Mountain Time Arts announces 'Yellowstone Reconsidered'

Mountain Time Arts is hosting the first of many inter-tribal gatherings in response to the 150th anniversary of Yellowstone National Park next year. Esteemed participants include Emerson Bull Chief (Apsáalooke), Dean Nicolai (Salish/Kootenai), Shane Doyle (Apsáalooke), Ren Freeman (Eastern Shoshone) and Jason Baldes (Northern Shoshone). This group will be joined by numerous Indigenous students from Montana and Wyoming’s tribal colleges and universities.

Next year marks the 150th anniversary of Pres. Theodore Roosevelt’s declaration of Yellowstone as the country’s first national park. For many, Yellowstone National Park is a pristine wilderness with extraordinary geothermal features and bountiful wildlife. But this beautiful landscape also holds a powerful history prior to the 1872 “founding” of the

park. Archeological research shows that for 11,000 years Indigenous people were present in the Yellowstone region, hunting, fishing, gathering food, mining stone for tools and making spiritual quests. Twenty-seven tribes claim cultural association with Yellowstone.

As the nation prepares to mark the 150th anniversary of Yellowstone Park, the Mountain Time Arts team is preparing “Yellowstone Reconsidered” a public art installation honoring the 27 Western tribes who gathered in Yellowstone every summer for centuries. “Yellowstone Recon-

sidered” will offer viewers an opportunity to explore the longer Indigenous history of the park and the cultural significance of this ceremonial land.

Mountain Time Arts and Doyle are convening a series of retreats attended by Indigenous elders, academics, historians, archaeolo-

gists, artists and activists. The first planning phase of “Yellowstone Reconsidered” was commemorated by the erection of a tepee June 25 in

Yellowstone National Park in front of the Roosevelt Arch at the Gardiner entrance.

Mountain Time Arts (MTA) is a Bozeman-based organization that produces bold, engaging public art works that explore contemporary social justice and environmental issues.