"Finding Common Ground" video addresses reservation growth

By Maggie Plummer

PABLO — Non-tribal growth outpaces tribal growth ten to one on the Flathead Reservation.

Sprawling local development, and some history about the Tribes, are the subjects of a new 33-minute-long video entitled "Finding Common Ground: Guiding Growth on the Flathead Reservation," written and produced by Tribal Planner Janet Camel.

It's an educational tool describing the three unique Tribes here, their treaty with the federal government, and the Tribes' work with reservation residents and other governments to address growth while protecting local Tribal resources.

The video project, funded by a grant from the Indian Land Tenure Foundation, has been in the works for a while now, Camel said. Also providing support for the video were the Tribes and Salish Kootenai College.

She plans on showing the video at public meetings to work with communities on the highway 93 corridor plan - regulations designed to protect the highway corridor. Also, the video is being sent to area television stations to be broadcast.

Frank Tyro of SKC was videographer and editor for the project; tribal elders guided the work in the land use program; the narration is by Germaine White, and Camel did the interviewing; the music is by Gen Hewitt and Bidda Matt.

Camel and others point out that many of the people who have moved to the Flathead Reservation don't know anything about the history of the Tribes here, much less the unique culture of the people, the significance of Tribal sovereignty, and the context into which the reservation fits as the remaining homeland of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.

In the video, tribal officials talk about the Tribes buying back reservation lands, describe the tribal perspective on growth and the survival of the traditional culture, look at developments such as the rock mining in the Chief Cliff area, and discuss the complicated checkerboard land ownership pattern on the Flathead Reservation.

Also discussed in the video is the density map produced cooperatively by Tribal and Lake County Planning staffs, which encourages denser growth near existing towns.

The idea is to protect the reservation for future people. Many consider the reservation land the ancestors' gift, borrowed from the next seven generations of children.