The Piikani Lodge Story (Part 2 with Kim Paul): Founding Piikani Lodge, big shifts & an invitation

Last week's episode featured a special on-location recording with Amskapi Piikani Blackfeet elder, and founder of the Piikani Lodge Health Institute, Long Time Charging Woman Kim Paul. Again, given it was two and a half hours in length, I also wanted to offer it in distinct parts, for those of you who prefer to listen to it that way. 

In this case, two parts presented themselves neatly. Part one was released earlier this week. And part two here extends from the big shifts Kim sees happening, through to the serendipitous and unlikely story of how Piikani Lodge came to be, along with an invitation to all. 

Weaved through all that is a brilliant new program for youth, the place of animals, hunting meat in their culture, the huge Powwow, hopes for co-management of Glacier National Park, recovering Piikani names, more transformational tales, including a pivotal workshop with Robin Wall Kimmerer, the drive for the next infrastructure to leverage positive change, culture as (preventative) medicine, and visits to some of the places Kim holds most dear, here on spectacular Blackfeet Country in current day northern Montana.

If you’d prefer to listen to the whole episode straight, head to ‘Culture as Medicine: Long Time Charging Woman Kim Paul at Amskapi Piikani Blackfeet Nation’.

Otherwise, I hope you enjoy this. And thanks for listening.

Chapter markers & transcript.

Recorded 10 July 2025.

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More on the campaign Mika Matters.

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Regeneration, by Amelia Barden.

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Episode Transcript

Kim (00:00):
And I don't know, that's pretty breathtaking.
Okay.
Then we're going to go right upto the end of this lake right
now.

AJ (00:08):
Really?

Kim (00:09):
Yes.
Awesome.

AJ (00:10):
Yeah.

Kim (00:10):
Isn't that where we go swimming?
Yes.
Or now.

AJ (00:13):
Well, it's summertime, yes.

Kim (00:16):
Like yesterday when it was so hot, like then.
Those are the days we go.
And maybe tomorrow will be likethat.
Yeah.
What's the big pike there?
Cinepaw.
It's just it's uh our uh fox.
Cinepa.
Yeah.
So we gather some of oursmudges up here.

(00:36):
With uh carrying the bundle,you have a winter smudge and you
have a um summer smudge.
So it's the you know, somepeople say incense that you
light to pray with, and yousmudge the bundle and all of the
articles that come with it.
And so we gather some up here.
So all of these places are veryimportant to us.

(00:59):
So we started a winter um, thison the land program to get
youth and young adults out onthe land, out of the homes, away
from the phones, all of the umgadgets.
And um the vision is to have itin all four seasons.
But we started with winterbecause my friend knew people in

(01:24):
the Bozeman area who got us ourskis for wholesale prices, and
so we started this winter uh skipicani, istu ipapoki siman,
which is to be out on the landin the winter in the cold.
Um, and the first year we weskied 327 youth and young

(01:45):
adults, and we skied all up inhere, and um, it was such a
beautiful program that the folkswho gave us their wholesale
price for skis they donated asnow machine and a groomer to
us.
Yeah, and so we have the skiprogram now with a snow machine

(02:05):
and a groomer, and we have acargo trailer with a hundred
sets of skis and boots tocross-country ski in the winter.
And um, I get up at, you know,I make a stew through the night,
then I get up in the earlymorning, make fry bread, and we
have hot chocolate and coffeeand and something hot to go in,
you know, the bellies of thechildren.

(02:26):
And some kids come withoutsocks and without coats, and so
we all started throwing in partof our paycheck to buy uh snow
bibs, you know, bib coverallsand hats, touches, and gloves
and socks, and so we have binsfull of um winter clothing, and
when they come ski with us, thenthey get to go home with that

(02:46):
winter clothing clothing andkeep it.
And uh oh my gosh, we have fun,huh, Trayson?
Yeah, but I was so sick onoxygen, I never got to ski with
them.
Yeah, so this will be my firstwinter to get to go out and ski
with them, and then we'll do uhsummer swimming, kayaking,

(03:07):
boating, you know, summersafety, and my son wants to do
um survival skills, so fishingand all of the safety and uh um
uh ability to care for oneself,you know, in each season.
So we'll augment our programnot only with, you know, we do
traditional winter games um sothat the games aren't lost as

(03:29):
well.
So then in spring and summerwe'll keep our traditional games
going, but also add the umsurvival skills uh as we pivot
and learn a better way or abetter system to, you know,
maybe if we can just come upwith the money for that indoor
arena, which is just basically abig building, right?
Then we can pull in the uh thecowboys to come and rope for,

(03:54):
you know, ten dollars a head ortwenty dollars a head, and we
can start funding a few programsso that we can expand our
on-the-land uh winter, summer,spring, fall instead of just
winter.
So I'm excited to teach, youknow, um cutting dry meat and
you know, how do you make rawhide out of a hide?

(04:15):
You know, the how do you tanthe buckskin so that you can
make Mogson's brain tanning?
So that will be our I think ourfall season, you know, on the
land because fall is huntingseason when the babies have
already been born, and so you'renot killing something carrying
a child.
And it's a tough, tough uh, youknow, like you're on the edge

(04:40):
of something, two-edged swordbecause you're having to kill
something.
But people are hungry here.
People, you know, need helpproviding for their families
through the winter and you knowthe firm belief that Creator
gave us ways to survive.
Yeah.
And this, these are ourtraditional ways of survival and

(05:02):
not just surviving, but livingvictoriously.
Yeah.
A good life.
When we pray, we say uh me backto peace and like live a long
good life.
Yeah, where we pray that foreach other.

AJ (05:16):
But it's the way you said it, it's the reverence that it's
held in, isn't it?
The love that it's held in,even in the kill.
It's a totally different frameof action.

Kim (05:30):
We have a prayer song to be sung before you go out.
You know, the hunter can getpainted.
You we paint them, we painttheir rifle.
There's a whole whole uhceremony before so that it's
just this respectful, and webelieve the animal, you know,
that comes out is giving itselfto us to provide for.

(05:53):
Like when my son got that firstE-Ne, that one had come across
the border, um, he immediatelyuh butchered this animal and
took the meat to our elders.
And he kept uh hindquarter forus, um, and that took care of my

(06:13):
four children and myself forthe entire winter.
So very respectfully, even theguts we love.
So here you are.
See, there's still someglaciers, but you can look at
the pictures of what's nowcalled Glacier National Park and
see how the glaciers havereceded so dramatically that

(06:35):
there's hardly anything left tobe called Glacier National Park.

AJ (06:41):
Yeah.
I saw this, I was telling thefamily, I saw this happening in
Canada 30 years ago.
Mm-hmm.
And yeah, 30 years old.
I've just I imagined coming inwhat you would say.
What we would say.
Yeah.
Does that like the freeze?

Kim (06:58):
Oh yes.
It sure does.
Even the creeks um freeze over,but the water will run
underneath.
And when the first ice forms onthe edge of the creeks is when
we open our bundles in the fall.
Can you imagine having everyway of your belief system taken

(07:18):
away and put in a museum?
Isn't that ridiculous?
So this bundle that we carry isuh was in the Smithsonian for
94 years, locked away.
Can you imagine when it wasbrought home?
It probably just big, bigbreath.

(07:39):
When was that?
That was about eight years ago.

AJ (07:44):
Rematriation of the some of this stuff's happening back home
too, huh?
And it's like it's again, Iguess I'm just trying to.
I'm really feeling the timethat I'm living and breathing
in.
In context, and these thingsare yeah, for all the things
that aren't changing, huh?

(08:04):
These things feel like bigshifts.

Kim (08:07):
Yeah.
They are.

AJ (08:08):
Yeah.

Kim (08:09):
There are so many big shifts happening, which is what
I was referring to early, thatearlier, that dichotomy of
there's still this evilhappening.
Yeah.
You know, the killing of ourchildren and our youth without
any recompense.
But but there are these bigshifts where this is not going
to be uh happening much longer.
And I think that's the hugefear, right?

(08:31):
I think that's the huge buildthe border wall and and get rid
of all the immigrants.
Never mind the white immigrantscoming from South Africa, they
can come all they want.
But anybody with some pigment,right?
I think that's the this bigchange that is happening.
Um and then the ugly is allfear-based, right?
They don't want to givecontrol.

(08:52):
They don't want to give upcontrol to the majority who's
about to be majority.
And it's exciting, you know,not only, you know, spiritually
and physically, but it'sexciting uh emotionally to think
that we're going to be feelinginstead of oppression, victory.
You know, feeling instead ofmurder and and chaos that we're

(09:14):
gonna feel be feeling love andyou know, this beautiful mutual
relationship strengthening,right?
Across the globe is the prayer.
I don't know, people say I'mjust an old hippie or I was just
gonna say, I feel that.

AJ (09:29):
Yeah, I feel that, and I I kind of feel it's important,
like that it's part of it to beable to feel that.
Like to turn the light on.

Kim (09:41):
Yeah, thank you.
Turn the light on.
I love it.
Let it shine.
Yeah.
We may come across a grizz.
It's kind of a nice time ofday.

AJ (09:54):
I've been waiting for a grizz.

Kim (09:55):
I've been calling it in the evening, is a good time we can
come up after we get through.
What is today?
Thursday?
Thursday.
Yeah.
Um, so tonight is the firstgrand entry, and it will be
small because people are comingfrom all over the nation to
dance, to be a part of the NorthAmerican Indian Days, our

(10:16):
powwow, our gathering.
We call it Aku Gatson, is thebig gathering of the big camp.
Um, and this is a little bitdifferent other than like the
horn camp coming together, allthe societies coming together.
This is more uh regalia-basedand and uh celebration of our
culture in a more, you know,instead of the holy ceremony,

(10:38):
more of a celebratory way withthe powwow dancing.
Yes, you know, of our doublebustles and our beautiful jingle
dresses, and so people comefrom all over and they compete.
So these dances are age gradedand by the different style, and
then it's a competition.
And so by Sunday thechampionships will be.

(10:58):
Um it'll be the like the finalpeople that are uh dancing off
to become champions.
Okay, are you ready for thescience or young master?
Here we go.
I'll pull over, okay.

AJ (11:14):
Is there at least some kind of move to co-manage a place
like this, the national park?

Kim (11:22):
Wow.
Now that you mentioned it, wewere making some strides with
the last superintendent, JeffMao.
He was wonderful.
There was um, I speak from aplace of no knowledge.
I don't see it happening in mylifetime, but it would be
beautiful if it did.
But that comes from a base ofignorance.

(11:43):
I have no, I'm not the rightperson to speak with about this.
It is um, without a doubt,something that would be
astounding if it happens in mylifetime.
But I see our leadershipchanging into um into more um

(12:05):
like our minds are beingbroadened all the time beyond
the boxes of where we have beenstuffed into to be able to think
more broadly.
And I see our leadership doingthat in such a way that is so um
uh hopeful and vibrant, and itwould be lovely if we uh were to

(12:25):
the point of co-management orto the point of taking our land
back.
You know, this uh 99-year leasefor a dollar that was, you
know, our people didn't evenspeak English when the initial
lease of all this land happened,and the X's uh in agreement
were all made by the same hand.
You could see the X's werethere, it wasn't on other
documents there were X's, youknow, that you could see were

(12:47):
different X's.
But for this particular leaseof 99 years for a dollar, um the
Xs are all the same.
So um I think the look at thesun as it isn't that gorgeous.
Look at that, ah that's sobeautiful.
So I I would love to see itback in um control of our people

(13:12):
and keep it just as pristineand beautiful as it is now.
Yeah.
But we've also had um peoplewho have challenged because
supposedly the treaty for thisland or the agreement on the
lease is that we could stillhunt and gather wood and
berries.
Um, traditional gathering, ourroots, our medicines.
And so I come up and pick everyyear.

(13:34):
I I want people to challengethat, and I've never the the
ranger will come by and and say,Okay, you know, just very
nicely.
But then when I come to pick ordo anything, then other people
who are not blackfeet startpicking, you know, and it's like
no no no, this is a traditionaltreaty right that we have as
Pecani.
And it's hard to say thosewords to people because you're

(13:57):
telling them basically, uh, Ican do this, but you can't.
Right?
But we've already livedgenerations of they can do
everything and we can.
So anyway, um some people didchallenge that and came up and
shot an elk in the park and theywere put in jail, you know, as
wards of the government, federalinstitutions for doing that.
Um because we don't have themoney for lawyers to fight this

(14:20):
battle.
We don't I think they spentabout 90 days and they were
finally let go because it wasillegal for them to arrest them,
but nobody really challenges itbecause we do want this to
remain intact, you know, intactecosystem, pristine and
beautiful like it is, but thereshould be co-management without
a doubt, and there should beco-profit.

(14:40):
You know, if you look at thesign up here and you see how
much each vehicle is paying,there goes the money to the
hands, how much are they payingto come into every one of these
locations at times four million?
You know, there should be someper year, and it's only going to
increase, you know, maybe five,six years ago it was 1.8

(15:02):
million, and now it's all theway to four million.
Yeah, it's only going tocontinue to increase because
people, you know, they want tobreathe and they've we just live
through COVID, right?
Like people, you know, are arechanged.
I I believe there's this globalchange in value system of
family and you know beingtogether and being out in this

(15:24):
beauty and maybe not as muchpriority.
I don't know.
I can't speak for the world,but there's more people
traveling for sure.
So here's a proud moment.
Hi, black feet.
Good.
You tell me you're a traveler.
I am.
Oh yeah.
You're good to go.
Okay, thank you.
It's so pretty.

AJ (15:45):
Yeah, it's amazing.
This is the thing that amazesme about the nation, too, that
like there's this moniker thatwas put on you, right?
The Lords of the Plains.
Yeah, I believe.
And yet mountain people too.

Kim (16:00):
Yes.

AJ (16:00):
You both.

Kim (16:02):
Absolutely, right?
So the moniker needs to bechanged.
Lord of the Mountain.
Yeah, mountain and plains andprairie potholes in between.
There we go.
Yeah, we were the last to beput on a reservation.
Yeah.
Last tribe.
Isn't that gorgeous?
Okay, so here's a little walkup to a little fall.

(16:24):
Would you like to go there?

AJ (16:26):
Waterfall?

Kim (16:26):
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
You saw a blue jay.
Hey, look, there's a parkingplace.

AJ (16:36):
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
See, you're talking about likeyou pull out music references.
Running Eagle Falls.
It still has all these bignames, huh?

Kim (16:46):
Even though it's not a big thing.
This was one of the first.
This was one of the first.
It was Trick Falls Forever.

AJ (16:52):
Oh, really?

Kim (16:53):
Forever.
Okay.
And so I don't know when theychanged it back to her name.
Oh good.
Yeah.
But but maybe in the 70s, 80s,maybe 90s.
Okay.
Maybe.
Maybe 2000s.
I don't know.
But yes, this is a step in theright direction.
Yeah.
I don't believe that she wasthe only female warrior.
You know, it's nice of them tomake that story, but I don't

(17:15):
believe it.
Yeah.
I'm sure that we had many.
But she was the la maybe thelast no no notoriety.
The last one who was becauseeverything we didn't have a
written language, like theCherokee.
And so everything was oraltradition, but as we were
decimated, like just in sevenyears, we went from 60,000 to
3,800.

(17:35):
Just in seven years of smallpoxdiphtheria, you know.
So I think a lot was lost.

AJ (17:42):
Late 19th century?
Or mid-betunent century?

Kim (17:45):
Yeah.
So um at the late 19th, early20th, yes.

AJ (17:51):
Yes, yes.

Kim (17:52):
So recent.
The end of the 1800s.
Yeah, my grandma was alive.
She was born in 1886, right?
Right?
So it wasn't that long ago.
People want to say, oh, pullyourselves up by your
bootstraps.
We didn't do this to you.
Well, it was a series of eventsthat came together that
culminated in what we livetoday, which is getting way
better and better all the time.

(18:13):
So we just have to get past thewhole suicide stuff.
Oh, I think I'll wipe myfingers.
Oh, maybe not.
Wow.
What tree is that?
This was just the sap from thatpine tree back there.
Yeah.

AJ (18:33):
It's very piney.

Kim (18:34):
It's very sticky.

AJ (18:35):
It's very pine.
Oh, it smells delicious.
Isn't that wonderful?
You can have the sticky stuffon this.
Oh my lord, look at thatwaterfall.

Kim (18:43):
Boy.
Oh.
Oh, they've already gone down,okay.

AJ (18:48):
It's all sticky too.
Oh, it's just gorgeous, isn'tit?
Beautiful.
So I instantly feel shiftedKimberly to water like this.
You feel that too, huh?
Yeah.
Absolutely.

Kim (18:59):
They finally fixed the bridge.

AJ (19:05):
Oh, the colours of the rocks.
Yeah.
Absolutely amazing.

Kim (19:14):
And to think that she came and fasted up here, right?
To get her, you know, strengthto be able to stand up to, you
know, maybe the men in the band.
Because we're our our tribeswere divided into bands as well.
This is the mountain chiefband.
This is the willow burnergreenwood burners, you know,
like we had different bands aswell.

(19:35):
So to be able to um continue tofollow the men behind in the
hunt and not give up and thencome up here and fast and know
that she could do it.
Yeah.
My granddaughter's name is uhhe wanted his daughter named
after me, but he wanted becauseof the thunder.
He wanted thunder in that, soher name is Thunder Charging
Woman.

(19:55):
Yeah.
And then my daughter wanted herfirstborn named after me, and
uh, she's pretty charging woman.
And then uh my other son wantedhis daughter, his firstborn
daughter, uh long, um, long timecharging on the same as me.
So it was beautiful.
I think we were just havingkind of uh a to that

(20:19):
conversation.
Um before it was very angerinspiring, and because we were
treated so poorly in the park,you know, even um targeted with
our by our license plates.
But recently, as things arechanging, it's now it's like
beautiful that people come sofar to witness what we get to

(20:41):
see all the time.
And it's it's honoring, and youcan flip it right from never
being welcome into our ownhomeland to never, you know, and
being pretty much profiled toit's so beautiful that people
can come here and enjoy this,and so you can throw that other
mindset away and not let thosethings happen or inside of you

(21:02):
internalize it and just be so umso proud because once you
travel a little, right?
You're so happy to.
I remember going down south andseeing an alligator for the
first time, and I was so happy Ijumped.
We were on this non-mechanizedisland off of Savannah, Georgia.
It's called Atabah Island.
So it was the EnvironmentalProtection Conservation Society.

(21:24):
It was the first conference I'dever gone to.
15 years old, I don't know.
And I made my cousin come withme because I'd never been to a
scientific conference before.
And so she came and they met usand they took us on a boat
across the channel to thisnon-mechanized island, met us
with a cart and you know, apony, and they're uh bringing us

(21:44):
along this island, and there'sa big slug or swamp or whatever
you call it, and there was analligator or crocodile, I don't
know, it's as long as from thisbluff here to that rock.
It was huge.
And I jumped out of the cartimmediately to take his picture,
and my cousin grabbed me, whatthe fuck?
What are you doing?
And it's like people here theyjump out if there's a bear to

(22:05):
take a picture of the grizzly.
It's like, what are you doing?
You're 50 years old, learnedanything.
Yeah.
But how I think of howawe-inspiring and how beautiful
it is to go other places.
And so you've flipped thatmentality, right?
From not really being welcomedin the park to now just it's

(22:27):
beautiful.
But I still say what is nowcalled.
I won't give that up.
Well, shall we journey forward?
Or you guys want more timehere?
Oh, look at the littlechipmunk.
This is the berry we lived offof.
This is Savus Berry.
So this is our whole diet here.

AJ (22:48):
This is the holy berry.
Yeah, why?

Kim (22:51):
We can't start any ceremony without this berry, and we
can't end any ceremony withoutthis berry.
So this is the most importantberry here within the Blackfeet
Nation to us.
And some people call itSaskatoon or service berry, but
because we had such a hugeFrench influence, we call it
Savasberry.
And so this was everything tous, this berry.

(23:11):
We dried it, pick it, dry it.
So uh another month they'll beready.
And we pick them, and now wehave freezers, but in the days,
you know, just not too longpast, and even still, many
people still dry the berry, andthen when we have our fall
ceremony, you know, um, orspring, because we've come
through winter, but the berriesaren't growing yet.
Then we had the dried berrythat we make our soup and our

(23:34):
for the ceremony.
Or like me, you have them inthe freezer.

AJ (23:39):
Yeah.

Kim (23:40):
So this is the main berry, our whole main, that and the
buffalo, the Eni.
Yeah.

AJ (23:45):
It's brought to mind Robin Wall Kimmer's book on the
service berry.

Kim (23:48):
Oh, yeah.
The other one was braidingsweet grass.
Yeah.
She's uh she's made a goodexistence off of that.
I remember uh sharing uhstrengthening the circle.
It was uh this woman out ofBozeman Hopa Mountain, Bonnie,
Sachatello Sawyer.
She started the strengtheningthe circle, and some people say,

(24:09):
you know, she's living off ofIndian money, you know, doing
all these things to but I thinkshe's doing good work, you know,
helping people startnonprofits, helping in different
ways showing up and like thisstrengthening the circle,
creating this strengthening thecircle where tying just
different indigenous women umthroughout Montana to each

(24:35):
other, and she brought RobinWall Kimmerer in to be kind of
our guest, a guest, kind of akeynote for about 40 of us over
a period of five days.
So I thought that was prettybeautiful.
I haven't read I have RaidingSweetgrass on uh audio.
Yeah, I haven't read it.

AJ (24:56):
We listened to it coming across the book.

Kim (24:59):
Oh, did you?
Oh, okay.
And then um the the Savisberry,service berry, is the name of
her this next book.
I knew she had a second book.
Yeah.
Maybe that's included in thetitle.
Yeah, it is.
It is, okay.
Yeah, but I haven't read thatone.

(25:20):
Yeah.
I don't know if it's out onaudiobook yet.

AJ (25:23):
Yeah.
She's certainly moved.
Non-Indian folk, you know.
She's really reached inpowerful ways, I think.

Kim (25:32):
Oh, good.
Yeah.
Good.
I know uh one for a good readthat you may get a kick out of,
especially after being todifferent Indian countries.
Yeah.
Arias is uh neither wolf nordog.
I was so angry at this book.
It was required reading in oneof my classes, the first couple

(25:53):
of chapters, the arrogance, theentitlement of the author.
But then as it moved forward,he left that in there.
And he even states at the endof the book, I was going to take
it out once I learned how to bea human.
Um, but it also is part of thetransition to this level of
humanity, and so I left it inbecause I was going to give up
reading it like ten times andthrow it against the wall.

(26:15):
It was so hurtful to me, thearrogance of this guy and the
lack of appreciation and thelack of gratefulness, right?
But as the book goes on, it'sthese old Indian, like it
wounded me.
And uh, so this grandpa tellsthe granddaughter to call this
guy and tell him to come becausehe wants him to write his book.
And uh he lives in Seattle andhe had written about the Red

(26:38):
Lake, maybe the massacre orsomething, and the grandfather
had read it and liked his styleof writing so much that he
instructed his granddaughter tocall him.
He said, Yeah, I answered thephone, and there's some some
girl says, My grandpa says, comeand write this book in Sioux
Country and uh wounded me.
And so then it's all hisarrogance for a few, three

(26:58):
chapters.
But as the book builds, it'sthis beautiful transition of him
into understanding and uh beinga better human.
And it's a beautiful book.
I love it.
I recommend it to everyone,neither wolf nor dog.
Yeah, I really feel them.
Yeah, it's a good one.
And these old Indian unclesreally torture him.
And I love it.
And he becomes human, it'spretty beautiful.

AJ (27:22):
It takes because yeah, the the temptation, and many would
take it to paint yourself as theauthor in the best possible
light.

Kim (27:29):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So it takes to own that.
Absolutely.
Absolutely, yeah, it is.

AJ (27:35):
But but for the better.
Like for the better.
Yeah, for the better.
If you can own your stuff.

Kim (27:40):
Yep, exactly.
And put it out there.
And put it out there.
You're not only owning itprivately, but put it out there
to the world in the form of thefirst chapters of this book.
Neither wolf nor dog.
I really look forward toreading that.
Yeah, you'll have to.
I used to buy it and give itaway to people that needed uh
humor and understanding.
Now I just tell people aboutit.

(28:02):
So it is it is painful to knowthat that what is now called
Glacier National Park is makingtons of money, and they have
private contractors in here withthe hotels and the stores who
are making tons of money, and weremain in the same situation
while this occurs all around us.
So that is painful.

(28:23):
The rest, the sharing of it,the beauty and the awe and the
the wonderful experiences thatpeople have from coming all over
the world to come here, that'sbeautiful.
But the fact that um we stillare not included in the industry
of it that would give hope,that would save lives, that
would, you know, keep peoplefrom taking their own lives,

(28:45):
which is such a such a hardthing.
We've switched our internshipsup to um really focus on uh
before we were straight uhcollege age and young adult.
Um, and now because we had uhtwo, three suicides in one year
in high school, um completedsuicide, uh we've switched up
our internships to youngeryouths to uh 14 and above.

(29:09):
So uh last year we had all highschool students.
This year we have uh four highschool and two uh first year
college.

AJ (29:18):
So just trying to inspire.
They're so capable at that age,hey.
You can do it.
Oh, absolutely.
You don't lose anything and yougain heaps.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I mean, look at these11-year-olds already.
I know, right?

Kim (29:30):
Yeah, I'll show you proton.

AJ (29:34):
But you're right, Kim.
It opens up opportunity,doesn't it?
Being adjacent and with the newwell, the reclaimed land.
Yes, um, the opportunitybecause it's what we see, we've
seen it around the states and wesee it at home too.
That the changing sympathiesand interest uh does mean that
people clamour these days.

(29:56):
Like there are places like theones you're envisioning on that
land, they Government numbers.

Kim (30:01):
Really?
Yeah.
So see, I have such a I'm stillin my box, right?
Like I might have the vision,but in addition, you know, we
had 38 employees, 36 employees,and we're down to eight.
And so we're I had uh the manwho that we had a crew working
on our marketing, you know, ourfeasibility study for the
processing plant, and he islike, Kim, you guys are small,

(30:24):
but you're mighty, and but wecan't do it all by ourselves.
And if we can't, if I can'tthink out of if I can envision
but not truly know because Idon't have your experiences,
your history, your exposure, Idon't know that it would be
interesting or that people mightwant to.
And how do you what do you callit?
Do you call it ecotourism,cultural tourism, you know, do

(30:47):
you call it agro-tourism becausewe're doing so many things?
And how do you create the likehow the old salt has its image?
I mean, there was what, maybe500 people there even in the
rain.
Yeah.
Like there was so many people,even in this pouring rain.
And you know, how do you createwhat he's done to bring these

(31:09):
people together to bring themtogether up here?
Because there's also the um theyou know, the best kept secrets
left under the road kind ofpolicy of um interaction with
native people, our mentality ischanging to where people really
truly want to come and be a partof this.
Be a part of the change.

(31:30):
Like to to put the wordstogether that really um capture
that we're all in this togetherand how beautiful our culture is
and how vibrant, how strong,how resilient, you know, and and
oh, by the way, not only do youget to come see some Indians,
but you can see all this, right?
That's really not how I want tosay anything.

(31:53):
You know, but but you canexperience a lifestyle and maybe
a humor and a love and a deep,deep um connection to the land
and to each other that um peoplewho come to our ceremonies are
even to like one person um whomet, you know, one of our

(32:14):
relatives who passed and came toour wake, and they just were so
moved by, you know, I buried mymother um last year, and we had
four hours in the funeral home,and that was it.
And you guys are together forfour or five days cooking and
and um comforting and andproviding this rebar, this uh

(32:35):
strength to the ones who aregrieving the deepest, and you
know, you're actually grievingand getting it out and telling
the stories and laughing and youknow, um, this whole experience
of the wake that really doeshelp.
I've I've seen it both ways,and I can't imagine the coldness
of the other way.
I don't know.

(32:55):
To me, that seems like veryhard, a harder way to deal with
death.

AJ (33:00):
Yeah, I well, I think it's it's getting increasingly uh
evident that that is true.
But I think particularly inthese industrialized times, it's
it's so transactional.

Kim (33:12):
Yeah, it's massive.
I mean everything.
Oh yeah.
My uh cousin who just left themorning that you arrived, lost
her son recently.
And she said everything.
It was so transactional,everything was money, everything
was horrendous amounts ofmoney, money that should never
have been, you know, thingsshould never have been at that

(33:34):
level of expense.
It just was, oh, she was morehorrified, so horrified with the
death, um, you know, to loseyour child, but then to deal
with the continual horrors ofpeople stealing from you for
every little thing, and you tryto do right by your child and

(33:54):
their memory and their remains.
And she just was, she couldn'tbelieve it.
She said it was like he wasbeing killed over and over and
over again.
This might be something that,you know, you say, How do you
feel about this?
Well, when I can't get my ownparking place, I'll tell you how
I feel.
I feel like I'll just parkanywhere I want.

(34:15):
There you go.
What are you gonna do?
This is our land, by the way.
Do you know who I am?
Do you know who I am?
Don't tell you she'll be upsetwith me.

AJ (34:31):
I joined the family of my old friend and mentor when he
died in burying him ourselves byhand.
Oh the challenge for hispartner was to find a place
where we could do it.
Well you could do it.
There was an old cemetery, sortof almost, I think almost, if
not disused, in a in a ruralarea.
Uh we could just go and do it.
In a simple pine box.

(34:52):
Yeah.

Kim (34:53):
That's what my kids know.
You throw me in a pine box andyou put me in the back of that
Corvette and drive me throughit.
I'm just kidding.
I'm just kidding, but please,no hurts and no, you know, all
of the expense and more expenseand more expense.
Yeah.

AJ (35:06):
That's why when I saw that scaffolding up with Kelsey, I
was like, I'd go that.
I mean, yeah, for me, it'sprobably more take me out to the
ocean and feed me to a chap.

Kim (35:20):
Give me a his funeral.

AJ (35:22):
Yeah.
But you can't do that'sillegal.
Yeah.

Kim (35:28):
Yeah.
You just don't tell anybody,right?
You just you just do it.
So this is Cinepah.
Right here is Cinepaw.
This was my grandmother'sfavorite place as well.

AJ (35:41):
Really?

Kim (35:42):
So when she passed, I came and brought her because she
wanted to be so we're a productof the Relocation Act, one yet
another uh law that was passedin DC.
Um, and so my grandmother'sfamily was put in Seattle, my
uncle's family was put inChicago, and it was uh it was a
forcible reaction, right?
And so the the thing was tobreak down the bloodlines, and

(36:04):
so it really worked with mygrandmother's family because
they were in um high school andmiddle school.
So within a few months of myfather being placed in the
Seattle area, my mother was, youknow, and so then this is how I
came to look like this, right?
So my grandmother, um, when mygrandfather passed, she
immediately came home and shelived at home for I think about

(36:27):
10 years, and then her youngestson found out how much, because
we just supported her, and soeverything that she had was
going into the bank.
He learned about the money.
He came and got her.
She was already in you know,stages of dementia.
So oh, you must move home withme, mom.
I need your help.
Da da da da.
She passed away in a matter ofmonths, but she wanted to be
cremated so she could be broughthome.

(36:48):
So I brought her here at fouror five in the morning, and we
we um, you know, this was herfavorite place in the world
right here.
Yeah.
Before the boats, before all ofthis stuff, really, this was
her favorite place in the world,yeah.
Any any of those walls wherethe red rock where the snow is,
still that was a whole glacier.

(37:09):
And you can look at um, you canGoogle Glacier National Park,
receding glaciers, or then andnow.

AJ (37:17):
Amazing little storms on the snow, right?

Kim (37:21):
Yeah.
And over there just those oldones watching over us.
Yeah.
Come on, goats.
Come on, greasy.
Come on, where are you at now?
This is bear grass.
See this white one?
It only grows for about twoweeks out of the year and only
at certain elevations, and it'sgone.

(37:41):
Yeah.
And so my grandmother, who wasin Carlisle all her life, um,
when she came when she camehome, and then after we were all
born and driving, she wouldgive us her truck, 12, 13 years
old, to drive up here and gether bear grass.
And we would bring her bundlesof bear grass, and it falls

(38:02):
apart.
Very it's very delicate.
And bring it home to her.
And she had her mason jars.
She would fill them with waterand food coloring.
One would be blue, one would bered, one would be orange, and
she would put the bear grass in,and they would um they're like
a lily, they absorb and theywould absorb the color, so she
would have blue, bear grass,purple, bear grass, it was her

(38:23):
thrill for oh, here's one here.
And back then they didn't havenice cars, and you know, to be
able to go and pick this, so itwas a huge thing for her.
But she wouldn't let us pickbear grass on divide.
And I never understood whyuntil I was in my master's
program and I had to come upwith a research project.

(38:44):
And we were always, you know,she would tell us, you don't
leave your hair in a brush, youdon't clip your fingernails at
other people's houses becausethese are things that people can
use against you.
And we'd be like, Okay,grandma, yes, okay, grandma.
All right, gram.
Well then um when she wouldsend us to get baragraphs for
her, but you can't pick ondivide.

(39:05):
And it would we would justcategorize it in with the you
can't you can't leave your hairin a brush or your nails
anywhere.
But as I got into my master'sprogram, I started trying to
figure out because she wasalready past, she passed when my
second daughter, or my first,my only daughter, when my
daughter was born, she's mythird child.
That was when my grandmotherpassed.
So it was very recent history,right?

(39:26):
And um I started looking intowhy couldn't we pick bear grass
on divide?
And then, you know, thedifferent stories that people
said there was bad things shetold us, there's bad things
buried up there.
And so then I started looking,so this is all Sabasbury.
I started looking um and tryingto learn what where that
history came from.

(39:47):
Well, the Atomic EnergyCommission in 1961 um made a
proposal to our tribe to burynot less than one million
gallons of irradiated wastewaterand byproducts from the
enrichment of uranium up toplutonium for the bombs that
were dropped on Nagasaki andHiroshima.

(40:07):
So there were three separateinstitutions across the nation:
Hanford, um, Oak RidgeLaboratories, and then I think
it was Love Canal.
I don't know.
There were three places anywaywhere they enriched the uranium
because they didn't want theparticular scientist to be
responsible for the death ofhundreds of thousands.
So they split it up, thisenrichment process, and you

(40:28):
know, learned how fission and fversus fusion, et cetera.
Well, then they had all theseuh crazy amounts of uh very
dangerous isotope uh embedded,you know, wastewater and
product, etc.
And they didn't even knowthemselves a danger of gamma
radiation because you know theirscientists even died of
leukemia, you know.
So it wasn't, but they did knowthat it wasn't good.

AJ (40:51):
Yeah.

Kim (40:51):
And so they um they uh requested, they sent a proposal,
the Atomic Energy Commission.
I'm gonna go through here justreal quickly in case there's a
goat.
Um mountain goats, they liveall over these mountains.
If you look for white spotsthat are moving, you will spot a
goat.
Um, a mountain goat.

(41:12):
They have little black horns.
Anyway, uh so I came across Ifound this proposal buried deep
in a government depository fromthe Atomic Energy Commission to
do this in 1961.
And then I went about lookingat at all the the history of
council meetings and the minutesof the council meetings, and
and I found this collection ofcouncil meetings of all the

(41:35):
tribes across Montana that thisum Catholic sister, nun who had
come from back east, she came toGreat Falls and she saw um that
the people were still living inlodges along the river while
while she was there uhministering to the people and to
native people.
Um the people of the city burntthem out.

(41:56):
They didn't want the Indians ontheir land, which was our land,
obviously.
And so um she petitioned andpetitioned different tribes to
put money in to build housingdevelopments, right?
But because of this, she wentto, you know, and you can
imagine a 1927 Model T orhowever to go across the whole
state of Montana.
She went to all of these tribesrequesting money from them to

(42:18):
build these housing developmentsto house these people who were
living around that city lookingfor jobs, and you know, they um
were basically being starved outor or burnt out.
And when they burnt all theirlodges, they moved up to the
dump.
So they're finding all thesepieces of metal and wood, and
you know what our winters arelike.

(42:38):
Nine months of you know theywere very harsh back then, 40
below, 60 below, and they'retrying to save their children
living in the dump.
But by this act of kindnessthat she was doing, she got the
secretaries for each tribe tosend her, you know, because they
had to type it out, right?
The minutes to send her copiesof the monthly meeting with the
tribal um councils.

(42:59):
So through her beauty and andher um organization and the way
that she was fighting for thepeople, I got the minutes for
the Blackfeet tribe all the wayback to because we had had a a
building that had um our recordsin it flood, so we lost a lot
of our records.
And so I found these recordsthat um talked about the irony

(43:22):
of it though was the proposalwas made in July of 1961, and
for like three months all theminutes were missing.
But somebody, whoever tookthem, missed a back page of some
minutes that said an old fishwolf robe walked into the
council chambers and banged hisstaff on the floor and spoke in

(43:44):
Pecani.
Um I may not understand Englishwell, but my grandson does, and
he's explained to me this uhthis attempt for the government
to bury very dangerous thingsthat could cause our mountains,
you know, because they thoughtof earthquakes, they were
thinking of of the explosion,you know, because of the
enrichment up to plutonium, um,because they'd already

(44:06):
experienced Nagasaki.
So this was in the 50s, 1961,I'm sorry, duh.
So they had already experiencedum the knowledge of what atomic
energy could do.
And so he adamantly said no.
And so the proposal was turneddown, but it was turned down a
year later.
So we thought maybe there wereI thought maybe there was some
cursory dumping that was takingplace.

(44:29):
Um and we had an area of landup by Divide Mountain from
Divide all the way ten milesdown the road from St.
Mary's where every singlefamily living on that um on the
land had cancer on that that 10mile stretch.
Really?
Yeah.

(44:49):
Except for one family who hadmoved in there just a few years
before that and uh built alittle campground, but they were
non-native, they hadn't livedthere for so man, I dug into
that and I had 62 sample sitesand you know, uh took water from
all the crickets and the runoffand the beaver dams and the
housewater, you know, coming outof their faucets, their wells,

(45:10):
everything.
But you know, I was in mygraduate studies.
I wasn't funded, I didn't haveany money.
I was just trying to pay rentand pay rent up here because my,
you know, a couple of my uhkids had already graduated high
school, so they were stillliving in the house and to try
to not rent but pay electricitythere and rent down there and I
just didn't have the money toreally um do the analysis on my

(45:32):
water samples, and I didn't havethe support um uh from the
university to do that, and so umI would bum use of one lab's
GMass spec, but for me to lookfor the isotopes I was looking
for that were a byproduct of theenrichment of uranium up to
plutonium like cesium andstrontium and and C uh and just

(45:56):
um these different isotopes,they would have to recalibrate
their machines, which then theperson who calibrated had to
come from Spokane or Seattle orsomething.
It was a big thing for them tolet me do that.
So I only really got to run oneset of samples and they were
clean, but I only got to runthem for two isotopes.
So there could have beenstrontium, there could have been
cesium, there could have, youknow, there could have been

(46:16):
things in there, and then so Ibecause I couldn't come up with
uh it cost five hundred dollarsfor like a half a gallon of this
um this oh what was it called,but it would light up the
isotopes.
It was this particular liquidthat you used in your sample.
And I can't think of the nameof it because the four years of
mass prednisone on my brain, butanyway, um so I couldn't find

(46:40):
uh through uh two years ofsampling in every season because
I didn't have the money toreally do it correctly.
So I went about it a differentway and I hit the EPA um with
FOIA requests and I was tryingto force them into designating a
cancer cluster, but they wouldnot do it, and it was so hard to
get medical records, etc.

(47:01):
And they would not do itbecause um when you know, just
one more loophole, right?
If they're gonna designate anarea a cancer cluster, it has to
all the primary cancer has tobe the same.
But people had leukemia andthey had um different forms of
cancer, so the primary cancerwasn't the same.

(47:22):
Uh non-Hodgkins lymphoma was abig one that people had.
Yeah.
And but because there wasnon-Hodgkins and leukemia, then
boom, they wouldn't designateit.

AJ (47:33):
It's pretty funny how we it's classic reductionism, isn't
it?
Yeah.
But there's a clear pattern anda devastating one.

Kim (47:40):
Right.

AJ (47:40):
It's like, ah no, it doesn't quite do it.

Kim (47:42):
Right.
Losing two or three members ofyour family to no, no, no, no.
And so uh Yeah, there were thenthey had to do the classic, you
know, studies of other dumpingsites like Fallon, Nevada, and
you know, trying to We justtalked about this the other day
because Australia wascontemplating taking nuclear
waste from I think it was here,wasn't it, Poppy?

AJ (48:02):
I thought so.
Yeah.
Take it from here.
Oh and of course, where wouldthey propose to put it?
Right.
Aboriginal community.

Kim (48:09):
Oh, of course.
Not in my backyard.
You should you should see thedocument.
You should see the language ofthis document.
It is your patriotic duty.

AJ (48:17):
Yeah.

Kim (48:18):
Uh yeah, yeah, yeah, because you know, Native
Americans serve at such a higherpercentage in the military
service than any other ethnicityin America.
And it continues to this day,even with the treatment, um,
because this was our land.
This is our land, you know,we're proud and we're proud to
defend it anyway.
In these uh n faux wars thataren't even real wars anymore

(48:39):
over rubber or oil or butanyway, um certainly that was
the language they used, was itwas our patriotic duty, and
because at Hanford it wascosting them 35 cents a gallon
to store it, they would give us22 cents or 23, they would give

(49:00):
us, you know, this amount, whichwas nowhere near the amount.
I don't know how to get out ofhere if it's one way or
obviously I don't come in thepark much.
Yeah, it might be one my uh Imight be going the wrong way.
So your podcasts are what isthe name?
Is it like your regeneration?

AJ (49:21):
Oh stories of things that work.

Kim (49:24):
Mine's all been so negative.

AJ (49:26):
Let's talk about the good stuff.
Yeah, no, we've been talkingabout good stuff.
Don't worry about that.
It's been there's been somegold.
It's like, oh yeah, this is whyyou record.
Oh like so we'll have a lot ofjust you know, conversations
like that, but then bits inbetween is like, oh, that was
amazing.

Kim (49:40):
And and you're the wizard that puts it all together to
make a program and gets rid ofall the non good stuff.
So it's not a mansion, right,John?
I can't wait to explore.

AJ (49:57):
Thanks, Kim.
Thanks for being interested.
Yeah, definitely.
Yeah, it came up before.
When when Kim, I don't know ifyou heard Kim was saying we're
leaving that language ofreservation behind nation, and
that's what the chief said downthere.

Kim (50:16):
What was his name?

AJ (50:17):
Uh Standing Bear, Chief uh Jeffrey Standing Bear.
Yeah, really interesting guy.
Doing some great stuff too.
Now he's I'll have to look himup.
Similar stuff too, from similarum sort of themes and and um
what would you say, like sensingthe moment through COVID and
managed to nail a bunch offunding and got a greenhouse up,

(50:39):
which is a big greenhouse inOklahoma.
They're growing pineapples inOklahoma too.
Oh, beautiful.
And uh they have the heat.
They got the heat, and they hadthe pineapples, would you
believe, from Leonardo DiCapriowith the filming Killers of the
Flower Moon.
He ordered pineapples fromCalifornia en masse.
And so one of the dudes theresaid, I think we can use this to

(51:03):
pull the heads and be growingpineapples in Oklahoma.
Oh nice, but yeah, biggreenhouse, multi-process
multi-u-species processingfacility, um mobile harvesting
facility.
Yes, you know, all these sortsof things.

Kim (51:17):
Isn't that something?
And when you hear about othertribal nations doing it, it's
like, yes, yes, we can do it.
We can we will find the moneyfor it, we will do this because
our producers feed nine monthsout of the year in this country.
Like it's such an intensivecost, so costly for them.
And then the middleman steps injust because he has money and

(51:40):
buys, you know, the the calfcrop.
And so you just you neverreally make enough to even pay
for the feed from the last year.
So now with these regenpractices, people are getting so
excited because it r it's areduction in feed bill, and then
to think of us, you know,finding the money, because we
all have our gifts, right?

(52:00):
We all have our gifts of, youknow, this person is a great
storyteller, this one can reallywrite.
I can write way better than Ican speak for sure.
For some reason, I have the abeautiful gift in that area, and
so for us to um to want tosupport their ability to maybe

(52:21):
keep their ranch alive, keep itgoing after how many
generations, and you know,whether it's 40 head or 400 or
4,000, we're we're just we'rehere to help.
And so um at some point we're Iknow the money will come for
the the processing plant becausethen it cuts out the middleman,
and we can, you know, selltheir grass-fed organic beef

(52:46):
through, you know, throughcertification and you know,
online to a global market,right?
A global market that wants tosupport saving lives, that wants
to support the real truth inour history and and the time for
reclamation, you know, andrecovery, as opposed to
continuing down the same, sameroad.

(53:07):
How many jobs will this, youknow, processing plant uh
provide?
We have the whole feasibilitystudies and the business plan
that's gonna be great.
We just have to.
We went down to Livingston,down by Bozeman, and there's a
man down there who um, you know,he he captured this uh

(53:27):
beautiful way of gettingeveryone's coal cattle.
They come and donate them for atax break for each one of their
ranches.
So the cattle that are going todie anyway, the dries, the you
know, the ones that differentranches are calling out, and
then he processes and he sellsit back to into the market for
the same price as um as thelocal butcher shop.

(53:53):
So he makes a very good profitbecause he's not providing the
product, right?
He gets the product for freeand he only has to pay the
labor.
But because he's also sellingback to the food banks, then it
it's a beautiful circle wherepeople are benefiting even more
than just people who have thefinancial ability to purchase

(54:16):
meat.
Um the food banks are buyingthis meat at fair market price
for this man.
So it's kind of like there'sstores here in the States called
Goodwill, where people bring inand donate.
And so the for-profit business,Goodwill, brings in all this

(54:36):
profit from donated items andthey provide some labor.
But because they um alsoprovide some jobs to special
needs folks, then it it makespeople want to donate more and
more and more and more and more.
So what a beautiful businessmodel.
Yeah, right on.
So we would like to protect ourfood system when COVID hit.

(54:58):
We had um, it was like wagontrains coming through because
we're highway two, so that goesstraight across the northern um,
you know, parallel to theCanadian border.
And so people were coming fromChicago and from everywhere, all
of these big trucks with theircampers.
They were fleeing the citiesand they would just come through

(55:20):
like locusts and take all ofour food.
My little niece came to myhouse and she was crying, and
her baby was like six monthsold, and she's like, Auntie,
Auntie, I pulled into the toTeeples to get um diapers and
some food for baby.
And these people pulled up nextto me in a truck, and like five
people jumped out, and theyeach ran and got a cart, and

(55:41):
they just started emptying ourshelves of all the food, of all
the diapers, of all theeverything.
Just because they had money,Auntie.
I only had $42.
And now I can't even, it's notenough gas to drive 140 miles to
the next store, you know, to goto Kalisbell or Great Falls.
And she just sobbed in my armsand I smudged her off and

(56:02):
painted her, and then as soon asshe left, I called council.
I'm like, okay, I know you guysare so busy with so much trying
to save our people, but youhave to understand this reality.
This is what just happened.
And they immediately tookaction and put signs up for um
people external to here couldnot shop.
They could shop before they gethere, they could shop after

(56:24):
they leave.
But they were just comingthrough, I'm not kidding, just
wagon trains of trucks andcampers, and everyone was
heading to this.
I don't know, it was like um anarea on the other side of
Calisbell that a lot of thepreppers knew about as like this
haven't.
It was like a uh Mad Max movie.
I don't know, it was just likewe were living in the middle of

(56:47):
such a surreal.
Really?
Yeah, it was so surreal.
Come and wipe out our grocerystores, and you know, who has
money to drive 120 miles to getfood when you're trying to stay
stay isolated?

AJ (57:04):
Totally.

Kim (57:05):
You might have enough money to get there to buy food, but
you don't have the money to buyfood anymore because you just
spin it on fuel to get there.
Yeah.
Yeah, so so our leadership wasso wonderful.
Yeah.
So we would bring people uphere and ski for our ski pecani.
And uh once we got the snowmachine and the groomer, groom
tracks, and then um we realizedthat then still only the haves

(57:30):
and not the have-nots could getto ski because you had to have
healthy parents to drive you uphere, or you had to have a
vehicle, or you had to have agood four-wheel vehicle.
And so then we started skiingright in little neighborhoods.
Really?
Yeah, grooming, you know, justgoing and grooming a little
track and skiing right next tothe small neighborhoods so kids
could just come.

AJ (57:49):
Yeah.

Kim (57:50):
They didn't have to have oversight, and they could also
run home, you know, for thebathroom.
So we didn't have to do thefrozen porta potty thing.
So that worked out really well.
Yeah, that's cool.
Parents knew where they were,and so we determined next year's
ski season we'll be in neighboreach of the little surrounding
communities.
Yeah, across the nation.

(58:10):
We have Heart View, BirchCreek, Badger Creek, Two
Medicine, Um, East Glacier, uhStar School, uh, Fisher Flat,
Seville, St.
Mary Bab, and I'm missingsomeone.
Anyway, we have all of thesesubcommunities.

(58:32):
Oh, Blackfoot, that's it.
That's 11.
And so when um I'm not sure ifwe got through the story of when
I first created uh PicaniLodge, founded it.

AJ (58:45):
Yeah, but you already come to that.

Kim (58:47):
Yeah, so I came back from the Himalayas having seen the
Mountain Shepherds, um, how theywere able to provide jobs for
their youth and young adults,and I determined to create that
same model here for people who,you know, I have a nephew that
dropped out in the sixth grade,another in the ninth grade.
I dropped out in the ninthgrade myself and went for 28

(59:09):
years before, you know, um,going to school and now have
quite a bit more education thanthat.
Yeah.

AJ (59:18):
How many degrees you got?

Kim (59:20):
Um, so my undergrad was in pre-med and research psych.
My master's was inenvironmental chemistry and
biomedical science, and mydoctorate uh was in
biochemistry, biomedicalscience, and community and
public health.
So it was like creator led methrough this holistic pattern of

(59:40):
everything from the metaboliclevel, both environmentally and
human uh biology, all the wayout to community and public
health.
So from the pre med to thebiochem to the biomedical
science to community and publichealth, along with land issues
management and uh environmental.
Chemistry, so yeah, that many.

(01:00:02):
I think when you drop out inthe ninth grade and work
construction for 28 years tosupport four children, you're
really hungry.
Yeah.
So you get a whole lot ofeducation real quick and bring
it home to be a better tool forwell.

AJ (01:00:15):
Funnily enough, you know, I I partly relate to that because
for me I had 17 years ofschooling from you know
preschool through to ascholarship at university
through to 21.
But felt like I knew nothingand and much more.
I mean I knew mechanics ofstuff like business at
university and business systemsand and obviously yeah,

(01:00:37):
everything high school teachesyou, and so it tests you in.
But much less did I learn stuffI was passionate about.
Right.
So when I when it took a whilebecause I was uh depressed, you
know, use that word that youguys don't have in your
language.
Um, when I was really thingswere dark for me at that era

(01:00:57):
because nothing was turning thelight on.
Right.
To have then found what Iloved, I felt that same hunger.

Kim (01:01:05):
Yeah.
So then you found the path.

AJ (01:01:07):
Yeah, well that just that hunger as well.
So and it's still what's beinglived out even now in this
journey, right?
It's uh it's just and I I stillit was only the day I said to
Olivia, to think of 17 years ofmy life getting educated.
Educated.
Exactly.

Kim (01:01:27):
Whoa.
Yeah.
So these are in the kitchen.
This is why the railroad wasput through to annihilate the
buffalo and build these thislodge here and at Mini Glacier
for Teddy Roosevelt.

AJ (01:01:42):
Yeah, it looks like the one at Grand Canyon.
Yeah, as well.
Yeah, they're all the nationalparking system.

Kim (01:01:47):
So you can surely come up here if you'd like.
I don't go in there.
Um but you are more thanwelcome to come back because
you'll see it's just such aclose trek.

AJ (01:01:57):
Yeah.

Kim (01:01:57):
Yeah.
So this is the first CR flag.
The first business we've everbeen able to reclaim here.

AJ (01:02:05):
Yeah.

Kim (01:02:06):
Homemade local favorites.
There we go.
I think their window dressingsneed to change though, because
nobody ever knows they're open.
Well, that's right.
It doesn't look like they'reopen.

AJ (01:02:18):
It doesn't look like that.
We can't eat pizza.

Kim (01:02:22):
That's our only one.
All the rest is all non.
Non, non, non, non.
And then we bought this gasstation, so this is thriving.
Yeah, we took this back forthis crazy enormous price, and
the people that sold it to usprobably just laughed all the
way to the bank.

AJ (01:02:40):
Man.

Kim (01:02:41):
Yeah.
But hopefully we regroup thatmoney.

AJ (01:02:45):
Yeah.

Kim (01:02:46):
Yeah.
And he's the one that owned thegrocery store before or that
little gas station.
Yeah.
So now he owns this wholehillside.
He's not from here.
You know, he just made goodmoney.
Right.
This is the Two Medicine Rivercoming out of there and going
down to feed all the way intothe Missouri and then into the

(01:03:08):
Mississippi.

AJ (01:03:09):
Wow.
It's a beautiful.

Kim (01:03:10):
Yeah, and it's all the farmland east of the nation,
east of the Blackfeet Nation,that really reaps the benefit of
it.
Because we just don't have theinfrastructure to use it for
irrigation.
Which we I don't know how manylifetimes does one have, but

(01:03:31):
wouldn't it be nice to be ableto get that in place at some
point to be able to use our ownwater?
Because right now everythinglooks green, but in another few
weeks it's going to be soparched and dry, and we're in
such severe drought conditionsnow, although you can't tell it.
No, that's right.

AJ (01:03:48):
But I did it at the festival.
Worst drought in 50 yearswasn't.

Kim (01:03:53):
But we just had some late recent rain and we just keep
praying for it.
Which is why you see the greennow, but yeah, worst drought in
50 years.

AJ (01:04:03):
You were going to get on to the start of the Pikachu.
Sorry.
I distracted.

Kim (01:04:08):
Sorry.
So um coming from the Himalayasand seeing this beautiful
Mountain Shepherd businessmodel.
Um, and then with uh being atthe university and seeing so
much research because for uhdoctorate in the States it has
to be novel research, somethingnew, something unpublished, and

(01:04:29):
so um a lot of uh grants werebeing written and careers built
on research within Indiancommunities, indigenous
communities, um, but theyweren't benefiting anyone in
indigenous communities, andcareers weren't being built here
at home.
And so um with being asked tobe on the Blyfeet Nation

(01:04:53):
Institutional Review Board aswell to serve on that board.
Um I was seeing just beyondwhat I saw at one university of
taking advantage of us and ourpeople with no uh beneficence
for us here at home.
Um I became pretty and deeplyangry.

(01:05:17):
And I saw um also I walked intothe grad school one afternoon,
and this woman who was thedirector of a program at that
time called Bridges to theBaccalaureate, which actually
was my way to get to theuniversity.
It was a beautiful program thatthat supported, um I didn't
have the gas money to driveacross the street, much less
down to the unit.

(01:05:37):
I'd never even been toMissoula, you know, from just
right here, four hours south.
And so to go um be a part ofthis Bridges to Baccalaureate
program in a sum in the summerthat then um normalized me to
Missoula and then campus and youknow, navigating the systems of
registering for classes andfinding financial aid, etc., I

(01:05:59):
don't think I would ever havegotten um as far as I have, you
know, Western-based scienceeducationally degree-wise, had
it not been for that program.
But one day I walked into thegraduate school um because I had
broken three vertebrae, I wasgoing away to med school, Yale
and Loma Linda accepted there,and then all of a sudden I broke
these vertebrae and it's like,okay, what are you trying to

(01:06:19):
tell me?
And my first grandchild wasabout to be born, it was like I
couldn't leave, and so I that'swhen I developed the
contaminated waste, the researchfor my master's Maya.
Yeah.
And so um in in doing that, Ihad a lot of interaction with
the grad school, and I walked inthere one day because the

(01:06:40):
director of the grad school wasactually on my committee, and I
went in to ask him a question,and this woman was standing
there with her back to me andtelling all these other
researchers, researchprofessors, if you haven't um
accessed this low-hanging fruit,this Indian money, then you're
all fools.
You need to.
Oh, it was horrible.
And Sandy, the director of thegrad school at the time, looked

(01:07:01):
up at me and was like, Kim, youknow, he was so embarrassed, so
deeply embarrassed.
And um for this woman whohappened to be the director of
the Bridges to theBaccalaureate, who I immediately
got a job with so that I couldchange what was going on within
her brain.
Cool.
And um, unfortunately, she wasnew to that program and she

(01:07:24):
basically took care of herselfand her accountants and changed
the program up instead of whereit really benefited the students
and bringing students to theuniversity system.
Um, she was, I ran into her atthe grocery store one day, and I
was like the co-whatever, shejust had me on as kind of a
token.
But I mean, I did the work.
I obviously came out to thedifferent tribal nations and

(01:07:46):
recruited the students for thesummer and you know, promised
the parents that they would besafe with us.
And because back then the rentwas paid through the summer, and
you got a food card for like$75 a week or something.
But once she took it over, itwas it was not being run that
way.
And I ran into her at thegrocery store and she had this

(01:08:06):
cart full of like snail shellsand and I don't know, these
pastes and all this stuff, twocarts, her and her accountant.
And I'm like, wow, looks likeyou guys are having a party.
She's like, Oh, oh, oh, youdidn't get invited.
Oh, it's the bridges um partyfor the administrative, yeah, it
was just for them, not for thestudents, not for, but the

(01:08:27):
students no longer got the $75 aweek food.
So I had to quit.
I like quit the next day.
I was done, yeah, done withthis woman.
And so anyway, I had theseexperiences, and when I um was
close to graduating with mydoctorate, I think I completed
my credits, completed mydissertation, I just hadn't

(01:08:48):
defended.
My cousin asked me to come homeand help him write the ARMP,
and then I had a side jobwriting the climate change
adaptation plan with a few otherauthors, and um I I really
didn't know exactly what I wasgoing to do, but I attended that
strengthening the circlemeeting that I was telling you

(01:09:10):
about where Robin Walkimer wasthe um guest speaker.
But um at that point, the womanwho was the director of that
program uh her and I sat downand we completed the nonprofit,
you know, um application, andthat's how Pecani Lodge was
born.
And it was really based on umcreating jobs, employing these,

(01:09:32):
especially young men who arehard hit with suicide here.
You know, they were just leftbehind a hundred years ago,
where women have to beaggressive and get educations to
support their children.
Men were hunters for 20,000years.
They hunted and they protectedus, bottom line.
And and so the transitionepigenetically for them to, you

(01:09:53):
know, uh go to school or to, youknow, there's so few jobs here,
right?
And so it was my big dream, bigvision was to um create this
eco-tourism, culturaleco-tourism model after the
mountain shepherds in theHimalayas and do study abroads
where we're a third worldcountry within a nation, right?

(01:10:14):
Like we're a third world nationwithin a nation, and and let um
uh create curriculum so thatthe study abroad students from
Yale or Harvard or Stanford orwherever um would come and you
know have an eight-week or afive-week course with us, and
and the parents would love it ifthey were still supporting

(01:10:34):
their um children at universitylevel because uh it would be
accredited, give them credits.
And so this was the model thatPicani Lodge was started on.
Well, um, you know, greatunicorn with sparkles coming out
of the nose and and other maybethe the mouth, I'll I'll leave

(01:10:55):
it there.
Um you can't start anythingwithout some kind of funding.
Sure, I had the Secretary ofthe State paperwork that, you
know, Picani Lodge was anonprofit, you know, qualified
as a nonprofit, but we didn'thave any jobs.
We didn't have any how was Igonna start this tourism thing
without you know, we didn't havea website, we didn't have
anything.
And so we wrote up thiscontract with the Foundation for

(01:11:19):
Food and Ag Research and thesebeautiful humans back in DC, and
this program caught the visionof the traditional diet, and
then you could you could thecontract, the work contract was
to um help strengthen foodsystems policy to protect local
food systems, is the way wewrote it up, and then the

(01:11:39):
traditional diet.
So that was how Picani Lodgebegan.
On the back of that, I had umalso because of the suicide
challenges here at home.
Um I had spent a couple threeyears with this carrot hanging
out in front of my face to makemyself finish my doctoral
studies.
That um as soon as I graduated,I would get to go down into the

(01:12:02):
basement of the chemistrybuilding and write this um
vision that I had called Cultureand Hope, Culture as Medicine.
And so I wrote that up and gotit funded.
Um, and I ran it under thetribe and created a department
under the tribe that was umbased on indigenous uh culture
as medicine, as as preventativemedicine.

(01:12:22):
And so created that program andthen, sorry, um ended up uh
handing it over to myadministrative assistant who
still has it running to thisday, and I focused on the Cunny
Lodge after a couple years doingthat, putting up lodges, having

(01:12:43):
medicine camps and just uhtraditional camps where we
taught cutting dry meat and madeour protection bags and taught
people about the differentsmudges, and we did all the
medicinal and uh traditionalplant walks for food, for
medicine, for teas, for um wehad our elders come in and teach
us so much.
So, anyway, that's how PikaniLodge came about, and the

(01:13:04):
funding from the Foundation ofFood and Agricultural
Agricultural Research supportedthe diet study and back in 2018?
2018?
Yeah.
Yeah, but then COVID.
Yeah, thank you.
So everything went.
Oh, that's what I wanted totell you about.
That's why we started thisconversation was um because we
got everyone um together.

(01:13:25):
I think we had about six peopleemployed at the time when COVID
hit, and I'm like, okay guys,this is the deal.
Um, this is gonna kill us.
We we don't have the medicalinfrastructure, we don't have
ventilators, we don't have, thisis gonna really, this is gonna
hit us hard.
What can we do for it not tohit us hard?
And I said, what if we start ummaking up uh hot meals and food

(01:13:52):
boxes and take it out to the 11outlying communities,
especially to our elders and ourimmunosuppressed,
immunocompromised people, sothat they do not have to come
into town to these two littlegrocery stores where you could
con you know contract veryreadily uh something uh a
disease that you have noacquired immunity to and it
could kill you.

(01:14:12):
And so um we put all our workaside.
We voted to put our work aside,and then people just joined us
and volunteered with their cars,and then the leadership um and
our senior citizens um startedcooking the meals and we
supplied over 48,000.
That's why the refrigeratorsand the yes, the tables, the

(01:14:34):
stainless work.
Um so while while the EagleShields um senior center here
put all this work into creatingall these hot meals a day.
We delivered 297 hot meals aday.
And um I was in the backgroundbecause I was so sick on oxygen,
getting sicker and sickerbecause COVID hit me hard as

(01:14:54):
well.
Um I was uh just the Oz behindthe curtain, they called me, and
I was just writing all theselittle state grants that um that
uh brought in 2,000 or 3,000 oranyway.
Yeah, so that was really thebirth of Pecani Lodge was those
48,000 meals and um uh the13,800 food boxes, and I was

(01:15:20):
just writing and writing andwriting and writing and writing
and writing and writing andbringing in a thousand here and
five hundred there, and that'show um we met this amazing man
out of California who um hecalled me one day and he's like,
Kim, and I didn't know who hewas, and he said, I have to ask
you a question.
This young man is down here andhe said he worked for you, and

(01:15:42):
you guys are doing this amazingwork, and he described
everything that we were doing.
So this Black Ford back here,he described everything that we
were doing, but he said thisyoung man, he wanted to donate
money to this young man, and I'mlike, I'm so sorry to tell you
this young man does not work forus.
He has never worked for us, andif you donate to him, it would,
you know, I d I I I just wantyou to understand that yes, we

(01:16:06):
are doing this work, but no,this person is not involved.
And I'm so sorry because Idon't want our people to be
thought of in this way.
I'm sure this young man has agood heart.
I'm sure he's a wonderfulhuman, but no, he doesn't work
for us.
And so then I don't know, 30minutes he called me back and he
said, Kim, um, I will supportthis young man in a different

(01:16:27):
way, but it I can only donate toa nonprofit.
And from from what I've heardand gone up on your website,
which was very, very, veryprimary and still is, um, I want
to donate to what you're doing.
And so this was our first umactual true donation to help us
do what we were doing becausepeople were driving their own
vehicles and breaking down theirfront ends and their rear ends

(01:16:50):
and tearing out theirtransmissions and you know, nine
months through winter to allthese outlying ranches.
It was a lot of work, and justmy nieces were volunteering, my
children all volunteered, mygrandchildren were putting
together all the food bags andfood boxes and taking them out
locally and you know, deliveringthem to um to homes in some of

(01:17:11):
our lower rent areas, and justvery, very much uh a family and
a community outreach thing.
There were there were women allacross town um making scarves.
Uh Bonnie Satchatello out of uhHopa Mountain um would make a
$5,000 donation, we'd buy $5,000worth of food.

(01:17:32):
Then she made a $2,000.
We bought $2,000 worth ofmaterial and they were making
masks and it was very much acommunity outreach.
And so um the real heart ofPecani Lodge uh was I guess um
beating stronger and strongerand stronger, and then we moved
from there to um once COVID waswe had more understanding and

(01:17:55):
how to stay safe.
We I don't know how much handsanding and gloves and masks we
delivered along with foods, andthen Christmas came, and so
we're delivering bikes and andyou know games that could be
puzzles that could be Walmart,you always played us with that
sanitizer.
I do remember, I do.
Oh, it was horrible, yeah.

(01:18:17):
Just trying to keep everyonesafe, and so that was really the
beginning of the heart, andthen um realized that we could
never really create thebeautiful ecotourism model that
we wanted to without trying tofind some funding.
And I think now that we havethis land, we're going to be one
step closer.

(01:18:37):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

AJ (01:18:39):
That is beautiful.
Thanks so much for that, Kim.
You guys are welcome.
That was Long Time ChargingWoman Kim Paul, founder and ED
of the Piikani Lodge HealthInstitute on Amskapi Piikani
Blackfeet Nation, with grandsonTraeson and my fam along for the

(01:19:00):
ride.
That was our first daytogether.
Our second was to come.
Every bit as special with someadditional prized company as we
made our way to the sacredground of Chief Mountain and
beyond.
With great thanks to yougenerous supporting listeners
for making this episodepossible.
Special thanks this week to BecHamersley for keeping the

(01:19:21):
touring van running for the 16months we ended up in the
Americas, as well as being asubscriber for over a year now,
alongside Ru Gale and old mateJames Tonson.
Immense thanks to you all.
If you'd like to join us, bepart of this great community,
get some exclusive stuff, andhelp keep the show going, we'd
love you to.
Just head to the website or theshow notes and follow the

(01:19:44):
prompts.
You'll find a few photos on theepisode webpage too, with more
for subscribers as always,including of the wonderful
Powwow, and North AmericanIndian Days Festival, generally.
And those Indian relays we'vebeen hearing about.
Wow.
For more on the Mika Matterscampaign, including This
American Life's podcast on thestory, I've included a link in

(01:20:07):
the show notes for that too.
In deep admiration for thelegacy Mika and her family are
honoring and creating.
And for those wondering, as Iwas, that senator was Jon
Tester.
Finally, Kim, I have neitherwolf nor dog on order.
The music you're hearing isRegeneration by Amelia Barden.

(01:20:28):
My name's Anthony James.
Thanks for listening.