Leaving the Reservation

Charnelle Bear Medicine, 18, just graduated from Browning High School on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Northwest Montana. Her childhood wasn’t easy – she was raped by a family friend at age 4, and later molested by a female cousin – but she’s made it through high school on time, and is feeling hopeful about the future. This fall, she’ll head to the University of Montana, where Native Americans make up about 3 percent of the student body, according to the Education Department. She plans to return to the reservation after college to become a counselor. “I want to be a safe haven for kids,” she says.

Charnelle competes in hurdles at a track meet in Polson, Mont. “Sprinting is like therapy for me,” says Charnelle, who hasn’t had much luck with traditional therapy. Running is big in Browning; the gymnasium is filled with banners celebrating the high school’s cross-country championships. Harry Barnes, chairman of the Blackfeet Tribal Business Council, thinks running is in Browning students’ DNA, a legacy of the tribes’ buffalo-hunting past.

Between her races at the Polson High School track meet, Charnelle crams for her coming precalculus exam. Charnelle does OK in math, but her real passion is poetry. “She’s a really good poet,” says Katherine Bell, her AP English teacher.

Charnelle shares her anxiety about the coming weeks with her AP English teacher, Ms. Bell. This fall, she’ll head to the University of Montana, four hours from home. Though she feels academically prepared for college, she knows she’ll be homesick and worry about her mom, Charlene, who suffers from a painful joint condition that recently forced her to quit her jobs as a kitchen worker and part-time firefighter. Charlene, who struggled with alcohol in the past, refuses to take pain pills because she “wouldn’t want to get addicted.”

Charnelle discusses her coming precalculus final exam with her teacher, John Parente.

Charnelle and her boyfriend, Sean Lewis, a distance runner, wait to take their official varsity track team photograph. Before the couple started dating, Charnelle checked with her mom to make sure they weren’t related. “We have a joke around here: ‘Don’t date your cousin,’” she said. Sean, 17, will be a junior at Browning High School next year, but the couple is hoping to make the long-distance relationship work.

After track practice, Charnelle hangs out in her kitchen with her mother, Charlene Cadotte, 55, and her niece, Angel, 5, who lives with them because her father (Charnelle’s older brother) is incarcerated. Charlene says her mom, a high-school dropout who got her associate degree two years ago, is an inspiration to her. “She makes me see what’s possible,” said Charnelle.

Charnelle gazes out across her yard and laments that there is nothing to do in Browning except get into trouble. She estimates that 70 to 80 percent of her peers smoke pot or use meth. For fun, she and her friends will cruise around, play pool, or go bowling. She is looking forward to a fresh start in Missoula in the fall.

Charnelle stays after track practice ends to jump extra hurdles in preparation for the coming Montana state divisional competition. She plans to return to Browning after she graduates college, to work as a counselor to children who have been abused. But her mom, who has spent her whole life on the reservation, is urging her to “explore the world.”