You'll experience a close-up venture into the life of the Blackfeet at the Blackfeet Culture Camp and Lodgepole Gallery on the rolling, windswept prairie a couple miles outside Browning, Montana. View contemporary and traditional Native American fine art by Northern Plains Indian artists, primarily local Blackfeet artists. Visitors can also stay overnight at the adjoining cabins or sign up for a cultural tour.

Experience Blackfeet history where it meets the present. Take a journey back in time visiting buffalo jump sites, ancient tipi rings, pow wows and the Museum of the Plains Indian. Ride horseback on the path of Blackfeet warriors.

A night staying in one of the cabins won't be forgotten. The setting is a raw and open country where the prairie meets the mountains. Sit around a crackling fire and hear the stories of the Blackfoot Confederacy, an alliance of four tribal nations in Montana and Alberta. The Blackfeet Nation in Montana is one of the four tribes in the Blackfoot Confederacy, the others being the Piikani, Kainai and Siksika in Alberta,

(Don't worry, you won't be the first confused that "Blackfeet" is the singular of the "Blackfoot," but such is the tortured history of the English language applied to the first nations of North America.)

A special feature of the Blackfeet Culture Camp and Lodgepole Gallery is the presence of the buffalo horses. According to the Normans, the Spanish Mustang (Spanish Barb) was brought to this country by the Spanish in 1520, and it became one of the original Indian ponies of the Plains Indian, in particular of the Blackfeet people.

The Blackfeet obtained this horse around 1750 and it completely changed their lives. The Blackfeet became a mobile society, and new ceremonial and social practices began. In the years after 1880 the Blackfoot Indian horses slowly disappeared due to various reasons and were replaced with larger breeds. They were reintroduced to the Blackfeet Reservation through the efforts of Darrell Norman and his friend Robert Berdard here at the Lodgepole Gallery.

Driving Directions

2.5 miles northwest of Browning on HWY 89