Bozeman Magazine

“Set along the 49th parallel latitude, Montana shares its 545-miles long northern boundary with Canada. This border line, established by British and American diplomats in 1818 and then extended in 1846, ran through the homelands of the region’s Indigenous nations. With the stroke of a pen, Indigenous families and bands found themselves one or the other side of an invisible line. Through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, however, the Ktunaxa, Blackfeet, Assiniboine, Lakota, Metis, and other nations, disrupted the United States and Canadian governments’ efforts to limit Indigenous mobility across the line. At important moments in North American history, the “Medicine Line” became a focal point for Indigenous resistance and colonial control. By the end of the century, the boundary line began to narrow the independence of tribal nations on the Montana side. As the border hardened and as the governments established Indian reservations, tribes reoriented their political futures within the boundaries of the United States. This presentation explores the dynamic histories and contested experiences of the Canada-United States border from the Rocky Mountains to the Northern Plains.”