In which Moominmama visits the Bison Range, now managed by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, and learns of a New Hampshire connection...

More than a century ago, when white men were systematically destroying the Plains bison, a Salish man of the Pend d'Oreille proposed to his leaders that they bring a group of bison to the grasslands west of the Continental Divide to create and tend their own herd.

But the Pend d' Oreille were not herders by tradition (and bison not easy to herd.) The tribe lived on the west side of the Rockies and traveled east each year to hunt the sacred buffalo. They could see the number of bison were declining, but many felt caring for a herd was not feasible. Faced with a lack of consensus, the idea was abandoned.

But some years later, this man's son, Latati (HLA-tah-tee, first syllable pronounced as if you have peanut butter stuck to the roof of your mouth), traveled east and rounded up a small herd of orphaned bison. These he brought back over the Divide and tended to on the grasslands below Flathead Lake until he'd grown a real herd.

His father had long since died and his mother had remarried. On a day when Latati was away on other business, his stepfather sold the herd to a white man named Charles Allard. Latati, according to the story told by the Salish, was devastated but unable to reverse the sale.

Allard, however, continued to care for and grow the herd. Ultimately, he was forced to sell them and the herd moved to new owners in Canada. Bison were gone from the U.S. Plains, and the Plains Indians were brought to heel and forced onto reservations. Among these was the Flathead Reservation, where the Salish and Kootenai tribes, including the Pend d'Oreille, were contained on a fraction of the land they'd previously roamed. No more could they travel east to hunt the sacred buffalo. Moominmama found all this and more at the Three Chiefs Museum in St. Ignatius run by the tribes.

Fast forward a bit to the early 1900s, when President Theodore Roosevelt's love for the western wilderness led to the protection of vast tracts of land all across the west. He was persuaded in 1908 to bring bison back by creating a National Bison Range. Where? Why right in the middle of the Flathead Reservation, 20,000 acres cut out like a donut hole, fenced and now forbidden to the native people. This is why the Salish name for the bison range translates to "fenced-in place."

With help from the American Bison Society, the new preserve was populated with 36 bison descended from what was known as the Allard herd that had originally roamed this very area.

And here's the New Hampshire connection: Austin Corbin, whose father started Corbin's Park in Newport, NH, donated three bison from his game preserve. 

Corbin's Park is occasionally in the news because the very exclusive and fenced-in private hunting park periodically loses one of its wild boars (descended from animals imported long ago from Germany) which wreaks havoc in the neighborhood. A bill last year proposed that the private club members who hunt there pay a fee since the state Fish and Game Department sometimes has to respond to incidents connected to the park. It failed in the Republican-led legislature. 

While the bison of Corbin's Park are long gone, at one time, it had the largest surviving herd in the U.S. and supplied zoos and other preserves.

In January of 1908, Corbin recorded 136 bison in his park, from which he donated three to the new national bison range: one bull and two cows. And believe it or not, 30 bison from this park had previously been donated to the City of New York for placement in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx! Lacking sufficient range, these bison reportedly died. Later, other bison were donated to Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina.

But bison were expensive to keep, needing substantial supplies of grass to survive both summer and winter. Austin Corbin, the son, had a hard time maintaining his father's legacy. After the son died in 1938, the park fell into disrepair. When a group of wealthy hunters bought it in 1944, it appears the bison were long gone.

But three of Corbin's herd live on in their descendants on the Bison Range, this donut hole in the middle of the reservation where native people were outright banned from setting foot on the land or caring from the animals they'd helped save from extinction.

The Salish and Kootenai tribes never lost interest in the preserve, however, and their longstanding spiritual connection only grew when an albino buffalo was born in the preserve in the summer of 1933. This animal was called Big Medicine and renewed the tribes connection to this herd. 

While the tribes could not serve as stewards of the preserve, they understood that everything they did in the land outside would contribute to the health of the land within. They developed a strong conservation program to ensure the waterways, wildlife and soils of the reservation would support the bison and other animals who made their home either inside or outside the boundary of the preserve.

They also sought to regain some influence over this land inside their reservation, and gradually, the laws that banned their involvement were eased. But this was not without controversy as opponents brought their racist attitudes (lazy Indians etc.) to protest any native influence over management of the bison.

It has taken over a century, but this story does have a happy ending. The Bison Range was transferred back into the tribes' hands this year! In January of 2021, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes took over management of the preserve.

They have also had a hand in roadside markers so that traveling in and around the reservation, all signs provide both English and Salish names with translations. This one, entering the town of Ravalli, named after a well-loved priest, also shows the Salish name and what it means. I could not begin to tell you how to pronounce it, however!

The tribes now run the Bison Range visitor center, and staff went out of their way to photocopy information on the history of the range and to teach me how to pronounce the name Latati. They directed me to the sightseeing roads and insisted I disconnect my trailer and leave it in the parking lot because the tow chains were a fire hazard on the dirt roads.

And so I got to see bison roam this land, scattered across the hillside as they once did for miles and miles across America. The Bison Range is home to a herd of about 350-400 bison and provides bison to other tribal reservations and other preserves.

And it feels right to see the herd's original caretakers reunited with the animals who were once a central part of their culture.  As soon as Moominmama learned this story, she felt she had to share it! A historic injustice undone. One of many, but it's a start.

My time in Montana has come to an end. After staying with friends Ben and Kay, south of Missoula, and watching the smoke from this summer's wildfires, I was eager to head into the mountains of northeast Oregon where I've met up with my brother and his wife (and cleaner air). But I wanted to share with you this photo taken from Ben's yard, with the Bitterroot Mountains barely visible except for the way they blocked the setting sun!