Where History Lives in the Land

The Montana sky stretched endlessly above her, impossibly blue and open, but what struck Rehka ’28 most wasn’t the beauty of the landscape—it was the contrast. Arriving at the Blackfeet Indian Reservation felt like stepping into a landscape that held both breathtaking beauty and unspoken weight. Against the vastness of the land, the stories she heard from Blackfeet elders—woven with humor, heartbreak, and endurance—echoed louder than any textbook ever had. It’s a place written about in textbooks and spoken about in classrooms, but here is a place where you feel history.

Last summer Rehka joined her parents and younger sister in Browning, Montana through Global Volunteers, a nonprofit that partners with communities around the world to support grassroots service and mutual understanding. Days began early and ended late—serving hundreds of meals at a local homeless shelter, scrubbing gym floors, staining fences, and restocking the shelves of an overburdened food pantry. But beyond the work, Rehka witnessed something that would leave a lasting imprint: the visible and invisible weight carried by the people she met.

The Blackfeet Nation is one of the largest Indigenous tribes in the United States, and their reservation—spanning more than 1.5 million acres—sits along the Canadian border, just east of Glacier National Park. Yet despite the richness of the land and culture, the community faces persistent systemic hardship. Poverty rates are well above the national average. Many families live without running water, and food is both scarce and expensive. She saw families sheltering in sheds and abandoned vehicles. A single hospital serves the entire region. Watermelons sold for twelve dollars.

The reservation, like so many Native communities, bears the long shadow of federal boarding school systems designed to dismantle Indigenous identity. Generations of Blackfeet children were removed from their homes, stripped of their language, their hair, their names. Today, the effects echo in every corner—from educational barriers to fractured family structures, from ongoing health crises to a deep mistrust of institutions.

Still, what rose to the surface wasn’t only the struggle—but the strength. Rehka saw it in grandparents raising grandchildren, in community members opening school doors that hadn’t been cleaned in months, in laughter shared during work breaks, and in the cultural knowledge passed along with every gesture. Her guide, Shanni—a skilled hunter and young mother who welcomed Rehka’s family with warmth and pride—embodied that spirit. They attended a pow wow together, a vibrant celebration of heritage, kinship, and spiritual continuity. The experience reminded Rehka that tradition is not something locked in the past—it is alive and evolving.

Service has always been woven into Rehka’s life. She supports her local food pantry, volunteers with Samaritan’s Closet, and serves as a mentor in ACEing Autism, a program that uses tennis to build connection and confidence in children on the spectrum. Her time with the Blackfeet community challenged her to think about service not just as action, but as attention—about how to bear witness, how to show up, how to honor stories that aren’t her own.

This week, Rehka will carry her experience forward with intention. In partnership with CPEJ and the History Department, she is co-developing a three-part program to be held November 18–20. The lunch session series will share historical grounding, first-hand reflection, and a current lens into how government shutdowns disproportionately affect sovereign tribal nations. The program will culminate with community-driven service opportunities.

There is no single way to hold what she experienced. She encountered a people whose culture, grace, and dignity endure despite centuries of attempted erasure. The Blackfeet’s reverence for the land, strength of family bonds, and commitment to sovereignty are not only central to their own identity—they are part of the larger fabric of American history. It is a history—and a future—that Rehka now feels called to honor, amplify, and share.