Milk River Indian Days

The powwow grounds at Fort Belknap Agency sit near the junction of U.S. Highway 2 and Montana Highway 66, four miles southeast of Harlem, which lies across the Milk River. A covered arbor shields the dancers and spectators from sun and rain. At its edge is an elders’ section finished in 2026, with seating, cooling fans and water coolers. Delina Cuts The Rope identified grants to help the elders. Doreen Bell, a grant writer in the tribal Planning Department, wrote the Tribal Tourism Grant that paid for the section, and the same grant paid for repairs, mobility improvements, more shade and electrical service throughout the arbor. Jimmy Clark of Tribal Construction built the seating.

The fans were needed at the 62nd annual Milk River Indian Days, July 24 to 26, 2026. According to the Denver March Powwow committee, whose crew worked behind the scenes alongside Central Sound, temperatures topped 105 degrees. The committee’s account says the MCs, Tuffy and Lil Don, “kept everyone’s spirits lifted.” It also says that a man it names only as Walter looked after the participants’ well-being in the heat, that the drum Dry Lake brought the dancers in with its song at each session, and that family honor feeds kept everyone fed. The post closed: “Be safe . . . drink water!!”

That year 390 dancers registered, from 47 tribes, 10 states and three Canadian provinces; North Carolina was the farthest state. Eighteen drum groups registered, along with 23 royalty, among them Senior MRID Princess Amara Speakthunder and Junior Princess Kelaya Skidmore. The Fort Belknap Indian Community, the joint government of the Aaniiih (Gros Ventre) and Nakoda (Assiniboine) nations, runs the event.

Grand entries and the drums

The state tourism office lists the powwow on the fourth weekend of July, and it runs three days. The 2018 schedule set grand entries at 7 p.m. Friday, at 1 and 7 p.m. Saturday, and at 1 p.m. Sunday. It is a contest powwow with cash prizes. Men compete in traditional, grass, fancy and chicken dance, and women in traditional, jingle and fancy. There are golden age categories, and teen and junior divisions for boys and girls. In 2026 Elias Her Many Horses won men’s grass, Malcolm Murphy won men’s traditional, Prairie Rose Jack won women’s jingle and Sky Harding won women’s fancy.

The drums compete in a singing contest that places through fourth. In 2026 Lazy Dogg won with 1,022 points over Mandaree’s 1,015, with Lil Mountain Cree third and Bad Eagle fourth. Bad Eagle took first in women’s backup singing. In 2018 a stick game began at 6 p.m. Saturday, and vendors from the reservation and from out of the area sold food and merchandise. A Central Montana tourism listing quotes co-organizer Myron Hoops: the weekend “should be a big one because no other powwows will be conflicting,” the listing reports him saying, and organizers were bringing back a special contest.

A parade from the airstrip

The parade is organized by the 477 Program. It steps off in the afternoon before the first grand entry, with bicycle riders, ATVs, horseback riders, traditional and non-traditional floats, and Rez cars. In 2018 the adult parade left the airstrip at noon Friday. The youth parade had gone out from the same place on Thursday, after a bike safety session.

On Saturday morning comes the Mosquito Run, founded by the late Ignatius “Iggy” George Stiffarm. Other contests have filled the days before the dancing. In 2018 the Ultimate Health Challenge sent five-member co-ed teams out from the Red Whip Center at 7 a.m. Each team swam 20 laps of the Harlem City Pool, rowed 5 kilometers on a rowing machine, bicycled 3.4 miles, rode horseback 2.5 miles and ran 3.4 miles. A shorter youth version followed the next morning, and a youth rodeo ran at the Bell Arena.

Fort Belknap on the Milk River

According to the tribal history, the last herd of buffalo in the continental United States in the nineteenth century lived in the Milk River valley, between the Bear Paw Mountains and the Little Rocky Mountains. The Aaniiih and Nakoda followed the buffalo for food, clothing and lodges. The Gros Ventre call themselves Aaniiih, the White Clay People, after the white clay found along the river bottoms. Their French name, meaning “big belly,” came from a misread hand sign for waterfall. The Assiniboine call themselves Nakoda, the generous ones; “Assiniboine” is a Chippewa word meaning “one who cooks with stones.”

In 1868 the government built a trading post called Fort Browning near the mouth of Peoples Creek on the Milk River. It stood on a favorite Sioux hunting ground and was abandoned in 1871. Its replacement went up on the south side of the river, about a mile southwest of the present town of Chinook. It was named for William W. Belknap, then Secretary of War, and was half military post and half trading post. A block house stood to the left of the stockade gate. On the right were a warehouse and an issue building, where the tribes received their rations and annuity goods.

In 1876 the fort was discontinued, and the tribes were told to draw annuities at Fort Peck and Wolf Point. The Assiniboine went readily. The Gros Ventre refused, because the move would bring them among the Sioux, and they gave up their annuities rather than go. The agency was re-established in 1878. By an Act of Congress on May 1, 1888, the Blackfeet, Gros Ventre and Assiniboine ceded 17,500,000 acres of their joint reservation and agreed to live on three smaller reservations. Fort Belknap Agency was established at its present location, near where the powwow grounds now lie.

Specials, princesses and a flag bearer

Destination Native America describes the powwow as a tradition of more than 50 years. The Blaine County Journal reported that the 53rd edition, in 2017, drew more than 300 dancers from across the United States and Canada and held a singing competition for the first time. It also carried special dances to honor loved ones, sponsored by their families.

The Havre paper explained those specials in 2018. Families raise money for them through the year with food sales and raffles, and the dances honor the dead, people who have beaten cancer, and people who have received an honor. That year Jay Ball sponsored a men’s traditional special for his relative Cpl. Charles Ball, a World War II veteran lost in the Philippines Campaign of the Southwest Pacific Theatre, whose body was not recovered. A junior girl’s special honored Junior Princess Elleonna Azure. Senior Princess Valene Talks Different and Junior Princess Attendant Shaylee Johnson completed the royalty. The committee paid for the powwow with a weekly bingo night and other fundraisers. Its members were Men’s Flag Bearer John Mark Stiffarm, Drum Keeper Blake Stiffarm, Secretary/Treasurer Blair Doney Johnson, Spoon Keeper Larina Blackbird, and Whip Man Conan Cuts the Rope, who placed fourth in men’s chicken dance in 2026.

For the 61st edition, in 2025, the women’s head flag bearer was to be Renee Hawley, an Aaniiih grass dancer from Hays, on the reservation. She told High Country News: “In my 57 years, I’ve never seen a woman in men’s regalia in charge of a big powwow like that.” She began grass dancing as a small girl, and her parents made her outfits. At puberty, she said, adults told her, “You don’t belong here. What are you doing?” Other children bullied her, and at 12 she stopped. “It’s just recently I went back to the circle in full grass dance regalia.”