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Find out the answer to that question and more at Sally Thompson’s presentation about Northwest Montana stories and how they shape our lives, part of the museum’s continuing 23rd annual John White Series.

Thompson’s talk starts 2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 19. Please don’t delay in reserving a spot as there are only a couple of dozen seats left. Come into or contact the museum, or order online.

Focusing on several regional stories in her newly published Disturbing the Sleeping Buffalo, Sally Thompson will talk about frontiersman William Hamilton, aka “Wildcat Bill,” and his time in the Tobacco Plains; the Glacial Lake and Kootenai origin story; and how Thompson followed the trail of Father De Smet and found a cross that had been installed at the headwaters of the Columbia in 1845. Where is it exactly?, you might ask. “I’m not telling,” Thompson says as she freely shares the story of the man and the discovery.

The way we share, retell, and integrate stories of the past shapes our view of the now and the future, a principle that intrigues Thompson and keeps her digging for more.

About the presenter: Sally Thompson, who has an academic background in anthropology and archaeology, prefers to call herself an ethnohistorian or cultural heritage specialist.

She ran the archaeology program at Historical Research Associates; served as expert witness for the Taos Pueblo Water Rights case, and for the Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes on the ARCO lawsuit regarding pollution of the Clark Fork River; and as director of the Regional Learning Project at University of Montana, where she worked with tribes to develop curriculum resources on history, geography, and culture.

Her first book, People Before the Park, was published in 2015. In 2024, Farcountry Press published her Disturbing the Sleeping Buffalo, which was followed by the publication of Thompson’s Black Robes Enter Coyote’s World: Chief Charlo and Father De Smet in the Rocky Mountains (University of Nebraska Press).

All John White Series talks are followed by social time in Hollensteiner-Stahl Hall.

We are sold out for Sunday’s presentation by Jack Gladstone, which launches our 23rd annual John White Series.

Space remains for the other three talks in the series, but it would be wise to get on it! Either come in to the museum to reserve a spot, call us, or purchase online from the convenience of your keyboard.

All John White Series talks in recent memory have sold out.

They’re a great chance to gather with Montana-focused folks eager to learn more about where we live. The John White Series pays homage to longtime employees John Whites Sr. and Jr. of Central School (current home of the Northwest Montana History Museum), who connected with generations of Kalispell schoolkids and educators.