The Piegan are an Algonquian-speaking people from the North American Great Plains. They were the largest of three Blackfoot-speaking groups that made up the Blackfoot Confederacy; the Siksika and Kainai were the others. The Piegan dominated much of the northern Great Plains during the nineteenth century.
Glacier County is located in the U.S. state of Montana. As of the 2020 census, the population was 13,778. The county is located in northwestern Montana between the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains, known to the Blackfeet as the "Backbone of the World". The county is geographically and culturally diverse and includes the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, Glacier National Park, and Lewis and Clark National Forest. The county is bordered by 75 miles of international boundary with two ports of entry open year-round and one seasonal international border crossing into Alberta, Canada.
Glacier National Park is an American national park located in northwestern Montana, on the Canada–United States border, adjacent to the Canadian provinces of Alberta and British Columbia. The park encompasses more than 1 million acres (4,000 km2) and includes parts of two mountain ranges, more than 130 named lakes, more than 1,000 different species of plants, and hundreds of species of animals. This vast pristine ecosystem is the centerpiece of what has been referred to as the "Crown of the Continent Ecosystem," a region of protected land encompassing 16,000 square miles (41,000 km2).
The Saint Mary River is a cross-border tributary of the Oldman River, itself a tributary of the South Saskatchewan River. The Saint Mary together with the Belly River and Waterton River drains a small portion of Montana, in the United States, to the Hudson Bay watershed in Canada.
The Flathead Indian Reservation, located in western Montana on the Flathead River, is home to the Bitterroot Salish, Kootenai, and Pend d'Oreilles tribes – also known as the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation. The reservation was created through the July 16, 1855, Treaty of Hellgate.
The Two Medicine River is a tributary of the Marias River, approximately 60 mi (97 km) long, in northwestern Montana in the United States.
The Kootenay or Kootenai river is a major river in the Northwest Plateau, in southeastern British Columbia, Canada, and northern Montana and Idaho in the United States. It is one of the uppermost major tributaries of the Columbia River, the largest North American river that empties into the Pacific Ocean. The Kootenay River runs 781 kilometres (485 mi) from its headwaters in the Kootenay Ranges of the Canadian Rockies, flowing from British Columbia's East Kootenay region into northwestern Montana, then west into the northernmost Idaho Panhandle and returning to British Columbia in the West Kootenay region, where it joins the Columbia at Castlegar.
The Bitterroot Salish are a Salish-speaking group of Native Americans, and one of three tribes of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation in Montana. The Flathead Reservation is home to the Kootenai and Pend d'Oreilles tribes also. Bitterroot Salish or Flathead originally lived in an area west of Billings, Montana extending to the continental divide in the west and south of Great Falls, Montana extending to the Montana-Wyoming border. From there they later moved west into the Bitterroot Valley. By request, a Catholic mission was built here in 1841. In 1891 they were forcibly moved to the Flathead Reservation.
Flathead Lake is a large natural lake in northwest Montana.
The Blackfeet Nation, officially named the Blackfeet Tribe of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation of Montana, is a federally recognized tribe of Siksikaitsitapi people with an Indian reservation in Montana. Tribal members primarily belong to the Piegan Blackfeet band of the larger Blackfoot Confederacy that spans Canada and the United States.
Lewis and Clark National Forest is located in west central Montana, United States. Spanning 2,912 square miles (7,500 km2), the forest is managed as two separate zones. The eastern sections, under the Jefferson Division, is a mixture of grass and shrublands dotted with "island" pockets of forested areas. Here, cattle leases to local ranchers as well as timber harvesting are the norm. The western Rocky Mountain Division, which straddles the Continental divide, is managed chiefly for environmental preservation, as much of the land has been designated as wilderness. Forest headquarters are located in Great Falls, Montana. Local ranger district offices have been established in Choteau, Harlowton, Neihart, Stanford, and White Sulphur Springs.
Two Medicine is the collective name of a region located in the southeastern section of Glacier National Park, in the U.S. state of Montana. It has a campground alongside Two Medicine Lake. From the period starting in the late 1890s until the completion of the Going-to-the-Sun Road in 1932, Two Medicine was one of the most visited sections of the park. Once part of a larger chalet complex, the Two Medicine Store is located along the shores of Two Medicine Lake and the building is a National Historic Landmark. The region is a starting point for many trails and tourboats take visitors out on Two Medicine Lake, where the steep south face of Rising Wolf Mountain towers above the lake. The region was considered sacred ground by several Native American tribes including the Blackfeet and they performed Vision quests here. Aside from Chief Mountain, the Two Medicine area is the most sacred section of the park to the Blackfeet.
St. Mary is an unincorporated community on the western border of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation adjacent to Glacier National Park in Glacier County, Montana, United States. The village is the eastern terminus of the Going-to-the-Sun Road which bisects the park east to west, a distance of 53 mi (85 km).
Babb is a small unincorporated farming and ranching community in Glacier County, Montana, United States, on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. The community experiences a large influx of tourists in the summer months as it is the gateway to the Many Glacier area of Glacier National Park. Babb is a census-designated place (CDP) and had a population of 174 at the 2010 census.
Camp Disappointment is the northernmost campsite of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, on its return trip from the Pacific Northwest. The site is on private land within the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Glacier County, Montana. It is located along the south bank of Cut Bank Creek and 12 miles (19 km) northeast of Browning, Montana. Glacier National Park can be seen in the distance.
U.S. Highway 2 is an east–west United States Numbered Highway in the state of Montana. It extends approximately 666.6 miles (1,072.8 km) from the Idaho state line east to the North Dakota state line.
James Willard Schultz, or Apikuni, was an American author, explorer, Glacier National Park guide, fur trader and historian of the Blackfeet Indians. He operated a fur trading post at Carroll, Montana 47°34′25″N108°22′24″W and lived among the Pikuni tribe during the period 1880-82. He was given the name Apikuni by the Pikuni chief, Running Crane. Apikuni in Blackfeet means "Spotted Robe." Schultz is most noted for his 37 books, most about Blackfoot life, and for his contributions to the naming of prominent features in Glacier National Park.
The following articles relate to the history, geography, geology, flora, fauna, structures and recreation in Glacier National Park (U.S.), the U.S. portion of the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park.
The Regional designations of Montana vary widely within the U.S state of Montana. The state is a large geographical area that is split by the Continental Divide, resulting in watersheds draining into the Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico and Hudson's Bay. The state is approximately 545 miles (877 km) east to west along the Canada–United States border and 320 miles (510 km) north to south. The fourth largest state in land area, it has been divided up in official and unofficial ways into a variety of regions. Additionally, Montana is part of a number of larger federal government administrative regions.
Swift Dam is a dam in Pondera County, Montana, on the southern end of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation.
