Tim Ryan 
Tim Ryan is a member of the Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation in Northwest Montana. He attended the University of Montana where he studied earth sciences, and is a graduate of the Seattle Art Institute where he received a degree in commercial and graphic arts. He was a self-employed graphic artist for six years before accepting a position in the Tribes' Cultural Preservation Department as head of the archaeological GIS & GPS mapping and field survey for the program. Tim held this position for twelve years before founding AST Northwest, an organization dedicated to teaching and preserving his Tribe's ancestral way of life. Ancestral Skills and Technologies Northwest was born of Tim's experience with his elders and his lifelong experiences travelling the trails of his aboriginal territories.
Tim spends a great deal of time exploring the mountains in and around the Flathead Reservation, where he gathers the materials that allow him to hone his ancestral skills and technologies. Tim's goal, and the goal of AST Northwest, is to teach these same skills to subsequent generations, both tribal and non-tribal. By creating an environment that is both fun and educational, Tim encourages participants to take ownership of their own heritage and celebrate their unique culture.
AST Northwest develops interactive courses focusing on tool-making, fire building, traditional use of cordage, hides, bark, plants, as well as wilderness habitation and basic survival. All courses have solid foundations in archaeology, botany, geology, wildlife biology and ecology. Most importantly, AST Northwest teaches participants of the Tribes' history, presence, and use of their aboriginal landscapes.
Tim has participated in teaching and demonstrating these skills to students at the Salish Kootenai College, the University of Montana, and the elementary students of St.Ignatuis and Lewis and Clark school in Missoula. He also participated in community events like the Montana Natural History Center's Watershed Festival and The River Honoring sponsored by the Salish and Kootenai Tribes. Other current contracts involve cultural resource place name projects and the making of the traditional tools of our tribes’ pre- contact and pre-horse (stone tools, baskets, buckskin and hides, willow fish traps, etc.). Those contracts have been entered into with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes Cultural Preservation Department, Salish and Pend d 'Oreille Culture Committee and the Kootenai Culture Committee, Kootenai National Forest, Montana Historical Society, Montana Office of Public Instruction.
Tim's work with the Cultural Preservation Department is very extensive in the archaeological surveying, mapping and management of cultural resources found with in the aboriginal territories of the Tribes. Tim has also done a great deal of elder interviews and documentation on these areas and how they have been used culturally in the past.
