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Lily Gladstone made history. The Blackfeet Nation found a champion.

Lily Gladstone’s success this awards season — and her embrace of her heritage and language — is having a big impact on the Blackfeet reservation in Montana.

Theboy proudly translated for his mother the words that Lily Gladstone spoke after becomingthe first Indigenous person to win a Golden Globe for best actress, announcing to all that she hailed from the Blackfeet Nation here, where sprawling prairies meet jagged mountains known commonly as the crown of the continent and to the tribe as the backbone of the earth. Photos of Gladstone adorn a bulletin board in the office of Blackfeet Native American studies director Robert Hall, who grew up in Browningand has been hailed locally since the actress told reporters he was a “good friend” who had taught her Blackfoot words. Another is Angel Marceau, who has awed her Napi Elementary fifth-graders with memories of playing Barbies with Gladstone when they were children in East Glacier Park, 15 minutes west of Browning, the reservation’s largest town.

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