Walter McClintock

Walter McClintock graduated from Yale in 1891. In 1896 he traveled west as a photographer for a federal commission investigating national forests. McClintock became friends with the expedition’s Blackfoot Indian scout, William Jackson or Siksikakoan. When the commission completed its field work, Jackson introduced McClintock to the Blackfoot community of northwestern Montana. Over the next twenty years, supported by the Blackfoot elder Mad Wolf, McClintock made several thousand photographs of the Blackfoot, their homelands, their material culture, and their ceremonies.

Like his contemporary, the photographer Edward Curtis, McClintock believed that Indian communities were undergoing swift, dramatic transformations that might obliterate their traditional culture. He sought to create a record of a life-way that might disappear. He wrote books, mounted photographic exhibitions, and delivered numerous public lectures about the Blackfeet.

His book "The Old North Trail: Life, Legends, and Religion of the Blackfeet Indians," originally published in 1910, is a record of his experiences among the Blackfeet.

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Walter was one of the first people to survey the National Park and the surrounding territory by order of Gifford Pinchot the head of the Forest Service. While he explored Montana he became intrigued by the Blackfeet Indian Tribe. He was invited to live with the Blackfeet Indians and was adopted by Chief Mad Wolf.

In recognition of the work he did in that area of our country, the Department of the Interior named a peak in Glacier National Park after him. It is called "McClintock Peak." It is in the Two Medicine Lake area which is located in the southeast corner of the park. The peak is actually several hundred feet just south of Cutbank Pass. It is a very remote area of the park, but extremely beautiful.