Originally featured in Points West magazine in Summer 2011
Postcard, Arrow Top in Glacier National Park
In addition to the extraordinary objects documenting the arts and culture of Great Plains peoples, the Paul Dyck Plains Indian Buffalo Culture Collection also contains a collection of five hundred black and white as well as color photographs, postcards, and cartes de visites (small photos on thick cards). Dyck’s photograph collection included portraits of Native Americans as well as images of Plains Indian encampments and people involved in rites, ceremonies, rodeos, and fairs.
Tribes represented in the collection include Arapaho, Assiniboine, Blackfoot (Siksika, Piegan, and Kainah), Cheyenne, Comanche, Crow, Kiowa, Nez Perce, and Sioux. The subject of the image shown here is identified on the reverse as Arrow Top, a Siksika Indian, sitting beneath a tree in Glacier National Park. The photographer, T.J. Hileman, began working as the Great Northern Railway’s official photographer in 1925 and sold his prints in Glacier National Park and across the country for the next twenty years. At the time, the Great Northern was the major concessionaire and developer of visitor facilities in Glacier.
Postcard, Arrow Top sits beneath a tree in Glacier National Park, ca. 1935. MS320 Paul Dyck Plains Indian Buffalo Culture Collection, acquired through the generosity of the Dyck family and additional gifts of the Nielson Family and the Estate of Margaret S. Coe. P.320.5
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