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Piegan Blackfeet man on a horse with travois, Glacier National Park, Montana, between 1912 and 1915 (AL+CA 3438)
Summary
Part of the "See American First" Great Northern Railway National Park Route photogravure series.
Caption on print: A Blackfeet Indian travois - The original American's first mode of transportation. Glacier National Park, Montana. See America First. Also printed with the "See American First" Great Northern Railway National Park Route logo.
PH Coll 465.8
These images were almost certainly made between the years 1912 and 1915, when the Great Northern Railway was encouraging tourism through the "See America First- Great Northern Railway - National Park Route" promotional campaign. Louis W. Hill, President of the Great Northern, was eager to promote tourism in the newly created Glacier National Park, primarily because his was the only rail line servicing the area. As part of this effort, he created an extensive promotional campaign that attached the Great Northern Railway logo and branding to the "See America First" slogan first espoused by Stanford Harris of Salt Lake City from 1905-1909.
Subjects (LCTGM): Travois--Montana; Horses--Montana
Subjects (LCSH): Piegan Indians--Montana--Glacier National Park; Glacier National Park (Mont.); ;
The basic construction consists of a platform or netting mounted on two long poles, lashed in the shape of an elongated isosceles triangle; the frame was dragged with the sharply pointed end forward. Sometimes the blunt end of the frame was stabilized by a third pole bound across the two poles. The travois was dragged by hand, sometimes fitted with a shoulder harness for more efficient dragging, or dragged by dogs or horses (after the 16th-century introduction of horses by the Spanish). A travois could either be loaded by piling goods atop the bare frame and tying them in place, or by first stretching cloth or leather over the frame to hold the load to be dragged. Although considered more primitive than wheel-based forms of transport, on the type of territory where the travois was used (forest floors, soft soil, snow, etc.), rather than roadways, wheels would have encountered difficulties which would have made them less efficient. As such the travois was employed by coureurs des bois in New France's fur trade with the Plains Tribes. It is possible for a person to transport more weight on a travois than can be carried on the back.
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