Native leaders kick off crown lecture series

The Daily Inter Lake

A conversation between tribal leaders will introduce the 2009 Crown of the Continent Lecture Series at Flathead Valley Community College at 7 p.m. Sept. 15.

The event opener is titled "First Peoples, Two Countries, Three Voices:10,000 Years of Human History in the Crown of the Continent."

Speakers include Tony Incashola, Salish elder and director of the Community, Salish-Pend d'Oreille Culture; Vernon Finley, Salish member and Salish-Kootenai College instructor; and Herman Many Guns, Piikani Nation/Blackfoot Confederacy Council and cultural leader.

National Parks Conservation Association Project Coordinator Steve Thompson serves as moderator.

Part of the Glacier National Park Centennial Program, this series sponsored by the college continues on Sept. 21 with "The Crown Region: Setting the Stage," presented by Jim Byrne, chairman of the Geography Department at University of Lethbridge.

Byrne will outline geographical elements that help define the Crown of the Continent.

On Sept. 26, the series offers a field trip "Along the Buffalo Cow Trail: History and Ecology of the Trans Boundary North Fork."

Led by Thompson and geologist and Glacier Institute co-founder Lex Blood, the trip makes a hike along the North Fork of the Flathead River on the Kishenehn Trail, the same route the first people took on the 10,000-year-old trail.

The trip costs $65 per person which includes transportation. Participants need moderate hiking ability and need to register in advance for limited spaces.

The series resumes Sept. 29 with "Defining the Ecology of the Crown of the Continent," delivered by Chris Servheen, adjunct research associate professor of wildlife conservation and grizzly bear recovery coordinator at The University of Montana.

Servheen will provide an overview of characteristics that distinguish the Crown of the Continent from neighboring and global ecosystems, including the diversity of flora and fauna.

Author Jack Nesbit of "Sources of the River: Tracking David Thompson across Western North America" wraps up the series Oct. 6 with his presentation, "Seeing Across the Rockies: Reaching for Montana 1787-1812."

Nesbit will reveal the relationship between Lewis and Clark, Thompson and Thomas Jefferson and their involvement with the first accurate map of the Crown region. All lectures are free and open to the public.

Each lecture will take place at 7 p.m. in the large community meeting room in the Arts and Technology Building on the community college campus.

For more information or to register for the field trip, visit www.fvcc.edu or contact the college's Continuing Education Center at 756-3832.

Glacier National Park is quickly approaching its 100th anniversary. For more information on the Centennial, visit www.glaciercentennial.org.