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TREATY ISSUES Tribe, Glacier break off talks over border dispute By MICHAEL JAMISON Of The Missoulian BROWNING - Tribal leaders from the Blackfeet Nation called off talks with Glacier National Park officials Tuesday, saying they would not negotiate century-old treaty issues until a border dispute could be resolved. The tribe and the park have been meeting since the first of the year, trying to come to terms on interpretation of a 1895 agreement in which the Blackfeet gave up a portion of their historic lands. In that deal, the tribe maintained the right to access the forfeited lands, as well as the right to hunt, fish and gather wood. For years, Department of the Interior legal experts have maintained those rights were extinguished when subsequent 1910 legislation created Glacier National Park. A year ago, however, an Interior Department attorney serving as solicitor for the National Park Service hinted that the tribe might well have a claim to those former rights. Since then, a sometimes rancorous discussion has ensued as to just what those rights entail. On the one hand, hunting, fishing and wood gathering could refer to those specific activities only. On the other hand, they could be interpreted with an eye to 1895, when hunting, fishing and wood gathering amounted to making a living. If interpreted that broadly, the tribe argues, then the Blackfeet should be given a greater economic stake in the park, including a portion of entrance fees, control of certain campgrounds and the right to operate businesses in the park. But the debate over rights has been overshadowed by a boundary dispute in which the tribe claims part of what is now Glacier Park as its own. Tuesday, that debate drowned out all other talks, with the tribe walking away from the negotiating table until the border can be determined. During previous meetings, the two sides had agreed to set aside the boundary issue, saying it was too contentious. Tuesday, however, the tribe decided to hinge everything else on the boundary issue, and left the table halfway through the day. A scheduled second day of talks has been postponed indefinitely. The Blackfeet have indicated they will send a letter to Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt, saying further talks regarding rights are inappropriate until the border dispute is resolved. According to park Superintendent David Mihalic, that decision takes the park out of the debate for the time being, as the boundary issue is not a Park Service issue. The Blackfeet Reservation boundary was set in 1895, Mihalic said, 15 years before Glacier was named a park. When the park was formed, he said, the eastern edge of Glacier was defined as the western edge of the reservation. Determining the western edge of the reservation, he said, is an issue for the federal lawmakers, not the Park Service. The tribe contends the border is off by as much as four miles, and according to oral history should run down the Continental Divide from "mountaintop to mountaintop." Mihalic says he knows of no way to review oral traditions, and so he relies on the language of documents drafted a century ago, which puts the border at its current site, wedged tight in the crease where mountain meets prairie. Although he defined the debate as one of "fundamental issues," Mihalic stressed that the break in talks was "amicable," and in no way foreshadowed a breakdown in communication. Speaking prior to the meeting, tribal Chairman Bill Old Chief said his first priority was "to establish that boundary between the park and the reservation," adding that any attempt to fence tribal cattle out of what is now Glacier 's eastern edge would be met with Blackfeet resistance. Mihalic said it is unclear when the two neighbors will again sit down at the table, although he has extended an offer of $10,000 in park funds to send a person of the tribe's choosing to the National Archives to review historic maps, photographs and agreement language. To date, he said, that offer has not been accepted.
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