the mountains
that would be enshrined by decade’s end as Glacier National Park the train went, and
then down, down, down, a dramatic transition from forest green to prairie brown and
high flat ground to a knot of small buildings, a dwelling house, two hotels, a store.
His destination, Browning, Montana, was a whistle stop on the Great Northern line,
but also the heart of the Blackfeet Nation.
The emptiness startled him. The wind nearly knocked him down. A one-man expedition,
Curtis gathered his cameras and notebooks, his sketchbooks and tent, his sleeping
roll and extra clothes and a wax cylinder recorder. As the dust flew in early evening,
he was met by Bird Grinnell, a warm reunion. It was the Pawnee from the Great Plains
who had first given the doctor from Yale the name of Bird, because he appeared every
year in the spring and then would migrate somewhere when the cold weather came. And
it had been with the Pawnee, in 1872, that Grinnell had witnessed their last great
buffalo hunt, an adrenaline-surged spectacle of half-ton prey chased by nimble athletes
on horseback.
The wind from the prairie, gathering momentum as it swept down from the province
of Alberta, made it difficult to hold a conversation outside the leaky frame walls
of the Browning general store. Curtis could see why a tree was unable to cling to
the hard earth at four thousand feet on the Montana high ground. The men outfitted
their horses, then took off at a trot back toward the mountains, where the plains
buckled up and rose. They were crossing twenty miles or so of buffalo country, amber
fields of grass pocked by hollows where the bigheaded beasts took dust baths to keep
mosquitoes away. But there was not a bison in sight; few had been seen for two decades,
Grinnell told his acolyte. Bird turned fifty that summer, almost twenty years older
than Curtis, with half a lifetime’s knowledge from living with Plains Indians to impart
to the younger man. Their purpose was one part adventure, one part anthropology and
one part mercenary, for both men knew their access to this lost world could fill a
lecture hall later.
This trip to the Blackfeet Nation was also the test of an idea starting to take shape—that
those “Curtis Indian” fragments sold by his studio could form part of a much bigger
picture story. Grinnell encouraged Curtis, urged him to be expansive, but he also
stripped him of his more romantic notions. He was both mentor and tormentor.
What are you
really
looking for?
Grinnell asked Curtis.
Why are you shooting all these pictures of Indians in the first place?
Curtis explained that he was doing it “for his own amusement,” as Grinnell wrote
later. Also, Indian pictures were a lucrative part of his business. He could charge
a premium for a typical studio portrait, but those branded Curtis Indians—the pictures
he’d taken around Puget Sound and on the Columbia Plateau—were selling for much higher
prices. It was telling that Curtis put every surplus dollar back into the “amusement”
work; that was what made his heart race now, even more than climbing mountains.
Grinnell pressed him further. He wondered if Curtis had ever thought about putting
together a book, or an exhibition at the Smithsonian, where Americans could see what
was slipping away. Curtis could rouse the nation to action, as Grinnell had done on
behalf of keeping a small bison herd intact in Yellowstone. Grinnell’s crusade had
won over many influential people, including Teddy Roosevelt, who’d just made the step
from governor of New York to vice president of the United States. Indeed, Curtis replied,
he had thought about doing something grand and consequential. “The idea dawned on
him that here was a wide field as yet unworked,” Grinnell wrote. “Here was a great
country in which still live hundreds of tribes and remnants of tribes, some of which
still retain many of their
that would be enshrined by decade’s end as Glacier National Park the train went, and
then down, down, down, a dramatic transition from forest green to prairie brown and
high flat ground to a knot of small buildings, a dwelling house, two hotels, a store.
His destination, Browning, Montana, was a whistle stop on the Great Northern line,
but also the heart of the Blackfeet Nation.
The emptiness startled him. The wind nearly knocked him down. A one-man expedition,
Curtis gathered his cameras and notebooks, his sketchbooks and tent, his sleeping
roll and extra clothes and a wax cylinder recorder. As the dust flew in early evening,
he was met by Bird Grinnell, a warm reunion. It was the Pawnee from the Great Plains
who had first given the doctor from Yale the name of Bird, because he appeared every
year in the spring and then would migrate somewhere when the cold weather came. And
it had been with the Pawnee, in 1872, that Grinnell had witnessed their last great
buffalo hunt, an adrenaline-surged spectacle of half-ton prey chased by nimble athletes
on horseback.
The wind from the prairie, gathering momentum as it swept down from the province
of Alberta, made it difficult to hold a conversation outside the leaky frame walls
of the Browning general store. Curtis could see why a tree was unable to cling to
the hard earth at four thousand feet on the Montana high ground. The men outfitted
their horses, then took off at a trot back toward the mountains, where the plains
buckled up and rose. They were crossing twenty miles or so of buffalo country, amber
fields of grass pocked by hollows where the bigheaded beasts took dust baths to keep
mosquitoes away. But there was not a bison in sight; few had been seen for two decades,
Grinnell told his acolyte. Bird turned fifty that summer, almost twenty years older
than Curtis, with half a lifetime’s knowledge from living with Plains Indians to impart
to the younger man. Their purpose was one part adventure, one part anthropology and
one part mercenary, for both men knew their access to this lost world could fill a
lecture hall later.
This trip to the Blackfeet Nation was also the test of an idea starting to take shape—that
those “Curtis Indian” fragments sold by his studio could form part of a much bigger
picture story. Grinnell encouraged Curtis, urged him to be expansive, but he also
stripped him of his more romantic notions. He was both mentor and tormentor.
What are you
really
looking for?
Grinnell asked Curtis.
Why are you shooting all these pictures of Indians in the first place?
Curtis explained that he was doing it “for his own amusement,” as Grinnell wrote
later. Also, Indian pictures were a lucrative part of his business. He could charge
a premium for a typical studio portrait, but those branded Curtis Indians—the pictures
he’d taken around Puget Sound and on the Columbia Plateau—were selling for much higher
prices. It was telling that Curtis put every surplus dollar back into the “amusement”
work; that was what made his heart race now, even more than climbing mountains.
Grinnell pressed him further. He wondered if Curtis had ever thought about putting
together a book, or an exhibition at the Smithsonian, where Americans could see what
was slipping away. Curtis could rouse the nation to action, as Grinnell had done on
behalf of keeping a small bison herd intact in Yellowstone. Grinnell’s crusade had
won over many influential people, including Teddy Roosevelt, who’d just made the step
from governor of New York to vice president of the United States. Indeed, Curtis replied,
he had thought about doing something grand and consequential. “The idea dawned on
him that here was a wide field as yet unworked,” Grinnell wrote. “Here was a great
country in which still live hundreds of tribes and remnants of tribes, some of which
still retain many of their
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