North American Indian Days

In the second week of July, family tents and tipis go up on the campground at Stampede Park in Browning. The drum carries out from the arbor at the center of the camp. North American Indian Days is the Blackfeet Nation’s annual celebration: four days of dancing and singing, drum contests, stick games, Indian relay races and rodeo in the largest community on the Blackfeet Reservation, just east of Glacier National Park. The Glacier Country tourism blog calls it one of the largest gatherings of U.S. and Canadian tribes. Rick and Susie Graetz, writing for the University of Montana, rank it “the largest Indian celebration in Montana after Crow Fair” and call it “an authentic, not-staged-for-tourists event.”

The arbor on Second Avenue

The 2026 celebration ran July 9 through 12. It opened Thursday evening at seven with social dancing. Grand entries followed on Friday afternoon, twice on Saturday at two and eight, and once more on Sunday at one. The visiting host drum was Ho0Chunk Station, as the listing spells it; the Blackfeet host drum was Blacklodge, and the local drum was Young Grey Horse. Pat Armstrong Jr., Rueben Little Head, Jesse “Jay” St. Goddard and Tony Delaney held the microphone. William “Lucky” Whitegrass and Ken Gopher ran the arena. Dance styles include Traditional, Chicken and Fancy, and dancers compete across tribes and age groups.

The arbor itself is new. The 2023 powwow was the first held in the multipurpose arbor, a $9 million structure of nearly 42,000 square feet, larger than the one before it. Only its first phase was finished that July. A second phase was to add insulated walls, two garage-door entrances, heating and cooling, and built-in stands. Marilyn Cantois, a Saulteaux Anishinaabe jingle dress dancer who came from Alberta with her family, told ICT: “I love it. It’s a lot cooler. Normally grand entry, you’re sweating, sun’s beaten down on you. This gives us relief from the heat and there’s a little bit of a breeze that comes through every now and then.” She added, “I like the dance floor. It’s nice and soft and just really even.”

ICT reported over 600 registered dancers in 2023 and around 2,000 in attendance over the long weekend. That year the hottest day reached 85 degrees and rising, and children and adults carried powwow snacks and drinks through the camp. Out-of-town relatives embraced and laughed as they caught up, and the new arbor gave them something to talk about. Three friends danced together that weekend: Siliye Pete, Bitterroot Salish, from Arlee; Jesenia Velez Blackweasel, Blackfeet, from Browning; and Dana Sotomish, Nez Percé. They said they seldom see one another except during powwow season. Julius Curtis and Rosita Todachine drove up from Mesa, Arizona, and covered every corner of their stand, Nizhoni Rose Jewelry, with beadwork and metalwork.

Relay horses, stick games and a parade of floats

Away from the arbor, the program runs to horses and games. Listings name a kids’ rodeo, two days of PRCA rodeo, Indian relay horse races, a 4-H show, stick game and hand game competitions, pageants, a carnival and artisan vendors. In 2023 the powwow was preceded by a week of events that included a Youth Day, a Veterans Powwow and Independence Day activities.

The parade goes through Browning, and the organizers post its results afterward. The 2026 list judged best-dressed Indian men, women and families, best-dressed cowboys and cowgirls in three age brackets, and the floats. Glacier Peaks Casino won best decorated float. “Back to the 60’s” took best novelty float, ahead of Glacier Montpacas and Avatar. The First Indian Baptist of Moore, Oklahoma, won best band float. The Rez Aunties had the funniest themed float, and the tribe’s Buffalo Program won best tribal program float. Curtis Elkshoulder’s family was best-dressed Indian family, and the Campbell family was best-dressed cowboy family.

A chief’s errand from Sheridan

According to ICT, the celebration was born in 1954 from a similar gathering in Sheridan, Wyoming, called the All American Indian Days, and the 2023 edition was the 69th annual. Before his death, the Blackfeet chief Earl Old Person told the story to Lea Whitford, a former Montana senator and tribal citizen.

“There was a big celebration down in Wyoming and they asked him and he was there. He attended it and they asked him if he would start one up in this area,” Whitford said. “So that’s why it goes by North American Indian Days, because it was the only one at the time, the only big celebration like that. He said that a part of why they did that was because traditionally we’ve always gathered during the summertime and had our summer celebration ceremonies.”

From that interview, Whitford said, Old Person meant the gathering to reconnect with past ways of life, down to laying out the campground on the pattern of traditional encampments. He also meant it to bring outsiders in. “They wanted to open it up so that people would learn about us and learn more about who we were as Native Americans,” Whitford said. She still sees that purpose at work: “I think the spirit and intent of what was happening in the 1950s is what we still continue today, is we invite everybody to come and celebrate with us.”

Jay Young Running Crane gave KRTV a plainer account of the beginning, as a gathering of scattered relatives: “The families back then were in outlying areas, and they would all come together.” On the first day of the 2023 powwow, tribal and political officials unveiled highway signs dedicating a memorial highway to the late Earl Old Person.

A holy time in July

Theda New Breast, a member of the Blackfoot Confederacy Womens Standup Headdress Society, told ICT what the days mean to her. “We’ve always been here before the United States and before Canada, and we always gathered, that’s why it’s a holy time, even in 2023,” she said. “This is a holy time and by holy, that means that everybody needs to come with a good heart in their prayers and that we should recognize our traditional practitioners, our traditional societies, and our traditional leaders.” New Breast places Indian Days alongside ceremonies such as the Medicine Lodge as a time to set an example of sobriety and clarity. The tribe bans all alcohol sales on the reservation for the duration of the powwow.

Blackfeet Tribal Business Councilman Lauren Monroe Jr. said Indian Days grew out of traditional religious ceremonies and has since opened outward. “You don’t just have to be Blackfeet, you don’t even have to be Indian, you just come and enjoy the dancing, the singing, and just be a participant,” he said. “There’s a lot of feasting and storytelling and things like that and it’s really welcoming.” Leon Rattler put it in terms of inheritance: “It’s important for us to maintain that heritage that was given to us by our parents and grandparents.” John Arnoux spoke of the reservation’s scattered families: “We have a lot of displacement in our community. Events like this reconnect us to who we are.”

When the arbor empties on Sunday, some stay for one more rite. A 2020 notice from the Black and Indian Mission Office shows Father Ed Kohler of Little Flower Parish celebrating Mass at the conclusion of Indian Days, with Monsignor Kevin O’Neill and Father Joseph Paddock.