'Yellowstone Reconsidered' project honors Indigenous people of Yellowstone country

Mountain Time Arts is hosting the first of many inter-tribal gatherings in response to next year’s 150th anniversary of Yellowstone National Park. 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.

The year 2022 marks the 150th anniversary of President Theodore Roosevelt’s declaration of Yellowstone as the country’s first national park. For many, Yellowstone is a pristine wilderness with extraordinary geothermal features and wildlife. Yet, this beautiful landscape 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 Reconsidered” will offer viewers an opportunity to explore the longer Indigenous history of the park and the cultural significance of this ceremonial land.

In preparation for this public art project, Mountain Time Arts and Doyle are convening a series of retreats attended by Indigenous elders, academics, historians, archaeologists, artists and activists in hopes of creating an awareness through art that will create new curriculum and a role for Indigenous students in the future of America’s national parks.

The first planning phase of “Yellowstone Reconsidered” will be commemorated by the erection of a tepee from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday, June 25, in front of the Roosevelt Arch at the Gardiner entrance to Yellowstone.

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