Ceremony signals goodwill between park and Blackfeet

In a sign of growing goodwill between Glacier National Park and the Blackfeet Tribe, a ceremony was held Friday morning at Logan Pass to honor the memory of Francis Guardipee, the first Blackfeet ranger in the park.

Born in 1885 at Old Agency, near present-day Heart Butte, Francis X. Guardipee served as a ranger at Nyack, Lake McDonald, Two Medicine and East Glacier from 1932 through 1948. Guardipee is featured on Glacier annual pass this year.

After attending Holy Family School on the reservation, where he served as a Piegan interpreter and teacher for the Catholic priests, Guardipee went on to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania. There, under the nationally renowned football coach Glenn S. “Pop” Warner, he ran a 10-second 100-yard dash against athletes that included Jim Thorpe.

When he joined the Park Service in April 1932, Guardipee earned $1,860 per year.

At the ceremony Friday at Logan Pass, Edmund “Wishy” Augare, the oldest living male relative of Guardipee, recalled a story he told him, where Guardipee chased a man across the park who poached an elk.

But when he caught up with him, the case was shot.

“The old man ate the elk,” Augare said with a smile. “He had no evidence.”

Joy “Skeets” Wagner, Guardipee’s oldest living female relative recalled hiking with her uncle at Two Medicine. He took time to teach them about the plants and animals of the valley.

“We were so bored,” she joked. In retrospect, it showed Guardipee’s great respect and admiration for the park and its lands, she noted.

“He was an extraordinary man,” she said.

The ceremony was replete with prayers and songs for the park, the Blackfeet and visitors to Glacier.

The event marked a new sign of goodwill between the park and the Blackfeet. Cooperative ceremonies in past years have been few and far between and relations over the years have been strained between the tribe and the Park Service.

Blackfeet Tribal Chairman Harry Barnes credited Superintendent Jeff Mow for the outreach.

“We’re enjoying a much better relationship with the park,” Barnes said after the ceremony. “I credit Jeff Mow. He’s receptive to our ideas.”

Mow said events like this will likely continue in the future, but it will be driven by the Blackfeet, not the Park Service.

“It’s not something we control,” he said. “But something that is meaningful to the Blackfeet.”

One possible future project involves bringing bison back to Glacier Park in the coming years. Barnes said the Blackfeet are working with non-governmental organizations to lease more land for bison outside the park. But inside the park, an environmental impact statement would likely have to be crafted. Barnes noted the irony in that — the animal was once an integral part of the landscape and Blackfeet culture.

He said there is also a question of ownership — the tribe would like to continue ownership so it could cull the herd if necessary.

Historical evidence shows that bison once roamed Glacier along the east side at St. Mary and in the Belly River. Bison bones have been found as high as 7,000 feet in some locations.

Right now the Blackfeet have about 800 bison, including a small herd of 88 bison that can be genetically traced back to the Blackfeet Reservation. The Blackfeet acquired those animals from Alberta last year.

The wild bison are too young to breed this year, but another bison herd on the reservation had about 200 calves this summer.

Barnes said eventually, the tribe would like to have a reserve with tours for visitors. Currently, the bison are on summer range a few miles outside the park along U.S. 2. When they’re grazing near the road, they draw a host of motorists who stop to take pictures of the beasts with Glacier Park in the background.