The title of her talk is "Sacagawea: A Hidatsa Perspective." Her presentation is a historical perspective that describes the life of the young Shoshone-speaking woman who lived among the Hidatsa in present day North Dakota. Her interpretation will focus on how life among the Hidatsa influenced Sacagawea.
		Hal Stearns is a member of the Montana Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Commission Board and Chair of its Education Committee. A retired history teacher, Mr. Stearns has served as a Lewis and Clark interpreter for many tour groups as well as speaking across the country at various Bicentennial functions. He will speak on “Special Encounters: The Education Journey of Lewis and Clark and the Indians.” In his presentation Mr. Stearns will be dressed as, and play the role of William Clark as an older man looking back at the expedition. In that role he will reflect on such things as how he perceived Indian life and culture, the importance of Sacagawea to the expedition, and how both Indian and white learned from each other in the encounters they had.