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COVER
BISON
A group of 88 bison from Alberta’s Elk Island National Park are delivered to the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. GREG LINDSTROM | FLATHEAD BEACON
includes more than 370 animals. Today, Sheldon Carlson is tasked with leading the Blackfeet Nation Bu alo Program. While the animals’ health is his primary goal, he often spends more time main- taining fences to keep the bison con- tained. During the winter, the herd is kept on tribal land southeast of Browning and during the summer they’re moved to an area near East Glacier Park.
Every month, four or ve bison are killed to feed tribal members who request the meat for memorials, special events or traditional ceremonies. The tribe also sells bison o the reservation as a source of extra income. The animals are often killed and butchered, per tradition, with a bow and arrow and rock tools.
Last December, Betty Cooper, who works at the school in Heart Butte, brought a group of sixth graders to see an animal butchered with stones.
“It’s so important for the young people to learn these traditions because they’re the ones who will be carrying them on,” she said.
Carlson enlists the help of the Crazy Dog Society, a historical group that holds many of the cultural traditions on the reservation. However, for the most part, Carlson works alone, driving his pickup truck through sparse elds on a remote corner of the reservation. That solitude has resulted in a close relationship with the animals.
Sheldon Carlson, bu alo program eld manager, cuts a section of tangled fence as he checks on the Blackfeet herd that was established in the 1970s. GREG LINDSTROM | FLATHEAD BEACON
delivery due that afternoon: 88 bison from Canada’s Elk Island National Park. Unlike the bison Carlson has previously managed, these are direct descendants from those that roamed the Rocky Moun- tain Front more than a century ago.
The bison homecoming was the cul- mination of years of work on behalf of the Blackfeet Tribe and other sharehold- ers, including the Wildlife Conservation Society.
In 2010, the Conservation Society invited members of the Blackfeet Confed- eracy from Canada and the United States to discuss restoring bison on the east- ern edge of Glacier and Waterton Lakes national parks. Those meetings resulted in the Iinnii Initiative, a vision of restor- ing a free-roaming trans-boundary herd of bison (Iinnii is the Blackfeet word for bison). In September 2014, leaders from 11 tribes in Montana and Alberta signed the “Bu alo Treaty” in an e ort to throw their support behind the restoration proj- ect. It was the rst treaty signed by the tribes in more than a century.
Chairman Barnes said he envisions a “conservation corridor” where bison can move freely from the Badger-Two Medicine region all the way to Canada, although he acknowledges it’s a lofty goal.
Some local ranchers are wary about the prospect of bison roaming the range. Jay Bodner, director of natural resources for the Montana Stockgrowers Association,
From his vehicle, Carlson can point to speci c bison and talk about their person- alities, including one named Alan, who he helped nurse back to health when he was separated from its mother. A few years ago, when the Blackfeet Tribal Business Council splintered and employees did not get paid, Carlson covered his own gas and continued to report for work each day.
“I’ll never let anything get in the way of me taking care of these animals,” he said. “I’ve learned so much from these animals, especially the respect they have for one another.”
On April 4, before the sun rose on the Rocky Mountain Front, Carlson drove to Great Falls. He needed to pick up new fence panels to prepare for a special
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APRIL 13, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM