Native Land Acknowledgement
The land we now call the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex has a rich history of native peoples who called this landscape home prior to the colonization of Europeans on the continent. The Amskapi Piikani (the Blackfeet Nation of Montana), the Niitsítapi (the Blackfoot Confederacy), the Séliš (Salish), Ql̓ispé (Pend d’Oreille or Kalispel), and Ktunaxa (Kootenai) tribes are the original and longest serving stewards of the lands, long before it was designated as “Wilderness” and known as “The Bob.”
We admire and are inspired by the Blackfeet, Salish and Kootenai peoples’ relationship with nature and wilderness. We recognize that the history of public lands includes much harm and dispossession to native peoples, and we’re committed to listening to and working with our local tribes to become better wilderness stewards and form new connections with the land.
No matter how deep we feel our own connections to this place, now referred to as the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex, we will never know it as the endless generations of the Salish, Kootenai and Blackfeet people do – those who simply knew these northern Rockies as home prior to the arrival of Europeans on the continent. These lands were not free of humans, but rather retained their pristine character through the stewardship of those that lived on them. We can learn so much from their relationship with the land, animals and nature in our work for the wilderness, and we’ve provided some resources below as a starting point.