On the Kutenai Trail with Duke Hoiland

Duke Hoiland doesn't just run his 80-acre spread up the North Fork, he also gives folks free tours and a history lesson on the old Kutenai Indian Trail to the eastern plains.

For thousands of years, the Kutenai Indians wintered in the Tobacco Plains near Eureka and then each summer, 300 to 400 members of the tribe, women and children included, would migrate to the plains near what is now Waterton Lakes Park in Alberta, Canada and hunt bison.

They would take 500 to 600 horses with them, hunt for a month or more, butchering the bison there and returning with the dried meat.

Portions of the old trail they took up and over the Whitefish Divide from Graves Creek to Trail Creek still exist.

On the tour, Hoiland takes people on parts of the old trail and talks about the journey.

Avalanches chutes full of snow and swollen rivers were two big obstacles. Once down Trail Creek, they crossed the North Fork of the Flathead and over South Kootenay Pass.

"If the water in the river looked too high, they put the oldest woman on the oldest horse and sent her across. If she survived, it was safe to go," Hoiland explained.

Avalanche chutes also had to be scouted out ahead of time. Over the snow travel on horse can be lethal, particularly for the horse if it breaks through the crust and falls into a hole in the snow.

Last time great migration happened was in 1880, Hoiland said. The bison by then had been largely slaughtered by white men and were gone. The Kutenai came home empty-handed.

The trail, however, was used by the Forest Service over the divide until the road was built decades ago. Portions are still clearly visible today.

Hoiland doesn't formally advertise his tours. To go on one, it's largely through word of mouth in the North Fork community.