Blackfeet Tales of Glacier National Park — John Shaqi
Blackfeet Tales of Glacier National ParkSchultz, James Willard
History
Blackfeet Tales of Glacier National Park
Schultz, James Willard
Glacier National Park (Mont.); Indians of North America -- Folklore; Siksika Indians -- Folklore
We break camp and move northward to-morrow. For the past two days some
of us have been riding about on this "Backbone-of-the-World," as the
Blackfeet call the Rocky Mountains, and we have ridden our horses
where, in former times, nothing but a bird could go. The Park
Supervisor and his engineers and miners and sappers have blasted out
trails over the highest parts of the range, making it easy and safe
for tenderfeet tourists to view the wonders of this sub-Arctic,
greater than Alpine range of mountains. One of the most impressive
views is from the summit of the trail from Upper Two Medicine Lake to
Cutbank River. The Dry Fork Trail, it is called. At its extreme height
the trail is along a mountain crest about thirty feet in width. Mr.
L. W. Hill graphically described the stretch the other day, when,
after crossing it, he said: "On its east side one can spit straight
down three thousand feet into a lake, and on the other side cast a
stone that will go down much farther than that!"
Indeed, the view of the mountains and cliffs and canyons from that
height is so grand, so stupendous and impressive, that one cannot find
words to describe it all.
On another day we went over Cutbank Pass and down the west side of
the range, far enough to get a good view of the Pumpelly Glacier,
and see the huge ice blocks break from it and drop from a cliff
more than two thousand feet in height. They strike the bottom of
the canyon with a reverberating crash that can be heard for miles.
Just below this glacier, down Nyack Creek three or four miles, is a
fine alkaline spring and clay bed where, in other days, old
Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill and I were wont to go for
bighorn, goats, deer, and elk. All these animals came to it in
great numbers, and drank the waters, and ate great wads of the
salty mud. We once killed a large grizzly there, whose late autumn
coat was as black as that of a black bear.
[Illustration: STABS-BY-MISTAKE, SUN WOMAN, AND HER SON, LITTLE
OTTER IN CUTBANK CAÑON]
This afternoon we have had further talk about the naming of these
mountains. For a wonder, the topographers have not taken away the
original name for the outer mountain on the north side of this Cutbank
Valley: we find on the map that it is still White Calf Mountain. It
was named for one of the greatest chiefs the Montana Blackfeet ever
had. As a young man, fresh from his first war trail, he witnessed the
signing of the treaty between his people and the representatives of
the United States, at the mouth of the Judith River, in 1855, so he
must have been born in 1836 or 1837. As a warrior, his rise to fame
was rapid, and many are the stories told of his indomitable bravery in
facing the enemy. In later years, because of his great interest in the
welfare of his people, he became their head chief. He died in
Washington, in 1903, while there on tribal business.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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