Photos by
Russel Daniels
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Information


Name: Blackfeet

Tribe: Blackfeet

Population: 10,100

Native: 91%

Counties: Rosebud,
Big Horn

Ben Yellow Owl never sat in the resister chair. He never stayed more than 24 hours, but he knows the White Buffalo Home well. If you don't believe him, go look in cells 3, 4, 5 and 6 where his name is carved into the walls.

As a 13-year-old entering the home for the first time, he was scared.

Subsequent visits, especially when he was arrested for drinking alcohol, were worse. He remembers the drunk tank, an empty room painted white that held intoxicated children for close supervision. Inside, there was no bed, no chair—nothing a child could use to injure himself. During the Blackfeet's annual Indian Days celebration, the tank would be crammed full of intoxicated children. Now it holds filing cabinets and old computer parts.

"Sometimes when I'd go in there drunk I'd freak out," Yellow Owl says. "I'd just act dumb. I'd do anything to get out of there—act sick, and just puke all over, gag myself."

Sitting in the White Buffalo Home gave Yellow Owl time to think about his actions and the direction of his life. But those thoughts floated away as he walked out the cramped double doors that serve as the home's only exit.

"It never stopped me," he says. "I was dumb. Right when I got out I'd try calling my friends. 'You guys want to get a bag?' It was pretty much a routine."

As a 15-year-old, holding his son Bryson for the first time, Yellow Owl says he thought about how things had to change. The birth of his second child, Kaydan, reinforced the point. "After I had my kids it just kind of woke me up," he says. "I realized I can't be hanging out with my friends every day getting weed and getting high and acting dumb."

But intentions aren't always followed by actions.

It wasn't until Yellow Owl enrolled in substance abuse classes and started working with the Po'ka Ranch that his life began to turn around, though even then its path hasn't always been a straight one.

Yellow Owl isn't just an employee at the ranch, he's also a client. His work only earns him a small stipend, not enough to feed his two children, but the program is helping him study for his GED, providing books and practice tests.

"I want to go to school and take classes at the college here, pretty much like everybody else," he says.

Things are getting better, but Yellow Owl still struggles. He still argues with his girlfriend. Sometimes it gets physical. Sometimes he gets high just to escape. Earlier last year he stopped coming to work for nearly seven months. Most of that time was spent drinking and smoking. But Yellow Owl is back at work. He knows his kids are counting on him.

"I want them to be the kind of kids who talk about their dad," he says. "I just want to stay on the right track and not do wrong—because of my kids."