Documentary focuses on battle to stop oil, gas leases

A new film, “Our Last Refuge” explores the 30-year battle to stop oil and gas leases on the Badger-Two Medicine just south of Glacier National Park.

The film, produced by Kings Road Media, travels with Blackfeet elders to the time of Lewis and Clark, up through decades of cultural suppression, through the oil-lease years of the Reagan Administration, and into a time of hope and optimism carried today by a new generation of Blackfeet leaders, filmmaker Daniel Glick said.

“The film is testament to the power of faith and determination and perseverance,” Glick said. “The title – ‘Our Last Refuge’ – speaks volumes. This is the last bastion of Blackfeet traditional culture. This is where they make their stand.”

The 24-minute film features many prominent Blackfeet leaders, including traditional Chief Earl Old Person. Speaking of his Tribe’s connection to the Badger-Two Medicine – the headwaters of Blackfeet culture – Old Person told filmmakers that Blackfeet traditions have been pushed to their limits.

“We used to be in Fort Benton,” Old Person said. “They pushed us to Choteau. From Choteau they pushed us to what is called Old Agency. They pushed us here. If it wasn’t for these mountains, they’d push us into the Pacific Ocean. This is where we said it stopped. And this is what we’re going to keep. We’re going to fight for this area that we call our home.”

Blackfeet Tribal Chairman Harry Barnes underscored the importance of the Badger-Two Medicine, saying “we have tipi rings and ceremonial structures that date back 10,000 years” in the region.

Glick began work on the film about a year ago, he said Monday, and finished it just a day before it premiered last Thursday in Browning.

The Badger-Two Medicine - bordered by the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, Glacier National Park, and the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex – is named for the two rivers that spill from its mountain heights. It is home not only to the cradle of Blackfeet culture, but also to a vast array of wildlife including grizzly bears, wolves, wolverine, elk, and cutthroat trout. It serves as a primary migratory corridor, connecting the wilderness with the Glacier Park and the prairie with the alpine peaks.

In the early 1980s, the U.S. government sold oil and gas leases throughout the area without the required tribal consultation.

Gloria Flora, a retired U.S. Forest Service supervisor, who during her tenure enacted some protections for the area, noted in the film, “if we drill in the Badger-Two Medicine, we essentially have told the American people that no place is off-limits. There is no place that’s too special, too important, too valuable. And that places oil and gas development above all other uses, all other values. Basically, it says any place is open.”

But if the leases are retired, the message will be one of humility, restraint and respect for cultural neighbors, and, perhaps, of a new relationship between Indian Country and the U.S. government, the filmmaker said. The Department of Interior has already canceled leases held by Solonex, a company that hopes to drill there, and recently Sec. of Interior Sally Jewell said the region was not an appropriate place to drill.

But Solonex is challenging the lease cancellation in federal court and the battle, 30 years and running, promises to continue.

Glacier said further showings of the film are scheduled for Bozeman, Missoula, Whitefish, Helena and Billings as well as an online release later this year.

“I’ve always had a heart for conservation,” Glick said.