w w w . d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m
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Now that there was a Bison Range
to "save the buffalo," the government
needed bison "to save." The sad iro-
ny of this situation was that it was the
government that had forced the sale
of the bison that had already been
"saved!" The original Bison Range
herd consisted of about three dozen
bison from the Conrad herd in Ka-
lispell—the exact same animals, or
their descendants, that had been on
the reservation not long before. Four
animals were added from some other
sources.
With the newly formed National
Bison Range, fences went up to not
only fence the bison in, but to keep
the local tribal members out. An Au-
gust 31, 1936 letter from the U.S. De-
partment of Labor specifically stated:
"…regulations prohibited them from
using Indians for work on the Bison
Range." Tribal members became dis-
enfranchised from the animals that
they were responsible for bringing to
the reservation and saving in the first
place.
Fast forward to 1994. That is the
year that the Indian Self-Determina-
tion and Educational Assistance Act
(ISDEAA) was signed into law. The
law promoted the principle of tribal
"self-governance," allowing for tribes
to take over programs formerly run
The Bison Range is one of the few places west of
the Continental Divide to view pronghorn antelope
