| Sumario: | On the walls of the Many Glacier Hotel in Glacier National Park once hung one of the largest programs of two-dimensional works completed by Indigenous artists in the early twentieth century. Using over one-hundred and eighty feet of canvas and involving (by some estimates) well over twenty-five South Piegan artists, this monumental commission of Plains narrative art was dense with the young and old warrior's war exploits from across decades of their lives. Yet even with its notable scale, this work has been largely forgotten within broader American art historical narratives and much of it was unceremoniously destroyed or dispersed, with only four original panels, and a few period accounts, photographs, and reproductions remaining of the work. Still, the curious history of this mural program presents a rich opportunity to examine the complex entanglements between Indigenous peoples, tourists, external corporations, and the national parks. Afterall, what does it mean for an Indigenous history of war to unfold on the walls of a national park resort? Using this question as a point of departure, we expand further on this history by placing these commissions in dialogue with contemporary Salish and Kootenai artist Corwin Clairmont's multimedia work Indian Country Passage Denied. Thinking across generations and different means of traversing space, we consider what it means to be considered a guest on stolen land and how Indigenous artists articulate the terms of hospitality, history, or lack thereof. In doing so, we find a more nuanced history of the parks unfolds, shared and complex.
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