James Willard Schultz
Writer, explorer, and namer of Glacier National Park features.
James Willard Schultz, or Apikuni, (August 26, 1859 – June 11, 1947) was an American writer, explorer, Glacier National Park guide, fur trader and historian of the Blackfeet Indians. He operated a fur trading post at Carroll, Montana and lived among the Pikuni tribe during the period 1880–82. He was given the name Apikuni by the Pikuni chief, Running Crane. Apikuni in Blackfeet means "Spotted Robe." Schultz is most noted for his 37 books, most about Blackfoot life, and for his contributions to the naming of prominent features in Glacier National Park.
Quick Facts
- Born
- 26 August 1859
- Birthplace
- Boonville, New York
- Died
- 11 June 1947
- Place of death
- Wind River Reservation, Wyoming
- Resting place
- Blackfeet Indian Reservation, Montana
- Other names
- Apikuni, Appekunny
Facts from the source article.
Glacier National Park
In the mid-1880s, Schultz began guiding and outfitting hunters in the Two Medicine and Saint Mary Lakes region of what is now Glacier National Park. His article "To Chief Mountain" was published in Forest and Stream in 1885, whose editor George Bird Grinnell became intrigued with Schultz and the Glacier region. Grinnell hired Schultz to outfit and guide him on a hunting trip in September 1885, during which Grinnell killed a Bighorn ram on a mountain near Upper Saint Mary Lake with a single shot. Schultz named that mountain Singleshot Mountain to honor the feat, beginning decades of his naming features for clients, friends, and traditional Indian names. Grinnell Glacier was named by Lt. John H. Beacom of the USGS in 1887, a fact verifiable in journals kept by Grinnell and Beacom; Schultz was in the group that first heard the name. Grinnell Mountain was also named by Beacom in 1887. Schultz was among a small group who named Grinnell Lake in 1887 or 1889. Other features he named include White Fish Mountain (originally Yellow Fish Mountain), Divide Mountain, Flattop Mountain, Going-to-the-Sun Mountain, and Singleshot Mountain. Several features bear his Blackfeet name: Apikuni Creek, Apikuni Flat, Apikuni Falls, and Apikuni Mountain.
Author
Schultz was 21 when he began his writing career, contributing to Forest and Stream for 15 years. His first book, the memoir My Life as an Indian, came out in 1907, when he was 48. Four years later, he partnered with publisher Houghton Mifflin, which released his work for the next three decades. In 1918, he published the novel Bird Woman, about Sacajawea, with illustrations by his son Lone Wolf, to whom the book is dedicated. Over his career, Schultz produced 37 books, both fiction and nonfiction, centered on the Blackfeet, Kootenai, and Flathead peoples. After 1902, while based in Southern California, he served as literary editor for the Los Angeles Times.
Family
Schultz's first marriage in 1879 was to Natahki (Fine Shield Woman), a Piegan Blackfeet and survivor of the Baker massacre of 1870. They had a son, Hart Merriam Schultz (Lone Wolf, 1882–1970), named after Schultz's boyhood friend Clinton Hart Merriam. Natahki died in 1903. In 1907, while living in Los Angeles as literary editor for the Los Angeles Times, Schultz married Celia Hawkins of Highland Park, Illinois; she is believed to have gone to Los Angeles in response to his advertisement for a wife. They lived in Butterfly Lodge in Greer, Arizona, starting in 1914. The Blackfoot gave her the name No-Coward Woman after an encounter with a grizzly bear. She lived with Schultz from 1907 until she left him in 1928, the period of his most extensive literary output. Their divorce was finalized in 1930, and a 1932 settlement gave her half the royalties from his pre-1930 works. Celia died in 1960. Schultz married Jessica Louise Donaldson, a teacher and later professor of English at Montana State College, who helped produce a play on Crow culture and advocated for Northern Plains Indian women. After Schultz's death, she married Henry Graham.
Death
Schultz suffered from ill health for most of his last 30 years, with lung and heart infections, a spinal injury in 1931, and broken bones from falls in 1942 and 1944. His deteriorating health reduced his ability to write and concentrate. After moving to the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming, he suffered a fatal heart attack and died on June 11, 1947. He was buried on the Blackfeet Reservation near Browning, Montana, in the old burial ground of Natahki's family.
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