Name: John White Series presents Souta Calling Last on “Blackfoot Place Map Plots a Free-ranging Culture”
Start: 2026-02-15T14:00:00-07:00
Location: Northwest Montana History Museum

$John White Series presents Souta Calling Last on \u201cBlackfoot Place Map Plots a Free-ranging Culture\u201d$

Souta Calling Last (Blackfeet/Blood, shown third from left), who grew up in Heart Butte, has made it a mission to map significant sites of traditional Blackfoot places of creation, animal management, prehistoric presence, and more. From bison corrals to fasting shelters, and from buffalo jumps to rock art and effigies, she has spent more than 10 years mapping 1,000 sites (200 of them public) not only in Montana but in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico.
The mapping involves field visits as well as documentation via photographs, research, and writing. Calling Last will talk about how she makes her determinations, share local stories, and discuss Flathead Valley sites such as the Flathead Lake pictographs and the vortex near Columbia Falls. She also will detail a newly discovered rock-art site west of Whitefish that has drawn archaeologists from as far as Italy.
Sometimes questions of the age and authenticity of sites prompts research into symbology and dating according to ceremonies depicted, and imagery style. Some of the sites date to 12,000 years ago, others to the late 1800s. “The narrative I’m trying to change is that these sites are not so mysterious,” Calling Last says, “that they’re still part of practices implemented in various Blackfoot events like an effigy or marker.”
About the presenter: Souta Calling Last founded the nonprofit Indigenous Vision in Arizona in 2015. She holds a BA in hydrology/water resources and an MA in organization development and change management. She recently joined with managers of the renowned Bear Gulch Pictographs area in Central Montana to create a visitors’ center, for which she designed seven exhibits highlighting the Blackfoot narrative.
More info on the series: https://www.nwmthistory.org/programs/john-white-speaker-series/
Order the entire four-talk series here: https://www.flatheadtickets.com/organizations/northwest-montana-history-museum/packages
All John White Series talks are followed by social time in Hollensteiner-Stahl Hall.