Interviews
Tribal Elders and Fire Managers Talk about Traditional Burning
and Wildland Fire
Tony Incashola
Antoine “Tony” Incashola has served as Director of the Salish-Pend d’Oreille Culture Committee since 1995. Before that, he served as Assistant Director and in other capacities since the establishment of the Culture Committee in 1975. As Director, he oversees all Culture Committee operations, from the production of books to language work, from archiving oral histories, photos, and songs to the holding of ceremonial events and wakes in the tribal Longhouse.
Mr. Incashola speaks on the Tribe’s behalf at numerous public events throughout Montana and the nation, and served as the first Native American to open a session of Congress with a prayer.
He is a veteran of the Vietnam War and a former Tribal Council member. A fluent Salish speaker, Mr. Incashola is the nephew of Pete Beaverhead, and was raised in part by his grandparents, Polassie Incashola and Agnes Woodcock Incashola, in St. Ignatius, where he still lives today.
Click on a question below to to hear Tony Incashola talk about fire and its traditional use by the Salish and Pend d'Oreille people.
Harriet Witworth &
Felicite McDonald
Harriet Adams Whitworth, or Alye, (1918-2008) was a revered Salish elder from the Valley Creek-Arlee area. As a girl, Harriet learned much from her yaya or maternal grandmother, Mary Kaltomee or Sackwoman (1845-1957). She had one son from an earlier marriage, and then was married to Fred Whitworth until his death in 2000. They had six children together. For many years, Fred worked as a guide in the Bob Marshall Wilderness, and Harriet worked as a cook on those trips. She also taught Salish in the Arlee grade school. In the 1980s and 90s, she worked as an elder advisor for the Salish-Pend d’Oreille Culture Committee.
Felicite “Jim” Sapiel Pierre McDonald (1922-2017) was a Salish elder and the Senior Translator/Advisor for the Salish-Pend d’Oreille Culture Committee. She is called "Jim" after her paternal grandfather, “Bitterroot Jim” Sapiel, who was married to Ann Calasco. Jim was raised in the Arlee area and grew up in the traditional way, gathering all the seasonal plants and going on hunting trips in the fall, when her family and others would pack over the mountains to the Seeley Lake area. She was a leader in all Salish cultural activities, from language camps to bitterroot ceremonies, from jump dances to powwows. Her beadwork and buckskin clothing are seen at every tribal cultural event. She married Louie McDonald in 1941, and together they raised twelve children.
Tony Incashola asks the questions, and his voice is also heard in this interview.
Click on a question below to to hear to hear Harriet Whitworth or Felcite McDonald talk about fire and its traditional use by Salish and Pend d' Oreille people.
Michael Durglo Sr.
Michael Louis Durglo, Sr. (1935-2015) was a Pend d’Oreille elder, raised in the traditional way along the lower Flathead River, and an active member of the Salish-Pend d’Oreille Cultural Elders Advisory Council. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Korean War. Until 2001, he was retired, having worked for over 30 years for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, primarily as a surveyor. He came out of retirement to work as a cartographer for the Tribes’ Indigenous Mapping Project, in which capacity he painstakingly created Salish-language maps of the entire aboriginal territory.
Click on a question below to to hear Michael Durglo talk about fire and its traditional use by Salish people.
Louie Adams
Louis Adams (1933-2016) was a Salish elder who, in addition to a 35-year career in forestry, served on the Tribal Council for 28 years. He was looked to on the reservation as one of the keepers of the culture and has a degree in cultural preservation from Salish Kootenai College.
Louie said “I spent most of my life on the reservation, also a lot of time in the mountains of Valley Creek, Jocko, and Placid. I also spent some time in my early years in the Bob Marshall country, with many of the old ones that are all gone. My "evening" years are being spent helping anyone requesting help on language, history, traditions, culture, whatever I can remember.”
Click on any one of the questions below to hear Louie Adams talk about fire and its traditional use by Salish people.
Eneas Vanderburg
Eneas Vanderburg (1927-2019) was a Salish elder, the grandson of Victor Vanderburg, son of Jerome & Agnes Vanderburg, and elder brother of Joe Vanderburg (see above). Born during a family hunting trip at Seeley Lake, he served in the Army during World War II. He lived at Valley Creek, near Arlee.
Click on any one of the questions below to hear Mr. Durglo talk about fire and its traditional use by Salish people.
Tony Harwood
Tony Harwood is the Fire Management Officer (FMO) and Program Manager of the Wildland Fire Program for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribe of the Flathead Reservation. In this capacity he oversees all fire management activities from prescribed burning to wildfire suppression to rehabilitation of lands after a wildfire fire, to public education. Tony grew up on the Blackfeet Reservation but has been working on the Flathead Reserevation since the 1970s.
Click on any one of the questions below to hear Mr. Harwood talk about fire management on the Flathead Reservation.
Ron Swaney
Ron Swaney is the Prescribed Fire/Fuels Officer for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation. As such, he plans and implements fuels treatments on the Reservation, using either mechanical means or prescribed fire. Fuels treatments are done for timber stand improvement purposes, to restore fire-dependent ecosystems, to reduce the threat of wildfire to homesor communities, or to improve wildlife habitat for elk, grizzly bear, and other species dependent on fire.
Click on any one of the questions below to hear Mr. Swaney talk about prescribed fire on the Flathead Reservation.
Bob McCrea
Bob McCrea is the Wildland Fire Operations Specialist. He is in charge of the dispatch of the wildland fire crews and helitack (the helicopters used in fire suppression). He has been fighting fires for 35 years. Bob's family has a history with fire fighting. His father was in forestry and fought fires. Bob got involved when he turned 18 as a smokejumper out of Missoula. Then he came back to work for the tribe. Now his kids are also fighting fire so there are at least three generations of firefighters in his family.
Click on any one of the questions to hear Mr. McCrea talk about prescribed fire on the Flathead Reservation.
Interviews
Tribal Elders and Fire Managers Talk about Traditional
Burning and Wildland Fire
Tony Incashola
Antoine “Tony” Incashola has served as Director of the Salish-Pend d’Oreille Culture Committee since 1995. Before that, he served as Assistant Director and in other capacities since the establishment of the Culture Committee in 1975. As Director, he oversees all Culture Committee operations, from the production of books to language work, from archiving oral histories, photos, and songs to the holding of ceremonial events and wakes in the tribal Longhouse.
Mr. Incashola speaks on the Tribe’s behalf at numerous public events throughout Montana and the nation, and served as the first Native American to open a session of Congress with a prayer.
He is a veteran of the Vietnam War and a former Tribal Council member. A fluent Salish speaker, Mr. Incashola is the nephew of Pete Beaverhead, and was raised in part by his grandparents, Polassie Incashola and Agnes Woodcock Incashola, in St. Ignatius, where he still lives today.
Click on a question below to to hear Tony Incashola talk about fire and its traditional use by the Salish and Pend d'Oreille people.
Harriet Witworth &
Felicite McDonald
Harriet Adams Whitworth, or Alye, (1918-2008) was a revered Salish elder from the Valley Creek-Arlee area. As a girl, Harriet learned much from her yaya or maternal grandmother, Mary Kaltomee or Sackwoman (1845-1957). She had one son from an earlier marriage, and then was married to Fred Whitworth until his death in 2000. They had six children together. For many years, Fred worked as a guide in the Bob Marshall Wilderness, and Harriet worked as a cook on those trips. She also taught Salish in the Arlee grade school. In the 1980s and 90s, she worked as an elder advisor for the Salish-Pend d’Oreille Culture Committee.
Felicite “Jim” Sapiel Pierre McDonald (1922-2017) was a Salish elder and the Senior Translator/Advisor for the Salish-Pend d’Oreille Culture Committee. She is called "Jim" after her paternal grandfather, “Bitterroot Jim” Sapiel, who was married to Ann Calasco. Jim was raised in the Arlee area and grew up in the traditional way, gathering all the seasonal plants and going on hunting trips in the fall, when her family and others would pack over the mountains to the Seeley Lake area. She was a leader in all Salish cultural activities, from language camps to bitterroot ceremonies, from jump dances to powwows. Her beadwork and buckskin clothing are seen at every tribal cultural event. She married Louie McDonald in 1941, and together they raised twelve children.
Tony Incashola asks the questions, and his voice is also heard in this interview.
Click on a question below to to hear to hear Harriet Whitworth or Felcite McDonald talk about fire and its traditional use by Salish and Pend d' Oreille people.
Michael Durglo Sr.
Michael Louis Durglo, Sr. (1935-2015) was a Pend d’Oreille elder, raised in the traditional way along the lower Flathead River, and an active member of the Salish-Pend d’Oreille Cultural Elders Advisory Council. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Korean War. Until 2001, he was retired, having worked for over 30 years for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, primarily as a surveyor. He came out of retirement to work as a cartographer for the Tribes’ Indigenous Mapping Project, in which capacity he painstakingly created Salish-language maps of the entire aboriginal territory.
Click on a question below to to hear Michael Durglo talk about fire and its traditional use by Salish people.
Louie Adams
Louis Adams (1933-2016) was a Salish elder who, in addition to a 35-year career in forestry, served on the Tribal Council for 28 years. He was looked to on the reservation as one of the keepers of the culture and has a degree in cultural preservation from Salish Kootenai College.
Louie said “I spent most of my life on the reservation, also a lot of time in the mountains of Valley Creek, Jocko, and Placid. I also spent some time in my early years in the Bob Marshall country, with many of the old ones that are all gone. My "evening" years are being spent helping anyone requesting help on language, history, traditions, culture, whatever I can remember.”
Click on any one of the questions below to hear Louie Adams talk about fire and its traditional use by Salish people.
Eneas Vanderburg
Eneas Vanderburg (1927-2019) was a Salish elder, the grandson of Victor Vanderburg, son of Jerome & Agnes Vanderburg, and elder brother of Joe Vanderburg (see above). Born during a family hunting trip at Seeley Lake, he served in the Army during World War II. He lived at Valley Creek, near Arlee.
Click on any one of the questions below to hear Mr. Durglo talk about fire and its traditional use by Salish people.
Tony Harwood
Tony Harwood is the Fire Management Officer (FMO) and Program Manager of the Wildland Fire Program for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribe of the Flathead Reservation. In this capacity he oversees all fire management activities from prescribed burning to wildfire suppression to rehabilitation of lands after a wildfire fire, to public education. Tony grew up on the Blackfeet Reservation but has been working on the Flathead Reserevation since the 1970s.
Click on any one of the questions below to hear Mr. Harwood talk about fire management on the Flathead Reservation.
Ron Swaney
Ron Swaney is the Prescribed Fire/Fuels Officer for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation. As such, he plans and implements fuels treatments on the Reservation, using either mechanical means or prescribed fire. Fuels treatments are done for timber stand improvement purposes, to restore fire-dependent ecosystems, to reduce the threat of wildfire to homesor communities, or to improve wildlife habitat for elk, grizzly bear, and other species dependent on fire.
Click on any one of the questions below to hear Mr. Swaney talk about prescribed fire on the Flathead Reservation.
Bob McCrea
Bob McCrea is the Wildland Fire Operations Specialist. He is in charge of the dispatch of the wildland fire crews and helitack (the helicopters used in fire suppression). He has been fighting fires for 35 years. Bob's family has a history with fire fighting. His father was in forestry and fought fires. Bob got involved when he turned 18 as a smokejumper out of Missoula. Then he came back to work for the tribe. Now his kids are also fighting fire so there are at least three generations of firefighters in his family.
Click on any one of the questions to hear Mr. McCrea talk about prescribed fire on the Flathead Reservation.
Interviews
Tribal Elders and Fire Managers Talk about
Traditional Burning and Wildland Fire
Tony Incashola
Antoine “Tony” Incashola has served as Director of the Salish-Pend d’Oreille Culture Committee since 1995. Before that, he served as Assistant Director and in other capacities since the establishment of the Culture Committee in 1975. As Director, he oversees all Culture Committee operations, from the production of books to language work, from archiving oral histories, photos, and songs to the holding of ceremonial events and wakes in the tribal Longhouse.
Mr. Incashola speaks on the Tribe’s behalf at numerous public events throughout Montana and the nation, and served as the first Native American to open a session of Congress with a prayer.
He is a veteran of the Vietnam War and a former Tribal Council member. A fluent Salish speaker, Mr. Incashola is the nephew of Pete Beaverhead, and was raised in part by his grandparents, Polassie Incashola and Agnes Woodcock Incashola, in St. Ignatius, where he still lives today.
Click on a question below to to hear Tony Incashola talk about fire and its traditional use by the Salish and Pend d'Oreille people.
Harriet Witworth &
Felicite McDonald
Harriet Adams Whitworth, or Alye, (1918-2008) was a revered Salish elder from the Valley Creek-Arlee area. As a girl, Harriet learned much from her yaya or maternal grandmother, Mary Kaltomee or Sackwoman (1845-1957). She had one son from an earlier marriage, and then was married to Fred Whitworth until his death in 2000. They had six children together. For many years, Fred worked as a guide in the Bob Marshall Wilderness, and Harriet worked as a cook on those trips. She also taught Salish in the Arlee grade school. In the 1980s and 90s, she worked as an elder advisor for the Salish-Pend d’Oreille Culture Committee.
Felicite “Jim” Sapiel Pierre McDonald (1922-2017) was a Salish elder and the Senior Translator/Advisor for the Salish-Pend d’Oreille Culture Committee. She is called "Jim" after her paternal grandfather, “Bitterroot Jim” Sapiel, who was married to Ann Calasco. Jim was raised in the Arlee area and grew up in the traditional way, gathering all the seasonal plants and going on hunting trips in the fall, when her family and others would pack over the mountains to the Seeley Lake area. She was a leader in all Salish cultural activities, from language camps to bitterroot ceremonies, from jump dances to powwows. Her beadwork and buckskin clothing are seen at every tribal cultural event. She married Louie McDonald in 1941, and together they raised twelve children.
Tony Incashola asks the questions, and his voice is also heard in this interview.
Click on a question below to to hear to hear Harriet Whitworth or Felcite McDonald talk about fire and its traditional use by Salish and Pend d' Oreille people.
Michael Durglo Sr.
Michael Louis Durglo, Sr. (1935-2015) was a Pend d’Oreille elder, raised in the traditional way along the lower Flathead River, and an active member of the Salish-Pend d’Oreille Cultural Elders Advisory Council. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Korean War. Until 2001, he was retired, having worked for over 30 years for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, primarily as a surveyor. He came out of retirement to work as a cartographer for the Tribes’ Indigenous Mapping Project, in which capacity he painstakingly created Salish-language maps of the entire aboriginal territory.
Click on a question below to to hear Michael Durglo talk about fire and its traditional use by Salish people.
Louie Adams
Louis Adams (1933-2016) was a Salish elder who, in addition to a 35-year career in forestry, served on the Tribal Council for 28 years. He was looked to on the reservation as one of the keepers of the culture and has a degree in cultural preservation from Salish Kootenai College.
Louie said “I spent most of my life on the reservation, also a lot of time in the mountains of Valley Creek, Jocko, and Placid. I also spent some time in my early years in the Bob Marshall country, with many of the old ones that are all gone. My "evening" years are being spent helping anyone requesting help on language, history, traditions, culture, whatever I can remember.”
Click on any one of the questions below to hear Louie Adams talk about fire and its traditional use by Salish people.
Eneas Vanderburg
Eneas Vanderburg (1927-2019) was a Salish elder, the grandson of Victor Vanderburg, son of Jerome & Agnes Vanderburg, and elder brother of Joe Vanderburg (see above). Born during a family hunting trip at Seeley Lake, he served in the Army during World War II. He lived at Valley Creek, near Arlee.
Click on any one of the questions below to hear Mr. Durglo talk about fire and its traditional use by Salish people.
Tony Harwood
Tony Harwood is the Fire Management Officer (FMO) and Program Manager of the Wildland Fire Program for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribe of the Flathead Reservation. In this capacity he oversees all fire management activities from prescribed burning to wildfire suppression to rehabilitation of lands after a wildfire fire, to public education. Tony grew up on the Blackfeet Reservation but has been working on the Flathead Reserevation since the 1970s.
Click on any one of the questions below to hear Mr. Harwood talk about fire management on the Flathead Reservation.
Ron Swaney
Ron Swaney is the Prescribed Fire/Fuels Officer for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation. As such, he plans and implements fuels treatments on the Reservation, using either mechanical means or prescribed fire. Fuels treatments are done for timber stand improvement purposes, to restore fire-dependent ecosystems, to reduce the threat of wildfire to homesor communities, or to improve wildlife habitat for elk, grizzly bear, and other species dependent on fire.
Click on any one of the questions below to hear Mr. Swaney talk about prescribed fire on the Flathead Reservation.
Bob McCrea
Bob McCrea is the Wildland Fire Operations Specialist. He is in charge of the dispatch of the wildland fire crews and helitack (the helicopters used in fire suppression). He has been fighting fires for 35 years. Bob's family has a history with fire fighting. His father was in forestry and fought fires. Bob got involved when he turned 18 as a smokejumper out of Missoula. Then he came back to work for the tribe. Now his kids are also fighting fire so there are at least three generations of firefighters in his family.
Click on any one of the questions to hear Mr. McCrea talk about prescribed fire on the Flathead Reservation.
© 2021 Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes   |  Contact Us
© 2021 Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes   |  Contact Us