Saint Ignatius Mission

The brick church that rises above the small town of Saint Ignatius on the Flathead Indian Reservation is one of the most visually striking buildings in Montana. Jesuit missionaries built the current structure between eighteen ninety-one and eighteen ninety-three, and the interior is covered in fifty-eight murals painted by Brother Joseph Carignano, a self-taught cook and carpenter at the mission. Working with house paint and simple tools, Carignano depicted biblical scenes across the ceiling and walls over more than a decade.

The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes have maintained a complex relationship with the mission since its founding in eighteen fifty-four: it brought literacy and medical care, but also suppression of language and ceremony. Both histories coexist at the site today.