The Yellowstone Gateway Museum is collaborating with the Gardiner School on a new program, Cultural Perspectives of Land Use in the Gardiner Area. Karen Reinhart designed the program based on the highly successful East Side School and Yellowstone Gateway Museum (YGM) collaboration of 2011-2012. (This program continues today.) It features expert speakers who will cover land use from multiple perspectives, including Indian Education for All topics. Karen and Friends Board member Suzanne Goodman have been working closely with the school’s faculty.

For hundreds of years, people have had—and indeed continue to have—conflicting ideas about land use in the Gardiner area. The program offers a well-balanced sampling of various cultural views in order to broaden the perspectives of students, teachers, and community members. Through attending lectures and participating in field trips, participants will compare the ways the land was and is now used. Guest speakers will lead student field trips to local cultural and natural sites; additionally, they will present evening programs for the Gardiner community at large. A cultural exchange trip to the Crow Reservation for the junior class is planned for the spring.

A recent Humanities Montana grant partially funds the project. The school, YGM, and the Friends of the Yellowstone Gateway Museum have also committed funds to the project’s completion. (The museum plans to offer a similar program to Shields Valley Schools in the future.)

Proposed Speakers and Topics

• Mike Jetty, Sioux, Indian Education Specialist, Office of Public Instruction. “Dispelling Modern Stereotypes.”
• Shane Doyle, Crow, Master’s Degree, Native American Studies and PhD, Education. “The Crow in Yellowstone and the Gardiner Area.” Field Trip: Sites Significant to Crow Tribe near Gardiner.
• Ruth Ann Knudson, Humanities Montana Speakers Bureau. “Montana Indians Today: 13,000 Years and Counting.”
• Leo Ariwite, Shoshone, Research Assistant, Language and Cultural Preservation, Sho-Ban Tribe. “Shoshone and Bannocks of Southwest Montana and Yellowstone.” Field Trip: Bannock-Shoshone Trail.
• Jason Baldes, Eastern Shoshone, graduate student, Land, Resources, Environmental Sciences, MSU Bozeman, “Buffalo and their ecological and cultural restoration,” Field Trip: Buffalo Jump.
• Casey Olsen, English teacher and rancher, Columbus High School. “On Growing Up Rural: Local Education for Living in the World.”
• Western Sustainability Exchange, Livingston. Field Trip: two Paradise Valley ranches, sustainable agricultural practices and wildlife habitat.
• Staffan Peterson, Yellowstone NPS archaeologist. Field Trip: Cultural Site(s) in Gardiner area.
• Conservation group and field trip, to be determined.

The program is free and refreshments are provided. Please visit the museum’s website, www.yellowstonegatewaymuseum.org  or call 406-222-4184, for more information about this and other programs that the museum offers.