When filmmaker Ivan McDonald was growing up in Browning, there weren’t many ways to see bison. When a bison was needed for a ceremony, it would typically come all the way from Yellowstone.
“We grew up understanding that the Creator created us and then created bison shortly after, so we’d have something to sustain us, feed us and provide shelter and tools and clothes and all of that,” McDonald said. “So, I grew up really culturally understanding bison, even if they weren’t really like apparent on the reservation.”
McDonald is part of Thunderheart Films, a team of filmmakers who got together to document the reintroduction of bison on the Blackfeet Nation after they were nearly brought to extinction a century ago. “Bring Them Home” screens at the Wachholz College Center on the Flathead Valley Community College campus in Kalispell on Aug. 29. …