BROWNING — Here on the Blackfeet Nation just east of Glacier National Park, longtime ranchers like Joe Kipp can't remember such a harsh, persistent, devastating drought like the conditions that have afflicted the area for the last half decade.

Kipp, who is Blackfeet, raises cattle on the Kipp Ranch north of Browning and said a lack of water has meant that the grass he grows for feed only saw 40% of normal growth by mid-July. In the spring, wide swaths of the wind-swept rolling prairie that makes up most of the reservation turned a dusty, burnt tan color where it would normally be green.

"I'm 65, and some of these old guys who are 70 to 80 years old are looking at these prairie potholes up here and saying 'I've never seen that go dry in my entire life,' " he said. "The buffalo pasture is

See Full Page