Architecture of Early Water Reclamation on Blackfeet Reservation
Author(s): Evelyn Pickering
Year: 2018
Summary
The Blackfeet Reservation in northwestern Montana was established in 1855 and contains six river basins. Beginning in the early 1900s, plans for Blackfeet Irrigation Projects were developed. It was estimated that 111,000 acres of the 1.5 million acres reservation would be irrigable. From 1908 to 1920, the Bureau of Reclamation constructed a network of water works; including canals, laterals, reservoirs, and dams across six irrigation districts. Through the lens of materiality as manifested in natural water bodies as well as in reclamation projects, this paper will investigate the architecture of early water reclamation on the Blackfeet Reservation as a means to understand how modern water development changed the landscape and the relationships the Blackfeet have had with ancestral lands. This research will further serve to contextualize the recent Blackfeet Water Compact.
Cite this Record
Architecture of Early Water Reclamation on Blackfeet Reservation. Evelyn Pickering. Presented at Society for Historical Archaeology, New Orleans, Louisiana. 2018 ( tDAR id: 441784)
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Keywords
General
Blackfeet
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Early Reservation Years
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Reclamation Architecture
Geographic Keywords
North America
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United States of America
Temporal Keywords
1908-1920
Spatial Coverage
min long: -129.199; min lat: 24.495 ; max long: -66.973; max lat: 49.359 ;
Individual & Institutional Roles
Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology
Record Identifiers
PaperId(s): 389