Podcasts about white earth reservation

In this episode, we sit down with Minneapolis-based actor, writer, and director Ajuawak Kapashesit. Ajuawak, who is Ojibwe, Cree, and Jewish, grew up in Ontario and on the White Earth Reservation. His acting credits include Indian Horse (2017), Once Upon a River (2019), Indian Road Trip (2020), Bad Blood (CityTV/Netflix), and Outlander (Starz/Sony). Ajuawak's short story, “A Fresh Start,” was published in the anthology Before the Usual Time by Latitude 46. He was a story editor and contributing writer for the second and third seasons of the sketch comedy show, Tallboyz (CBC). He delves into his writing process, how he plays with different genres and eras, getting into character, and his rugby career. Ajuawak talks about the differences between writing a short story, feature film, and television pilot, and how collaboration with other actors on set can bring out a particular creativity.  Ajuawak, who was first inspired by his grandmother's artistic process as a child, shares how expanding what narratives are presented to audiences can be a radical form of inclusion for Indigenous viewers. For Ajuawak, connecting through story can build bridges and usher in necessary change. Tune in for an engaging conversation with one of today's most vibrant, Indigenous artists! 

Pre-order the Freaky Folklore Compendium https://eeriecast.com/freak Get the CRYPTID Card Game CryptidCardGame.com Read our new wendigo horror novel https://eeriecast.com/lore Sign up for Eeriecast PLUS for bonus content and more https://eeriecast.com/plus Get our merch http://eeriecast.store/ SCARY STORIES TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 INTRO 0:51 Werewolf in Georgia from Dragonswillfly 13:07 Chattahoochee Encounter from AilingDood 21:42 Life Takes You Places from Stellar_Gab 29:54 Something Happened in Maine from Pete G. 40:37 Childhood Memory from the White Earth Reservation from Anonymous_Ojibwe 50:17 Hunted by Something from G. W. W. Join my Discord! https://discord.gg/3YVN4twrD8 Follow the Unexplained Encounters podcast! https://pod.link/1152248491 Follow and review Tales from the Break Room on Spotify and Apple Podcasts! https://pod.link/1621075170 Follow us on Spotify! https://open.spotify.com/show/3mNZyXkaJPLwUwcjkz6Pv2 Follow and Review us on iTunes! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/darkness-prevails-podcast-true-horror-stories/id1152248491 Submit Your Story Here: https://www.darkstories.org/ Subscribe on YouTube for More Stories! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh_VbMnoL4nuxX_3HYanJbA?sub_confirmation=1 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The family of a man shot and killed last summer by a Minnesota state trooper are criticizing the decision to drop murder and manslaughter charges against the officer. And the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the White Earth Nation have signed an agreement to expand tribal access to the Tamarac National Wildlife Refuge. About half of the 42,000-acre refuge north of Detroit Lakes is located inside the White Earth Reservation. Federal and Tribal conservation officials will work together to manage wild rice beds in the refuge.Those stories and more in today's evening update from MPR News. Hosted by Emily Reese. Music by Gary Meister.

03/15/24: Tyler Axness is filling in for Joel Heitkamp, and is joined by Minnesota State Senator, Rob Kupec, for a conversation about a few pieces of legislation.  One piece of controversial legislation would transfer state-owned land from the 160,000-acre White Earth State Forest to the White Earth Nation by the end of the decade.  Senator Kupec represents District 04 in Minnesota, and also talks about his work on rail safety legislation with Tyler. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chronic wasting disease is a fatal neurological disorder that affects deer, elk, and other big game animals. It has growing implications for wildlife and the people across the country who manage them. In Minnesota, tribes are teaming up with wildlife officials and researchers in a unique collaboration aimed at reducing the spread of the disease on and near tribal lands. GUESTS Souta Calling Last (Blackfeet and Blood Tribe), founder and director of Indigenous Vision Jesse DesRosier (Blackfeet), hunter and language teacher Doug McArthur, wildlife manager at the White Earth Reservation Marc Schwabenlander, associate director for the Minnesota Center for Prion Research and Outreach

Contemporary Native American artist Kent Estey is an enrolled member of the White Earth Nation of Ojibwe in Northwestern Minnesota. Kent's lineage includes many self-taught artists where black-ash basketry, beading, birch-bark, and fiber artistry were everyday occurrences in his home. Kent's preferred art form is painting with oils, acrylics, and inks. His paintings reflect feelings and emotions through his use of color and movement on the canvas. Kent says, “a lot of the time, the art happens by listening to my feelings. The colors, movement, and elements fall into place, creating something beautiful and intimately meaningful.” Some of his most recent work incorporates rock, metal, and collage on canvas and board. Kent's work has been exhibited in Minneapolis, Saint Paul, Bemidji, Grand Rapids, Duluth, Wahpeton, North Dakota, and other regional exhibitions and galleries in Minnesota. Most recently, Kent was awarded the Region 2 Arts Council Artist Fellowship for 2023-2024 and is serving as board chair of the Manoomin Arts Initiative on the White Earth Reservation. Kent has been an educator for most of his life, living and working in his hometown of Naytahwaush, Minnesota. Photo Credit: Jeremy Simonson

Are you a baseball fan? For this next story in our history series Minnesota Now and Then, we meet a pitcher from the White Earth Reservation. His name was Charles Albert Bender and he is often credited as the inventor of the slider. But he was on the downward slope of his career in 1915, when he got the opportunity to participate in a trapshooting tour with one of his biggest rivals from the pitcher's mound. MPR News contributors Robbie Mitchem and Jamal Allen tell this story with help from writer Britt Aamodt.

During the record-breaking drought of 2021, wells around the state went dry as farms drew six billion gallons more than their pumping permits allowed. One of the main culprits? The potato industry, which has an incentive to drench fields of sandy soil in parts of Minnesota to achieve perfect looking french fries for fast food chains like McDonalds. But corn and soybeans are thirsty crops too. The New York Times looked at the Minnesota situation in a recent series on water scarcity across the country. The Star Tribune reported earlier this year that the Department of Natural Resources has asked lawmakers for more regulatory power and higher fines for water users who use too much water.To help us understand the state of groundwater in Minnesota, MPR News host Cathy Wurzer spoke with Department of Natural Resources Hydrologist Ellen Considine, as well as Bob Shimek. Shimek is a member of Red Lake Nation and currently lives on the White Earth Reservation. He's an Extension Educator with White Earth Tribal and Community College and he's active on water issues.

WDAY First News anchors Lisa Budeau, Scott Engen and DIllon Vogt break down regional news and weather for Monday, June 26, 2023.

This week we have Jacob Glass, an attorney for Enbridge who is a descendant of the White Earth Reservation, he is here to share why Tribal Engagement is essential for corporations who operate within Indian Country.

A new program on the White Earth Reservation is helping parents overcome trauma and become community leaders. This is an evening update from MPR News, hosted by Hannah Yang. Music by Gary Meister.

Each fall, the Ojibwe tribes of northern Minnesota harvest wild rice by hand. It's a long process that begins with families in canoes venturing into the tall grasses, where rice is poled and gently brushed with knockers into the bed of the canoe. We journey to White Earth Reservation, out onto Big Rice Lake in a canoe, to see how one tribe is supporting itself and changing the diet of its people through community kitchen projects. And we talk with the founder of White Earth Land Recovery Project, Ojibwe leader, Winona LaDuke,  about the land, her fight to save wild rice, GMOs, her family, philosophy, and her candidacy for vice president of the United States on the Green Party ticket with Ralph Nader. LaDuke is an Ojibwe leader, writer, food activist, rural development economist, environmentalist, Harvard graduate —and a force to be reckoned with. She's the executive director of Honor the Earth, and most recently she was a leader at Standing Rock fighting the Dakota Access pipeline. When we visited Winona on the White Earth Reservation in 2004 for our Hidden Kitchens story Harvest on Big Rice Lake she spoke to us about her family, her life and work—and about how her Ojibwe father met her bohemian/artist/Jewish mother in New York City, how her dad went on to Hollywood to star in the Westerns and how he later became the New Age spiritual leader called Sun Bear. Born in Los Angeles and raised in Oregon, Winona moved to White Earth, her father's reservation, after she graduated from Harvard in 1982. When she first arrived, she worked as the principal of the Reservation's high school and became active in local issues. Seven years later, she started the non profit White Earth Land Recovery Project, dedicated to restoring the local economy and food systems and preserving wild rice. Today Winona LaDuke operates a 40-acre industrial hemp farm on the White Earth Indian Reservation with the idea of creating textiles for the people and the planet — of working towards a non petroleum based future. And she's started 8th Fire Solar, operated by Anishinaabe, manufacturing solar thermal panels. “According to Anishinaabe prophecies, we are in the time of the Seventh Fire. At this time, it is said we have a choice between a path that is well-worn and scorched, and a path that is green and unworn. If we move toward the green path, the Eighth Fire will be lit and people will come together to make a better future.”

Feeling trepidation and hope, Peggy Mandel dropped a letter in the mail to a woman she'd never met but who held the key to a secret piece of her past. Adopted and raised in a loving middle-class Jewish family, Mandel didn't know her own origin story. As a kid, she could remember people asking, “Are you sure you're Jewish? You're too tall to be Jewish.” She wasn't sure either but needed to find out. After decades of searching, she'd come across a name — someone who might be a blood relative, someone who would lead her to a wrenching history of Native people in Minnesota she wasn't supposed to find. Mandel had been so scared she couldn't write the letter. Her husband Joel wrote it. For weeks, there was silence. Then came a voicemail that changed lives across two families and three generations. “I am pleasantly surprised. I'm shocked,” said the voice. “And I would like to connect with you.” ‘You don't want to learn those words' Anita Fineday, Mandel's half-sister, was the voice on the message that day in 2015. Fineday, who was working in Seattle at the time, didn't know she had a half-sister until that point, but she did know the family story. It was a difficult one, spanning generations of trauma from loss of Indigenous culture and identity. Dan Gunderson | MPR News 2021 Family members examine an old photo in a collection at the Stearns History Museum on June 4, 2021. A trove of family items were recently discovered in the museum collection. Peggy and Anita's mother grew up on the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota but did not embrace the culture or language. “My mom didn't tell people she was Native American or Indian, because she was ashamed,” said Fineday. The sisters were both born in Louisville, Ky., where their mother worked as a nurse. Fineday recalled her mother saying she wanted to keep her “as far away from the reservation as possible.” Fineday believes the shame is a result of government boarding schools, designed to achieve that very outcome. She recalled sitting with her grandmother as a young girl and repeating an Ojibwe word. “And she said, ‘Oh no, my girl, you don't want to learn those words,'” said Fineday. “And she showed me her hands where she had scars on her knuckles. She said, ‘That's where the nuns hit me, when I spoke Ojibwe … speaking Ojibwe will only get you in trouble.'” Truth and healing Federal government begins to address Indian boarding school policies 'I've never told anyone' Stories of life in Indian boarding schools Boarding schools were only one method the federal government used to break apart Native American families and communities. In the mid-1900s, a program known as the Indian Adoption Project effectively removed thousands of Native children from their families and placed them with white families. Fineday learned that family members at White Earth tried to adopt Peggy when she was a baby, but her mother rejected the offer. She did not want her children to grow up on the Minnesota reservation, and she was pressured by the stigma of being unmarried and pregnant. Ironically, Fineday has spent much of her career as an attorney and a tribal judge, advocating for displaced Native American children. “That was my life's work,” said the 67-year-old Fineday. “To make sure that Native children were not separated from their tribe, and that they knew where they came from, that they knew who their family was.” ‘We can't tell you where she lives' Mandel, who moved to the Twin Cities at age 11, started looking for her birth mother in the 1990s. However Kentucky adoption records were closed and no information was available. About eight years ago she sought help from a staff member at the Children's Home Society, a St. Paul adoption agency. In early 2014, an agency staff member called. “She said, ‘We found her. She is alive and well. But we can't tell you where she lives. And she doesn't want anybody to know. She doesn't want to meet you,'” recalled Mandel. Courtesy Peggy Mandel Peggy Mandel (left) with Illene, the sister she grew up with in her adoptive family, and her sister Anita Fineday who she found after a decades-long search. Mandel hired a private investigator, who quickly found her birth mother living in Brainerd in central Minnesota. Mandel tried several times to contact her, but there was no response.  “I just wanted to say thank you to this person who could have made a very different choice on all levels,” Mandel said. “And I was really grateful.” Further investigation soon found her half-sister Anita. They met for the first time in the summer of 2015. Anita confronted her mother about the long-held family secret. At the time she was angry that no one told her she had a sister. Anita characterized her relationship with her mother through much of her life as “distant.” “I said, ‘Mom, guess who contacted me,' and she immediately spilled the beans,” Fineday said.  “She didn't really want to talk about it.” Eventually a meeting was arranged between Anita, Peggy and their mother.  “I had an elevator speech ready,” said Mandel. But when she stood in front of her birth mother, her composure collapsed.  “I sobbed from a place I don't think I've ever sobbed from before,” she recalled. “Like a floodgate opened. And through tears I just said, ‘Thank you for an incredible life. Thank you for what you gave me.'” A Reckoning Religious order apologizes for role in boarding school era More stories from this project North Star Journey After the initial meeting, Peggy spent many hours listening to stories of family history told by her birth mother. Her adoptive mother and birth mother eventually met. Eleanore Robertson, their mother, is 93 years old now and suffers from dementia, so MPR News chose not to interview her.  ‘Where do I belong?' That reunion marked the end of a search for identity, but the beginning of a journey to understand what it means, not only for Peggy Mandel, but for her daughters Margo and Aleeza, teenagers when they learned about their Ojibwe ancestors.  “At first it's such a huge shock, in a good way, but also in an overwhelming way. It's a new family, a new culture. What does this mean? How do I go about this respectfully?” said Aleeza. “Where do I belong? And who's going to accept me?” Aleeza and Margo are each at a different place on the path to embracing and understanding their Ojibwe identity.  “She (Aleeza) has dark curly hair and darker skin and I'm blonde and taller,'' said Margo. “It's been a little hard for me to be able to kind of connect at a deeper level, because I don't really look like everybody else.”  Margo was never questioned about her heritage.  Aleeza had a somewhat different experience.  “People would look at me, and say, ‘What are you?' They'd really say those words,” she recalled. “I would get Latina or Hispanic or Middle Eastern, and I was always like, why are people asking me that?”  Margo is studying Indigenous culture, and contemplating the parallels between her Jewish and Native history.  Dan Gunderson | MPR News 2021 Family members gathered at the Stearns History Museum on June 4th, 2021 to see family artifacts discovered in the museum collection. U probes its history with Native people Troubling stories surface “White settlers, and colonizers did everything in their power to essentially exterminate this culture.” she said. “I think it's very interesting how there are similarities with that to Jewish culture as well. Both faced forms of extermination.” Aleeza has taken a more experiential approach. She's participated in traditional ceremonies, and is learning about culture and spirituality from Ojibwe elders.  And the trauma embedded in her history empowers her.  “That hard history was honestly enraging, and a huge motivational piece for me to continue to learn is the fact that we weren't supposed to be here,” she said. “So I transcend that anger into motivation to continue to learn because I know it's something that they wouldn't have wanted me to know.”  At times, she's found acceptance brings its own struggles. “I was given my first eagle feather by a member of our community, and that was really overwhelming for me, because I didn't feel qualified,” she said. “Because that's a very sacred thing. And it's a very big thing to have and to honor.”  Among the people she turned to for guidance was her aunt Anita.   Dan Gunderson | MPR News This bag was made by Anita Fineday's great-grandmother Charlotte Broker. Fineday hopes to have family artifacts discovered at the Stearns History Museum in St. Cloud returned to the family or the White Earth Nation archives. For her part, Fineday has let go of the anger she felt towards her mother for keeping a sibling secret for 50 years.  “I'm just focusing on building a relationship, not only do I have a sister, I have a brother-in-law, and I have two fabulous nieces,” she said. Peggy Mandel is still trying to make sense of her new identity, learning as much as she can while being respectful of what she doesn't know.  She wants her adoption story to give hope to others.  “It's astounding to me how open the heart can be when you're willing and ready, and even scared. And I was scared. But I went ahead and did it anyway,” she said. Peggy and Anita attended an annual powwow at the Minneapolis American Indian Center held for adopted Native Americans. “At the very end of this beautiful ceremony, we all hugged each other. We didn't know each other from Adam,” said Peggy. “But what it felt like is, hey, guess what, we all matter. It doesn't matter where we came from.” Margaret Poethig provided an audio recording used in this story.

Invasive faucet snails, which carry parasites deadly to waterfowl, have been confirmed in George Lake inside the White Earth Reservation, and Gov. Tim Walz announced post-9/11 veterans can now apply for service bonuses as part of a $25 million package passed in the Veterans Omnibus Bill.

On June 27, 1868, Hole in the Day (Bagonegiizhig) the Younger left Crow Wing, Minnesota, for Washington, DC, to fight the planned removal of the Mississippi Ojibwe to a reservation at White Earth. Several miles from his home, the self-styled leader of all the Ojibwe was stopped by at least twelve Ojibwe men and fatally shot.Hole in the Day's death was national news, and rumors of its cause were many: personal jealousy, retribution for his claiming to be head chief of the Ojibwe, retaliation for the attacks he fomented in 1862, or retribution for his attempts to keep mixed-blood Ojibwe off the White Earth Reservation. Still later, investigators found evidence of a more disturbing plot involving some of his closest colleagues: the business elite at Crow Wing.My guest, Anton Treuer, is Professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University and author of "The Assassination of Hole in the Day". He has spent years researching the story and believes he has solved the now one hundred and fifty four year old murder case. Professor Treuer's website: https://antontreuer.com/Buy it at Birch Bark Books here: https://birchbarkbooks.com/products/the-assassination-of-hole-in-the-day

Penny Kagigebi, White Earth Ojibwe (1st generation descendant) A lifelong resident of Becker County, Penny has always lived on or adjacent to White Earth Reservation in Northwestern Minnesota. This is where she gathers traditional foods, mashkiki-medicine plants as well as materials for making quillboxes. In 2014, she achieved a tremendous goal to go learn quillwork and quillbox construction from renown Ojibwe artist Melvin Losh. Today Penny makes what she calls “slow art” – durable quillboxes painstakingly produced through uncountable hours and intense attention to detail. She has been told her work demonstrates an ethereal quality, allowing one to hold the sacred beauty of the natural world in the palm of their hand. Birchbark basketry, ribbon with appliquéd beadwork bags, beaded earrings and appliquéd mural blankets round out her creative work for ceremonial gifting. At all times, Penny's commitment to the thriving and vibrant lives of her community and relatives push her to learn and pass these teachings on. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/quill.everlasting.1 Contemporary Indigeneity: https://www.unl.edu/plains/contemporary-indigeneity

The people have spoken, and they want their planet back. After the recent protest in Washington DC, people have demanded a fossil-free future and for President Biden to pick a side between the people or the execs. While in Minnesota in solidarity with those fighting Line 3, Rev Yearwood speaks to Indigenous activist Sumak Helena Gualinga from the Kichwa Sarayaku community of Pastaza, Ecuador and JD, an organizer with Ginwi Collective from the White Earth Reservation. They discuss the militarization and privatization of police, Enbridge workers trafficking Indigenous children, and the connection worldwide. Support: www.stopline3bailfunds.orgSupport: www.stopline3.orgSupport: www.change.org/mariataant All this is available to you immediately when you meet a girl on the street, so it is immediately clear whether you like her or not. On the Internet, you will have to draw conclusions from “photoshopped” UsaSexGuide Richmond photographs of who knows how long ago. When meeting, it is highly likely that a real person simply will not interest you in the way that the image created by the imagination interested you. The answer is simple - you need to look good. Do you like well-groomed girls who know their worth? So, they also like neat online hookup, looking after themselves guys. A neat appearance, appropriate clothing (and it does not have to be expensive) - and you have every chance to meet a girl and like her even before your initiative. The Coolest Show – brought to you by Hip Hop Caucus Think 100% PODCASTS – drops new episodes every Monday on environmental justice and how we solve the climate crisis. Listen and subscribe here or at TheCoolestShow.com! Follow @Think100Climate and @RevYearwood on Instagram, Twitter, and Instagram.

State officials say they'll have tens of thousands of kids COVID shots in hand soon; the Sisters of St. Benedict are apologizing for running a boarding school on Minnesota's White Earth Reservation, and Xcel Energy is asking for a big rate increase. This is an evening update from MPR News, hosted by Tim Nelson. Music by Gary Meister.

The people have spoken, and they want their planet back. After the recent protest in Washington DC, people have demanded a fossil-free future and for President Biden to pick a side between the people or the execs. While in Minnesota in solidarity with those fighting Line 3, Rev Yearwood speaks to Indigenous activist Sumak Helena Gualinga from the Kichwa Sarayaku community of Pastaza, Ecuador and JD, an organizer with Ginwi Collective from the White Earth Reservation. They discuss the militarization and privatization of police, Enbridge workers trafficking Indigenous children, and the connection worldwide. Support: www.stopline3bailfunds.orgSupport: www.stopline3.orgSupport: www.change.org/mariataant The Coolest Show – brought to you by Hip Hop Caucus Think 100% PODCASTS – drops new episodes every Monday on environmental justice and how we solve the climate crisis. Listen and subscribe here or at TheCoolestShow.com! Follow @Think100Climate and @RevYearwood on Instagram, Twitter, and Instagram.

In 2008, Ken Andersen was convicted of gunning down his best friend on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota. Chris Anderson and Fatima Silva discuss why this was one of the toughest cases they've ever investigated, and one of the victim's closest friends calls in with an update.Stream full episodes of Reasonable Doubt on discovery+. Go to discoveryplus.com/reasonabledoubt to start your 7-day free trial today.**discovery+ is currently only available for US subscribers. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Kerry D'Amato (Director, Pet Haven) discusses trip to White Earth Reservation; Martha Handler on Wolf Conservation Center (South Salem, NY); Shannon Falconer (Because Animals)

"Bad Breath," by Gerald Vizenor, from the anthology An Illuminated History of the Future, edited by Curtis White and published by FC2 in 1989. Read by Mia Ellis. In the second part of the program, Gerald is joined by poet and activist Kimberly Blaeser. Gerald Vizenor is the author of over forty books of fiction, poetry, and criticism. He has received the Distinguished Achievement Award from the Western Literature Association, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writer's Circle of the Americas, the New York Fiction Collective Prize, two American Book Awards, and numerous other awards and prizes. An enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, White Earth Reservation, his teaching career includes professorships at Lake Forest College, Bemidji State University, University of Minnesota, University of Oklahoma, University of California, Berkeley, and University of California, Santa Cruz. Kimberly Blaeser, former Wisconsin Poet Laureate, is the author of five poetry collections including Copper Yearning, Apprenticed to Justice, and Résister en dansant/Ikwe-niimi: Dancing Resistance. A UW–Milwaukee professor and MFA faculty for Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, Blaeser is founding director of In-Na-Po—Indigenous Nations Poets.

This week we're talking about ego, allyship, and debriefing Olivia's time at the Treaty People Gathering on White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota. The gathering was organized as part of the Indigenous-led effort to stop Enbridge's Line 3 tar sands pipeline. For more on the pipeline and why it needs to be stopped, check out our minisode on the issue. In this episode, we're talking about what happened, dismantling white supremacy in activist spaces, respecting security culture, and finding your role in a movement. Subscribe/follow/press the button to keep up with new episodes every Wednesday! You can also follow us @worldisburnin on Instagram and Twitter, and check out our website worldisburning.com for extended show notes including sources and photos. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/worldisburning/message

Pure Bliss, a ranch and outdoor event center on the White Earth Reservation, isn't easy to find. It's miles from the closest small town. Yet, the line of cars parked along the dusty gravel road in Mahnomen County seemed to stretch for miles as hundreds of people found their way to this remote spot over the weekend. They came to demonstrate defiance against Line 3, the 340-mile replacement pipeline that Enbridge Energy is building along a new route across northern Minnesota. And some came a very long way. This is an MPR News morning update for Monday, June 7, 2021. Hosted by Phil Picardi. Our theme music is by Gary Meister.

Here's the entire interview with Winona LaDuke who we recently featured in our episode “The Future of Energy is Indigenous (and it won't involve pipelines!)” .  She's the Director of Honor the Earth, a platform she co-founded with the Indigo Girls.  She's a resident of the White Earth Reservation in Northern Minnesota where she founded the White Earth Land Recovery Project, one of the largest reservation based non profit organizations in the country, and a leader in the issues of culturally based sustainable development strategies, renewable energy and food systems. She breaks down what a just transition from a fossil fuel economy looks like with indigenous people leading the way. 

Subscribe for Steve Ray updates at https://tinyletter.com/FarmingGod​ . My great great grandma left the White Earth Reservation in 1915 and our family has never returned. I’m turning 30 and am biking back. Amidst statistical poverty, attacks on Ojibwe culture, and a century of land theft, White Earth, Minnesota is rich in natural beauty and the people carry a truth that they will share if you listen. Donate to Niijii radio here: http://www.niijiiradio.com/​ Subscribe for Steve updates at https://tinyletter.com/FarmingGod​ Thanks to the Ojibwe People’s dictionary for providing the Ojibwe chapter titles. You can look up Ojibwe words and pronunciation here: https://ojibwe.lib.umn.edu/​ Thanks to my grandma, Maggie Rousu, Merlin Deegan, Joe Allen, Father Joe and the White Earth community. Thanks to Alex. Finally, thanks to my family: past, present, and future, for keeping the threads together.

Zoe Allen is a junior Sociology and American Studies major from South Minneapolis and the White Earth Reservation. Like for so many people, 2020 was a year of grief and loss for Zoe. She found healing at George Floyd Square.

Winona LaDuke—an Anishinaabekwe (Ojibwe) member of the White Earth Nation—is an environmentalist, economist, author, and prominent Native American activist working to restore and preserve indigenous cultures and lands.She graduated from Harvard University in 1982 with a B.A. in economics (rural economic development) and from Antioch University with an M.A. in community economic development. While at Harvard, she came to understand that the problems besetting native nations were the result of centuries of governmental exploitation. At age 18 she became the youngest person to speak to the United Nations about Native American issues.In 1989 LaDuke founded the White Earth Land Recovery Project in Minnesota, focusing on the recovery, preservation, and restoration of land on the White Earth Reservation. This includes branding traditional foods through the Native Harvest label.In 1993 LaDuke gave the Annual E. F. Schumacher Lecture entitled “Voices from White Earth.” That same year she co-founded and is executive director of Honor the Earth, whose goal is to support Native environmental issues and to ensure the survival of sustainable Native communities. As executive director she travels nationally and internationally to work with Indigenous communities on climate justice, renewable energy, sustainable development, food sovereignty, environmental justice, and human rights.Among the books she has authored are All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life (1999, 2016); The Winona LaDuke Reader: A Collection of Essential Writings (2002); Recovering the Sacred: The Power of Naming and Claiming (2005); The Militarization of Indian Country (2013).LaDuke's many honors include nomination in 1994 by Time magazine as one of America's 50 most promising leaders under 40; the Thomas Merton Award in 1996, the Ann Bancroft Award for Women's Leadership in 1997, and the Reebok Human Rights Award in 1998. In 1998 Ms. Magazine named her Woman of the Year for her work with Honor the Earth. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 2007, and in 2017 she received the Alice and Clifford Spendlove Prize in Social Justice, Diplomacy, and Tolerance.Winona LaDuke was an active leader as a Water Protector with the Dakota Access Pipeline protests in 2017 at Standing Rock, where the Sioux Nation and hundreds of their supporters fought to preserve the Nation's drinking water and sacred lands from the damage the pipeline would cause. Over the years her activism has not deviated from seeking justice and restoration for Indigenous peoples.Leah Penniman is an educator, farmer/peyizan, author, and food justice activist from Soul Fire Farm in Grafton, NY. She co-founded Soul Fire Farm in 2011 with the mission to end racism in the food system and reclaim our ancestral connection to land. Penniman is part of a team that facilitates powerful food sovereignty programs – including farmer trainings for Black & Brown people, a subsidized farm food distribution program for people living under food apartheid, and domestic and international organizing toward equity in the food system.Penniman holds an MA in Science Education and BA in Environmental Science and International Development from Clark University. She has been farming since 1996 and teaching since 2002. The work of Penniman and Soul Fire Farm has been recognized by the Soros Racial Justice Fellowship, Fulbright Program, Omega Sustainability Leadership Award, Presidential Award for Science Teaching, NYS Health Emerging Innovator Awards, and Andrew Goodman Foundation, among others. She is the author of Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm's Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land (2018).

For Winona LaDuke the best part of running for Vice President in 1996 and 2000 on the Green Party ticket with Ralph Nadar was meeting so many people who really want to see a democracy that works—who really want to vote for someone they believe in. At rallies women would bring their daughters up to Winona saying, ‘We want them to grow up and be like you.’ Ojibwe leader, writer, food activist, rural development economist, environmentalist, Harvard graduate—Winona, which means first born daughter, is a force to be reckoned with. She’s the founder of the White Earth Land Recovery Project and the executive director of Honor the Earth. Most recently she was a leader at Standing Rock fighting the Dakota Access pipeline. She’s a visionary and a fighter and she’s in it for the long haul. When we visited Winona on the White Earth Reservation in 2004 for our Hidden Kitchens story Harvest on Big Rice Lake she spoke to us about her family, her life and work—about running for Vice President, about harvesting wild rice on the lakes of Minnesota and creating jobs on the reservation, about how her Ojibwe father met her bohemian/artist/Jewish mother in New York City, how her dad went on to Hollywood to star in the Westerns and how he later became the New Age spiritual leader called Sun Bear. Born in Los Angeles and raised in Oregon, Winona moved to White Earth, her father’s reservation, after she graduated from Harvard in 1982. When she first arrived, she worked as the principal of the Reservation’s high school and became active in local issues. Seven years later, she started the non profit White Earth Land Recovery Project, dedicated to restoring the local economy and food systems and preserving wild rice. Today Winona LaDuke operates a 40-acre industrial hemp farm on the White Earth Indian Reservation with the idea of creating textiles for the people and the planet — of working towards a non petroleum based future. And she’s started 8th Fire Solar, operated by Anishinaabe, manufacturing solar thermal panels. “According to Anishinaabe prophecies, we are in the time of the Seventh Fire. At this time, it is said we have a choice between a path that is well-worn and scorched, and a path that is green and unworn. If we move toward the green path, the Eighth Fire will be lit and people will come together to make a better future.”

Each fall, the Ojibwe tribes of northern Minnesota harvest wild rice by hand. It’s a long process that begins with families in canoes venturing into the tall grasses, where rice is poled and gently brushed with knockers into the bed of the canoe. We journey to White Earth Reservation, out onto Big Rice Lake in a canoe, to see how one tribe is supporting itself and changing the diet of its people through community kitchen projects. And we talk with the founder of White Earth Land Recovery Project, Winona LaDuke, about the land, her fight to save wild rice, GMOs, her family, philosophy, and her candidacy for vice president of the United States on the Green Party ticket with Ralph Nader.  

Kyra Busch has advocated for local food sovereignty for over a decade. Working with the Alternative Agriculture Network of Thailand and the Educational Network for Global and Grassroots Exchange, she worked on successful initiatives to certify and import Fair Trade Thai jasmine rice to the U.S. and to prevent an inequitable U.S.-Thai free trade agreement. Kyra spearheaded the nation’s first Indigenous farm-to-school program and managed a culturally appropriate food delivery program for diabetic elders on the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota. Kyra holds a Master’s degree in Social Ecology of Conservation and Development from the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, where she wrote her thesis on a groundbreaking biocultural curriculum in Kuna Yala, Panama. Kyra is now the program officer for Agrobiodiversity, Food Sovereignty and Resilient Biocultural Landscapes at the Christensen Fund in San Francisco. In this episode, Kyra talks to Devon about farmers who love the fabulous diversity of traditional rice varieties in Thailand, how traveling and studying abroad can lead to solidarity, the promise of agrobiodiversity for a sustainable food system, and thinking about agroecology on a 100-year time frame. Our interview with Kyra airs February 1, 2016 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Michael Wassegijig Price, Anishinaabe, is academic dean of White Earth Tribal and Community College, located on the White Earth Reservation in northwest Minnesota. Dr. Price presents several interesting stories about Anishinaabe mythologies, spiritual teachings, oral tradition, and lifeways and how they are related to several Anishinaabe star knowledge and rock art in the Great Lakes region. This presentation is part of the symposium, “Stellar Connections: Explorations in Cultural Astronomy.”

Gerald Vizenor is Distinguished Professor of American Studies at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, and Professor Emeritus of American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a citizen of the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota. Vizenor is the author of more than thirty books on Native histories, critical studies, and literature, including The People Named the Chippewa: Narrative Histories, and Manifest Manners: Narratives on Postindian Survivance. He was the principal writer of the recent Constitution of the White Earth Nation. Vizenor won the American Book Award for his novel Griever: An American Monkey King in China, and received a Distinguished Achievement Award from the Western Literature Association. His most recent books include Fugitive Poses: Native American Indian Scenes of Absence and Presence, and four novels, Chancers, Hiroshima Bugi: Atomu 57, Father Meme, and Shrouds of White Earth. Native Liberty, a selection of essays, Native Storiers, an anthology of Native literature, and Survivance were recently published. Vizenor is a series editor for Native Storiers at the University of Nebraska Press, and Native Traces at the State University of New York Press. Gerald Vizenor's reading was given on April 13, 2011.