2026 | COMMUNITY PERSPECTIVES TALK | The Art of Fire: Tribal Burning on the Northwest Landscape
September 17 @ 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Join us for a Community Perspectives Talk with Spokane-based author Jack Nisbet
Thursday, September 17, 2026
The Art of Fire: Tribal Burning on the Northwest Landscape
4:00 – 5:00 pm
Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art WSU
Join Spokane-based teacher and naturalist Jack Nisbet for a presentation of fur trade era paintings that demonstrate how Plateau and Coastal peoples used intentional burning to manage the landscapes around them. With tribal oral accounts and early journal observations for context, we will explore details from these early artworks to shed light on relevant landscapes from The Mirror that Nature Holds: From the Collections of Jordan Schnitzer and His Family Foundation.
Community Perspectives Talks & Tours invite individuals from our campus and wider community to speak about their unique interpretation of several works in the current exhibitions, charting connections among art, personal experience, and different disciplines.
About the Speaker | Spokane-based author Jack Nisbet has written several collections of essays that explore the human and natural history of the Columbia River drainage, as well as award-winning biographies of cartographer David Thompson, naturalist David Douglas, and homesteader/forest surveyor/physician couple John and Carrie Leiberg. The Mapmaker’s Eye: David Thompson on the Columbia Plateau and David Douglas: A Naturalist at Work are published by WSU Press. In 2018, the Washington State Historical Society awarded Nisbet the Robert Gray medal for significant and long-term contributions to Northwest history. For more information visit www.jacknisbet.com
Image Credit | James Madison Alden, “Kootenai Falls”, 1860, National Archives
Location & Parking
The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art WSU is located in the Crimson Cube (on Wilson Road across from Martin Stadium and the CUB) on the WSU Pullman campus. Hourly parking is available in the Smith Center Garage off Stadium Way. For more information please see the museum’s Visit page.
