Vista 2020 - Page 49
t. Mary’s Mission:
Montana’s First Best Place PHOTO PROVIDED
Colleen Meyer
Historic St. Mary’s Mission Executive Director
The history of the Bitterroot Valley is rich in Indian culture. For as long as the Salish Elders tell their stories, the Salish People will know the Bitterroot Valley was their ancestral homeland. This was sacred land, where the spirits of their ancestors dwelled, and where the earth nurtured their families. In the early 1800’s Iroquois Indians from Canada found their way onto the Salish lands while trapping for the famed Hudson Bay Company. They told their new Salish
neighbors of “black robes” who buried their dead and believed in an everlasting life. Their teachings suited the Salish traditions and they became determined to have their own “black robes” in the Bitterroot Valley. Over an eight-year period, the persistent Indians sent four separate delegations over 1,500 miles to St. Louis requesting missionaries to come to their homeland. Their determination paid off when, on September 24, 1841, Father Pierre DeSmet, S.J., along with five Jesuit missionaries arrived in the Bitterroot Valley to establish St. Mary’s Mission.
