Blaine County Museum winter speaker series begins Thursday

The Blaine County Museum, in conjunction with Humanities Montana, will be holding a speaker series starting Thursday at 6 p.m. at the museum with a presentation on the pre-statehood history of northern Montana by historical researcher Austin Haney.

A post on the museum’s Facebook page said Haney’s lecture, titled “In the Shadow of the Bear Paws,” will discuss the often-overlooked early history of the region including its original inhabitants as well as the wandering traders, explorers and soldiers, as well as the “colorful cast of characters” that would lay the foundation for what the area became.

Haney, a University of Montana graduate, works for the National Park Service and specializes in the history of the American and Canadian west.

The second speaker in the series, Anthony W. Wood, will be at the Blaine County Library at 6 p.m. Feb. 9 to discuss his book “Black Montana: Settler Colonialism and the Erosion of the Racial Frontier, 1877-1930.”

Wood’s lecture, “Black Montana and the Stories We Tell About Ourselves” will discuss yet undeveloped history of Black Americans in the Rocky Mountain region and the importance of paying attention to the lived experience of Black Montanans and how that informs historical perspectives on settler colonialism.

Wood was a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Michigan and has worked as a historian for the Montana Historical Society and on Montana’s African American Heritage Places Project.

Both lectures are free and open to the public.

“Thanks to Humanities Montana for awarding us with an opportunity grant to sponsor these outstanding humanities lecturers,” the museum’s post said.