Trail Guide: Indigenous History in National Parks

The foundational myth of American conservation is a powerful one: the idea of “pristine wilderness,” landscapes untouched by human hands, waiting to be discovered. We lace up our boots and seek out these cathedrals of granite and forest to escape, to find solitude. Yet, this entire concept is a historical fiction. Every trail you walk in a national park across North America is on ancestral Indigenous homeland. The very creation of these celebrated wilderness areas was predicated on the forced removal of the peoples who had stewarded these inhabited landscapes for millennia.

This guide is an invitation to see the land differently. We will deconstruct that foundational myth, not to diminish the beauty of these places, but to deepen your connection to them. By understanding the layered history beneath your boots, you can transform your hike from a simple recreational activity into a profound act of witness. We will explore the complex relationship and often painful history of iconic parks, and provide a framework for walking these lands not just as a tourist, but as an informed, ethical visitor—one who can read the landscape as a historical text and walk with a new sense of reverence.

Why is a Deeper Understanding of Park History Essential for Hikers?

Before we set foot on the trail, we must first understand the ground itself. The historical relationship of our national parks begins not with their creation by an act of Congress, but with an act of historical injustice.

What is the “Pristine Wilderness” Myth?

The concept of “pristine wilderness” is the powerful allure of land untouched by humans, a blank slate for adventure and discovery. But this idea wasn’t discovered; it was manufactured. For thousands of years, the lands within the U.S. National Park System were inhabited, shaped, and managed by Indigenous peoples. They were homes, hunting grounds, and sacred sites—landscapes of deep cultural meaning.

To create the parks, these inhabitants were forcibly removed. Early park boosters and promoters then launched what was effectively a propaganda campaign, marketing these lands as “uninhabited America” or “untrammeled wilderness.” This “unpeopled fallacy” was a concerted campaign by the early National Park Service to sever the connection between the tribes and their ancestral territory.

This erasure was eventually codified into law. The Wilderness Act of 1964, a cornerstone of American conservation, legally provided the definition of wilderness as a place “where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” This phrasing, while poetic, finalized the process of writing Indigenous peoples out of their own history. Understanding this context is an ethical responsibility that goes far beyond the standard Leave No Trace principles; it’s about acknowledging the human story and land rights of the land.

How Does Yellowstone’s History Challenge the Wilderness Myth?

The archetype of the “pristine wilderness” myth is Yellowstone National Park itself. For over a century, the story was that Indigenous peoples feared its geothermal landscape, but the reality is the precise opposite.

Who are the Ancestral Peoples of Yellowstone?

For more than 11,000 years, the Yellowstone plateau was not an empty wilderness but a vibrant continental crossroads. Archaeological evidence shows a continuous human presence in the Yellowstone region, a place of material and spiritual abundance for dozens of tribes. The National Park Service now formally recognizes 27 Associated Tribes with connections to the park, including the Crow (Apsáalooke), Blackfeet, Shoshone, and Nez Perce.

The land was a popular hunting ground, a vital source of obsidian traded across the continent, and a revered ceremonial landscape known as the “land of the burning ground.” While many tribes used the area seasonally, the Tukudika (Sheepeaters), a band of Mountain Shoshone, are the only known year-round residents. Their unique adaptation to the harsh, high-elevation environment is a testament to their deep Indigenous knowledge of the Yellowstone ecosystem.

How Was the Yellowstone Wilderness Myth Created?

The park’s establishment in 1872 systematically ignored existing treaty rights, particularly those established in the Fort Laramie Treaties. To justify this, a colonial narrative was fabricated—the myth that Indigenous peoples “feared the geysers” and avoided the area. This lie was instrumental in severing their spiritual connection to the land in the eyes of the American public, making their removal seem natural rather than violent.

The U.S. Army was used to enforce their exclusion, and the resident Tukudika were forcibly exiled to reservations. This narrative of conflict culminated in one of the most tragic episodes in park history: the Nez Perce War of 1877. Fleeing the U.S. Army in a desperate 1,200-mile flight for freedom, the Nez Perce Tribe—who numbered 800 men, women, and children—passed directly through the newly-formed park, leading to hostile encounters with some of the park’s first tourists. Their journey is one of the most incredible stories of endurance and the human spirit tested by wilderness in American history.

How Can I Experience This History on the Lamar River Trail?

When you hike the Lamar River Trail, you are walking on an ancient highway. See it not just as a world-class wildlife corridor, but as a route used for millennia by tribes tracking the great bison herds. The herds you see today are a living link to that past, a testament to its long history as a place of life and sustenance.

As you walk the path and look out over the Lamar River, you are walking in the footsteps of thousands of years of hunters, traders, and families. Take a moment on the riverbank to contemplate the resilience and desperation of the Nez Perce, who fled through this very valley in the late summer of 1877, fighting for their survival in a land that had always been their sanctuary.

How Are Indigenous Voices Being Reclaimed in Yellowstone Today?

A new chapter is being written in Yellowstone, representing a form of modern reconciliation. The park is actively working in collaboration with its 27 associated tribes to transform it from a monument to a myth into a recognized cultural heritage homeland.

A prime example of this resolution is the Yellowstone Tribal Heritage Center, a key educational center at Old Faithful. This is a collaborative space where Indigenous artists, scholars, and presenters share their culture and history directly with visitors. Tribal partners, such as the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, are now integral to the Interagency Bison Management Plan. Furthermore, the exercise of treaty rights for hunting bison that migrate outside park boundaries is a powerful reaffirmation of a physical and spiritual connection that was never truly broken.

What is the Story of Glacier’s “Backbone of the World”?

Moving north, we encounter a different story of dispossession in a landscape of dramatic verticality. In Glacier National Park, the creation of the park was not just an act of removal, but the breaking of a solemn promise made to a people on the brink of starvation.

Who are the Ancestral Peoples of Glacier?

For millennia, the lands of Glacier National Park have been an intersection of different Indigenous worlds, with physical signs of use dating back over 10,000 years. The Continental Divide served as a natural boundary. To the east lay the territory of the native Blackfeet Nation (Amskapi Piikani), who saw the towering peaks as the “Backbone of the World” (Mo’kakiikin Miistakiiks), a place of refuge, vision quests, and ceremony. To the west, tribes like the Salish, Pend d’Oreille, and Kootenai would cross the mountain passes to hunt buffalo on the plains. These lands are woven into the origin stories and cultural fabric of all these peoples, long before they became a destination for some of Glacier National Park’s most spectacular trails.

How Did a Broken Promise Lead to the Park’s Creation?

The tragic “Starvation Winters” of 1883-1884, caused directly by the U.S. government’s policy of bison extermination, devastated the Blackfeet Nation. Weakened and desperate, the tribe was pressured in 1895 to sell 800,000 acres of their sacred mountain lands—the eastern half of today’s park—for money to buy food and supplies.

A crucial clause in that agreement guaranteed the Blackfeet the right to continue to hunt, fish, and gather on the ceded lands “so long as they shall remain public lands of the United States.” But when Glacier National Park was created in 1910, the federal government used the park’s establishment as a legal maneuver to extinguish those treaty rights. A sale made under duress was transformed into a permanent dispossession, a clear example of the frayed relations between the U.S. government and sovereign nations.

Hiker’s Historical Guide: What Can the Highline and Grinnell Glacier Trails Teach Us?

Hiking the Highline Trail is a physical journey along the “Backbone of the World.” It allows you to see the landscape as the Blackfeet did: a place of immense spiritual power where individual peaks are living characters in an ongoing story. Even the names echo this history; Going-to-the-Sun Mountain is named for a story about a deity, Sour Spirit, who descended from the sun to teach the Blackfeet the secrets of the spirit world.

In contrast, a hike to Grinnell Glacier offers a more somber reflection. The trail is named for George Bird Grinnell, an early conservationist who championed the park’s creation. He was also a respected ethnographer who documented Blackfeet stories and lifeways. Yet, he was instrumental in their exclusion from the park. Grinnell embodies the central paradox of the early conservation movement: a deep love for the land coupled with a devastating blindness to the rights of its original inhabitants. A journey on the stunning Grinnell Glacier Trail becomes a meditation on this complex and contradictory legacy.

How Does Mesa Verde Tell a Story of a Living Culture?

Our final case study takes us to a national monument created to preserve the works of man, a place with immense archaeological significance. But the story of Mesa Verde is not one of a lost civilization; it’s a story of resilience, migration, and a sacred homeland whose descendants are still here today.

Who Were the Ancestral Puebloans?

For over 700 years, from roughly 600 to 1300 CE, the Mesa Verde region was home to a civilization that thrived for centuries. The Ancestral Puebloan people who lived here were master farmers and brilliant architects. Over generations, they shifted from building communities on the mesa tops to constructing incredibly complex cliff dwellings, a key type of archaeological evidence in the region.

A Note on Terminology: The correct term is “Ancestral Puebloans.” The older term, “Anasazi,” is a Navajo word that is often translated as “ancient enemy” and is considered disrespectful by many modern Pueblo people.

These were not simple shelters but sophisticated communities with plazas for daily life and ceremonial kivas that remain central to modern Pueblo religious practices today.

Why Did They Leave, and Where Did They Go?

The myth of a “vanished” or “lost” civilization is another form of historical erasure. The Ancestral Puebloans did not disappear; they conducted a deliberate, organized migration south in the late 1200s. This move was likely driven by a combination of factors, including a prolonged, multi-decade drought that made farming impossible, and the social instability that followed.

They migrated to the south and east, and their descendants are the vibrant communities of today. The 26 Associated Tribes of Mesa Verde include the 19 Pueblos of New Mexico (such as the Acoma, Laguna, and Taos Pueblos), the Hopi Tribe in Arizona, and the Pueblo of Zuni. The culture is not lost; it evolved and continues to thrive, a direct link between past cultures and living peoples.

What Story Does the Petroglyph Point Trail Tell?

The strenuous Petroglyph Point Trail is more than a hike to see “rock art.” The journey itself is a cultural immersion tour. The trail requires hikers to navigate narrow, unmaintained ledges, scramble over rocks, and squeeze through tight passages, providing a visceral, physical sense of the vertical world these native inhabitants navigated every single day.

The trail culminates at a large petroglyph panel, which is not just art but a historical and spiritual document. For the Hopi people, the panel tells a story of clan migrations. It includes a spiral figure thought to represent a sipapu, the sacred place of emergence from which their ancestors entered this world. When you view an image pecked, carved, or incised into a rock surface like this one, you are reading a chapter from a sacred text that is still understood by living people today.

How Can Hikers Walk These Lands with Awareness and Respect?

Understanding this history is the first step. The next is translating that awareness into action. Here is a resource guide for how you, as a hiker, can become a knowledgeable ally and a more respectful visitor.

How is the NPS-Tribal Relationship Evolving from Consultation to Co-Stewardship?

After a century of exclusion, a historic shift is underway. The relationship between the National Park Service and Tribal Nations is moving from decades of limited tribal consultation to true co-stewardship. This new model is defined as collaborative or cooperative arrangements between Department bureaus and offices and Tribes, where tribes are active partners in decision-making, not just stakeholders to be informed.

Driven by recent Indigenous leadership at the highest levels, including Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and NPS Director Chuck Sams, these partnerships aim to elevate Indigenous voices. Modern co-stewardship agreements, now numbering over 250, are growing rapidly. These partnerships empower tribes to integrate Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK)—the multi-generational wisdom of living with the land—into modern land management, from fire prevention to wildlife conservation. It’s a move toward stewarding these lands that mirrors the deep connection of actively maintaining them.

What are the Guiding Principles for Hiking on Ancestral Lands?

• Acknowledge the Land: Before your trip, do your research. Use resources like Native-Land.ca to learn whose ancestral homeland you will be visiting. Acknowledging the specific tribes is the first step toward respect.
• Practice Cultural Leave No Trace: Go beyond the basics of packing out trash. Never touch ancient walls, structures, or petroglyphs. Oils from your skin can cause irreparable damage. If you find an artifact like a pottery sherd or an arrowhead, leave it exactly where you found it.

[PRO-TIP] If you find an artifact, leave it in place. Take a photo, use your phone’s GPS to get the coordinates, and report your finding to a park ranger. Moving an artifact removes it from its historical context, erasing a piece of the story forever. The NPS has clear guidelines for Taking Care of Mesa Verde National Park that apply to all cultural sites.

• Seek and Center Indigenous Voices: To get a true Indigenous perspective, prioritize Indigenous-led experiences. This goes beyond just reading panels at a visitor center. Actively seek out Native-owned tour outfitters for hiking adventures, guided tours, or cultural immersion tours. Hiring Native guides provides a more authentic understanding, supports tribal economies, and allows you to hear the stories of the land from the people whose ancestral ties to it are unbroken. Many tribal organizations and the American Indian Alaska Native Tourism Association are excellent resources for finding these opportunities.
• Understand Sovereignty & Respect Rules: Be aware if your hike takes you onto the lands of sovereign Tribal Nations that border the parks. Research and obtain any required permits and respectfully follow all local laws and customs from tribal authorities regarding access and photography.
• Visit with Reverence: Approach these landscapes with the mindset that you are a guest in a home. These are not just recreation areas; they are the sacred cathedrals, living museums, and cemeteries of Indigenous peoples.

[PRO-TIP] Before starting your hike, take a quiet moment. Acknowledge the history of the land and your gratitude for being a visitor. This small act of mindfulness shifts your perspective from conquering a trail to being a respectful witness. It’s an ethical preparation just as vital as packing—The Ten Essentials are a foundational safety system.

Conclusion

The “pristine wilderness” that draws us to our national parks is a powerful and beautiful idea, but it is a myth created through the forced removal of tribes. Every park is an ancestral homeland with a deep, complex, and often painful history that predates its establishment by thousands of years.

As hikers, we have a unique opportunity. By learning to read the landscape as a historical and cultural text, we can engage with this Indigenous history directly on the trail, transforming our hiker’s experience from one of simple consumption to one of profound connection. With a new era of co-stewardship emerging, we can act as allies by seeking out Indigenous voices, practicing cultural respect, and respectfully visiting these sacred places with the reverence they deserve.

What trail have you hiked that has a deep history? Share your experience and what you learned in the comments below.

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