As the Blackfeet and I sit in gloomy silence, I wonder if the Indians still worry about such things, and if they now think bringing in a white man was a big mistake. We have plenty of horses to carry packs and people, but I fear the trip is over. The mountains of the Badger Two Medicine in northern Montana, just south of Glacier National Park. It is a wilderness region sacred to the Blackfeet. Tribal traditionalists fear desecration by energy companies that want to drill for oil and gas and by mechanized recreation, increasingly popular along the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail, which runs through the Badger Two Medicine.
Suspicion can cut both ways.
The backbone of the world runs along the Continental Divide from the Canadian border through northern Montana's Glacier National Park to a place known as the Badger Two Medicine, where we are now. The Blackfeet call it the Badger - 130,000 acres of crags and peaks girdled by narrow, winding river valleys. The Indians lost ownership of the Badger just over 100 years ago in one of a series of deals made under duress that reduced the size of the tribe's holdings to a fraction of the Blackfeet's historic domain. Many Blackfeet believe their destiny is still bound up with the Badger, because of its spiritual significance, its natural assets and mineral wealth. The mountains are, among other things, the principal source of fresh water for the tribe.