Podcasts about Navajo

“Turquoise Waters” was first published in Women of the Weird West, edited by KC Grifant, in 2026 C/W: guns, misogyny, strong violence Author's note: “I lived in New Mexico for six years where I taught Navajo, Zuni, and Hobi students in the Four Corners region. Growing up a fan of westerns, I longed to know about the other people in the West. You can read more weird… Source

In this episode, Granddaughter Crow shares insights into Navajo philosophy, the elements, and how indigenous wisdom can help us find harmony and balance in modern life. Kimberly and Granddaughter Crow explore the connection with nature, the spiritual significance of fire, water, earth, and air, and practical ways to incorporate these teachings into daily routines.Chapters00:00 Introduction to the Success Wound02:54 Cultural Influences on Self-Worth05:58 The Archetypes of Success Wound09:02 The Grinder and the Pleaser12:04 The Hider and the Impact of Motherhood15:06 Navigating Ambition and Personal Power18:08 Finding Your North Star19:32 The Journey of Writing and Self-Discovery22:05 Navigating Vulnerability and Intentions in Publishing25:49 The Archetypes of Success and Their Impact29:30 Healing the Success Wound: Emotional and Behavioral Strategies34:41 Finding Wholeness Through Connection and AbundanceSponsors: ANIMA MUNDI OFFER: Anima Mundi is giving Feel Good Podcast listeners there largest discount of the year. It's a great opportunity to treat yourself or a friend to some soothing self-care by going to Anima Mundi Herbals DOT com and use the code: SOLLUNA20 for 20% off your purchase. Again, that's Anima Mundi Herbals, A-N-I-M-A M-U-N-D-I H-E-R-B-A-L-S DOT com and use code: SOLLUNA20 for 20% off your order. USE LINK AnimaMundiHerbals.com and use the code: SOLLUNA20 for 20% off your purchase. LMNTOFFER: Right now, for my listeners LMNT is offering a free sample pack with any LMNT drink mix purchase at DrinkLMNT.com/FEELGOOD. That's 8 single serving packets FREE with any LMNT drink mix purchase. This deal is only available through my link so. Also try the new LMNT Sparkling — a bold, 16-ounce can of sparkling electrolyte water.USE LINK: DrinkLMNT.com/FEELGOODGranddaughter Crow Resources: Book: Hózho: A Navajo Nation Medicine Woman's Exploration of the Four Bodies of Existence for Balance and Self-ReclamationWebsite: granddaughtercrow.comBio: Granddaughter Crow (Dr. Joy Gray) is the author of Hózho, Shamanism and Your Shadow, Wisdom of the Natural World, and Shamanism for Beginners. She holds a doctorate in leadership and is internationally recognized as a medicine woman. Granddaughter Crow comes from a long line of spiritual leaders as a member of the Navajo Nation. She is an award-winning author and a bridge for wisdom and transformation between the Indigenous native worldview and modern Western worldview.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Even after learning her clinical skills at Stanford School of Medicine and becoming a practicing surgeon, Lori Arviso Alvord (Diné) realized she had more to learn about being a healer. She sought out the wisdom of her tribe's cultural healers to help her understand how to treat the whole person. That guidance remains one of the driving factors in her current surgical practice near the Yakama Nation in Washington. Her groundbreaking story as the first female Navajo surgeon is recounted in her memoir, “The Scalpel and the Silver Bear“, and is an inspiration for the generations of prospective Native American medical practitioners.

A single headline can make you feel like you already know the truth, and that's exactly why we slow down and read the fine print. We start with a Santa Fe ICE arrests story that's framed as a crackdown in a “sensitive place,” then we dig into the details the framing leaves out: how serious allegations can fall apart, how “failure by prosecutor” shows up in real cases, and why politicians rush to score points instead of fixing the system that failed victims in the first place.Then we shift to New Mexico politics and campaign reality, including a governor poll that claims a huge gap but uses choices that can distort results. We explain why polling methodology matters (online-only surveys, registered vs likely voters, and inflated undecided numbers) and how candidates can get dragged into the loudest issue in the room, even when state law and the legislature set the limits.From there, we head west to California for two stories that hit free speech and your wallet: the AB 2624 “Nick Shirley Act” concerns about investigative journalism and fraud exposure, plus a new tire regulation that could push 70% of today's tires off the market by 2033. We connect it to the broader energy and cost-of-living squeeze, then zoom out to national politics, shifting approval numbers, and early 2028 matchup polling as trendlines.We close with energy, including New Mexico's role in oil, gas, uranium enrichment, and the case for expanding nuclear power, plus a feel-good New Mexico sports story: Shias Pete and a Navajo milestone with the Dallas Cowboys. If you got value from this, subscribe, share the show, and leave a review. What part of this conversation hit closest to home for you?Website: https://www.nodoubtaboutitpodcast.com/Twitter: @nodoubtpodcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/NoDoubtAboutItPod/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/markronchettinm/?igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ%3D%3D

FBI Director Kash Patel met with tribal law enforcement partners in Albuquerque, New Mexico last week. The visit comes on the heels of the agency launching a new tool to raise public awareness over missing and murdered Indigenous cases. KJZZ's Gabriel Pietrorazio has details. It is called Voices Not Forgotten, a webpage featuring select, unsolved crimes across Indian Country where the FBI is seeking the public's help by offering $25,000 minimum rewards. That includes the high-profile homicides in Arizona of Maleeka “Mollie” Boone and Emily Pike. But as Deiandra Reid with the Albuquerque nonprofit Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women notes, this tool is not exhaustive. “You know, I looked at this website that they have, and I didn't see my sister on there.” Twenty-two years ago, Navajo teenager Tiffany Reid went missing while walking to high school in Shiprock, New Mexico. Decades prior, a 9-year-old Navajo girl disappeared from nearby Gallup, New Mexico. “Anthonette Cayedito is on there, and she's [been] missing for about 40 years, so I don't see what the difference is between her case and my sister's case. And a lot of times, our relatives fall through the cracks. The visibility is very important, but it's not the finish line.” The Pinyon Plain Mine, as seen from the air in November 2019, is owned and operated by Energy Fuels Inc., which has extensive Canadian roots: (Photo: Ryan Heinsius / KNAU) There has been a surge of mining companies looking to dig for minerals in the Southwest, including near tribal communities. KNAU's Chris Clements explains why so many of these companies are Canadian. It boils down to this: Canada has a unique tax system that allows mining companies that are exploring projects to pass their costs along to investors. John Steen, a professor at the University of British Columbia, says Canada is home to hundreds of those companies. “They’re hearing that the regulatory regime is, you know, maybe as not as tight as it was, and they’re seeing the U.S. as an attractive place for investment and exploration.” Steen says Canadian firms are responding to President Donald Trump's push to end reliance on China for critical minerals. Take Chakana Copper, which is using a subsidiary to explore mining copper on the Navajo Nation. Or Laramide Resources, which wants to mine uranium near the site of the largest release of radioactive mining material in U-S history. James Hopkins, an associate professor at the University of Arizona, says the reason for that is due in part to the rollback of mining regulations. And that's had consequences. “The growth in uranium mining in the United States is unprecedented. With the increased deregulation, you’re seeing these conflicts arising more and more with respect to tribal lands and tribal resources.” Hopkins says the flurry of mining projects, including some proposed by Canadian companies, is causing pushback from tribes who have long borne the environmental consequences of mining. Opponents of a proposed project to drill for uranium in the southern Black Hills listen to a meeting of the Board of Minerals and Environment at the Joe Foss Building in Pierre, South Dakota, Aug. 20, 2026. (Photo: Meghan O'Brien / South Dakota Searchlight) The South Dakota Board of Minerals and Environment took actions affecting two proposed uranium projects in the Black Hills. South Dakota Searchlight's Meghan O'Brien has more. The Dewey-Burdock Project has been on hold for more than a decade. Project leaders want to mine for uranium near Edgemont in the southern Black Hills. Uranium is a metallic, radioactive element used as fuel in nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants. Interest in uranium exploration and mining has risen recently. That is in response to nuclear energy's potential to supply electricity for data centers. The project needs federal, state, and local permitting. After being held up by legal challenges, it secured the remaining federal permits it needs and will start seeking state permits. The Board of Minerals and Environment approved a socioeconomic study, which will help the board understand the economic, environmental, and community impacts of the project. The board also continued discussions on a separate request to drill holes in search of uranium near Craven Canyon, in the same general area of the southern Black Hills. A new state law requires the board to have language interpretation services available at hearings for those who need it, such as Lakota speakers. Some of the project opponents are members of Lakota tribes. A lawsuit by a project opponent against the board alleges it violated due process because an interpreter was not available on the first day of a May permit hearing. The lawsuit is ongoing in federal court and the hearing is on hold. Opponents to the drilling project say it could endanger the canyon walls which are lined with ancient Native American petroglyphs. Others say Native American spiritual practices at the site could be disrupted and the drilling could endanger local water sources. Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out today’s Native America Calling episode Monday, August 24, 2026 — Native in the Spotlight: Dr. Lori Arviso Alvord

Dallas Cowboys insider Mickey Spagnola breaks down preseason standouts, including Joe Milton III's impressive composure and Barham's immediate defensive impact. They also discuss George Pickens' growth in his second year and the heartwarming support for Petey from the Navajo Nation.

Kappy talks about his late radio parter Billy Ray Smith Jr.'s Celebration of Life over the weekend and the awkward encounter he had with the Spanos Family. Also, Dan Orlavsky has an intersting take about Rams QB Stetson Bennett and where he should play? Kappy has a fascinating story about a player from the Dallas Cowboys of Navajo descent his name is Shiyazh Pete. This guy has got to make the team! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Photo: Voters at the Black Coal Senior Center say they are voting for tribal candidates and those that support tribal programs like public transportation. (Melodie Edwards / Wyoming Public Radio) Voters in Alaska were not the only ones heading to the polls this week. Primaries were also held Tuesday in Florida and Wyoming. In Wyoming, some voters on the Wind River Reservation told Wyoming Public Radio that transportation to polling places remains an issue. Voters also expressed a desire for more tribal candidates and greater representation of Native culture in schools. Statewide, U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyoming, won her party’s nomination for U.S. Senate. In Florida, state Rep. Angie Nixon, D-Jacksonville, scored an upset in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary, defeating former national security official Alexander Vindman. Nixon will face Republican Senator Ashley Moody in November. U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Florida, also won his party’s nomination for Florida governor. California voters also went to the polls Tuesday in a special congressional election. Dallas Cowboys rookie Shiyazh Pete. (Courtesy University of Kentucky Athletics) It is NFL preseason and the Arizona Cardinals will take on the Dallas Cowboys this Saturday in Glendale, Ariz. As KJZZ's Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, you might see a Navajo rookie take the field at State Farm Stadium. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is optimistic for this season. “I'm even more excited today than I was when we started camp, that our team is going to be one that, if we can have some things go right for us, avoid some injury. We could really be something.” Among those fighting to make the Cowboys' roster is undrafted free agent Shiyazh Pete, who is believed to be the first Navajo player to sign an NFL contract. “I was quite, quite a specimen. I mean, really, didn't really have no one to kind of relate to in terms of height. I've always been asked questions of, you know, how tall are you? How's the weather up there?” Originally from Montana, the 6-foot-8 300-pound offensive lineman went to Shiprock High School on the Navajo Nation. He then walked on at New Mexico State University before transferring to the University of Kentucky, eventually signing with the Cowboys this spring. “It's a great honor – to put on the star is again surreal. But again, I have to earn that star. I wouldn't say I'm an official Cowboy yet.” But Pete has that chance to prove he belongs on “America's Team”. Robert Nutlouis stands in a completed hogan in Navajo Nation. (Courtesy WGBH Educational Foundation) A new PBS documentary is highlighting Indigenous scientific knowledge developed and passed down over thousands of years. The NOVA special “Knowledge Keepers” explores how Native communities have used observation, experimentation, and relationships with the natural world to develop approaches to science. The film looks at practices ranging from ancient sea farming and celestial navigation in the Arctic to ways of adapting to the harsh climate of the desert Southwest. The documentary also examines efforts by Indigenous knowledge keepers to preserve those practices and how that knowledge could help address challenges today. “Knowledge Keepers” was produced in partnership with Vision Maker Media and directed by Fort Yuma Quechan filmmaker Daniel Golding. It premieres September 23 on PBS. Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out today’s Native America Calling episode Friday, August 21, 2026 — Native Hawaiians keeping cultural connections to surfing

Backlash over privacy concerns continues to grow across the country against the use of law enforcement surveillance cameras. The automatic license plate readers, led by private security company Flock Safety, are proliferating as officials look to maximize public safety and traffic violation enforcement. The Navajo Nation is now installing hundreds of Flock cameras to support public safety on its 27,000-square-mile reservation that is notoriously difficult to patrol. Navajo leaders say the cameras will both curb traffic infractions and aid criminal investigations. But as the use of cameras grows, so does criticism by the public. Several cities are now cancelling contracts to use the cameras. Some Navajo Nation citizens say the trade-off is too great. We’ll hear what these cameras could mean for tribes hoping to boost public safety. We’ll also hear from University of Arizona professor Stephanie Russo Carroll, a leading authority on Indigenous data sovereignty and policy. Carroll is developing frameworks for how tribal data should be protected. Recently she helped develop a policy that regulates how the public health data of tribes in Arizona is collected, shared, and used on the state level. GUESTS Carl Slater (Diné), Navajo Nation council delegate Brandon Benallie (Diné and Hopi), cybersecurity expert Stephanie Russo Carroll (Native Village of Kluti-Kaah), associate professor at the University of Arizona and co-director of the Indigenous Data Alliance Break 1 Music: Obsidian (song) Red-209 (artist) Break 2 Music: Another Night to Cry (song) Blue Moon Marquee (artist) Scream, Holler, and Howl (album)

Photo: A house floated by floodwaters during ex-Typhoon Halong rests on top of a snowmachine in Tuntutuliak on October 22, 2025. (Gabby Salgado / KYUK) The State of Alaska is working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other agencies to collect what are known as Right of Entry forms from households impacted by ex-Typhoon Halong, as KYUK's Evan Erickson reports. The form is required for getting certain types of assistance with winterization and debris removal. It allows authorized recovery agencies to enter properties to inspect, document, and complete recovery work. Completing the form does not guarantee that work will be performed. The form is for households both that may need or have already received assistance in the forms of emergency winterization of storm-damaged homes; temporary weatherproofing or securing openings; moisture control or minor temporary repairs; limited heat or fuel-related stabilization; and/or certain types of private property debris removal. Gallup Indian Medical Center. (Courtesy Gallup Indian Medical Center / Facebook) The Navajo Area Indian Health Services and the New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH) have signed a memorandum of agreement to support rural health initiatives through data sharing. KUNM's Jeanette DeDios (Jicarilla Apache and Diné) has more. Dr. Laura Parajón, director of the Center for Health Protection at NMDOH, says the coordination between the state and the Navajo Nation is crucial. “It’s important that Navajo Nation has the same access to high-quality data that we do, that they get similar data that allows Navajo Nation themselves to conduct their own analysis, and that they can design their own culturally meaningful public health interventions for themselves.” The agreement is a first step in partnership between state and tribal public health departments to make sharing information easier and filling gaps in data. It will help better identify unmet needs, coordinate care, and monitor outcomes. NMDOH Tribal liaison Janet Johnson (Santa Clara Pueblo) says tribal leaders need to be able to access data instantly, such as a system used to track sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV. “And that will help Navajo Area Indian Health Service support their public health surveillance, and give them again that real-time access to see where these outbreaks are occurring, what they need to do and again with our support to be able to better address any issues and concerns that are affecting their populations.” The current agreement does not include any state appropriations. Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren, left, Gov. Katie Hobbs, and Hopi Chairman Lamar Keevama sign a memorandum of understanding for coal-impacted communities at the Desert Botanical Garden on August 11, 2026. (Photo: Connor Greenwall) Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ) announced an economic agreement Tuesday with northern Arizona tribal leaders. It is meant to bolster the Four Corners region – at a time when the coal industry is in decline. KJZZ's Gabriel Pietrorazio has more. The Memorandum of Understanding is between the Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe, and the state – all of which are vulnerable to coal mines and power plants shutting down. That includes the Four Corners plant, which could close by 2031. The Navajo-owned company that fuels the aging facility recently announced plans to extend the life of a massive coal mine by more than a century, but with coal giving way to cleaner, more efficient fuels, state, and tribal leaders are coming together to ink a five-year commitment to track closures and promote the wellbeing of coal miners. Map of the several villages in Kaskaskia, Ill. with part of the Mississippi River from 1851 by Thomas Hutchins. On this day in 1803, the Kaskaskia Tribe signed a treaty with the United States at Vincennes in the Indiana Territory. Under the agreement, the Kaskaskia ceded most of their lands in what is now Illinois to the U.S. The treaty provided the tribe with reserved lands, annual payments, and other assistance. The agreement was negotiated for the United States by territorial governor William Henry Harrison, who later became president. Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out today’s Native America Calling episode August 13, 2026 — Pathways Indigenous Arts Festival grows its presence and influence

Send us a text and chime in!The U.S. Small Business Administration is reminding eligible small businesses and private nonprofit organizations impacted by the flooding and heavy rains occurring Sept. 25 – Oct. 13, 2025, to apply for low-interest federal economic injury disaster loans before the deadline. Eligible Counties Arizona: Coconino, Gila, Graham, Maricopa, Navajo, Pinal, and Yavapai Who Can Apply Small businesses Private nonprofits & faith-based organizations Small agricultural cooperatives Small aquaculture enterprises Loan Assistance Available Economic Injury Disaster Loans: Working capital assistance for operational expenses caused by the disaster. Key Loan Details Up to million in loan funding Interest rates as low as 4%...   For the written story, read here >> https://www.signalsaz.com/articles/sba-reminds-arizona-businesses-of-sept-8-deadline/ Check out the CAST11.com Website at: https://CAST11.com Follow the CAST11 Podcast Network on Facebook at: https://Facebook.com/CAST11AZFollow Cast11 Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/cast11_podcast_network

What are people really encountering on Navajo land—and why do these sightings feel so biologically wrong? In this deep dive, we break down one of the most disturbing pieces of horror lore ever reported: Skinwalkers. This video explores the film lore explained, eyewitness accounts, and the science of horror movies through the lens of creature biology, speculative biology, and real-world physiology. If you've ever wondered how something could mimic human behavior but move like a broken organism, this is your horror movie explained moment. We start by unpacking the origins of Skinwalker lore—what these entities are said to be, how they supposedly transform, and why their behavior aligns with something far more parasitic or neurological than supernatural. From there, we shift into a full horror science breakdown, analyzing how a being could theoretically alter its morphology, voice, and movement patterns. Could extreme neurological disorders, prion-like infections, or invasive parasites explain the unnatural movements and distorted anatomy described in encounters? Thank you for watching Roanoke Tales! Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/RoanokeTalesPatreon Roanoke Gaming: https://www.youtube.com/@UCs8lYkna2S6DkcHO9o2008A Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/roanokegaming/ Twitter: https://x.com/RoannokeGaming Thank you for watching Roanoke tales Wendigo illustration made by Tania Sanchez-Fortun. Here are the links! Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/tania_sanchezfortun_art/ Cara ; https://cara.app/tsanchezfortun Artstation : https://www.artstation.com/taniasanchezfortun Go and check out his work! This is where monster anatomy analysis and creature biology explained take center stage. We explore how muscle fiber misfiring, joint instability, and altered motor control could create the jerky, inhuman movement patterns witnesses describe. Could something hijack the nervous system to produce mimicry of human speech? What happens if a pathogen rewires vocal cords or brain regions responsible for language? From an evolutionary perspective, we dive into creature evolution and ask: what kind of environmental pressures would favor an organism capable of mimicry and deception at this level? In nature, we already see examples—parasites that control host behavior, animals that mimic sounds, and predators that exploit neurological blind spots. But Skinwalkers take this to an extreme, pushing into territory that feels like a biological impossibility—until you start connecting the dots. #Skinwalker #HorrorScience #CreatureBiology

On this week's interview Paul sits down with Vern Lund, the CEO of Navajo Transitional Energy Company (NTEC). You may have never heard of NTEC, but it is a big deal both in New Mexico's energy sector as well as economically on the Navajo Nation. What is NTEC and what does it do? What is its involvement in the Four Corners Power Plant (a coal power plant) and other current and future energy projects? If you care about energy (and if you have been using your AC this summer, you should) this conversation is worth it! 

Photo: The Colorado River near Lees Ferry, Colo. in May 2026. (Chris Clements / KNAU) The states that share the Colorado River have a new federal framework in place for managing the embattled waterway, but as KNAU's Chris Clements reports, the impact of the U.S. government’s strategy on tribal nations is less clear. The new framework from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation could result in steep cuts to the Central Arizona Project, a delivery system for Colorado River water. That worries some tribal leaders like Orlando Carroll, chairman of the White Mountain Apache Tribe in eastern Arizona. “We definitely would be concerned of any cutbacks that are generated.” Under a federal settlement, Carroll's tribe can lease its share of water from the river, but at least his tribe's water rights have been spelled out. Other tribes, like the Navajo, Hopi, and San Juan Southern Paiute are watching the U.S. put out a Colorado River management plan for the states, while their own water rights in Arizona remain unquantified. Brenda Jesus is a Navajo Nation council delegate. “I just don’t understand that they’ve gotten their water rights decree, yet in the year 2026, the Navajo Nation doesn’t have any.” A settlement to give the Navajo Nation its water rights in Arizona is still under consideration in Congress. Golden king crab season runs from August 1, 2026 to April 30, 2027. (Courtesy Ethan Nichols / Alaska Department of Fish and Game Golden king crab season opened on Saturday in the Aleutian Islands. This year, the total allowable catch for the region is 13% higher than it was last season, as Katie Reuther reports from KUCB. Ethan Nichols is an Area Management Biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG) based in Dutch Harbor. He says this reflects a sizable increase for the western area of the fishery, at over a million and a half pounds this season. “The quota in the east this year is a very slight decrease from last season, it’s down 4%. In the western area, it's a large increase this year. It’s a 79% increase.” Due to the size of the golden king crab fishery, it is split into two different management areas: one east of Atka and the other to the west, each with their own harvest levels. “The east has more fishable depths or more fishable ground, whereas you get further west and much smaller islands that drop off quicker.” That means better fishing in the eastern area. Even with a slight decrease in allowable catch this year, the eastern area's limit is still more than double that of the west's limit at over three million pounds. Nichols says he is optimistic about the upcoming season. “I think it's a really unique crab fishery, just where the fishing occurs, it being a deep water fishery from a select few vessels, and I'm excited about the upcoming season.” Just four vessels are expected to fish for golden king crab this season. The fishery was worth $29.5 million at the dock last year, according to preliminary figures from ADFG. This year's season ends next April. The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) meets for a business meeting in June 2026. (Courtesy ACHP / Facebook) Tribal historic preservation leaders are voicing concerns over proposed changes to the federal review process for projects that could affect sacred sites and cultural resources. Last month, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation voted to advance a proposed rule revising Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, a key law requiring federal agencies to consider impacts on historic properties and consult with Tribal Nations. The National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers says the proposal would weaken tribal consultation, narrow protections for places of religious and cultural significance, and give federal agencies greater authority over the review process. The proposal now heads to federal review before it is published for public comment. Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out today’s Native America Calling episode Wednesday, August 5, 2026 — Tribes condemn federal Colorado River water use plan

Alien abductions, cryptid creatures, secret government programs, portals to other worlds, cattle mutilations – the San Luis Valley may be the strangest and most terrifying place you've never heard of.EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/CattleMutilationsFEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: We've had several episodes before about mysterious locations that are host to strange, paranormal activity. Skinwalker Ranch, for example, or The Bennington Triangle, or even the harsh terrain of Alaska. Perhaps one of the locations that appears to persistently slip under the radar is the San Luis Valley in Colorado. The region is home to very much the same variety of paranormal activity as other apparent hot spots. UFO sightings here are in abundance, for example. As are cases of cattle mutilation, sightings of strange creatures, and even alien abduction. In short, the San Luis Valley could be one of the most interesting locations in the world.LISTEN ON PODCAST APPS: Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.com/wdapps*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*SOURCES and RESOURCES:“The Paranormal, Extraterrestrial, and Otherworldly Explanations for Cattle Mutilations” by Marcus Lowth for UFOInsight.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/66a64hu5, https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/vhykeezp(Over time links may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.Originally aired: March 2022Weird Darkness devotes a full episode to Colorado's San Luis Valley, moving from Native American creation myths through the 1967 mutilation of a horse named Lady, decades of Bigfoot encounters, and a global run of cattle mutilation cases tied to UFO sightings, secret government programs, and alien abduction.It opens with the valley's own history: the region passed from Mexican to American territory after the 1846-1848 Mexican-American War, and archaeological evidence places human habitation there for roughly 7,000 years across close to a dozen Native American tribes. Several of those tribes describe the surrounding peaks as the Sipapu, a place of creation and emergence, and the Navajo specifically name the Blanca Massif as the point where "star people" enter this world aboard what their oral tradition calls flying seed pods, a phrase researchers have since compared to modern disc-shaped UFO reports. The same traditions include legends of shapeshifting beasts roaming the valley, stories some investigators now link to the Bigfoot sightings still reported there.From there the episode turns to the case that first brought cattle mutilation into national headlines: the September 27, 1967 death of a three-year-old Appaloosa mare named Lady, discovered by Harry King and his mother, Agnes, on land belonging to his sister, Nellie Lewis. The horse's head had been stripped completely to the bone with surgically precise cuts, no blood was found anywhere at the scene despite the wounds, and a strong chemical odor hung in the air near the body. Investigators also noted that the horse's own tracks stopped abruptly about 100 feet from where she was found, that scorch marks including a distinct circular pattern marked the ground nearby, and that Agnes King recalled an unidentified object flying over her house in the days before the discovery. The Aerial Phenomena Research Organization investigated, and pathologist Dr. John Altshuler, examining the remains, found the heart, lungs, thyroid, and abdominal organs removed with medical precision and the body completely drained of blood. Alamosa County Sheriff Ben Phillips attributed the death to a lightning strike without visiting the site, and the Condon Committee later reported no evidence of abnormal causes, addressing neither the missing blood nor the burns. Press coverage mistakenly named the horse Snippy, after her sire, and the name stuck permanently. Researcher Christopher O'Brien would go on to document more than 200 further mutilation reports in the San Luis Valley alone, estimating the true, unreported total closer to 1,000.Next comes a survey of the valley's stranger residents, starting with a 1992 sighting known regionally as the Woman in Red, in which a driver picked up a hitchhiking woman who vanished after he noticed she had goat-like legs and hooves. The same stretch of the episode covers a wave of Bigfoot encounters that struck a seven-square-mile radius between late December 1993 and early January 1994, including a December 31 sighting with footprint tracks clear enough to show toenail impressions and partially captured on police video, plus a 2000 report from two ATV riders near Blanca Peak who tracked a seven-foot, brown-haired creature before losing it in the trees. Christopher O'Brien's files also record a white buffalo that appeared and then vanished without a trace near Winchell Lake in the early 1980s, a 1993 wave of legless, slug-like creatures locals call prairie dragons, and a report of an out-of-place platypus. The segment also revisits the Old Scratch legend, a century-old story of a well-dressed stranger who appears in a cantina during Lent and reveals claws, cloven hooves, and a tail before fleeing when confronted, last reported in 1984, then covers mid-1960s witness Robert Whitting, who claimed a craft pulled alongside his car and telepathically warned him of a dead black dog in the road ahead. It closes at the modern UFO Watchtower, a platform built for its 360-degree view of the valley that still draws UFO sightings and researchers year-round.The episode then widens its scope to cattle mutilation as a global phenomenon, opening with a 1606 case recorded in the court records of England's King James I describing sheep found with only their tallow and inner organs removed, and a Texas horse whose entire nervous system was surgically extracted in the same territory that saw a wave of sheep mutilations in 2013. It cites an FBI report from the late 1970s tallying roughly 8,000 mutilations in Colorado alone and lays out the pattern researchers keep finding: animals drained completely of blood, organs removed with surgical precision, unusual chemical readings in tissue samples, and a consistent absence of scavengers at the scene. From there it crosses to Cannock Chase in Staffordshire, England, where in 1985 a father and son watched a silent, triangular craft with three underside lights hover over a field, followed two days later by a duck hunter who saw a similar object stop over grazing cattle and fire light beams in his direction as he approached.A string of British cases follows, beginning with the 2010 mutilations of sheep near Shrewsbury, England, where animals were found with faces skillfully stripped of flesh and drilled holes where their brains had been removed, witnessed in part by a 16-person investigative team who reported both UFOs and apparent laser-style attacks on the flock in March of that year. It moves next to a 2011-2012 wave of mutilated horses across the United Kingdom, tentatively tied by some researchers to an equine herpesvirus type 1 outbreak rather than to ritual dates such as St. Winebald Day, then to Wales, where the Animal Pathology Field Unit spent twelve years, from 2001 to 2013, investigating sheep mutilations and, through investigator Phil Hoyle, concluded extraterrestrial involvement was the most likely explanation. The segment also returns to the 1977 discovery of 15 mutilated wild ponies in Cherry Brook Valley, Dartmoor, found by Alan Hicks, a case later investigated by Jonathan Downes of the Center for Fortean Zoology, who reported suspicious interference and elaborate hoax calls resembling Men in Black activity. It ends with Rob Lea's account, given to researcher Nick Redfern, of a Bristol-based group he called the Cult of the Moon Beast, allegedly performing animal sacrifices in Newport, England since the late 1980s to summon entities from a coexisting dimension on behalf of wealthy patrons.Back in North America, the episode covers Manuel Sanchez's discovery of a fourth mutilated calf on his Colorado ranch in December 2009 and Tom Miller's similar March 2009 find near Trinidad, Colorado, both missing tongues, udders, and eyes with no blood or tracks at the scene. It continues with Kit Metzger's decades of mutilations at the Flying M Ranch in Arizona, dating back to the late 1970s and clustering between June and October, and with the 1978 case of Manuel Gomez's bull in Dulce, New Mexico, examined by officer Gabriel Valdez, whose lab tests found the heart and liver reduced to a mushy, peanut-butter texture with abnormal zinc, phosphorus, and potassium levels and no copper at all. The segment covers a summer of 1990 mutilations on Richard Fazio's land in Vancouver, Washington, which Oregon State University matched to laser-type electrosurgical injury, alongside Christopher O'Brien's own assessment that mutilations are "more complicated than aliens" and more likely tied to covert environmental monitoring. It closes with 2013 sheep mutilations in Texas tha

Renowned chef Nephi Craig (White Mountain Apache, Navajo) admits he hid his alcoholism fairly well as he was making a name for himself as a Native chef throughout the 2000s. His memoir, “Our Knives Will Save Us: Dispatches from a White Mountain Apache Chef“, details his arduous recovery and how food and the kitchen helped him figure out his purpose and path to healing. In the debut children’s novel by Christine Hartman Derr (Cherokee), “Raven, Rising“, baking was a favorite pastime for a young Cherokee girl until she is struck with sadness and anxiety at the thought of baking and the smell of ingredients like cinnamon, bread, and chocolate. She learns to cope with loss and works to make her way back to the kitchen. Chef Candace Stock (Ho-Chunk) is the executive chef of Salt + Scoria, a restaurant in the new Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in North Dakota. We'll talk with her about bringing Indigenous ingredients and flavors to the menu. Break 1 Music: With My Son (song) Vincent Craig (artist) Break 2 Music: Show the People (song) Bear Creek (artist) On The Move – Powwow Songs Recorded Live at Apache Gold

They named it after something the people who lived here first refuse to say out loud. Deep in Utah's Uintah Basin sits Skinwalker Ranch — 512 acres of high desert that has terrified ranchers, researchers, and one very unlucky family for generations. But forget the lights in the sky. Tonight, host Carman Carrion takes you past the barbed wire to the older, darker legend the ranch is actually named for: the shapeshifter that wears skins, walks the fence line on all fours, and calls to you in a voice you love. From the Sherman family's bloodless cattle mutilations and the wolf that took bullets and simply walked away, to the Navajo and Ute traditions that warned people off this ground long before any camera arrived — this is the Skinwalker Ranch story stripped of the spaceships and handed back to the dark where it belongs. Then stay for an original tale of a boy hired to watch a fence he was told never to cross… and the thing that followed him home. The rule out here is simple. If the dark calls your name in a voice you trust — you don't answer.  

We are back for a limited run. First time back so be kind, next one will be better. Navajo had a vote, we comment on it. 

Mexican wolf advocates are worried, Navajo tribal members protest drilling plans near Chaco, Forest Service has big 4FRI goals, and more. Plus an interview with White Mountain Apache chef Nephi Craig.

After a mission trip to a Navajo reservation, Brad Hutchcraft felt God calling him to minister to Native American youth so they could experience the hope that can only be found in Christ. Today, Brad is the director of On Eagles' Wings, a ministry that shares the love of Jesus Christ with Native American youth across the United States and Canada. Listen as Brad shares how God changed the course of his life, how these young believers are reaching their own communities with the Gospel, and why Brad knows that “as long as there's breath, there is hope.” Learn more about Brad's ministry On Eagles' Wings.  Connect with us through email at gps@billygraham.org or on Facebook at Billy Graham Radio.If you'd like to know more about beginning a relationship with Jesus Christ, or deepening the faith you already have, visit FindPeacewithGod.net. If you'd like to pray with someone, call our Billy Graham 24/7 Prayer Line at 855-255-7729. 

Photo: Kaiser Canyon fire in Washington, July 2026. (Courtesy Inciweb / USFS via National Interagency Fire Center / Facebook) Wildfires continue to burn across the U.S, including many areas of Indian Country. In Washington state, the largest fire is the Kaiser Canyon Fire which is burning through the Colville Indian Reservation. As of late Tuesday, the fire surpassed 126,000 acres and was 16% contained. In an update Tuesday morning, Keith Kelley, operations section chief for Northern Rockies Unit 2, shared the day's plan of attack against the Kaiser Canyon Fire. More than 1,000 personnel are committed to the effort. “And we do have resources looking at some additional containment lines, trying to find places to what we call pinch in the fire, to keep it from spreading. So we’re kind of like checking it up. So we’ll put some dozer lines in, and the fire will slow its progression, and then eventually it will it will kind of continue to move. But it gives us an opportunity to put some dozer lines and put in some containment lines so we can stop that progression as it moves to the north. So certainly have resources in there. We’ll continue to do that.” The Kaiser Canyon Fire started July 16 when a lightning strike hit the Nespelem area on the Colville reservation. Meanwhile, more than a million acres have burned in Oregon. The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs has closed its tribal government due to Level Three evacuations caused by the Bench Fire, which at last check had burned more than 45,000 acres. The Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation have set up a Wildfire Recovery Fund for volunteers and supplies to help those affected by the fires. Chris Deschene, left, and Emily Ellison are the two vice-presidential candidates in the upcoming 2026 Navajo Nation election. (Courtesy U.S. Department of Energy / Emily Ellison for Navajo President 2026 / Facebook) Following the Navajo Nation presidential primary last week, the top vote-getters have named their vice presidential picks. KJZZ's Gabriel Pietrorazio has details. Navajo Nation Council Speaker Crystalyne Curley was first to announce her ticket in Window Rock, Ariz. “Excited to share this moment with you. I know people online were very anxious.” She picked former Arizona Democratic state lawmaker Chris Deschene. “Throughout my career, I know what it's like to be an underdog.” In 2014, the Marine Corps vet vied for the very seat Curley is now seeking, but after placing second in that primary, Deschene was disqualified, in part, because of Curley's November opponent – Farmington attorney Justin Jones. “This is where I grew up.” As for Jones, he returned to Rock Point, Ariz. to name his running mate. Emily Ellison is in charge of the Gallup nonprofit Battered Families Services. “I want to thank the committee for this opportunity to serve our Navajo people.” Billy Kirkland, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, visits Choctow Central High School, one of several Bureau of Indian Education (BIE)-funded schools with a graduation rate above 90%. (Courtesy BIE / Facebook) The Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) says 21 of the high schools they fund achieved graduation rates of 90% or greater in 2025, in what the agency calls an “unprecedented milestone”, reflecting their commitment to student achievement, college and career readiness, and workforce development. The 21 schools include Kickapoo Nation School, Santa Fe Indian School, Shoshone-Bannock School, Navajo Preparatory School, and Choctaw Central High School. The BIE's overall graduation rate reached 79%, the highest in its history. The BIE is aiming for a rate of 91% by May 2030. The Associated Press reports that, beginning in 2018, the BIE began standardizing data collection methods, which has helped improve data accuracy. While Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Billy Kirkland (Navajo) said that these gains reflect the Trump administration's commitment to Native American students, there are concerns that the administration's changes to the BIE — including the planned dissolving of the U.S. Department of Education and further fallout from DOGE cuts — could undermine progress and prevent struggling schools from improving students' performance. Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out today’s Native America Calling episode Wednesday, July 29, 2026 – Southeast Alaska tribes closer to land designation more than a half century after being locked out

A coalition of rural Alaska Native villages is launching an initiative to boost veterinary care as a way to improve public health. They aim to cut down on the increasing number of feral dogs that pose a risk to residents by offering better spay and neuter services. They also hope a vaccination program can lower the spread of rabies. Alaska Native Rural Veterinary Inc. and the Alaska Federation of Natives are moving ahead after federal legislation stalled in Congress. We’ll talk with those called to bring veterinary care to rural communities — with or without government support — to keep animals and people safe. Robert Mirabel in the film. “Road to Everywhere.” (Photo: courtesy Driven To Films) We also talk with acclaimed musician and actor Robert Mirabal about his role in the movie, “Road to Everywhere“. Mirabal is performing at a screening of the film in Albuquerque, N.M. GUESTS Mike Williams Sr. (Yupiaq), tribal chief of the Akiak Native Community Adrianna Nicolay (Diné), volunteer with Rez Vet Angie Fitch, executive director and co-founder of Alaska Native Rural Veterinary Inc. Robert Mirabal (Taos Pueblo), musician and actor Break 1 Music: Raising Goats Song [Skip Dance Song] (song) Sweethearts of Navajoland (artist) From the Heart of Diné Nation Traditional Songs of the Navajo (album) Break 2 Music: Show the People (song) Bear Creek (artist) On The Move – Powwow Songs Recorded Live at Apache Gold

This episode brings together an incredible collection of firsthand Bigfoot encounters from across North America. You'll hear reports from the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico, the Navajo Reservation, the forests of Alabama, the mountains of Western North Carolina, the hills of Ohio, and the Pacific Northwest near Monroe, Washington.Witnesses describe terrifying screams in the woods, massive footprints, mysterious tree knocks, rocks and pine cones thrown from unseen sources, overwhelming odors, nighttime campsite disturbances, and close visual encounters with towering hairy figures. One guest shares a childhood experience that stayed with them for decades. Another recounts a frightening encounter that sent an entire group running for safety. Others describe years of unexplained activity around remote homes deep in the mountains.Every story is told directly by the people who experienced it. If you've ever wondered how widespread Bigfoot encounters really are, this episode offers a fascinating look at reports from some of the most active regions in North America.

Although the first enslaved Africans arrived in Jamestown in 1619, European slavery in America began more than a century before. In a work distinguished not only by its original research but by its “passionate prose” (James F. Brooks), historian Linford Fisher demonstrates how the enslavement of Indigenous people began in the years just after 1492, ensnaring an estimated three to six million Natives throughout the Americas. Although largely erased from the public consciousness, Native enslavement continued for centuries to become a colossal phenomenon that affected nearly 600,000 Native Americans in North America alone, revealing the shocking truth that American colonizers enslaved Natives in roughly the same numbers as they imported enslaved Africans.From Virginia to California, from New England to Barbados, Stealing America: The Hidden Story of Indigenous Slavery in U.S. History (Liveright, 2026) traces the history of Indigenous enslavement and land dispossession, detailing how colonizers captured Natives and often deliberately mislabeled them as Black slaves to avoid detection. While the American Revolution pealed the bells of freedom for colonists, it paved a larcenous trail of westward expansion that subsequently plundered Indigenous land and stole the labor of Natives from nations like the Cherokee, Navajo, Nisean, and many others. “This double theft,” Fisher writes, “was central to the origins, growth, and eventual success of the English colonies and the United States—not just initially but throughout all of American history.”In this expansive narrative, Fisher weaves together accounts of major episodes in American history including early colonization, the American Revolution, and the Civil War with lesser-known stories of Native enslavement and land loss. Fisher upends conventional histories about the nature of American slavery, revealing enslaved Natives in places we have overlooked, including southern antebellum plantations and the nineteenth-century American West. After Congress outlawed Native slavery in 1867, Americans forced Indigenous children into boarding schools and white homes, where they labored under forced assimilation. This practice was not reformed until the latter twentieth century, when Native nations finally secured increasing rights and self-determination.Nearly fifteen years in the making, this magisterial volume not only uncovers a five-century genocidal history but also illuminates the myriad ways Native Americans have fought for their sovereignty and maintained community. The most comprehensive work of its kind, Stealing America emerges as a saga of both persistent colonialism and Indigenous resilience, one that reframes American history at its core. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Although the first enslaved Africans arrived in Jamestown in 1619, European slavery in America began more than a century before. In a work distinguished not only by its original research but by its “passionate prose” (James F. Brooks), historian Linford Fisher demonstrates how the enslavement of Indigenous people began in the years just after 1492, ensnaring an estimated three to six million Natives throughout the Americas. Although largely erased from the public consciousness, Native enslavement continued for centuries to become a colossal phenomenon that affected nearly 600,000 Native Americans in North America alone, revealing the shocking truth that American colonizers enslaved Natives in roughly the same numbers as they imported enslaved Africans.From Virginia to California, from New England to Barbados, Stealing America: The Hidden Story of Indigenous Slavery in U.S. History (Liveright, 2026) traces the history of Indigenous enslavement and land dispossession, detailing how colonizers captured Natives and often deliberately mislabeled them as Black slaves to avoid detection. While the American Revolution pealed the bells of freedom for colonists, it paved a larcenous trail of westward expansion that subsequently plundered Indigenous land and stole the labor of Natives from nations like the Cherokee, Navajo, Nisean, and many others. “This double theft,” Fisher writes, “was central to the origins, growth, and eventual success of the English colonies and the United States—not just initially but throughout all of American history.”In this expansive narrative, Fisher weaves together accounts of major episodes in American history including early colonization, the American Revolution, and the Civil War with lesser-known stories of Native enslavement and land loss. Fisher upends conventional histories about the nature of American slavery, revealing enslaved Natives in places we have overlooked, including southern antebellum plantations and the nineteenth-century American West. After Congress outlawed Native slavery in 1867, Americans forced Indigenous children into boarding schools and white homes, where they labored under forced assimilation. This practice was not reformed until the latter twentieth century, when Native nations finally secured increasing rights and self-determination.Nearly fifteen years in the making, this magisterial volume not only uncovers a five-century genocidal history but also illuminates the myriad ways Native Americans have fought for their sovereignty and maintained community. The most comprehensive work of its kind, Stealing America emerges as a saga of both persistent colonialism and Indigenous resilience, one that reframes American history at its core. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Although the first enslaved Africans arrived in Jamestown in 1619, European slavery in America began more than a century before. In a work distinguished not only by its original research but by its “passionate prose” (James F. Brooks), historian Linford Fisher demonstrates how the enslavement of Indigenous people began in the years just after 1492, ensnaring an estimated three to six million Natives throughout the Americas. Although largely erased from the public consciousness, Native enslavement continued for centuries to become a colossal phenomenon that affected nearly 600,000 Native Americans in North America alone, revealing the shocking truth that American colonizers enslaved Natives in roughly the same numbers as they imported enslaved Africans.From Virginia to California, from New England to Barbados, Stealing America: The Hidden Story of Indigenous Slavery in U.S. History (Liveright, 2026) traces the history of Indigenous enslavement and land dispossession, detailing how colonizers captured Natives and often deliberately mislabeled them as Black slaves to avoid detection. While the American Revolution pealed the bells of freedom for colonists, it paved a larcenous trail of westward expansion that subsequently plundered Indigenous land and stole the labor of Natives from nations like the Cherokee, Navajo, Nisean, and many others. “This double theft,” Fisher writes, “was central to the origins, growth, and eventual success of the English colonies and the United States—not just initially but throughout all of American history.”In this expansive narrative, Fisher weaves together accounts of major episodes in American history including early colonization, the American Revolution, and the Civil War with lesser-known stories of Native enslavement and land loss. Fisher upends conventional histories about the nature of American slavery, revealing enslaved Natives in places we have overlooked, including southern antebellum plantations and the nineteenth-century American West. After Congress outlawed Native slavery in 1867, Americans forced Indigenous children into boarding schools and white homes, where they labored under forced assimilation. This practice was not reformed until the latter twentieth century, when Native nations finally secured increasing rights and self-determination.Nearly fifteen years in the making, this magisterial volume not only uncovers a five-century genocidal history but also illuminates the myriad ways Native Americans have fought for their sovereignty and maintained community. The most comprehensive work of its kind, Stealing America emerges as a saga of both persistent colonialism and Indigenous resilience, one that reframes American history at its core. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/native-american-studies

Although the first enslaved Africans arrived in Jamestown in 1619, European slavery in America began more than a century before. In a work distinguished not only by its original research but by its “passionate prose” (James F. Brooks), historian Linford Fisher demonstrates how the enslavement of Indigenous people began in the years just after 1492, ensnaring an estimated three to six million Natives throughout the Americas. Although largely erased from the public consciousness, Native enslavement continued for centuries to become a colossal phenomenon that affected nearly 600,000 Native Americans in North America alone, revealing the shocking truth that American colonizers enslaved Natives in roughly the same numbers as they imported enslaved Africans.From Virginia to California, from New England to Barbados, Stealing America: The Hidden Story of Indigenous Slavery in U.S. History (Liveright, 2026) traces the history of Indigenous enslavement and land dispossession, detailing how colonizers captured Natives and often deliberately mislabeled them as Black slaves to avoid detection. While the American Revolution pealed the bells of freedom for colonists, it paved a larcenous trail of westward expansion that subsequently plundered Indigenous land and stole the labor of Natives from nations like the Cherokee, Navajo, Nisean, and many others. “This double theft,” Fisher writes, “was central to the origins, growth, and eventual success of the English colonies and the United States—not just initially but throughout all of American history.”In this expansive narrative, Fisher weaves together accounts of major episodes in American history including early colonization, the American Revolution, and the Civil War with lesser-known stories of Native enslavement and land loss. Fisher upends conventional histories about the nature of American slavery, revealing enslaved Natives in places we have overlooked, including southern antebellum plantations and the nineteenth-century American West. After Congress outlawed Native slavery in 1867, Americans forced Indigenous children into boarding schools and white homes, where they labored under forced assimilation. This practice was not reformed until the latter twentieth century, when Native nations finally secured increasing rights and self-determination.Nearly fifteen years in the making, this magisterial volume not only uncovers a five-century genocidal history but also illuminates the myriad ways Native Americans have fought for their sovereignty and maintained community. The most comprehensive work of its kind, Stealing America emerges as a saga of both persistent colonialism and Indigenous resilience, one that reframes American history at its core. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

Between 1863 and 1866, more than 10,000 Navajo (Diné) were forcibly removed from their lands by the U.S. Military and forced to marched hundreds of miles into present day New Mexico. Many died of starvation and exposure on the march and while in exile. Don is joined by Dr. Jennifer Nez Denetdale, professor and chair of American Studies at the University of New Mexico, and author of the books Reclaiming Diné History: The Legacies of Navajo Chief Manuelito and Juanita, as well as The Long Walk: The Forced Exile of the Navajo.Edited by Tim Arstall. Produced by Hannah Feodorov. Senior Producer is Freddy Chick.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  All music from Epidemic Sounds.American History Hit is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Photo: “Navajo” Bob Sandoval announces the results of the 2025 Navajo Nation presidential primary (Courtesy Crystalyne Curley for Navajo Nation President / Facebook) Tuesday was primary Election Day not only in Arizona, but across the Navajo Nation, which includes Utah and New Mexico. And as KJZZ's Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, incumbent President Buu Nygren will not be moving on to the general. Before midnight, the tribal radio station KTNN – known in these parts as the “Voice of the Navajo Nation” – called the 16-candidate race. Here is host “Navajo Bob” Sandoval reading the unofficial score from the 110 polling places. “Here we go, Justin Jones – 15,039. Crystalyne Curley – 8,424. Buu Nygren – 7,410.” Farmington attorney Justin Jones came in third behind Buu Nygren during the 2022 primary. Justin Jones speaks during his 2026 primary watch party in Window Rock, Ariz. (Courtesy Justin Jones for Navajo Nation President / Facebook) This time, Jones and sitting Navajo Council Speaker Crystalyne Curley beat out incumbent President Nygren, who has faced ethics violations and allegations of corruption. Now, Jones and Curley will pick their VP running mates before November. If elected, Curley would be the first Diné female president. U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) makes remarks regarding her bill that passed out of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on July 17 2026. U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) announced last week that her bill allowing five Alaska Native communities in Southeast Alaska to receive land entitlements passed out of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The legislation, called The Alaska Native Landless Equity Act, would allow Petersburg, Wrangell, Haines, Ketchikan, and Tenakee to form Alaska Native corporations and each receive about 23,000 acres of federal land, as KFSK's Baiz Hoen reports. Those communities were excluded from the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) when it became law over 50 years ago. ANCSA transferred 44 million acres of land to more than 200 regional, village, and urban corporations to resolve land claims throughout Alaska. The Landless movement is not without controversy. ANCSA mandated the newly recognized Native corporations to make a profit. Because of this, some who oppose Sen. Murkowski's bill argue that it would privatize 115,000 acres of land in the Tongass National Forest. Murkowski spoke directly to the opposition in her committee remarks last week. She addressed concerns about environmental conservation, but said “this should not be the controversial measure it has historically been viewed as.” “There are no better stewards of our Alaska lands than the people who have lived on them for thousands of years.” The Alaska delegation has been introducing landless legislation since the early 1990s without success. In 2023, a landless bill introduced by Murkowski cleared committee for the first time. Murkowski also noted during remarks that a companion measure by U.S. Rep. Nick Begich (R-AK) passed in the House of Representatives last month — with no recorded opposition. Rep. Begich's bill is the first Landless bill to clear the House. “ And I think there’s good reason for that because it comes back to the inequity that we have seen, uh, and in an effort to do right by the Alaska Native peoples who were excluded so many decades ago.” Murkowski's legislation now heads to the Senate floor for consideration. Fort Harney in Oregon in 1872. On this day in 1880, President Rutherford B. Hayes signed an executive order canceling Oregon’s Fort Harney Military Reservation and placing those lands under the existing Malheur Indian Reservation. The order expanded the reservation established in 1872 for the Northern Paiute and Snake peoples as federal policies continued reshaping Native homelands. Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out today’s Native America Calling episode Thursday, July 23, 2026 – First Nations in Canada wary of new bill addressing longstanding water issues

This seesion will give a brief overview the current state of surgical needs and care on the Navajo reservation. It will also discuss spiritual needs and opportunities.

Pueblo leaders and environmentalists are angry that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released an environmental assessment last week with the intent of eliminating a buffer around Chaco Culture National Historical Park that has prevented oil and gas leasing. As KUNM's Jeanette DeDios (Jicarilla Apache and Diné) reports, BLM is offering just two weeks for public comment on the report. A Biden administration order placed a 20-year ban on oil and gas development on federal lands within 10 miles of Chaco, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This upset some Navajo communities who rely on royalty payments and infrastructure from oil and gas for their livelihoods. President Buu Nygren said thousands of Navajo oil and gas allottees would be negatively impacted by the decision. But in April, the BLM gave the public one week to comment on a proposal to expand oil and gas leasing around Chaco. The current proposed environmental assessment has three options: leave the buffer intact, reduce it to five miles, or remove all protections. Brian Vallo (Acoma Pueblo), chairman for the Chaco Heritage Tribal Association, says the Trump administration is not working with Pueblo communities, despite tribes working together to create an ethnographic study on why this landscape is vital to Native cultures. The study is a first of its kind, he says, and was conducted by the Pueblos themselves. “So it really traces the ethnography of this cultural and sacred landscape from our present-day communities to the great houses in Chaco, but also everything in between, pilgrimage trails, shrines, sacred sites, springs, and other places that are significant to our continued observance and practice of our own traditions and you know, Indigenous way of life.” Vallo says the association is frustrated that the federal government is not adhering to a data-sharing agreement and not considering information from this ethnographic study, but moving forward with a draft environmental assessment. “All of humanity, the land, and the resources, the animals, the water. All of those things have connection, and that connection is maintained through the generations of those of us who are the practitioners, those of us who are the cultural leaders, and the greater Pueblo community as well.” Members of New Mexico's congressional delegation have also condemned the BLM announcement as a move to push for more oil and gas drilling. The All Pueblo Council of Governors has continued to invite Secretary of Interior Doug Burgum to visit Chaco Canyon and hold a consultation with Pueblo members, but he has not responded. Vallo says young folks at Acoma are already mobilizing. “Young people from within our community who are going door to door with laptops and or notebooks to encourage tribal members to submit letters.” Public comment closes on July 29. The view of Namaygoosisagagun First Nation as resident evacuated across Collins Lake. (Courtesy Wayne Wastaken) Across Canada this weekend, nearly 900 wildfires were burning – from the Atlantic provinces to British Columbia. Northern Ontario is one of the regions that has been hardest hit. One Indigenous community there has been destroyed. And as Dan Karpenchuk reports, Indigenous leaders are calling on the federal government in Ottawa for more support. At least one small first nation in northern Ontario has burned to the ground by a devastating wildfire, which is one of nearly 200 alone burning in the province. Residents fled the Namaygoosisagagun First Nation by boat on Collins Lake, many having only a few minutes to gather some personal belongings, according to Chief Helen Paavola. “It was just a matter of minutes before my members would have died. And even during that whole time, there was no help.” Namaygoosisagagun, also known as Collins First Nation, is only one of ten communities, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, that have been evacuated as wildfires rip through the region. Namaygoosisagagun is now is ashes – and its residents say they face an uncertain future. The Assembly of First Nations is calling on Ottawa for help including financial support. Linda Debassige is the grand chief of the Anishnabek Nation. She says when the wildfire first approached the community, the chief herself tried to contact government officials, but they said they were not aware of the fire. “And so, had the community waited for the official emergency response activiation, this would be a recovery mission at this point in time, which is unfathomable.” Debassige says the community now needs accommodations, food, and especially a commitment to support rebuilding. One of the problems is that the Namaygoosisagagun is not federally recognized as an official Indigenous first nation. The remote first nation, more than 700 miles north of Toronto, has no road access. Debassige says the Anishnabek Nation Grand Council, which includes 39 first nations, does recognize it and is supporting members by providing accommodation, food, and clothing. Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out today’s Native America Calling episode Monday, July 20, 2026 — Tribes sue after feds redefine ‘harm’ in Endangered Species Act, upend decades of land conservation

Analyss Benally grew up in Shiprock on the Navajo Nation and went on to play Division I basketball at San Jose State before launching her professional basketball career in Europe. Today, her nonprofit, AB Five Basketball, brings free camps and clinics to Native youth across the Southwest.This summer, AB Five returned to Shiprock with volunteer coaches, including former Los Angeles Lakers guard Andre Ingram.By Tanner WaiteWatch this story at LNN.newsThis story is sponsored by Ace Hardware in Farmington and Fitness World.Support the show

A new report by the New Mexico Department of Justice says Native students are disciplined more harshly and miss more school days from suspensions than other students at Gallup-McKinley County Schools. The school district has a majority Navajo student population and was the focus of a 2023 news investigation that prompted calls for further investigations. In South Dakota, education leaders are looking into the state’s licensing exams after research shows a disproportionately low number of Native teacher candidates pass the costly exam. Native teachers are in short supply in the state and Native education advocates say that streamlining licensing requirements could be barrier. GUESTS Dr. Wendy Greyeyes (Diné), chair of the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission and assistant professor of Native American Studies at the University of New Mexico Kevin Mitchell (Diné), Gallup-McKinley County Schools Board of Education president Priscilla Benally (Diné), Gallup-McKinley County Schools Board of Education vice president Dr. Sherry Johnson (Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate), education director for the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate Break 1 Music: Dat One (song) The Delbert Anderson Trio (artist) MANITOU (album) Break 2 Music: Medicine Wheel (song) Logan Staats (artist) Rainwater (album)

Tlingit and Haida Tribes, the Ketchikan Indian Community, and other communities in Southeast Alaska are urging tourists to stop disrespecting unique cultural symbols such as totem poles. Nearly two million tourists visit the region annually and tribal members are reporting an uptick in incidents of tourists mocking Native culture. The message from the tribes remains: all are welcome and respect is not optional. While promoting responsible tourism, the Ketchikan Indian Community is also launching a new initiative for visitors to purchase care packages for the community’s unhoused population. The initiative is also aimed at supporting the tribe’s year-round housing services for unhoused residents. In the Lower 48 states, a Navajo app developer has created Tribal Trailz. It aims to help visitors navigate Diné and Pueblo lands across Arizona and New Mexico and includes historical information and other resources designed to better educate tourists about traveling in ancestral homelands. GUESTS Richard Peterson (Tlingit), president of the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Tribes Emily Edenshaw (Native Village of Emmonak), tribal administrator and CEO of the Ketchikan Indian Community George R. Joe (Navajo), cultural consultant and creator of “Tribal Trailz” Bobbie Conner (Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation), director of the Tamástslikt Cultural Institute Break 1 Music: Honoring The Homeland (song) Radmilla & Herman Cody (artist) Shi Kéyah (album) Break 2 Music: Medicine Wheel (song) Logan Staats (artist) Rainwater (album)

A new exhibit at the Hessel Museum of Art features the work of artist and educator, Marilou Schultz. Combining traditional Navajo weaving techniques to resemble digital technologies, Schultz's work has sought to reflect the historic efforts of Navajo women as part of our collective, technological futures. Schultz and exhibit curator, Candice Hopkins, offer more insight into the inspiration of "Replica of a Chip: The Weaving Technology of Marilou Schultz." Work by Marilou Schultz: "Popular Chip" 2025, courtesy of the Gochman Family Collection Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Crime and Westerns on a WednesdayFirst, a look at the events of the day.Then, The Whisperer starring Carleton Young, originally broadcast  July 8, 1951, 75 years ago, First Show of the Series.  The Whisperer is a brilliant young attorney with a secret identity. He tackles the plans of Scurelli to sell marijuana to the unsuspecting youth of the city.Followed by The Roy Rogers Show, originally broadcast July 8, 1954, 72 years ago,The Spell of Indian Magic.   An elderly Navajo is dying from an Indian curse (the curse must be from Haiti as the curse sounds very much like voodoo). Actually, the old man is killed by an evil spirit named Wonga.Then, Fort Laramie starring Raymond Burr, originally broadcast July 8, 1956, 70 years ago, The Talented Recruits. Feeney and Merriweather, a medicine hawker and a Shakespearean actor, join the army and find out about soldiering the hard way.Followed by Gunsmoke starring William Conrad, originally broadcast July 8, 1956, 70 years ago, Passive Resistance.   Two cattlemen slaughter the herd of sheep owned by Gideon Seek, then burn down his house and wagon and finally shoot him. Gideon is a peaceable man who won't even identify his tormentors. Finally, Claudia, originally broadcast July 8, 1948, 78 years ago,  Visitors and Gifts.  Kathryn Bard and Paul Crabtree star.  Thanks to Debbie B. for supporting our podcast by using the Buy Me a Coffee function at http://classicradio.streamIf you like what we do here, visit our friend Jay at http://radio.macinmind.com for great old-time radio shows 24 hours a day

A new mobile app created by a Navajo man is offering travelers in both New Mexico and Arizona an opportunity to learn about historic routes and insight on Native American cultures. KUNM's Jeanette DeDios (Jicarilla Apache and Diné) has more. Whether you are driving from Gallup, N.M. to Flagstaff, Ariz. or Flagstaff to Phoenix, a new app called Tribal Trailz, created by former Navajo educator George R. Joe, serves as your audio tour guide while you are on the road. “Are you driving over the bridge yet? It is known as Canyon Diablo, and Two Guns is right on the rim of Canyon Diablo. Many years ago, Route 66 entrepreneurs once had a roadside gas station, trading post, even a tiny zoo, where lions and bobcats were behind chicken wire.” That is one sample of the self-guided tour. Joe says the app includes information about Navajo and Acoma territories because a lot of tourists on the road are very uninformed about Native Americans. “The education world hasn’t done a good job of letting Americans know about tribal people, so they have these crazy ideas and misconceptions about us. So, I thought, ‘Here’s my chance to try to correct some of that information about housing, about how we live, about how we make money, things we do.'” Tribal Trailz is GPS-activated so all drivers need to do is open the app and start a tour. During your drive, the app will detect where you are at and point out different monuments, houses, or landmarks. “You don’t have to look at your app, you just put it right there on your dashboard. It doesn’t have to be visible, because I don’t show pictures, because I think you know you’re driving. You don’t have time to be looking at pictures and things like that. You just want to hear.” Joe says the app is meant to be a bridge for curious travelers wanting to know more about Native American communities and the Southwest. “More like bringing down that barrier, and then inviting them to go eventually visit the tribe.” Joe is currently working on including more tours in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, N.M. The F/V Loretta Ann in Sitka Channel in 2023. (Photo: Berett Wilber / KCAW) The commercial king salmon fishery opened July 1 for trollers in Southeast Alaska. In the first king opener of the season, trollers can catch just over 81,000 Chinook salmon, roughly 70% of the allocated summer kings, as KCAW's Katherine Rose reports. The allocation is set by the Pacific Salmon Commission, under the terms of the Pacific Salmon Treaty between the U.S. and Canada. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game said, based on summer harvest rates in previous years with a similar amount of fish, state fisheries biologists anticipate it will take trollers anywhere from seven to 10 days to catch the 81,000 Chinook. The fishery typically opens a second time in August for trollers to target the remaining treaty kings. The U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Gabriel Pietrorazio) The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) is urging Tribal Nations to remain vigilant in protecting Native voting rights following a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision on mail-in ballots. The organization issued the statement after the high court upheld a Mississippi law allowing ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted if they arrive afterward. NCAI says the ruling is especially important for many Tribal communities, where mail service delays and long distances can make it difficult for ballots to reach election offices on time. NCAI joined the Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) and the Native American Rights Fund (NARF) in filing a friend-of-the-court brief, arguing that rural and remote Native voters face unique barriers to casting ballots. While welcoming the decision, the organization says threats to Native voting rights remain and is encouraging Tribal governments and citizens to continue monitoring election policies and preparing to ensure Native voices are heard in future elections. Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out today’s Native America Calling episode Monday, July 6, 2026 — Two Native artists making waves in the arts world

New York City is a bit of a shock to any first-time visitor. It's especially jarring for someone who has spent her whole life on an Indian Reservation. Now, Linda was from the Navajo Reservation in Arizona and she was part of our ministry's Native American Youth Outreach Team that we call “On Eagles' Wings.” She was able to see New York from a distance at first. There's the Empire State Building, there's the skyline, and she said she wanted to see it all up close. Ha! Well, that may have changed now that she has seen it up close. See, she went in with us when I spoke in the city one night and the traffic and the crowds; man, they were all over the place and they made her feel like maybe she was on a battlefield without a helmet. She also found certain aspects of the city exciting and she might go back. But as our team was driving along the Hudson River, we were headed for the George Washington Bridge and Linda must have been reflecting on her life on the reservation for a minute because she just looked up into the Big Apple sky and said two words, “No stars.” I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about “Dangerously Blind.” Our word for today from the Word of God comes from 2 Corinthians 4:4. It's a very revealing statement from God's perspective. “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God.” Basically, what's this saying? There is heavenly light that God wants you to see. It's the Good News of the glory of His Son, Jesus Christ. And what's the Good News? Jesus loves you very much. He proved it by paying the sin penalty that you deserved when He died on the cross. He demonstrated His unbeatable power when He blew the doors off His grave and rose from the dead, and so Jesus is all the love, and all the meaning, and all the peace you've been looking for all these years. But there's a problem with God's light. It's the same problem our Navajo friend had seeing those stars in New York City. The earth lights blinded her to the heavenly light. When that happens to people spiritually, they can literally miss Jesus and miss God's love, and miss heaven forever. This says that the god of this world, who is the devil, has blinded our minds. We're surrounded by a lot of earth lights that blind us to the much brighter light of God. We're blinded by the lights of making money, or having fun, or important relationships, or busy schedules, even our religion. And we just keep ignoring Jesus, or postponing Jesus, or forgetting Jesus. We're blinded. The devil, whose goal it is to destroy you, will use anything or anyone he can to keep you from seeing and following Jesus. His intention is very simple - to block your view of the real light until you've passed the point of no return. But today, maybe right now, the light is breaking through. This could be your God day. You could tell Him right where you are, “Lord, I have run my life long enough. You are supposed to run my life. You gave it to me, and I'm tired of this sin wall that's been between us. I believe that your son, Jesus Christ, died to take that wall away to pay for my sin. And beginning this moment, Jesus, I'm Yours.” I hope you'll take that step so you can be sure you belong to Him and secure your eternity once and for all. That's what our website's there for. It's ANewStory.com. And it would be a great place to anchor to as you cross over, as the Bible says, "from death to life" today. I hope you'll go there. For this moment, God has taken you away from the blinding light of all that earth stuff and all those earth people so you could get one clear look at the light of Jesus Christ. Now in the words of the Bible, “Seek the Lord while He may be found.”

Have a comment? Send us a text! (We read all of them but can't reply). Email us: Will@faithfulpoliticspodcast.comCan America tell the truth about itself if it starts the story in 1776? Mark Charles, Navajo writer, speaker, activist, and co-author of Unsettling Truths, opens Church and State 250 by arguing that America's religious story begins with land, conquest, colonization, and theology. Charles explains the Doctrine of Discovery, the papal ideas that gave Christian Europe permission to claim land already inhabited by Indigenous peoples, and how that logic later shaped colonial charters, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, Manifest Destiny, Supreme Court precedent, and modern Christian nationalism. He challenges familiar phrases like “Columbus discovered America,” “nation of immigrants,” and “We the People,” asking listeners to notice who was excluded from those stories. This is not an easy opening conversation. It is a necessary one, because Charles insists that the country cannot build a shared future without first creating a common memory.Guest BioMark Charles is a Navajo writer, speaker, consultant, activist, and co-author of Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery. The son of an American woman of Dutch heritage and a Navajo man, Charles teaches on the intersections of American history, race, culture, faith, land, and Christendom. He is the author of Reflections from the Hogan, co-founder of the Would Jesus Eat Frybread? college-conference series, and in 2020 ran as an independent candidate for president while advocating for a national Truth and Conciliation Commission on race, gender, and class. In this conversation, Charles helps explain why America's religious history has to begin with Indigenous land, the Doctrine of Discovery, colonization, and the stories the country tells about itself.Book MentionedUnsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery by Mark Charles and Soong-Chan RahBookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/112456/9780830845255Relevant Links & ResourcesMark Charles Official WebsiteURL: https://wirelesshogan.com/about/ Support Sarah Stankorb's work and preorder Damned If She Does: Why Women Quit Church and What It Means for the Future of Religion, Releases September 15, 2026.  Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/112456/9798889837091Website: https://www.sarahstankorb.com/Support the showKeep the conversation going.Want to learn more about Faithful Politics, suggest a future guest, or connect with us directly?Visit our website:faithfulpoliticspodcast.comBrowse our bookstore, featuring books from many of our guests:faithfulpoliticspodcast.com/bookstoreSupport the show and help us keep these conversations going:patreon.com/cw/FaithfulPoliticsSubscribe for behind-the-scenes content, reflections, and updates:faithfulpolitics.substack.comContact the hosts:Josh Burtram, Faithful Host: Josh@faithfulpolitics.comWill Wright, Political Host: Will@faithfulpolitics.comFollow Faithful Politics:Instagram: faithful_politicsFacebook: FaithfulPoliticsPodcast

In today's episode of Backpacker Radio presented by The Trek, brought to you by LMNT, we are joined by Jeremy Phoenix aka Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen, aka Javos, a Navajo-born, Amish-country-raised, REI-employed, grave-digging, Princeton-attending thru-hiker who completed the Colorado Trail in 15 days on his first ever backpacking trip and has been making up for lost time ever since.  In this one, Smitty walks us through completing the 24-hour challenge three separate times on the PCT, a free solo fall from 35 feet- that he just kind of walked off, getting stalked by a mountain lion, surviving shin splints for almost the full PCT, and a harrowing midnight ice traverse below Mount Whitney with no traction. He also shares what it means to be Navajo in America, including having code talker grandparents and introducing himself to the land before every new section of trail.  We wrap the show with a tribute to longtime Patreon supporter Bill Jensen, who recently passed away on the CDT, the biggest thru-hiking preparation mistake- according to Peg Leg, addressing the question of which direction people predominantly face in the shower, and the triple crown of things you can easily live without but nonetheless should be free for everyone. LMNT: Get a free sample pack with any order at drinklmnt.com/trek. Gossamer Gear: Use code "BACKPACKERRADIO" for $20 off LT5 Trekking Poles at gossamergear.com.  Shady Rays: Use code "TREK" for 40% off two or more pairs of sunglasses at shadyrays.com. [divider] Interview with Jeremy Barney aka Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen Jeremy's Instagram Jeremy's Youtube Time stamps & Questions 00:06:30 - Reminders: Sign up for the Trek's newsletter, subscribe to Trail Correspondents, and  listen to our episodes ad-free on Patreon! 00:09:18 - Introducing Smitty 00:10:34 - Tell us about the 24 hour challenges you've done on the PCT 00:13:00 - How did you get your trail name? 00:16:25 - Tell us about the commercial you did with Alex Hannold 00:22:30 - Tell us about working at REI 00:29:50 - Tell us about growing up Navajo in Pennsylvania 00:35:30 - How did you get started with backpacking? 00:39:00 - Discussion about Smitty's climbing experience and falls 00:42:50 - What is your bucket list of jobs? 00:50:50 - Discussion about Smitty's job as a gravedigger 00:54:15 - How did you decide to hike the Colorado Trail? 01:03:00 - Tell us about the backpacks you've tried 01:08:35 - Discussion about what Smitty sent home from the PCT 01:15:00 - What other gear compromises did you have to make when switching packs? 01:28:55 - What kind of discounts do you get at REI? 01:34:50 - Tell us about meeting Jabba 01:39:00 - Discussion about footwear and injuries 01:41:30 - What was your scariest day on trail? 01:51:40 - Do you have any advice for aspiring thru-hikers? 01:58:00 - Stay Salty Question: What's your hottest take in the world of backpacking? Segments Tribute to Bill Jensen Trek Propaganda: After 22,000 Miles of Thru-Hiking, This Is One of the Biggest Mistakes I See Beginners Make by Peg Leg QOTD: Do people face the shower head when they shower? Triple Crown of things you can easily live without, but nonetheless should be free for everyone Mail Bag 5 Star Review [divider] Check out our sound guy @my_boy_pauly/ and his coffee. Sign up for the Trek's newsletter Leave us a voicemail! Subscribe to this podcast on iTunes (and please leave us a review)!  Find us on Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play. Support us on Patreon to get bonus content. Advertise on Backpacker Radio Follow The Trek, Chaunce, Badger, and Trail Correspondents on Instagram. Follow Backpacker Radio, The Trek and Chaunce on YouTube. Follow Backpacker Radio on Tik Tok.  Our theme song is Walking Slow by Animal Years. A super big thank you to our Bob Peoples Award winner(s) from Patreon: Alex and Misty with NavigatorsCrafting, Alex Kindle, Andrew, Austen McDaniel, Bill Jensen, Brad & Blair Thirteen Adventures, Bret Mullins aka Cruizy, Bryan Alsop, Carl Lobstah Houde, Christopher Marshburn, Clint Sitler, Coach from Marion Outdoors, Eric Casper, Erik Hofmann, Ethan Harwell, Gillian Daniels, Greg Knight, Greg Martin, Griffin Haywood, Hailey Buckingham, Jackson Storm, JaredNotFromSubway, Jason Kiser, Jason "The Snail" Snailer, Luke Netjes, Matty in AZ, Patrick Cianciolo, Randy Sutherland, Rebecca Brave, Rural Juror, Sawyer Products, The Saint Louis Shaman, Timothy Hahn, Tracy 'Trigger' Fawns A big thank you to our Cinnamon Connection Champions from Patreon: Bells, Benjy Lowry, Bonnie Ackerman, Brett Vandiver, Chris Pyle, Dakota J, David Neal, Dcnerdlet, Denise Krekeler, Jack Greene, Jeanie, Jeanne Latshaw, Lloyd Harris, Merle Watkins, Peter, Quenten Jones, Ruth S, Salt Stain, Sloan Alberhasky, and Tyler Powers.

How do you write about the most painful experiences of your life without being overwhelmed by them? How can timed writing and a braided story help you untangle your hardest stories? With Nicole Walker. In the intro, Self-Publishing Pop Up Books [Self-Publishing with ALLi]; New in KU [BookBub]; The solar sail theory of indie publishing [ProductiveIndieFictionWriter]; Bones of the Deep; Selfie Awards Shortlist 2026. This episode is sponsored by Publisher Rocket, which will help you get your book in front of more Amazon readers so you can spend less time marketing and more time writing. I use Publisher Rocket for researching book titles, categories, and keywords — for new books and for updating my backlist. Check it out at www.PublisherRocket.com This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn Nicole Walker is a nonfiction author, essayist, poet, and editor, as well as a creative writing teacher. Her latest book is Writing the Hard Stuff: Turning Difficult Subjects into Meaningful Prose. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes Why writing helps us understand “the puzzles of the universe” — and when to trust that intuition The braided essay: alternating between trauma and an everyday obsession to unlock the hard stuff How two-minute timed writing lets you go deep and then safely step back Rooting pain in the body, using the senses, scene, and dialogue instead of words like “trauma” Truth in memoir, big T versus little t, and the emerging genre of speculative nonfiction What actually sells books: pairing up on book tour and getting readers back out into the world You can find Nicole and NikWalk.com. Transcript of the interview with Nicole Walker Jo: Nicole Walker is a nonfiction author, essayist, poet, and editor, as well as a creative writing teacher. Her latest book is Writing the Hard Stuff: Turning Difficult Subjects into Meaningful Prose. So welcome to the show, Nicole. Nicole: Hi, Joanna. It's so nice to be here. Jo: I've lots to talk about, but first up— Tell us a bit more about you and your journey into writing and publishing. Nicole: I was always a writer. As all writers say, I've been writing since I was five. I kept little journals and things like that, and I was on the high school literary magazine. I was an English major in college, but that was always tempered with some serious commitment to the sciences, to English literature, to German, to Spanish. I had a wide variety of interests, but there was always something that tugged at me about writing that made me feel like, this is where I feel most at home. This is the way I like to understand the puzzles of the universe. This is how I make sense of the world—through writing. So even though I got my BA in English at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, I stuck around Portland for a few years because I loved it. I worked for various non-profits, and that was great. At some point I said, “I really want to take this seriously.” So I went ahead and applied to graduate school, and ended up in the University of Utah's PhD programme, where I stayed for eight very lovely years. I always recommend to my own students: never graduate. Stay in graduate school forever, because it's such a beautiful place where people support your writing. You have professors who support it, but more importantly, you have your cohort. To this day, I have so many great friends. You make a lot of friends if you stick around for eight years. That sort of community-building is, I think, the other part of why I became a writer. Writing by myself is obviously a lonely business, and there's a lot of internal struggle that happens with that. I have found a literary community, both at the University of Utah and then growing from there, serving as president of the NonfictioNOW Conference, teaching my own graduate students, serving as the series editor for Crux, the imprint at the University of Georgia Press. I feel like my world has expanded because of my writing. So that's been a true gift. Jo: Oh, I love that. I love that you said you understand the puzzles of the universe through writing, and that this tugged at you. Could talk about that a bit more? Because a lot of listeners, I think, sometimes mistrust that feeling. They think, “Oh, maybe I shouldn't necessarily lean into that intuition.” It feels like you leaned very strongly into an intuition that this was the way. Nicole: Yes, and this book in particular, Writing the Hard Stuff, takes that to heart. I think about writing the hard stuff as writing all kinds of tricky things—things that are really hard to communicate. The book begins revolving around personal trauma. Things that happened in my childhood, as well as difficult subjects that happen to us when we're growing up. It also includes things like environmental issues and political issues: things that are really hard to talk about, that are philosophically difficult to express, that can be controversial, and that you can put people off by talking about. One of the goals of the book—one of my own philosophies—is that by looking deeply into the knotted ball of string that is a kind of trauma or a kind of difficulty, and beginning to pull those strings out, that's where you start to not only make meaning out of what happened to you, or what this particular problem is, but those strings themselves become connections. I talk about Donna Haraway's book Staying with the Trouble. It's primarily about how we can overcome our political differences regarding climate change, and one of her examples is to change the way we think about narrative. In Western thought, we often think there's a beginning, a middle, and an end, and she brings up the Navajo game that we all know as cat's cradle. So if you think of that ball of knots—your trauma, your difficult subject—you start pulling out the strings, and then you start playing with it. With cat's cradle, you make one design with your hands, and then a friend pulls it around and turns it into another design. To me, that's how reading and writing work. We share, and we build on each other's ideas, but we're always connected by those strings. So if you have this difficult subject and you're shying away from it, you're losing, I think, some of the opportunity to make connections and to make sense of what that nest of string sitting in your stomach actually is. Jo: I love that metaphor. I think it's brilliant. I've never heard it described that way, and I think it's fantastic. What's interesting is that some people don't have a mind's eye—I know several listeners who don't. So while in my mind I'm picturing the ball of string and then the cat's cradle, some people won't be able to do that, which is also fascinating in terms of how people's brains work. In terms of how you'd recommend people think about it: this ball of string that we want to turn into a design like a cat's cradle is a total mess. So where do we even start? How do we know where to start pulling on the threads? Because it might just feel like it's out of control. Nicole: Oh, I deeply appreciate both the idea that some people don't have that mind's eye, or just think differently. We all have different ways of imagining what we call our trauma, this nest of problems, this ball of string. Of course a metaphor does oversimplify in some ways. I say, “Well, you just take one of the ends of the string and start pulling.” But practically, what does that really mean to do? There are a couple of things I suggest in the book and offer at workshops. One is an exercise I call writing the braided essay. I ask the writer to sit down and think about a scene that was difficult in their life—something that had a lot of tension, that they're really still struggling with, that they don't love thinking about. I'm going to ask them to go there for just a couple of minutes. Then there's the other side of the braided essay: I ask them to think about something completely different, completely off-topic. Perhaps a walk they took in the aspen grove, or what they were making for dinner last night, or perhaps they're deeply invested in the networks of the blood in the human body—anything they're fascinated and obsessed with. I say, “Okay, I want you to write about your difficult subject for two minutes, but then I'm going to give you a break, and you're going to pop over and talk about how you spent all day weeding your garden, and yet there are still weeds.” Then I'm going to ask people to go back and talk about their difficult subject, and then go back and talk about their obsession with weeds. They write about each of these things for two minutes. What happens—which I think is a pretty compelling experiment, from my point of view and from theirs—is that they write back and forth, and they're able to take a break from the hard thing. They're also tempted to go back to it once they've had that break in their research. The other thing that happens—and, you know, every book in nonfiction has to have a colon, so of course it's called Writing the Hard Stuff: Turning Difficult Subjects into Meaningful Prose—is that by going back and forth, you'll see the connections these writers make. They make connections with word choice, with verbs, with colours and different kinds of imagery. They start to make meaning between those two ideas. What happens to the writer then—and to me, when I'm doing it—is that I now have something that is constructed. So it's not just this knot in my stomach. It's not just my interest in research. Now I've put these things together, and then I get to play. We get to the cat's cradle part of the metaphor, where I really start thinking about craft issues. Why did I happen to bring these two ideas together? What might they have in common? What does it mean that I'm telling the story of my parents' divorce and my personal trauma, and in the research part I'm talking about weeds? Well, maybe I felt in the weeds. You come up with some sort of overarching understanding of why you chose that research story, and it lets you go deeper into that personal trauma, now with some of the techniques of craft, which I think help shield you from some of the trauma and pain of that original hard story. Jo: Again, I really love that idea. Do you also think the timed writing actually helps people go deep and then withdraw a bit, which psychologically may help them write about these difficult subjects? People are like, “I need to sit down for two hours and write about this deeply traumatic thing,” which of course feels like it's going to be too hard. So perhaps that two-minute process actually releases people from that. Nicole: Oh, absolutely. What a great way to think about it. It is prohibitive to sit down and think, “Okay, I'm going to go into the worst thing that ever happened to me and sit with it for two hours.” Going back and forth, you create energy and tension. But also, nobody wants to sit with something by themselves for two hours. If you think of research as your companion—”I'm coming in there with you, buddy”—you have something to rely on, this other side of the story, and it gives you that space. The timed writing, the two minutes, two minutes, two minutes, also reminds you that you don't have to write for two hours straight any day. I have a goal where I write 500 words a day, which is mostly true, unless I'm really in the weeds. We'll use two metaphors today: we'll use string, and now we'll be using weeds. But when I'm really in the weeds teaching, or going around the country talking about books, I really do write 500 words a day. I often try not to write too much more, because sometimes it loses freshness, and it can be overwhelming. So I really appreciate you saying that having that timed writing is important, but also that having that balance of deep emotional investigation with this more cerebral, informational crutch can really help you get into the subject and go deeper. Jo: Yes, and perhaps it anchors the writing in something concrete. Because with memoir particularly—having also written one—it can be too easy to lean on big words like “pain” or “trauma,” but that's actually meaningless in a book. So why is it so important to be specific and concrete in our writing in order to convey these bigger topics? Nicole: I think we know our own trauma. We know how it feels in our bodies, and we've been living with it for a long time. So it's pretty hard to communicate it to others. Why does it matter to other people? Of course it matters to you, but how are you going to convey the breadth of that trouble with words that aren't rooted in the physical world? The nice thing about rooting things in the physical world is that every one of us has a body. We have different bodies, but we share that in common. So it's the old trope of using your senses first. What did it feel like? If you can't think of what part of your body it particularly hurts in, you have the availability of metaphor to describe how that might have felt. You have the opportunity to create scene. This is particularly difficult for memoir writers, I think, because we imagine it's the fiction folks who have to use dialogue, who have to have a setting, who have to put their bodies in a place. Thatt's one of my mantras when I teach: we need to be able to see where you are. We need to see what is physically happening, how the interactions work. Dialogue, I think, is one of the best ways to literally get your body on the page—and to get your other characters, or subjects, on the page—because to speak, you have to have a body. Once you start having dialogue, you can picture the way the speaker's face moves, the way they cross their legs. You can even picture the colour of the paint behind them, or the kind of chair they're sitting in. So dialogue is one of the first ways you can say, “All right, I must have a scene here.” I can't go on just telling people, “It was so traumatic. I suffered so much. It was terrible. I felt so much pain.” You can say that sometimes, that's totally fair, but you have to pair it with that physical, concrete imagery, so other people can begin to understand what it felt like for you in your body, so they can feel it in their body. Jo: Interesting that you bring up dialogue because one of the issues with memoir is—I've had people compare it to truth with a small “t” and truth with a big “T.” So you're telling some kind of big truth about your life. If you're writing dialogue about something that actually happened to you, in memory, it's very unlikely that it actually happened in that way, so it's not necessarily small-“t” true. So on a practical note, what are your thoughts and tips on truth. How do we tell our own story even if others don't see it that way? Nicole: This is a subject I'm deeply invested in right now. When I first started teaching creative nonfiction, it was at the height of the John D'Agata and David Shields questions. What is truth? Big T, little t? What am I obligated to do as a creative nonfiction writer? I had a great friend, Angie Truong, who came to teach one of my classes, and she said, “Nonfiction is a pretty big spectrum. You have journalism on one end, and then you have the lyric essay on the other end.” You imagine the lyric essay is full of metaphors and things like that, so you can approach truth. You're saying, “This is what it felt like. This is what it seemed like.” Check out my newest favourite thing. It's called speculative nonfiction, and I use a little bit of this in my book How to Plant a Billion Trees, which Writing the Hard Stuff is somewhat based on. I wrote them in tandem, which was a very strange and interesting and fun thing to do. But in How to Plant a Billion Trees I use this thing called speculative nonfiction, which goes even further along the spectrum, past the lyric essay, to this opportunity to use language like “perhaps,” “maybe,” “I imagined.” So I have sections in my book where I can't remember the dialogue exactly, but I know that the dialogue in some sense matters—that what might have been said will do much more to convey what was happening than my exposition over the matter. By using those turns of phrase, you're alerting your reader: “Dear reader, this definitely is not exactly what happened, but this is how I recall it.” Then you're being not only honest to the story and honest to your reader, but you're also conveying the feeling and the mood of the event—that other kind of truth that memoir is really trying to get at. It was like this for me, which is why I think this way now. It's a fledgling genre. I just read a book by Laraine Herring called A Constellation of Ghosts: A Speculative Memoir with Ravens. It's brilliant. It's an amazing book that pairs her actual colonoscopy and discovery of colon cancer with the story of her dad, who has passed already and comes back as a raven and helps her through it. So you're pulling on some of the tools of fiction, which creative nonfiction already has been doing. But it does so in this bright and, I feel, incredibly ethical way. You're alerting your reader, “My dad is not really a raven.” But you're also saying, “Oh my gosh, I sensed he was with me. I sensed every time a raven approached that I had somebody's hand on my shoulder.” That, to me, has been a lot of fun—a much more imaginative way of creating some of those scenes than doing something like, “Well, I don't remember the dialogue.” Or, even worse—and we know people have been unethical in their approach—recreating the dialogue as if they'd had a tape recorder with them when they were 17 years old. Jo: Mm. Nicole: So I offer that as an option to your listeners, as something to experiment with. Allow yourself to have that imaginative opportunity to show the reader what it might have been like. Jo: I love that. It's interesting, you talk there about the spectrum of nonfiction, which is ridiculously big, as is fiction. Obviously these are very big. But I wonder if we do get hemmed in by genre. I love the idea of a speculative memoir. I'm going to have to go read that book because I can't even imagine what that really means. I feel hemmed in by my expectations of a memoir. But then, from a business and marketing perspective—because we're all trying to sell our books— Do we risk not meeting the expectations of a reader of a genre that way? Nicole: Right. One of the good and bad things about my literary career is that I've spanned a lot of genres. My PhD is actually in poetry. Nobody expects the full truth from poetry. One of my poetry professors once said she wrote this really sad poem about her father's death, and the audience was moved, and then her real father stood up and said, “Good job, daughter.” And someone in the audience was just shocked: “You just read a poem about your dead dad, and here he is!” We have absolute expectations of genre, and expectations of truth, in everything we read. If you label it fiction, you're kind of off the hook—even though, of course, fiction uses so many elements of nonfiction: so much research, so much information, so much personal memory to create those fantastic landscapes. So when I think about how one sells one's memoir, I do think you also have to acknowledge what you expect your audience to be. With Laraine Herring's A Constellation of Ghosts, by putting “colon, a speculative memoir,” you're alerting your reader to that possibility. And because it's a pretty far-out way of thinking right now, it probably does curtail some of the sales. On the other hand, think of memoirs that are written for celebrities, and how many of them are ghostwritten—or written with other people, where the ghostwriter's not even part of the thing—but it comes across as the most legit of all memoirs, because it's a celebrity and we know them. We associate their lives with their story, and their story must therefore be true. So I think, with all levels of creative nonfiction, it's incumbent upon the writer to suggest right off the bat what kind of nonfiction they're reading. Are they reading journalism? Are they reading lyric essays? Are they reading speculative nonfiction? I think a lot, too—as an editor for a literary series for nonfiction books—about what I look for in memoir. It's something that takes the personal story and connects it into the larger conversation. Even if the larger conversation is directly about what the main subject is about, to me it's still about the crux of the matter. Why does your story make an impact on the world in this bigger way? How do you let the world inform your story? How does your past and your trauma, or your difficulties, connect to a larger world? Jo: Mm. Nicole: To me, that's something some memoirs are capable of doing. Some memoirs are truly invested only in that personal story, which I think is totally legitimate too, because I love learning how people think. I love understanding. This is just how my brain works. But in terms of sales? I don't know. Again, as the series editor and as the seller of my own books, I think you can't determine it in advance. So you should probably write what you want to write, what feels right to you, using as many craft techniques as you can hone. But the market, to me, feels very non-negotiable. You never know exactly how things are going to turn out. So I deeply believe: write the best, most well-crafted book you can, and I do think your readers will find you. Jo: We'll come back to marketing in a minute, but just returning to your own writing practice. I've got your book page up in front of me, and you've written all kinds of things: your essays, your memoirs, some fiction, and some poetry, as you mentioned. So I wondered: when you're researching something, or you've got a feeling about wanting to write, how do you choose the type of book you turn it into—or a poem, or an essay? Or do you pitch it as some kind of external work, or turn it into a workshop? How do you turn an idea into what it will eventually be? Nicole: I love that question because it's somewhat of a mystery to me, but I think I'm getting close to understanding. It really is in those first few words, that first sentence, that I think, “Okay, I know which direction this is going.” For example, the other day I woke up in the morning and thought, “All right, I'm writing this poem about how man took over for God, and that's how the planet ended up being such a mess.” So I started writing it, and it was pretty lyrical at the beginning. But then I started making full sentences, and explaining things a little bit more, and I thought, “Okay, this is not a poem. It's going to be an essay.” When I start writing fiction, I pull on something a little further, a little more distant from my experience, and then I pull it back into something more character-driven. For example, in a novel I'm writing, I begin with this whole story about McDonald's and ravens, and then I pull it back into the character. If I were to diagram the sentences between a poem, the nonfiction, and the fiction, I think I'd see fundamental differences between the three. Jo: Do you work on multiple projects at the same time, or once you commit to something, is that what you finish? Personally, I have lots of little things happening, and then a moment comes and I commit to a book, and I won't stop until I've finished that book—the rest will have to wait. It's that decision moment. How does it work for you? Nicole: My process is pretty similar to yours. I have a number of ongoing projects, percolating here and there. Some days I'll think, “All right, today feels like a fiction day.” But for the most part, you're absolutely right. There's a bunch of little things I'm writing, or things I'm dabbling in, but once there's a critical mass—which I'd say is around 20,000 words or something—I'm all in, and I've got to focus on this project. Even though I think I can do whatever multitasking, really it's important to try to maintain some sort of through-line in whatever project I'm working on. If I do that with too many projects, I lose that through-line. I also worry sometimes that the projects start to sound too similar. So say I'm writing a nonfiction collection and a novel—if I go back and forth every other day, those sentence differences I'm talking about might start to collapse, and they become too similar. Then what the heck would I be writing? I don't even know. Jo: It's interesting because you span academic publishing and, I guess, trade publishing—whatever you want to call it—where more non-academics read books. I'm just finishing up a master's myself at the moment, and writing academic stuff is completely different to writing my other books. So when you're deciding on these books, are you aiming for a specific publication market—as in, you want an academic publisher, or you want a trade publisher? How do you think about publishing in the process? Nicole: As much as I once really wanted to find some ground as a scholarly and academic writer—and I really do love to write reviews of other people's books, and Writing the Hard Stuff is a textbook that relies tremendously on so many other people's books. That is really important to me because that goes back to how one both creates and thanks one's community for creating the literary world we live in—I feel like there's a smaller audience for that sort of academic writing. But it's something we should do. As generous as you are here, for example, reaching out to other people about other people's books is probably the kindest thing you can do. So I hope to continue to take time to do that and make it part of my repertoire. It's not as fun, I'd say, as the imaginative elements of writing creative nonfiction, or fiction, or poetry. That's when I really love to groove and get into that mode of, “Oh, the words are coming. Oh, I never thought about it that way.” With academic writing, I feel I sometimes write in a slightly more stilted voice. My friend Ander Monson, who teaches at the University of Arizona, has done a really great job of writing—whether it's his personal essays or his critical essays—where he maintains the same voice. He doesn't move into that super-formal academic speak. He'll literally say things like, “You know,” or, “That's a banger of a sentence,” in the middle of an academic essay, and I really admire him for that. I feel like maybe if academic writing were more receptive to people writing in their unique voices, then maybe more people would read it. Jo: Yes. One of the pieces of feedback on one of my earlier essays in my master's year was around my sentence structure—that it would be far more appropriate in a novel than in an academic essay. I was saying to my husband, “I can't believe this, but I'm just going to have to change my style.” It's very interesting. We're almost out of time, and I also wanted to ask you: you have a recent blog post on how to try to get your forthcoming book attention in 4,231 simple steps, which made me laugh. We all find book marketing a challenge, so what have you found works best for you? I should tell the listeners—there are not 4,000 steps in your blog post. Although I think people would want them. Nicole: Exactly. I stopped at 72, but I can go on. That was sort of the pre-publishing process. There have been so many great things that have happened, but a lot of them have been driven by me. I have a publicist, but he works on a lot of other books, and I have a marketing person at Bloomsbury. They have to juggle a lot. The only person who is really, really, really committed to your book is you. So I've written companion essays. I haven't had any luck publishing them, which hasn't been true in the past, so I wonder what's going on there. I'll write something for the Huffington Post or Newsweek that's tangentially related to my book. I also might just write too much in essay voice instead of popular-magazine voice. As we were just talking about, academic voice versus novelistic voice. So that might be part of the problem too. Reaching out to people who might invite me onto podcasts has been really rewarding, and very, very kind. I think the best thing I did was to put myself on book tour and to pair myself with someone in that community. I've gone on book tour before by myself, and there have been occasions where there were two to three people in the audience, which can be really disheartening. The problem wasn't so much the bookstore's fault or my book's fault—it's just that if you go to a bookstore in a town where nobody knows you, they're not going to put a lot of effort into making the date happen, unless you're super famous. So what I did was find somebody in a community—a friend of mine—who would go with me and be part of the conversation. Even if their book was a couple of years old, we'd still go and have a conversation about each of our books. This has worked tremendously well. People will come to see their friend, and then they'll be introduced to you, and they'll ask you questions and buy your book. You create new connections and new friends thanks to that friend and that place. So that's my number one recommendation for how to get the word out in the world. I also did all the social media stuff. It doesn't work as well as it used to. It's kind of a strange time. But because of my suggestion about going to bookstores with people you know… I think we're coming out of our COVID time, where we got so used to doing everything on our computers and just staying in our electronic universe. People are hungry to get out. So one thing I want to do, and haven't done yet, is throw a big party. Go to weird places where you don't even do readings—you just offer people snacks and a glass of wine and say, “Hey, here's a book if you want to buy it.” To have these more informal gatherings that bring people together because I do think there's a hankering for people to get out into the world again. Jo: And just on that—you've got these two books coming at the same time: How to Plant a Billion Trees, which is the memoir, and Writing the Hard Stuff, the how-to book for writers. When you do these events, are you choosing one or the other depending on the audience? Or are you selling both at the same time? Because they're obviously very different. Nicole: Yes, I'm definitely selling both at the same time. Although I probably push How to Plant a Billion Trees first, because most of the people I'm pairing with are also writers of nonfiction or memoir. The other thing is, I can talk about How to Plant a Billion Trees, and if people have a really deep question about, “Well, how did you write this section?” I can say, “Well, if you refer to this book, Writing the Hard Stuff, you'll see.” So it's an easier segue. I think people aren't used to going to book events for craft books. But in the interview world—where people are reviewing books or interviewing me—Writing the Hard Stuff has definitely been the primary book I've been approached to speak about because people really do want techniques. So it depends on the context as to which book gets the spotlight, but it's been really fun to be able to talk about both in tandem. I don't know if they're competing against each other or supporting each other. That's my hope, that people think, “Oh, I read this one book, I might as well read the other one.” But that's asking a lot of people, to buy two books, so I try not to overstate that hope. Jo: They are very different, and I love the idea of doing that. Absolutely. So where can people find you and your books online? Nicole: You can find me at my Substack, which is substack.nikwalk.com—N-I-K-W-A-L-K. Or my website, which is the same: nikwalk.com. I might just start going as Nik Walk in the world, so people can find me more easily. I also really love to support Bloomsbury. They have really good deals, especially on the audiobook for How to Plant a Billion Trees, and they also have good deals if you buy both books, you get free shipping. So Bloomsbury is probably the number one place to get the books, but of course they're also available on Bookshop.org and Amazon.com, and on Amazon in the UK as well. Jo: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Nicole. That was great. Nicole: Oh, it was so fun to talk with you, Joanna. Thank you again so much for this opportunity.The post Writing The Hard Stuff: Turning Difficult Subjects Into Meaningful Prose With Nicole Walker first appeared on The Creative Penn.

U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola receives standing ovation from delegates at the 2025 Alaska Federation of Natives Convention. She is expected to be one of the candidates to appear at this year’s convention in October. (Photo: Matt Faubion / Alaska Public Media) The Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) will celebrate the anniversary of its 60th convention this October. Rhonda McBride from our flagship station KNBA has more on plans for this milestone gathering. “Rooted in Land and Tradition, Rising in Our Voices.” That's theme for this year's AFN Convention. AFN President Ben Mallott says it reflects six decades of advocacy and the power of collective voices. “We have taken our convention, over 60 years, and have made it in, I think, the state's largest meeting, with a broadcast of over 100,000 viewers. That's a powerful tool for our community.” In 1966, about 400 Native leaders from across the state gathered above an Anchorage storefront on Fourth Avenue to fight for their ancestral lands. This first gathering laid out the groundwork for the passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) in 1971 — still the largest lands settlement in U.S. History. Today, the convention draws thousands of people, along with state and national leaders. Mallott says this year's keynote speaker is Dr. Rosita Worl, president of the Sealaska Heritage Institute and a longtime AFN board member. Mallott says Worl has dedicated her life to advancing Native causes. “It's Rosita. Dr. Worl, she's an icon. She's a legend. She has built Sealaska Heritage Institute into the institution it is now in Juneau, and she's also one of our strongest advocates for subsistence.” Mallott says this fall's convention will also feature candidate debates for the U.S. Senate, U.S. House, and Governor's races — and will be part of an extensive Get-Out-The-Native-Vote campaign. AFN will be held for three days at the Dena'ina Center in Anchorage, Alaska starting on October 22. On January 9, 2007, members of the Navajo Nation, faced with the devastating health and environmental effects of yet another coal-burning power plant, staged a peaceful demonstration in Window Rock, Ariz., on the day that returning Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley was sworn in. Peaceful demonstrators were forcibly stopped and blocked from attending the inauguration by the Navajo Nation Police. (Photo: Carlan Tapp / Palace of the Governors Photo Archives) An exhibit at the New Mexico History Museum in Santa Fe, N.M. highlights the successful campaign by three Diné women to stop a coal-fired power plant on the Navajo Nation. KUNM's Jeanette DeDios (Jicarilla Apache and Diné) talked with one – Sarah Jane White – and photographer Carlan Tapp (Wacomico/Anglo). “A Question of Power” features 40 black and white photographs by Tapp as well as video and audio interviews with residents on the Navajo Nation between 2004 and 2011. They include tense confrontations between tribal members and authorities over plans by the Dine' Power Authority to build the Desert Rock plant on the Navajo Nation near Farmington, N.M. Robin Jackson is the executive director for Diné Citizens Against Ruining the Environment (C.A.R.E.), a nonprofit that works with Navajo communities on energy and environmental issues. “President (Richard) Nixon had declared that certain parts of the U.S. would be sacrificed for energy production in order to meet energy needs for some of the bigger cities like Los Angeles or Phoenix and others.” In the wake of the 1973 oil crisis, Nixon announced Project Independence that included expanding nuclear development, including lands inhabited by Native Americans. A 2010 research article identified 37 Navajo communities with high rates of certain diseases and conditions associated with coal power plants. The growing number of children with asthma was one of the reasons Sarah Jane White became involved. “So I went around the schools too, and I found out just how many children were having respiratory issues.” She says the majority of the Navajo people opposed Desert Rock and wrote letters to then Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr. She says plant owners tried to get her to stop protesting against Desert Rock by offering her sons jobs. White was joined in her fight by Lucy Willie and Molly Hogue. Tapp was drawn to their compelling story. “The thing I thought, I have got to keep really good notes on this for some reason. I don’t know why.” Tapp traveled with White, Willie, and Hogue to different communities on the reservation, and he says that it was eye opening. “I could not believe it. People without electricity, people without running water.” Tapp’s photographs and interviews also helped in the fight against Desert Rock. Ultimately, the Desert Rock Energy project was officially canceled in 2011 due to the continued opposition. With the closure of another plant, the San Juan Generating Station in 2022, Jackson says you can see the difference in the air. There is still one active power plant on the Navajo Nation scheduled for decommissioning in 2031. Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out today’s Native America Calling episode Monday, June 29, 2026 — First Nations group works to reclaim thousands of sacred items from Swiss collector

In Wordsworth's 1807 description of ‘golden daffodils', the breeze animates both the scene and the inner life of the speaker. Like many poets, Wordsworth turned to the weather to mediate between internal and external experiences. In this episode, Sarah and Sandeep look at the ways in which weather has functioned as a poetic tool, and consider three recent poems which describe the intimate and communal effects of atmospheric events: Maureen McLane's ‘Rocks', with its ‘rain/when I'd just told her it would hold off'; ‘Surface Mapping' by Jake Skeets, describing the death of 191 horses on Navajo land during a drought; and Ishion Hutchinson's ‘After the Hurricane', in which the silence after a violent storm becomes a space to assess different forms of aftermath. Read Maureen McLane's 'Rocks' in the LRB: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n01/maureen-n.-mclane/rocks Book tickets to a live recording of this series: https://lrb.me/ptwtickets Get 25% off a 12-month subscription to Close Readings with the code 'POETRY25' at checkout here: https://lrb.me/crpoetry Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Uranium mining on Navajo Nation land began in 1944 to supply the U.S. government with the radioactive ore used in nuclear bombs. About 30 million tons of uranium were extracted by the time operations on the reservation ceased in 1986. The environmental contamination from this effort left much of the Navajo Reservation uninhabitable and has had severe health consequences on residents to this day. The reservation is the largest by area in the United States, spanning Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, and about 170,000 of the approximately 400,000 enrolled members of the Navajo Nation reside within its borders. Many of the rest live in nearby communities whose drinking water has been poisoned by uranium contamination. Now several companies including Dick Cheney’s former mining operation are amongst those trying to revive uranium extraction in the area…Joining us today to discuss this issue is Anna Rondon. Anna is a Tribal member of the Navajo Nation and the Executive Director of the Gallup based New Mexico Social Justice Equity Institute. In the second half of the show, we discuss the fallout of the toxicity and how it is manifested in the native populations. We discuss reparations and the lack of government intervention. We also discuss how listeners can offer support.Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/civiccipher?utm_source=searchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Uranium mining on Navajo Nation land began in 1944 to supply the U.S. government with the radioactive ore used in nuclear bombs. About 30 million tons of uranium were extracted by the time operations on the reservation ceased in 1986. The environmental contamination from this effort left much of the Navajo Reservation uninhabitable and has had severe health consequences on residents to this day. The reservation is the largest by area in the United States, spanning Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, and about 170,000 of the approximately 400,000 enrolled members of the Navajo Nation reside within its borders. Many of the rest live in nearby communities whose drinking water has been poisoned by uranium contamination. Now several companies including Dick Cheney’s former mining operation are amongst those trying to revive uranium extraction in the area…Joining us today to discuss this issue is Anna Rondon. Anna is a Tribal member of the Navajo Nation and the Executive Director of the Gallup based New Mexico Social Justice Equity Institute. In the first half of the show, we discuss how the mines have affected workers, their children and their animals. We also discuss which companies are looking to revive the mining efforts on these lands.Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/civiccipher?utm_source=searchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Part 2. Anna Rondon Discusses Toxic Uranium Mining on Navajo Tribal LandsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Anna Rondon Discusses Toxic Uranium Mining on Navajo Tribal LandsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Oregon's only contribution to a time capsule organized for the America250 commemoration is a pin by Lillian Pitt, an artist from the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs known for her focus on Native Americans' 12,000 years of history. In a statement, Pitt says she's gratified that the work will remind the people who open the capsule 250 years from now “of those who have made this land their home since time immemorial.” The National Museum of the American Indian is compiling a quilt with panels created in a series by different artists offering interpretations of the country's history through a Native lens. They are among the many contributions by Native individuals and organizations during the nation's semiquincentennial. GUESTS Elizabeth Woody (Warm Springs, Navajo, and Yakama), executive director of The Museum at Warm Springs Lillian Pitt (Warm Springs, Wasco, and Yakama), artist Gabriel Fray (Passamaquoddy), artist Tracy Goodluck (Oneida Nation of Wisconsin and Muscogee), executive director of the Center for Native American Youth Emma Alcazar (Chickasaw), a designer for the Quilt Along Break 1 Music: This Land (song) Keith Secola (artist) Native Americana – A Coup Stick (album) Break 2 Music: Round Dance (song) Black Lodge (artist) Enter the Circle – Pow-Wow Songs (album)

Ethan drives Highway 160 home every night. He knows the deer, the elk, the long dark stretches near the San Juan Mountains. But on a January night under a two percent moon, every house light and every street light goes dark at once, like a switch flips on the whole valley. Then something steps onto the double yellow line and starts walking straight toward his truck. He is sure it is a buck. Then the white deer turns translucent, you can almost see its bones, and it rises onto two legs.This is one of the most chilling firsthand accounts of a skinwalker we have ever brought to the membership. Ethan leads a Navajo crew, lives on the edge of Ute and Navajo land, and he never wanted to say the word first. His wife said it for him. We walk through every second of it, the grotesque seizure-like movement, the cannon-shot charge at his windshield, and the moment the thing vanished into vapor just feet from his face. Worship music is still playing. Lock the doors for this one.  Want to listen to this episode and a catalog of more than 100+ other members-only episodes? How about all our main feed episodes AD FREE? Check out the vibrant community, extra episodes, and amazing perks of being a Blurry Creatures member at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://blurrycreatures.com/pages/members⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In episode 412 of the RV Miles podcast, we continue our  @noovovans road trip across northern Arizona via scenic Route 89A, sharing why the overlooked drive offers great stops beyond the Grand Canyon. We take an unplanned visit to Pipe Spring National Monument, drive through Kaibab National Forest, past Vermilion Cliffs, and stop at Marble Canyon's Navajo Bridge near Lee's Ferry,  *Get links and more in the show notes at https://RVMiles.com/412 *Support RV Miles and independent RV journalism