Chief Mountain: A Great Coming Home, with Andrew Berger & Kim Paul

Episode Transcript
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AJ (00:01):
11111 111111 Yeah cool.
Okay.
Alright.

Andrew (00:05):
Alright.
Go for it dude.
This is Andrew Berger reportinglive.
Yeah.
Um yeah, no, I'm so I was justsaying we were just passing the
Yellow Bird Woman Sanctuary,which is named after Eloise
Cobel.
And I think over ten years agonow it was purchased in
partnership with the NatureConservancy, and they formed the
Blackfeet Indian Land Trust tomanage the land.

AJ (00:35):
G'day, Anthony James here for The RegenNarration, your
ad-free, freely availablelistener-supported podcast,
exploring how people areregenerating the systems and
stories we live by.
Last week featured a veryspecial on-location episode with
Amskapi Piikani BlackfeetElder, and founder of the
Piikani Lodge Health Institute,Long Time Charging Woman Kim

(00:58):
Paul.
That was our first daytogether, visiting some of the
places Kim holds most dear onspectacular Blackfeet Country in
current-day northern Montana,all while sharing some at times
breathtaking stories about herlife and work.
We left off that episodehearing the story of how Piikani

(01:18):
Lodge came to be.
And the support that started toserendipitously kick in.
Back at the house that night,the bloke you heard at the top
turned up.
Andrew Berger.
He's the director ofagriculture and climate
adaptation programs at PiikaniLodge.
For those listeners who've beentracking the uncanny Baltimore
connections that continue to popup on our journey, Andrew is,

(01:41):
you guessed it, based inBaltimore.
Turns out he's also a muso whoplayed tennis as a kid with a
double-handed backhand and allsorts of other parallel journeys
to my own.
But aside from all that, he's alandscape architect who cut his
teeth in New Mexico on waterrights and planning, which
fortuitously led him to PiikaniLodge in its relatively early

(02:02):
days.
And he's found himself pivotalto the big vision Kim talked
about last time on their latestreacquired land.
While he also works with thatincreasing number, almost half
of them so far, of thelandholders and farmers
improving their land managementand production.
So, the next day, Kim andAndrew kindly offered to take us

(02:25):
out to the sacred sentinel thatis Chief Mountain, which was
also where the closing scenes tothe new award-winning
documentary I talked about lastweek, Bring Them Home, were
filmed.
As Buffalo were returned to thewild for the first time in over
a century.
This time, Kim is taking ourboy and her grandson, while

(02:46):
Olivia and I climb in withAndrew to hear how he's singing
this country, the work ofPiikani Lodge, and his
outstanding role in it all.
We're to meet up, at ChiefMountain.
Oh, and the day culminates withan unforgettable wild
encounter.
So jump in, as we hear Andrewtell us more about a truly

(03:07):
heroic journey.
And more breaking news straightout of the gate.

Andrew (03:12):
So they basically stood up a land trust, and as far as
we know, I think it's still theonly tribal-led land trust,
which is kind of hard tobelieve, but it's an interesting
model.
So they I mean they have like Ithink they have, I I know they
have like a well, oh that was asheep.
That's just one of the bigwhite dogs.
Um they have uh bylaws, youknow, like they have um certain

(03:36):
standards they want to hold theland to in perpetuity, right?
So like certain developmentlimitations, and it's also a
conservation easement.
So with the state of Montana,it's a conservation.
So it's certain limits theretoo.
Yes.
Um income.
Like that?
You know, it's a good question.
They like the cabins we justpassed, they rent that out to
some groups, actually non-aidedgroups, um called Visions, and

(03:57):
they like bring kids out there.
I think they may be Christianactually, um, but they do like
service projects across thecommunity, and the buildings are
in pretty bad shape.
Yeah, it's like it's not as youkind of saw, yeah.
They've wanted to, they've kindof let it sit, honestly.
They they've leased it out tosome grazers in the last 10
years, um, pretty minimally, butthey've I think recognized that

(04:17):
some stimulation, you know,some disturbance through grazing
is good.
So they want to um let it begrazed a little bit, but they
protect the fen.
The fen is fenced off, the rarewetland that's in there is
fully fenced off.
Um and we bring groups outthere, we brought drones and
groups out there and monitor thewetlands because there's like a
critical mass that it can giveyou some indication of like how
the landscape's doing overallthat season or how climate

(04:39):
change is affecting it.
Um how long you've beengathering that data?
It's not it's not likemethodologically, you know.
It's it's more like we takesome drone footage.
It would be great to do it.
There have been other studies.
There have been studies of theFEN, like published
peer-reviewed studies of theFEN, yeah.
Um but uh but yeah, out there,um we haven't set up any act,
you know, we do similar, we doactual projects, you know,

(05:01):
collecting publishable data atother places, but not not there.
Um but we know we just look atit and we'll go out with elders
or others and share um uh sharetheir observations, you know,
say, oh that that looks reallylow, or you know, yeah, um, oh
we don't have a water source forour cattle here that we used
to, you know, that kind ofthing.
But it's no it becomes that isthe sort of thing you hear, huh?
Right, absolutely.

(05:21):
This year particularly, I meanyesterday was huge for the rain
that they had we had yesterday.
Yeah.
No, it's been, I mean, theydeclared a drought emergency
here um in uh early June, lateMay.
Um and it's been it's beenreally serious.
The snowpack in the mountains,like we're seeing now, um we're
at about uh 60-70% by like latespring, which is bad.

(05:45):
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Um and this is even early, likethe melt here.
You know, you may be surprisedto see snow, but like it's
there's typically some more.
Really?
Um, yeah, even like Logan Pass,you know, the paths across,
right?
That um opened a bit earlierthis year, but sometimes I don't
know what the latest is.
So I want to say it wassometimes still closed now, but
it will take until July, youknow, for that to be drivable.

(06:06):
So yeah, it's pretty fun.
It's pretty fun.
Um I've been snowed on here inAugust.
You know, I've been I was outcamping in many glacier and uh
woke up covered in snow.
Yeah.

AJ (06:17):
Oh my god, we we were hailed on at Old Salt.
Really?
The summer solstice.
Yeah.
And snowed on the hills.

Andrew (06:23):
Oh man.
Yeah.

AJ (06:24):
That was cold.
Yeah, that sounds really cool.

Andrew (06:26):
It got sub-zero one night, I think.
I mean sub zero Celsius.
I mean, there is there'srecords here for like, I don't
know, honestly, yesterday to theday before was I think 50
degree difference intemperature, right?
Yeah.
It was like 90 something to 40something.
Yeah.
But there's a record here, Ithink it's um, I think it's in
Mariah's Pass, um, where youpass on your way to West
Glacier, where um I'm I'm notauthority on this, but there is

(06:48):
the largest temperature swing, Ithink, recorded within the
shortest period of time.
It was it was something like,you know, 100 degrees in 12
hours.

AJ (06:56):
Really?
He probably knows that.
He went from 70 to 30 balance.
Yeah, okay, that's it.

Speaker 7 (07:02):
That's the one probably unbelievable.
So anyway.

Andrew (07:05):
So I should tell you quickly what why that is
interesting.
I can just say quickly.
Yeah.
Because so Eloise Cobel broughtthis case not just on behalf of
the Blackfeet tribe, but onbehalf of the whole country.
And when this is the uh duringthe Obama administration.
Oh, that's right, yeah.
But she was working on it fordecades before that.
Yeah.
And I think that was the firsttime it was heard.
And there's a great documentaryabout this called A Hundred
Years that like profiles whatled up to this over a hundred

(07:28):
years.
Um, and it was basically thatthe federal government was
shortchanging tribal landownerson allotted land and payments
for it.
So they would like price theland, undervalued, undervalue
the cost of the land, and um,you know, pay folks much less
than they deserved for it ifthey were purchasing it or

(07:50):
taking it.
Um, and there's a whole lotmore legalese involved, but she
like kind of quantified that tothe point that you know she
totaled, I think, just underfive billion dollars that was
owed to tribal individuals, youknow, to tribal um tribal
governments and individuals overlike any any allotted
landowners, which can be tribesor individuals over years.

(08:13):
So they settled it.
I don't know the exact number.
Um I want to say it was closerto I actually actually don't
know off the top of my head.
I think it was a few hundredmillion, but it could have been
more.

AJ (08:24):
Quick interlude.
Andrew has since messaged tosay it was actually 3.4 billion
dollars.
Let's hear more.

Andrew (08:33):
But what that's meant is that tribes, including the
Blackfeet Nation, have actuallygotten that money to rebuy land.
So, like, um there's been acouple rounds here where they
got money, the tribe got money,and then they would make offers
to people.
Um, they call it land buyback,and there were a couple rounds,
and it's including the land wepassed, just in no, that's a

(08:55):
good question.
No, that that um that's likemanaged by this Blackfaith
Indian Land Trust.
You know, that that's as aland.
So the land that would bepurchased by it gets really
confusing fast with tribal landtenure.
There's you know, um, so theland that'll be purchased by the
tribe then becomes quoteunquote tribal land, but it's
basically like the tribe is abusiness, you know, it's so it's
like the tribal government ownsthat land with the tribal

(09:17):
business council.
Um, yeah.
So she is a Blackfeet tribalmember, but she's like a
national hero in that way.
Um pretty amazing.
And it's a really cool site,and so we're pretty excited,
even like one of the reasons wewanted that site is because we
feel like we're developing a bitof like a conservation corridor
in this really criticaltransition landscape there.

(09:38):
Um where we've got, you know, abunch of we just did a bird
survey with Autobahn um a monthago, and we don't have the full
results yet, but a lot we know alot of bird habitat.
Um we know a lot of migratoryungulate and beaver habitat and
um all kinds of variegationthat's critical for habitat
migration.

(09:58):
Yeah, so so does the YellowBird Woman Sanctuary.
Um and so we work closely withthem, with the folks at Nature
Conservancy.
Yes.
Um and uh really constructivepresence with tribal nations.
Yeah, I think more and more.
I mean you should totally ifyou ever want to talk to one of
um my friends and and partnersin the work um is this guy,

(10:19):
Dylan Um DeRozier.
I don't know if that name'scome up yet.
So he's the one one man, Ithink still one man um TNC
Nature Conservancy office inBlackfeet Nation.
So he's a tribal, he's a youknow tribal member who lives in
town and basically like you knowprimarily works on projects in
Blackfeet Nation.
Um and so they purchase land,so they've been purchasing

(10:41):
ranches and like working withthe tribe on a bunch of
projects.
We're working with them on acarbon project like to help get
some money to the tribe throughsome carbon credits, which is a
whole thing.
That's a whole thing.

AJ (10:54):
I talked to you briefly about it too the other time.
Oh, did you?
Yeah.
And we sort of it's funny,isn't it?
It evokes instantly about somany people.
Yeah.
A bit of a head shake, notnecessarily writing it off, but
just like, oh geez.

Andrew (11:08):
Oh man, I know.
I mean, you know, it's sort oflike we're okay with taking the
bad guy's money if we can dogood with it.
But um, we have a lot ofproducers coming up to us who
are getting approached by thesecompanies because the companies
are brokers, right?
Like they're they're trying toget their cut.
So, you know, they literallyget like the latest company one

(11:28):
of them we were approached by isis financed by Shell Oil.
And you know, producers ask me,like, because we're doing
carbon studies too, which I cantell you by a little if you
want.
I mean, they're in there havebeen interesting, interesting
results.
Really?
Yeah.
Um, but I'm always interestedin what it means for the land.
Exactly.
Exactly.

AJ (11:45):
What it means for the brokers is just where it's easy.

Andrew (11:47):
So they ask, you know, like, well, should we do this?
You're also monitoring carbon,and I'm like, well, this is you
know, we're not gonna stop you,they're gonna pay.
They also get 30% of the cut,you get 70%, you know, of the
payment, and it's funded byShell, so you're kind of like,
you know, getting paid to letthem pollute.
Yeah.
Um, so I just let them decide.
But anyway.
But sorry to cut you off there.

(12:08):
No, no, no, no, no.
Yeah, no, not at all.
Yeah, I mean, our our carbonstuff, kind of to your point,
has shifted because it is aboutthe land and not about this one
single metric that's been likeum really monetized.
Yes, you know, exactly.
Um, really capitalized in away.
Yes.
And so, like, we what we we'vebeen monitoring carbon um for

(12:29):
three years on the ranches we'reworking on, and um even just
like baseline carbon to get asense of you know, we know
there's different conditions, weknow there's different other
variables that are helpful toranchers, like water holding,
water infiltration, and groundcover, and forage productivity.
And from our testing, we wedetermined that like, and we're
not the first to say this, butum it's almost absurd to say

(12:54):
that we can actually calculateum the amount of soil organic
carbon volumetrically.
Like you've probably heard thisfrom people.
We we determined something likeum, I think we would require um
gosh, I'm forgetting thenumbers now.
We just made a fact sheet onthis.
Something around, you know,10,000 samples an acre,
something like really crazy uhthat would cost millions of

(13:16):
dollars to actually get within astandard deviation that we
would be comfortable saying likethis is the actual range.
You know, because it's sovariable.
Well, it's interesting.
It's so variable.
Yeah, so we're like that's kindof discouraging because we're
seeing signs that you wouldactually be storing more carbon.
Like this, you know, things aregrowing, yes, there's less bare

(13:38):
grounds, like all the thingsthat we're shooting for in the
grazing practices, but it'sgonna be really discouraging to
producers if we're just fixatedon carbon.
We're like, yeah, we don't seeany, yeah, we don't, you know,
for years we don't see anychange.
Um so like this summer we'reinstalling a bunch of um soil
moisture probes, you know.

AJ (13:56):
And this is a beautiful view.
Oh my god.
That is unbelievable.
That's a beautiful view.
Massive valley.
Oh, and just forest all the waythrough it.

Andrew (14:07):
If you really want to stop, let me know.
There's a couple spots I'mdefinitely gonna stop you at if
you want, because they're reallypretty, but yeah.

AJ (14:12):
That is pretty unbelievable.
Let go of stopping.

Andrew (14:15):
But yeah, I mean I don't think I don't think as many
people are doing that as they asthey could, like monitoring,
you know, like there's all ofthis um carbon monitoring that
leads to to payments and likeindicators of success.
But our producers for the mostpart aren't you know
instinctively, like intuitivelyinterested in carbon, you know?

(14:36):
Like it's you know, some arelike, oh, I get this and I hear
the buzz and I think I'm doingit, so I want to be celebrated.
So we try to celebrate them.
We're like, well, hell yeah,like you're you know, you've got
eight percent organic matter,like that's amazing, you know,
or whatever.
Yeah, um, but like what we'reworking toward is a um is a
dashboard as part of this likemapping tool we just actually

(14:57):
went live yesterday.
Really?
Um yeah.
What's um what?

AJ (15:00):
Yeah, we just like a platform the ranch to step into.

Andrew (15:03):
Yeah, exactly.
We designed a software tool umthat I'm excited about that we
just uh It's a picani?
Yeah, yeah.
Well yeah, I can show you laterif you want.
I mean it's basically like umit's a tool that is free to
producers, that you're able tocreate a login and with us um
draw your ranch and overlayother layers like ownership,

(15:27):
like you know, remote sensingdata on forage productivity, you
know, like all these otherindicators that people are using
some some more these days.
And then we have some weatherstations that were put in last
year.
And um the weather stationshelp a lot because it helps
decide kind of you know howyou're how you're doing when
you're gonna irrigate or whenyou're gonna um rotate next, but

(15:48):
also um it helps you becomeeligible for drought response
programs, so you can like youcan show you know when you
actually started and ended yourdrought officially and get paid
for it.
Um but it's still prettycoarse, like it's still there's
one every 500 square milesacross the Blackfeet Nation,
which is like not that much.
So we're putting in these umsoil moisture probes on actual

(16:08):
sites we're working on, and thenum you know that will actually
show in real time this is howmuch after this rain event, this
is how much uh that's how muchsoil water you retained.
Um, and that's something to bereally proud about.
And that we also think likewill change within a season, you
know.
Yes.
Um I some of the work like Idid at Cornell was around like

(16:30):
soil amendments, and we wouldactually see um that like within
the course of a season, theysaw that you know you could
actually substantially improvesoil moisture and water holding,
you know.
And similarly, like if you'regrowing a certain amount, if
you're bale grazing, if you havea bigger soil sponge, um it's a
lot more encouraging, you know.
It's like and it's actuallyinforming decision making.

(16:50):
Um so anyway, so we'll excitedwhere that goes, but I think the
tool will grow into like adashboard um that people can use
more and more.
So we're just starting to buildthe layers.
Yeah, I'm excited about it.
So, like next week, what I'llbe doing is like we had a
meeting, I we did like a firstedition of the tool, and we had
a big community meeting inApril.
Um, it was super fun.
We had like a hundred plusfolks and some actually folks

(17:13):
coming out talking about carbonand giving information there.
And I think we had like 15different speakers, it was
great, different stations.
And one of the stations was umI shared on the mapping tool and
like got feedback, and then wejust released like the second
edition based on the feedbackyesterday.
So um, yeah, and so this onenow people can like log in and
create their own tool, whichhonestly I don't think most

(17:34):
people want to do, like mostpeople yeah, but that's fine.
So we'll meet with people nextweek and like set them up, and
then they'll just use it with usor we'll use it.
But there are some people ortheir grandkids or somebody who
wants to like you know use thatfor whatever, like they can just
use it to figure out where theyneed a fence line or what they
own and what they don't.
Um, so yeah.

AJ (17:52):
Yeah.
Oh amazed at how much talking.
Yeah.
Picarney's doing.
It's a lot.
It's nice.
Like what it's a team of eightor something now?
Something like that?
If that, yeah.
If that.

Andrew (18:02):
Um yeah, we're uh yeah, yeah, I don't know.
Around that.
How do you manage core fundingto to do all these stuff?
Yeah, good question.
Um it's a variety, but it'sit's entirely grant funded at
the moment.
Really?
You know, so that's why we'repretty vulnerable.
Yeah, as in as in governmentagencies.
Yeah, it's not so it's not allgovernment grants, but it's
mostly.
I think.

(18:22):
At the time that um all thefunding freeze happened, like at
the time of the inaugurationthis year, I think we were like
95% federally funded.
And we were already recognizingthat we need to shift.
Yeah, so we were working onthat.

AJ (18:37):
But you know, awesome to have had that era where you
could do that.
Yeah, definitely.
There was that money coming.
Oh, definitely.
We looked at from Australia, itwas acts of envy when that
shifted.
You mentioned that yesterday,yeah.

Andrew (18:47):
That's I mean, that's really interesting.
Yeah, it was it was great.
It was also like, yeah, it wasit was so welcomed.
Some of it was also full ofsome red tape.
Like there were somecomplications, yeah, that
delayed some things.
Um but still it wasappreciated.
Like, still, even before thefreeze, some of our grants were
delayed.
Um, but we appreciate it fully.

(19:07):
So yeah, we have we have grantfunding, and you know, even the
funding we give to producers, ofcourse, is all like grant
funding, you know.
So we re-grant a lot of money.
That's for producers to gettraining or to implement
practices.
Yeah.
So we have like a programthat's a hundred percent um uh
cost-free, so there's no costshare even.

(19:28):
We cover all the expenses.

AJ (19:30):
Um that's such a big buy, it's massive buy-in.

Andrew (19:33):
There's a there's a lot of growing buy-in, yeah, yeah,
no.
I mean, we have got a greatteam of like we're all getting
the word out, and people I thinkare um more and more interested
for various reasons, like maybeit's just more familiar in the
community as it goes on.
Um I actually think that oursite will just make that much
more of a difference because allalong it's like this see it to
believe it kind of thing.

(19:54):
It's like, what are you talkingabout?
Does this really work?
You know?
Yep.
Well, yeah, come see.
Like, we've actually got along-term experiment site here
or demonstration, or you know,you can see how this uh solar
pump works, or you can see whatit looks like when you graze
intensively and rest it, youknow.
Oh my lord.
So that's so that's aninteresting view of Chief
Mountain on the far right there.

(20:14):
It looks different than thepictures because you're seeing
it from the side.
Right.
But on the far right is ChiefMountain.

AJ (20:20):
Man, as we came up the hill and I'm just seeing sky, like
I'm gonna be.
This is gonna be something.

Andrew (20:26):
So here's some snow fence, right?
Like you're saying.
Yeah.
But they're designed a littlebit different to manage snow on
the highway, of course.

AJ (20:32):
Yeah, yeah.
That's that's right.
So this is fascinating though,that you've developed a
technique to actually umstrategically harness the water
infiltration into the soil bywhere you position these fences
and that you move them, so youhave them be mobile.
Right.

Andrew (20:50):
So part of that is, yeah, yeah, it's been a big
effort, big collaborativeeffort.
Um part of that is so that youcan help establish living snow
fence, and part of it is so youcan couple it with other
practices.
So, like, you know, the wind,like we were saying, is you
know, so intense out here thatif you plant saplings, it can be
hard for them to establish,also, you know, especially like

(21:11):
in open rangelands.
So we we worked with thisbuilder who makes often like
corral panels, you know, likestationary panels you use to
enclose horses or you know, setup a training pen or whatever
you're doing.
And we just modified the waythat they work so they can um I
can show you something.
They're like transformers.

(21:32):
They transform between beinglike a panel that blocks the
winds to being one that lets itin in the right um percentage
that deposits snow where youwant it.
There's just a relationshipthat's about 50-50 of where you
should have like space to uhimpermeable, you know, could be
wood, could be we've we've donesome with willow, with woven

(21:52):
willow, um, which relates to atraditional ecological practice.
And also the woven willow canthen shoot into the ground, you
know?
Yeah, become living snow fence.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, they're pretty cool.
They're pretty like, you know,tangible.
We've done a lot of what we setup a demonstration site at the
high school our first year.
Oh, cool.
Um, and so we worked withthere's an amazing program of
like vocational agricultureclass you can take at the high

(22:14):
school.
Really?
And yeah, it's really cool.
And one of our ranchers in ourprogram teaches it, so it's been
a great partnership.

AJ (22:20):
Um, it's huge because I yeah, I still hear so much about
agricultural education being soold school.
Yeah, like it's not much if ifany students coming through are
learning the more extractiveways.
Yeah.

Andrew (22:36):
So this is big.
Well, that's so the amazingthing, it's funny too.
So she now we have aninternship, as you know.
Yeah, we're gonna stop up here.
We are and um this teachermakes all of her students apply
to our internship to get extracredit.
So we get like 35 applicationsevery year from her class.
But it's pretty great becausethose are also the kids who've
maybe been part of ourmonitoring or you know, have

(22:57):
been out to her ranch to seewhat we're doing with her.
Um, and then what's happened,which has been awesome, is some
of our interns have also toldtheir parents about the program,
and then they've becomeproducers of the program, you
know.
So they'll be out and they'llbe like, hey, like we should do
this, mom and dad.
And then it's kind of the kidsleading it, you know what I
mean?
Yeah, like getting theirfamilies excited about it, which
is pretty awesome.

AJ (23:16):
It sure is.

Andrew (23:17):
Yeah, yeah, we're gonna stop right up here.
There's a very cool side.

AJ (23:20):
So is that dam up there?

Andrew (23:23):
Yeah, um yeah, this is this is a very uh interesting
water project.
So this is uh this is the St.
Mary's Upper St.
Mary and Lower St.
Mary's lakes, and um it feedsuh canal system.
Um but the uh the BlackfeetNation doesn't really benefit

(23:46):
from that water at all.
That's what Kim was saying.
Well, she's saying that.
So it's a really complicatedsituation.
I mean it's a wrong situation.
It goes up into Canada toAlberta and serves irrigators
from there, and then it comesback down like the high line in
Montana, um, some hundreds ofmiles east, and serves
irrigators there.
Um but like this year is areally interesting one because

(24:08):
there was a huge break in thesystem last year.
Oh, and this it's it was builtin the early 1900s, and like
this pipe burst.
Oh, we're gonna she might notstop here.
I'll pull off.
This is just a cool view.
They built this little walkingtrail recently.

AJ (24:23):
There's a cool public.
I've got two earlies in thecity.

Andrew (24:26):
Yeah, they're nice.
Yeah.

AJ (24:28):
Awesome.
Do you want to look reallyquick?
Smells delicious.
Oh, it's like crazy differencefrom yesterday.

Andrew (24:40):
Oh yeah.

AJ (24:42):
Oh, there's more than looking through that belly.

Andrew (24:45):
Yeah, it gets higher up there.
Yeah.

AJ (24:46):
Really?

Andrew (24:47):
That's that's like going to the sun road.
Oh, that's through there.
Yeah.

AJ (24:51):
Yeah.

Andrew (24:52):
Yeah.
So we'll maybe drive part of ittoday.
I don't know, but yeah.
Yeah, this isn't just another.

AJ (25:04):
Smells delicious, doesn't it?
Well, it really does.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What is the story?
Yeah, the water thing is tough,man.

Andrew (25:12):
It's really rough.
Because it's interestingbecause it just passes through
all these ranches we work with,and people aren't allowed to use
any.
And it just like, you know,even with the water compact, you
know, this is like some of whatI worked on with master's
thesis and whatnot.
Like, was why why don't peopleget to use that?
And especially with the newmoney, can't they deliver more
water to people here?

AJ (25:33):
Yeah.

Andrew (25:34):
But um after that pipe burst last year, they're like,
we have to redesign that, youknow.
So why don't we deliver morewater here?
Um, but it's like reallypolitical and yeah, didn't it
didn't really get that far.
Really?
Yeah, as far as I know.
I think incredible.
Yeah, so if you drive if youdrive that way, you can see the

(25:55):
mountain, you know, that way.
Oh yeah.
Um this is going to the sunwhere you see the car.
And this is called Wild GooseIsland.
It's very pretty.
Yeah.
Go to it.
Very, very pretty.
And these like glacier valleysare kind of like the signature
of glacier park.
You can see them here.
Yeah.

AJ (26:12):
Yeah.
Beautiful with the wow, isn'tit?
Oh, we just it's a hell of asitting right now.

Andrew (26:18):
I have seen bears just like really crossing the road,
like running in front of mewhile I'm driving this road.
So may not be wrong.
We didn't bring the baseball.
What?
We didn't bring the baseball.
I know, me neither.
Me neither.
Yeah, that's so true.
Yeah, I was hearing about youryour bear encounter in the

(26:40):
night.

AJ (26:42):
Pretty wild.
We liked on the Sphinx Mountainin the Medicine Valley, which
apparently is a hot one for thegrizzlies.
And sure enough, we weresitting there.
We were four.
And we had two games.
Right.
And being alone, obviously, butin that context, I was going on

(27:03):
being displayed.

Andrew (27:04):
Yeah, I know, I know.
No, me too.
I mean, run the car is ideal.
Exactly.
Um, this time of year is prettygood because if you're on the
trails, there's usually a lot ofpeople.
You sort of get to see one, butlike exactly, you know, they're
not typically going to attacklike a line of people hiking.
Yeah.
Um but the fall time is when Iwould be scared.
Like I would say.
Like when they're like reallyfeasting before they hibernate

(27:28):
and pretty desperate.
Or the spring when they're justout and like hungry for
anything.
But they're usually a bitslower.
I mean, that's the crazy thingabout like recognition is just
how much it changes so fast.
You know, like you're at theheadwaters and then suddenly
you're, you know, four thousandfeet lower.

(27:48):
Yeah, you know, in the start ofthe prairie.

AJ (28:08):
Right, exactly.
Exactly.
Yeah, you expect them todevelop a particular specialty
in one or the other.
Right.
But no.

Andrew (28:17):
Well, they had a seasonal round.
Uh yeah, I mean, so there weresummer camps up here, you know,
and winter camps on the plains.
That's right.

AJ (28:26):
Um, it's such a huge expansive terrain.
Yeah, it really is.

Andrew (28:31):
It really is.
But I mean, of course, the theBlack Vee Nation is so much
smaller than the actualancestral range, but still to
have a lot of that variety.
Um of course it's you know anawful shame that the park is
structured somewhat the way itis.
It's not Blackfee land in termsof accessing those things.
But um can tell you we justlike excitingly, last year we we

(28:52):
had uh um we kind of gotadmitted to this like club where
you're allowed to do work inthe national parks.
It was pretty funny.
We were like, I'm sure thisclub is literally like a bunch
of white men sitting arounddrinking like drinking and
smoking cigars in like a woodedroom, and we get on Zoom for
like the interview to like meet,and it was like a wooded room
in T Town National Park orsomething, something like that,

(29:14):
a bunch of white guys.
Um but yeah, anyway, it's thislike cooperative agreement thing
where now we are able to dolike projects in the national
parks, um, which is cool.
So we can like take groups outthere, we can do monitoring
projects, um still not what we'dwant, like what everybody would
want.
No But it's is a step, and andthe new like superintendent is
pretty progressive, so yeah.

(29:35):
Like you saw in thedocumentary, maybe.
Did you notice that?
Yeah, yeah.
That guy Dave Romer.

AJ (29:40):
That's right.
Um bring them home.
So that's right.
Yeah, yeah, it's um at home,it's certainly and maybe in
particular in Western Australia,certainly in Western Australia,
co management, jointmanagement, yeah, is really
becoming a thing.
That's awesome.
And uh and we talked about thatyesterday, as and Kim was like,
yeah, that would be ideal.

Andrew (29:57):
I mean, yeah, there's been I don't necessarily see it
evolving in the Next threeyears, but like there's been a
lot of initiatives in theNorthwest around salmon, you
know, and other places towardco-management.
And I mean the reintroductionof the transboundary herd, the
in the the buffalo herd, youknow, is a big thing here for
sure.
Um but yeah, I mean the thingthat just hurts too, it's it's

(30:20):
it's so directly.
It's like what Kim was saying,like, you know, even in the
park, they just don't hirelocally.
Like it's it's folks fromEastern Europe who are
wonderful, you know, but likethey kind of bring everybody in
and it just misses a wholeopportunity to like bring folks
in and build connection to thelandscape there.

AJ (30:37):
But well that that's the corollary back home is is ranger
programs that are drawn fromthe indigenous community.
So you've got next generationswho lost those links in many
cases.
Right.
You know, I think of one part,the Northwest Cape in Western
Australia had had like has liketwo elders left to speak the
language.
Wow.
But their kids and and theircousins and whatever are coming
into these programs of jointmanagement now.

(30:59):
Right.
It's just caught it, you know,before the thread was lost, and
it's really powerful.

Andrew (31:03):
Have you seen you've seen these cars, right?
I haven't seen it.
Oh, that's the they're thesecars they somehow keep alive
from the 30s that are like theglacier mobiles.
They take people um acrossgoing to the sunroad.
Because like a lot of people Ithink will just you stay at
these hotels.
So this is the hotel.
And then you yeah, it's ashuttle.
You can hop on the shuttle.
Uh we should probably call Kim.
I don't actually know where shewent.

AJ (31:24):
They nine.
Yes.

Andrew (31:25):
Oh, there she is.
Okay, great.
Good eye.
That lake is just a largedepressional wetland, you know.
So it's shrinking a lot, whichhas been very tough to see too.
Yeah.
But there's a bunch of icefishing that happens on there,
which is very fun.
This is an incredible spot inthe park.
I don't think we're gonna gotoday, but really that's Many
Glacier, aptly named becausethere's lots of glaciers you can

(31:47):
access there.
Oh, these guys are pretty good.
They make good burritos.

AJ (31:53):
Love it.
Yeah, there's a truck on theside of the road with good
burritos.
Even in Montana.
Yeah, exactly.

Andrew (31:58):
You know, as we get here, we're probably maybe 20
miles from Canada, I think less.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, we're really closenow.
This is the direction.
There you go, the like, youknow, card status Canada.
Yeah, we're like 15 miles fromCanada.
Yeah, it's pretty cool.
Yeah.
Well, I shouldn't explain, ofcourse, like the bands of the
Blackfoot Confederacy, right,that are up in Canada.

(32:19):
I've only read about it.
We didn't actually tell you inany length, but uh just read
about it.
But yeah, there's um yeah,there's uh there's three tribes
up there, and then one on the USside.
Um together to form theBlackfoot Confederacy.

AJ (32:34):
And that was is that always where they were as well?
Or retreating or no, I thinkthey always were there.

Andrew (32:43):
Yeah.
That's a good question.
I don't know how I mean therewas definitely more like
transboundary, you know, tradeand rotation in the seasonal
round and that kind of thing.
Um and there still is people,you know, going back and forth
for ceremony and things a goodbit.
Um but no, I think similar tothe black foot native, as far as

(33:04):
I know, similar to here, whichyou know, here like this is
where people were, it was justvery confused.
Yeah, I think it's similar upthere.

AJ (33:10):
Yeah, that's that was my impression too.
Yeah.
Just to think it went fromnearly sort of around near to
Yellowstone.

Andrew (33:17):
Yeah, exactly.
It's like, excuse me, evidenceof trade way farther out than
that, like you know, with Mexicoand like other areas.

AJ (33:25):
Is there really unsurprising but fascinating to know that
it's oh here's that canal, bythe way.

Andrew (33:30):
So that's the way that left St.
Mary's uh headed to Canada.
And then there's people like,you know, like you can see a lot
of the growth around it becausethere's seepage, like like
this, that lake right there,yeah, you know, is formed by the
canal.
So people use that, and it's agood thing.
Oh, these are new, that'sinteresting.
Somebody making another cabincommunity um rental.

(33:53):
But now people want to likeline the canal to make it more
efficient to bring more water toCanada, which means that people
here would lose the benefits ofthe seepage, you know.
So it's one of those sort offunny things where they're like,
yeah, let's improve it, butactually that discourages folks
from accessing or prevents themfrom accessing here.

AJ (34:10):
That's almost the industrial delivery in a nutshell.

Andrew (34:13):
Yeah, exactly.

AJ (34:14):
Making things better in the wrong way.

Andrew (34:16):
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, exactly.
You know, I found it reallyinteresting because the whole
purpose of the canal was like tosubjugate folks into like
sedentary forms of agriculture,you know?
Yes.
It's like now how do we makethese allotments like function
like Western agriculture withland ownership by like providing
them water as opposed toletting people move and access
their own water, you know?
Um so my my project was kind oflike how do we use this system

(34:41):
for good?
You know, it exists now,provides water, but how do we
like revision it with the goalsof the community in mind?

AJ (34:47):
Well, that's we need Mexico's interesting, isn't it?
Yeah, that they s they sort ofhave that at their own.

Andrew (34:51):
Well, yeah, are you thinking of the Asequias?
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's interesting.
I mean, it's a Spanish thing,which is also interesting.
That's like an older form ofcolonization.
But um, no, the community.
Did you get to yeah, youvisited some?
Visited some, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, super cool.
Exactly all of that.
The ways communities like carefor the canals and clean them
and distribute the water.

(35:12):
Yeah.
What did you see down there?
Like which one, where did youget to?

AJ (35:15):
Well, we went, yeah, we spent a bunch of time around
Albuquerque, obviously, and butand and visiting some of the
pueblos in northern New Mexicoin general, but it was really
seeing some up around Santa Fe,well actually particularly
closer to Dixon.
Where we were taken out onland.
Yeah.
Dixon's sort of an hour.
Other side of Espanola fromSanta Fe.

(35:36):
Oh, okay.
Yeah, yeah.
And there were some peoplethere doing land remediation and
and with the Pueblos, andfunnily enough, it's some
connection back home.
It was crazy.
Yeah, yeah.
Literally with WesternAustralia too, it was crazy.

Andrew (35:46):
Oh neat.

AJ (35:47):
And yeah, some of the stuff they were doing there with the
secchias and and then gettingthe old getting that um, you
know, the erosion gulliesremediated to be having the
water be able to filter acrosslandscape again and all that
sort of stuff.
It's just really fascinating.

Andrew (36:06):
Yeah, definitely.

AJ (36:07):
And and it was expanding, like they were going, they were
increasingly working withdifferent Pueblos around the
region.

Andrew (36:12):
Oh, that's cool.

AJ (36:13):
Which is how the Australian link came in because there's
this Dutch NGO that does thisglobally.

Andrew (36:17):
Yeah, yeah.

AJ (36:18):
They do so much good water work in the Netherlands.
Yeah, yeah.

Andrew (36:21):
Did you get to see around Chaco any of the mines?
Any of the uncovered uraniummines?
No.
Oh yeah.
Did they tell you about thatdown there a little bit?
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's just such a toughsituation.
I mean, there's just so much.
Um we were doing a project withfolks some there, not with
Pacani Lodge, um, I was somebefore.
We're just thinking about likeum how do you how do you manage

(36:44):
against the toxic flooding thathappens in the open pit uranium
mines?
You know, because there's somuch of that just left
uncovered.
Really?
And some of them are reallyclose to Jaka.
Um, so it's pretty scary invarious ways for producers, for
groundwater sources.

AJ (36:59):
Yeah, so much at stake.

Andrew (37:01):
Yeah, so much at stake.

AJ (37:02):
And no, we heard more about the fracking thread.

Andrew (37:04):
Oh, interesting.

AJ (37:05):
Yeah, because that's that's apparently coming on strong.
And you know, some some tribalfolk want it.

Andrew (37:11):
Oh yeah?
Yeah.
Interesting.

AJ (37:13):
And it's the same with the Navajo, like some a lot.
I saw a headline on a paper inuh I think it was Albuquerque,
um, at the Pueblo CulturalCenter.
Oh, yeah.
That's Albuquerque, isn't it?
Yeah.
And uh and the paper was forsale in the in the the shop
there that had Navajo stuff aswell.
This was a Navajo paper, andthe front page was delighting in

(37:33):
Trump getting into office andand getting all the oil and gas
up and going.
And I was like, but I had adouble take.
I'm like, Wow, is it happyabout it?
Yeah, and it it was it washappy about it because they're
gonna make money.

Andrew (37:44):
Yeah.
Wow.
That's quite a few parts.

AJ (37:46):
That is quite a few.

Andrew (37:47):
You remember this from the movie, no?
So this is where we're gonna goto the spot right where they
reintroduced the closingsequence.
Yes, exactly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it'll be close to wherethat medicine wheel was that we
made it.
Oh yeah, that's right.
Unbelievable.
Yeah.
Oh, what is this?
Oh, it's a little deer.
Little Bub.

(38:08):
That's a mule deer with the bigears.
Yeah.
Old legs.
We never get tired of it.
That's that.
We never get tired of it.
Oh, no, I mean not.
These, I was just gonna say,these aspen stands are some of
the most beautiful.
Like in the in the fall, theseare all bright yellow
everywhere.
Yeah, it's really beautiful.
They're they're one of ourfavorites.

AJ (38:30):
Right?

Andrew (38:30):
Yeah.

AJ (38:32):
Shimmering lights everywhere.

Andrew (38:35):
They're also so amazing how they're like one being
connected rhizomatically.
You know?
Yeah.
They like they sprout throughrhizomes, and sometimes people
call them like the largestliving beings, you know?
Because it's like one body.
Yeah.
Um, which is pretty cool.
Very cool.
Yeah, the way they shimmer uphere, it's pretty amazing.
Yeah, this gets I've seen somebig grizzly prints up here, but

(38:59):
never uh repair, I don't think.
Probably.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay, sounds great.
Let's do it.
Yeah, so let's haven't been tomedicine wheel since we made it.
Awesome.
So I don't think there's anybison out there this year.
Right.
When they released those, Ithink it went well.

(39:20):
Also, they learned some thingsand they tried to gather them
back up and try to manage it alittle bit differently.
Okay.
So, um, yeah, there's a chanceyou see one.
I also didn't bring all of themback.
I think some of them rewildedthemselves, you know, or in the
park.
Yeah, interesting.
It was a really rainy day wecame out in that.
It was fun, but I was drenchedand freezing.

(39:41):
Where's she going?
Oh, all right.
That's a good spot.
It'll be right in thedocumentary, too.

AJ (39:51):
Yeah, that's what I'm feeling, yeah.
It was such a moving film.
You know, to have read up tothe point in Liz's book, yeah,
and then seen the film to thenext point.
Right.
That was really shot.

Andrew (40:06):
So, like I mean, I can say quickly, but like we were
starting to talk yesterday abouthow our work relates to bison a
bit too.
And in very like we serve bisonproducers.
We work with some folks who arerunning bison.
Okay, wildflowers up here areamazing.
Amazing.
The whole area essentiallypurple and yellow.
But a lot of it is us servingthe community of cattle
producers.
So we're not like it's getspretty political, you know.

(40:28):
And I heard about it.
The honest truth is, you know,a lot of people are like, well,
you know, we we don't want asmany bison necessarily, or we
want to maintain our way of lifeas it is.
Um come so far down the Lordand all that.
Yeah, exactly.
So we think of it as bisonmimicry, you know, in the good
ways.
Yes.
Um people don't want it framedthat way, and we have to be
mindful that like we're nottrying to mimic everything they

(40:48):
do, you know, we're trying tothink of the natural ways they
moved across the prairie and whomoved them and how they you
know disturbed the soil andsupported succession.
But oh yeah, so somebody builtsome sweat lodges out here.
That was a few years ago, Ithink, when we did the yeah, so
those would be covered in hidestraditionally or blankets.
It's very special, even just tosay that.

AJ (41:09):
Yeah, and if it isn't anti solid, yeah, oh totally.
Absolutely.

Andrew (41:13):
Is that the medicine wheel out there?
There's like a hide here.
I don't know if this came off asweat lodge or if this is I
don't think this naturalizedlike this.

Kim (41:23):
Somebody might come out of it.
Yeah.

Andrew (41:26):
Oh, there we go.
Verizon, welcome to Canada.

AJ (41:31):
Oh, this is special to be here.
I just call it prairie smoke.

Kim (41:35):
Prairie smoke, okay.
And then this one.

AJ (41:38):
Oh wow, yeah.
Look at that.

Kim (41:41):
Prairie smoke is my favorite.
But it's it's past it.
Really?
The month past.
Oh, they're calling that.
I think we're doing it.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, and it has the longlittle spidery fronds on it.
I love it.
Oh, there's one here.

Andrew (41:58):
Death camus.

Kim (41:59):
Right here by your knee.

Andrew (42:00):
Mountain death camus.
It won't.
If that when the livestock eatsa lot of those, it's bad, but
and this is yarrow.

Kim (42:06):
You know, yarrow, we call it gulfy tail.
Put it on your mosquito.
Is that right?
If you have a bee sting or anykind of sting, just push it up.
But it has to be your saliva.
Yeah, right.
Mix it with water and you justput it.
It's the best.
There you go.

AJ (42:24):
Yeah, sure.

Kim (42:25):
It pulls a bee sting, it pulls anything out of it.
Amazing.

AJ (42:29):
That's cool.

Kim (42:29):
Yeah, so it's Yarrow, but you know, if you want to be
black be gopher tail.

Speaker 5 (42:35):
Gopher tail.
We've always called it gophertail.

Speaker (42:39):
To try not to do to try to do a little somebody.

Speaker 5 (42:45):
But if it happens now, you know what to do.
I like your plan.

Kim (42:49):
I like it.

Andrew (42:51):
You were out here when we did this, right?
So we formed like a huge line.
Probably like 50 people.
And this elder sort of guidedus in how to arrange the
medicine wheel.
And it was really amazing.

AJ (43:04):
The rocks were brought up.

Andrew (43:06):
Yeah, somebody gathered some like rocks from the river,
I think.
Yeah.
And dumped them here a coupledays earlier.
Wow.
And uh yeah.
It's pretty cool.
Then you fly a drone up and itis a pretty perfect circle, but
we didn't do that at the time,you know.
Really?
Yeah.
You just eyed it.
There were a couple elders whowere telling us kind of how to
arrange it all.

(43:26):
Yeah, it's pretty cool.
It's so cool.
It's amazing you were involvedin that.
Yeah, it was crazy like honor.
I mean it's amazing.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's an honor just to behere.
Totally.
Yeah, this would be a fun spotto fly a drone, but nice to
experience it the way you do onthe ground.

Kim (43:43):
What it really was was um for this particular night.
Cows are screaming.
A gathering of everyonecelebrating the fact that we got
this land all closed off forthe buffalo.
And so then asking for prayers,they smoked pipe, and then each
person who was here in thatcelebration gathered rocks and
made the medicine wheel, whichwill be uh kind of an eff of the

(44:07):
four directions.
Yeah, Tracy was here.
This is where he said his firstprayer completely in Blackbean.
Do you wanna um say it for usnow?
We can record you.

Speaker (44:19):
Ayo, it's the back of the uh Ayo Nata Vita Pix Bomita
Peaks.

Kim (44:37):
And then you take it to your heart, put your hand to
your heart, and that's theprayer.
So he was asking creative hereand the day.
It's beautiful, eh?
That is beautiful.

AJ (44:49):
It's such a beautiful language game.

Kim (44:51):
And it's so descriptive, right?
Yeah, right.
So descriptive.
There's no so many words wedon't have, like uh we don't
have a word for a computer.
It's a box that gives givesknowledge, right?
I like that.
The box that gives knowledge.

AJ (45:05):
I like that, as opposed to the box that sucks life out of
people.

Andrew (45:09):
I mean that's almost you just let it be.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

AJ (45:12):
Let's have a box that does that.
That's cool.

Kim (45:14):
Exactly.
This is uh Utugui Mustaki,that's yellow mountain.
And uh Chief Nina stucky chiefmountain.
Nina is like father or chief,but you know, hi holy.
Notu is holy.
Notui ninja.
Holy chief.
So my boys have climbed thisfour or five times.

(45:35):
On Mother's Day before we hadall these phones and everything,
it was like beeper time.
They uh climbed up and made a avideo.
We were still in DVD world andthey climbed up to the top and
they made a video.

AJ (45:49):
The old dice.

Kim (45:50):
Yeah, the old dice.
They made a video, and Reesemade a video from the top of all
of them, and then heintertwined it like with me
driving my 62 Corvette, and thenwith Dan.
You're like what have we notseen this?

Andrew (46:05):
Oh, it's you've seen it at the house.
It's at the house, too.

Kim (46:08):
Really?
It needs love.
I just have had so manydifferent priorities.
The last cruise that it tookwas for homecoming and the
football, you know, they driveit out on the field, and they're
the homecoming king and queensand all that kind of stuff.
But anyway, um he he I don'tknow how he did it because that
was back in the day, right?

(46:28):
But he melded the top of ChiefMountain and looking out with
you know uh that one Tupac song,Dear Mama, and then uh and then
uh um Young Grey Horse, ourmusic, Indian music, and then he
had fancy dancers.
Reese did this?
Yeah, that's incredible.

Andrew (46:45):
I know he does the video, I think.

Kim (46:47):
But it was before the cell phone.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That was pretty sweet.

Andrew (46:50):
Oh, that's so cool.

Kim (46:51):
So sweet.
That's so cool.

Speaker 5 (46:52):
Anyway, from the top of Chief.
Can um non-tribal people clogoff?

Kim (46:58):
Good question.
Well, yeah.
You're not allowed unlessyou're with someone who's trial.

AJ (47:04):
What was the story with the release of the buffalo here?
This land's not in the park,right?
No.
So it's just up to the tribalcouncil to decide that it was
cool to let the the landowners.

Kim (47:15):
We had to do the work with the landowners first.
And then people who leased theland.
And as soon as we were able toprovide them with the same
income that they would receiveannually for having cattle on
it, then and we got the approvalfrom them, then the council
could approve it.

AJ (47:31):
Got it.
And then the park approved ifthey drifted in to the park.
Yeah, uh-yeah, and that was thecall.

Andrew (47:37):
But they wouldn't push them out.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kim (47:39):
They really want them to, but the Canadians don't.
Really?
Oh no.
So they were trying to shootthem and just because of grass.
First of all, this is theGaina, this is our
confederation.
We have three tribes north ofthe medicine line.
Yes.
And then our tribe, so we're afour-tribe confederacy, a pot
sipicani, um, Sixica, Gaina, andus.

(48:01):
And uh, so we envisioned thishappening, but because there's
non-native people who've takenthe land along the border, they
were very angry about thisIndian buffalo.
I there's another uh bunch ofdoctors who put together a ranch
and had buffalo, and theyweren't killing their buffalo,

(48:23):
but the Indian buffalo wasn't agood thing for them, apparently.
They should know this is thebirthplace of Thunder.
This is a cre you know part ofour initial creation story right
here at Chief.
They're lucky to be livingthere.

AJ (48:36):
Absolutely.
That's how I'd feel frankly.
I think they are.
Absolutely.

Kim (48:44):
Oh, I don't either, sweetheart.
You're right.

Speaker 5 (48:46):
And how can they count?

AJ (48:48):
Stories we tell ourselves, yeah, shall we?

Speaker 5 (48:50):
So remember though there was um that guy with Rebo
who was telling us, yeah,exactly, that a lot of ranch
farmed buffalo, he called thembeefalo.

Andrew (48:59):
Or actually beefalo.
Yeah, yeah, I think it's true.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (49:02):
So the wildest is bright out of them.

Andrew (49:04):
Right, right.
Yeah, there's some of that.
Kim, part of the strain thatwas am I right that part of the
strain was the Elk Island strainthat was released up here?
Yeah.

Kim (49:11):
Oh yeah, it was a lot of the flight.
So that was the Elk Islanddrive.

Andrew (49:14):
Um you you might have seen that, but there was this do
you want to explain that if youwant?

Kim (49:18):
So when we were talking about uh the same parallel
annihilation of the bikani andthe Eni at the same time, um as
we were dying off from having noacquired immunity to diphtheria
and smallpox, etc., going from60,000 to 3,800 at the same time
was the the bounty placed onEni.

(49:39):
And so they were killed offfrom 60 million down to there
were I believe 127 that foundrefuge in what is now called
Yellowstone National Park, andwhen they were found, there was
a I think his name was Allard,A-L-L-A-R-D, and he brought uh a
portion of them to um to buyFlathead Lake.

(50:02):
And I think they they continuedto do so well that he had a
hard time keeping them in hisland base, and so I don't know
if he gave them to the ElkIsland Sanctuary or if he sold
them or however it happened, butthey're basically picani
blackfeet buffalo that we foundup in Canada uh at Elk Island,

(50:24):
and then they returned them tous to the tribe, but it was a
huge thing, it took years, andthen um oh it was beautiful.
It was maybe twenty below, itwas so cold that day.

Andrew (50:35):
And there were some like from the Oakland Zoo, also,
right?
There was the zoo in Oaklandthat had part of the strain
also.
I thought those traced theirlineage.
Maybe, maybe, maybe I'm notsure how it was.

Kim (50:47):
I know they were a partner in getting them back, but yeah,
oh royal, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, they were a partner ingetting it back.
So I don't know.

AJ (50:53):
Yeah, I remember Terry Tatsy saying something like because I
was really curious about thispoint, saying something because
it was the genetic strain fromhere, right?
It was amazing to behold howthey just resumed, even with
that hundred-year break orwhatever it was, they resumed
their patterns.
Yeah, exactly.
Incredible, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It goes to show what might bein us humans.

(51:14):
I mean, maybe you'reexperiencing some of this with
the work you're doing.
Could you say the same, likeepigenetically?

Kim (51:20):
With the traditional diet, yeah, when you connect it all
up.
Yeah.
How can you not be grateful forthis?

AJ (51:25):
Oh my god, that's it.

Kim (51:27):
You know, and it's 40 below and the wind's blowing 100,
you're still grateful.

Andrew (51:31):
Oh, I was just describing how wonderful the
winter was.

AJ (51:34):
Yeah, yeah.
I'm trauma.
Totally coming down.

Andrew (51:37):
Oh, you feel so alive.

AJ (51:38):
Oh my gosh.

Andrew (51:39):
Oh my god, we're dead.
No, no.
You're forced to be alive.
You gotta keep moving.

Kim (51:47):
We're so grateful.
Yeah.

AJ (51:51):
Oh, it's so amazing to be up here.
Oh, I'm so glad we came here.
I just find it so incrediblymoving.
I agree with the medicinewheel.
It's just again from anoutsider.
I don't know why I feel that,but I feel it.
Because it's energy, right?

Kim (52:04):
Wow, right.
You know a mountain lion soundslike someone yelling.
Yeah, so it could be a mountainlion.

AJ (52:09):
Sounded like that, huh?
There's a cow.
It sounded like screaming.
Maybe mountain lion.
Oh, you're listening?

Kim (52:20):
Yeah.

Andrew (52:21):
Some screaming?
Yeah.
Do you have some cattlereacting to it?

Kim (52:26):
Well, there shouldn't be cattle down in here, right?

Andrew (52:28):
We heard it be, didn't we?
Yeah.
There's cattle.
No, there should be 40,000acres of conservation land.
Oh, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 (52:40):
Did you see that?

AJ (52:41):
No, I heard it.
For quite a while.
And extended appearance.

Kim (52:49):
That's a lot of cows up there.

Andrew (52:50):
There's a lot of cows.
Like Kim was saying, these wereall range units that were
leased, you know, before theywere transitioned.
Right.

Kim (52:57):
This is Kanikanik.
This is the yeah, that's verysmall.
This is our wild tobacco.
Oh.
Yeah.
So this is what we always usedfor tobacco.

AJ (53:05):
And that's in harvest day.
Yeah.
You would grab it like that.
You wouldn't it doesn't need togrow anymore.

Kim (53:10):
Nope.
Uh-huh.
It's a ground.

AJ (53:11):
It is.

Kim (53:12):
You can see how when you pick it up, it it it's a ground
cover.
So yarrow, gopher tail, andthen canikinick.
And the whatever that'sactually like.
Shrubby Shinkwifoil.
Yeah.
And so now that we havetobacco, we still dry the
canikinik and we mix it.
Really?
So it's not so harsh thetobacco in the pipe.

(53:35):
And different familiessometimes have different
recipes.
Uh what's Mr.
Still Smoking's name that umwas working with he went to
Minnesota and worked with thesous chef.
Oh.
He was our intern.
Seth?
Seth, yeah.
So Seth uh brought me theirfamily stuff.
Really?
Oh wow.

(53:55):
So sweet.
I just had big teeth.
Oh that's amazing.
So we could drive to theborder?

Andrew (54:03):
Yeah, that's right.

Kim (54:11):
That's a town, a bull.
Oh.
That's a bull.

AJ (54:17):
Yeah.
Maybe it was that one alone.
Maybe.
Or he's getting attacked.

Kim (54:21):
Maybe.

AJ (54:22):
It's pretty hard to return.

Andrew (54:27):
That's special food.
Right?
Yeah.
Yeah, we hosted a tour out herelast fall.
There's a group we work withcalled the Transboundary
Grasslands Partnership.
That's pretty cool.
And uh it's groups fromdifferent like Department of
Natural Resources andnonprofits.
And we uh hosted theinternational like conference
last fall.
And so like we put together afield tour of our producer sites

(54:48):
and we brought everybodybrought everybody right there.
But we didn't walk them to theMedicineville.
It's a cool group, it's not itdoesn't have like political
power.
You know, it's just like agroup that tries to build
collaboration and share data andpartnership in this, you know,
what some people call the crownof the continents using that
term.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
I think it's kind of a funky,like, you know, um colonist

(55:13):
sounding term.
Yes.
With the crown involved.
Do you have like sponsors ofyour podcast that support it?

AJ (55:20):
All listeners.
Oh, cool.
All listeners, yep.
So I haven't need to worryabout it.

Andrew (55:24):
I mean, that's great.

AJ (55:25):
It was I because dad was dying when I was going through
the process.
I really should get somesupport avenues up and go.

Andrew (55:32):
Yeah.

AJ (55:33):
And um, and I just didn't get to it.
Yeah, people started to sendmoney.

Andrew (55:38):
Amazing.

AJ (55:38):
And then I when I did get to it.
People subscribe to it orpeople.
Well they just started to sendmoney, period.
Yeah.
And then I set up Patreon.

Andrew (55:45):
Yeah, oh nice.

AJ (55:46):
And then, and you know, I was still hoped it didn't fall
flat on its ass and beembarrassing, and everyone would
now know.

Andrew (55:51):
It's a lot to maintain, right?
It's a lot of things.

AJ (55:53):
Well, there's that way too.
But I made it simple, I didn'thave tears or anything.
Yeah, good.
And people jumped on.
That's awesome.
So it's all listener support,and I don't have to chase the
grants or shit.
Right, right, right.
It's and you know, this isthat's wonderful.
Just while we're on it, thinkabout this even with regards to
Picani, for example.

Andrew (56:10):
No, it's really interesting.
Yeah.

AJ (56:12):
The monthly subscription-based stuff for
people who just want to see it.
Right keep going.

Andrew (56:16):
Right.
Why not?
It's so true.
It's something we honestly wehaven't like, yeah, we haven't
focused on publicity very muchat all.
Yeah.
And now that we uh yeah, we'vethought we should do it some
more.
In part because of the funding,in part just to share the
story, like as we've just donemore conferences and you know,
we we have a lot ofpeer-reviewed publications that
like we have in process that wewant to publish.

(56:39):
We feel like we should orcould.
Yes.
You know, whether it's like ourgraduate work or like existing
work or whatever.
Um and we just don't put timebecause we're like a small crew
emphasizing getting the workdone.
Yeah.
So, but no, no, I think I thinkit's worth it.

AJ (56:51):
I think it is too.
Yeah, in fact, I'm convinced ofthe more I've gone on with
this, like, you know, whateverit is now, ninth year, the more
I'm convinced.
And the more I'm told by peoplewho are just doing the work.

Andrew (57:06):
That's cool.

AJ (57:07):
That they see, they realize now.
So I I think um, like the workyou're doing helps bring some.

Andrew (57:12):
But that's what keeps me going together.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's very cool.
Yeah, we're just about to workwith this really cool um
indigenous-led media companycalled Anamiki.
Really?
Um, yeah, they're based in Ithink the Seattle area, but they
have folks from a few differenttribal communities.
Um, and we're building a newwebsite and also like a new sort

(57:35):
of community outreach platformwithin that.
And I think part of the idea isalso like a funder type
platform, you know, just tobetter understand what we do.
Because as you said, like we doa lot.
Yeah, sometimes it's kind ofhard to encapsulate and kind of
grasp onto, which is kind ofokay with it.
I think it's kind of cool, butit's like, no, we're not just
like, you know, we're not justan agriculture organization,

(57:57):
like we're not just you know ayouth organization, like kind of
seeing this in a holistic way.
Um, that sometimes gets alittle bit crazy, but ultimately
like is pretty real in how wetry to address things.
So anyway, it's it's kind ofhard to communicate sometimes.

AJ (58:12):
Yeah.

Andrew (58:12):
So we're hoping that they can kind of help us uh hone
that down into like a digitalplatform and some storytelling
that you know makes some sense.
It's awesome.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It'd be fun.
I think we're gonna visit withthem like on the land later this
summer or fall and sort of dosome visioning sessions
together.
Should be should be good.

AJ (58:30):
So if you're cool enough, mate, that we that window might
be brushing your uh that we justbrushing might too.

Andrew (58:38):
Yeah, yeah.

AJ (58:38):
Um worries.
No, I'm really pumped to hearthat, Andrew, because uh I've
I've partly been waiting.
Well, for a while I waswaiting, calling, but now I'm
seeing everywhere these littlemedia units popping up of all
kinds, right?
Like this company I'm talkingabout.
Yeah, exactly.
And uh and I reckon that'swhere it's it's again, it's just
doing it for yourselves, likejust peer peers supporting each

(59:03):
other in all the different ways,whatever we can bring to the
table to start.
Yeah, totally.
And uh and because media's beensmashed too, right?

Andrew (59:09):
It's it's in its whole thing, yeah.

AJ (59:11):
And so there's an opportunity for everyone.
Yeah, it's like we're all inthe same boat.
Yeah, we're wanting somethingthat transcends the old way
anyway.
Right, totally.
Let's team up, totally.

Andrew (59:21):
And it's hard, frankly, with any community, but with
like a rural indigenouscommunity, the folks are less
connected like to the web.

AJ (59:27):
Yeah.

Andrew (59:27):
It's it's obvious.
Yeah.
But we struggle with just likehow do we best share our message
that's like dynamic andinteresting?
So, like, is it TikTok?
Is it like, you know, how arewe reaching all these different
folks?
Or you know, are we just makingphone calls and house visits,
you know?
Yeah, yeah.
Um, but I think for like wherewe're at, um anyway, with like
national partnerships andthings, it it helps to have a

(59:49):
platform that you can reference,you know.

AJ (59:50):
Yeah, I think so.

Andrew (59:52):
Yeah, we put together just like a nice looking impact
report this spring, excuse me.
And it got good feedback rightaway.
Like, oh, okay, if people wantto see.
See, you know, these graphicsin one place or that kind of
thing.

AJ (01:00:03):
So yeah, no doubt.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's good.
I'm glad.

Andrew (01:00:06):
Yeah.
But like social media is atotal we've talked about it.
And I just I I've sort of, youknow, been the hypocrite anyway.
I'll be like, yeah, it's reallygreat.
Like, and then I just don'tprioritize posting.
I'm just not doing that, youknow.
Do you do it?
Yeah.
Not really?
Not at all.

AJ (01:00:23):
Yeah.
I I don't even come to feellike it's great.
I feel like it's I I've come tofeel like it's so bad, in fact.

Andrew (01:00:29):
Oh, that may be.

AJ (01:00:30):
Yeah, that um and sure, not absolute, and that's where it
gets complex.
Like I've been tempted back inon different platforms, and I
know there are some better thanothers, and they're coming in.
And they should, like, it's nota hard thing technologically to
do.
Right.
So there are some more, youknow, moral, uh, ethical units
coming in, and so I've gotfriends on, well, you know, I've
got Signal on the phone forthat sort of thing.

(01:00:52):
I've got friends on Mastodon,Blue Sky, you know, these sorts
of things, who say they're good.
I mean, I even I joinedSubstack to write a bit of cool
because that seems to have anethical base.
Yeah.
So that's good.
And there should be, and maybethat offers opportunity.

Andrew (01:01:07):
Reddit's pretty good in a way.
Yeah, that's right, exactly.

AJ (01:01:09):
Yeah.
But you know, your meta stable,uh obviously, I mean, X do I
even need to say.
I mean, some people are fans ofthat because a lot of journos
are still there, but a lotbailed on it too.

Andrew (01:01:20):
I mean, it's just kind of like how do you offer that
weigh in for some people?
That's you know, I think aboutit.
So, like, yes, if we have abunch of youth or if we have,
you know, potential partners,like we a lot of the partners
are pretty active on socialmedia.
Yes.
And, you know, yeah, you'regonna see a video on traditional
diet next to your likeskateboard crash video or
whatever, but like that's okay.

(01:01:41):
You know, like if we're thereand maybe it makes somebody sort
of just head to the landinstead of spending so much time
on social media, it's kind oflike, oh, that's how do you get
in somebody's head a little bit.
So that's the argument, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

AJ (01:01:54):
Um, what I find is that, well, I think what we're seeing
at a macro level is that thealgorithmic supercharge is so
much bigger than those microgains.
Right.
And even crap posts.
Right.
There's just this beast behindand under it.

(01:02:15):
Right.
That um That's a great viewabout that.
It is unbelievable.

Andrew (01:02:20):
That's not the side you climb, by the way.
Right.
You climb the other side.
Yeah, yeah.

AJ (01:02:24):
That sucks people in to patterns that again just this is
my feeling, that just dwarfsmicro gains.

Andrew (01:02:34):
Yeah, that's interesting.

AJ (01:02:35):
And I think if that wasn't true, we would see a bit of a
different pattern, yeah, a macropattern from those things right
now.
But what we're seeing is justoligarchic centralization of
power drawn from the blood, andliterally in many cases of
people who are who are drawn in.
I know.

Andrew (01:02:53):
So it's hard.
I mean, then there's also like,you know, like that post I
showed you about the dogsyesterday.
Like people here do communicateon Facebook a lot.
I know.
It's kind of the commons, likea lot of people, you know, um
Guatemala sells, sell things,yeah, get their information,
like get jobs, whatever.
So we don't do that.
I mean, that's all we do is ismeta, you know, which not a huge

(01:03:13):
fan of, but like we do Facebookand Instagram.
Um, yes.
But anyway, I think like ifanything, we just want more
multimedia, like, and we justhaven't taken the time to do it.
Like, yeah, I have a lot ofgreat drone footage and we have
voiceovers, and like it's notthat I'm not you know trying to
enter a film competition, butit's not that hard to overlay
things and like show the powerof some of the work in the site.

(01:03:34):
Yeah, um, so anyway, so thateven if it's just on our
website, um I think could behelpful.
I think so too.

AJ (01:03:40):
You know, I I take that really seriously for that.
To make it more tangible, yeah.
Website?
Yeah.
And no, I do too.
And good old email as well.
Yeah, yeah.
And podcasts, for that matter.

Andrew (01:03:51):
Yes.

AJ (01:03:52):
They each go directly to the people who have asked for it.
Yeah.
There's no algorithmicinterference.
Yeah, you have to pay to reachthe people that have said
they're following you.

Andrew (01:04:00):
Do you have like a newsletter that you send out?
I do as well.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I see good returns fromthat?
Amazing.
Yeah, yeah.
That's interesting.
No, we've just been talkingabout yeah, doing a newsletter.
Some people feel like it's toomuch that people just get too
many emails, you know?
It's true.
And we've also just gottenrequests.
We've we did it a few years agoand we had another project that
we had a newsletter for, andum, and we kind of got requests

(01:04:21):
from producers like, hey,where's it?
Like, we love the newsletter,updates on deadlines, yeah,
events and things.
Yeah, there you go.
Um, and I think we should doit, honestly.
But some people just yeah,think it's not worth the time.
So um it's I'm not totallysure.

AJ (01:04:35):
If you're gonna apply the argument that email is
saturated, right, you couldapply that to any of the above.

Andrew (01:04:40):
Yeah, that's true.
Yeah, yeah.
So it's just I don't thinkwe're gonna do it every week.
It'd be, you know, once a monthor something.
Maybe even two.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

AJ (01:04:46):
Or when something is hot.

Andrew (01:04:48):
Right.
I mean, I also just think ourwebsite, I'm hoping, can be uh
an ongoing platform where youcan offer information, and so
like the newsletter in partwould be oh, you know, check out
the website for this.
Yeah, uh which would notoverwhelm you with information
unless you want more.

AJ (01:05:03):
So 100%.

Andrew (01:05:04):
Here we go into the park.
I've actually never been here.

AJ (01:05:06):
I think the key the key is that you're reaching the people
who do want it.
Yeah, and you're reaching allof the people who are directly.
Exactly.

Andrew (01:05:14):
Yeah, but your point even about like Patreon and just
support is interesting.
We've never really talked aboutthat.
We have like a donate button,and during COVID we got a lot of
donations because Kim probablymentioned, but we pivoted during
COVID to like I mean we we alsodid our work, but we some of it
we couldn't do, and wedelivered meals and you know we
got a lot of grants for that,sort of micro grants.

(01:05:34):
Um amazing, and like thatsummer of 2020 we had an
internship program.
Like we were in the field doingsome agriculture work, but
anyway.

AJ (01:05:43):
Um, I think um whether it's Patreon or something else, but
it could certainly be Patreon.

Andrew (01:05:47):
At least put it on the agenda.
Yeah, yeah, we should check itout.
Yeah, I'm gonna talk to thosemedia people about it too.
Yeah, I think and just righton.
I wonder what they do.
Yeah, what do they do?
Yeah, they've got a pretty goodcompany.
I think they've grown it, youknow, pretty broadly, mostly
serving tribal clients, um,which is really cool.
It's very cool.
Yeah.

AJ (01:06:05):
So we're back in the park with no cue, huh?
That's interesting.

Andrew (01:06:08):
Exactly.
I don't think there's any like,you know, visitor center trail.
So that's going to the sunroad, right?
So that's the end of it, whichis crazy.
And it's also, I think, justabout the exact time where you
don't need a permit.
Anyway, when we were lining up,it's like two or three o'clock
that it starts.
Some people might have beenlike, okay.
Yes.
Wow, look at this.

(01:06:28):
Yeah, this is definitely thisfeels like Pole Bridge where we
were talking about.
Yeah.
The kind of natural state ofthings up here just always gets
me, though.
It's really wonderful, youknow?
Totally.
Um, so much that's sodifficult.
Yeah, exactly.

AJ (01:06:43):
Yeah, it's very quite so striking.

Andrew (01:06:45):
Yeah.

AJ (01:06:47):
Like I need it, we all need it, yeah, in some way.
Oh, exactly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Andrew (01:06:52):
It's really, it's really something.
Do you ever listen to theRewilding podcast?

Speaker 7 (01:06:58):
He's good, I think.
Yeah.
I don't subscribe, I think, butI listen sometimes.
I just do a lot of good storiesabout efforts to concern
everyone and what that means.
Yeah.

Andrew (01:07:07):
The other one I listen to regularly is the Regenerative
Agriculture Podcast.
Oh, Joel's.
Yeah, that one, yeah, yeah.
Do you know him?
Yeah.

AJ (01:07:13):
Absolutely.
Oh, cool.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
No, he's uh they do some goodstuff.
An incredible story in itself.
Yeah.
Really?

Andrew (01:07:20):
Oh, I don't know that much about him, honestly.

AJ (01:07:22):
Yeah, I don't think.
Hell of a story.

Andrew (01:07:24):
Yeah.

AJ (01:07:24):
You know, if you want to know more about him, I mean, we
tried to meet up in Ohio, itdidn't quite work, so it's like,
oh, we're just holding out forhim person, it hasn't quite
worked, so we'll do somethingeventually.
But we just had engagement atconferences and stuff.
But um, yeah, if you want tohear some of his story, you
know, it was a good chat he hadwas with uh RFK Jr.
Really?
On his podcast.

(01:07:45):
No way.

Andrew (01:07:46):
Yeah.
Fascinating.

AJ (01:07:48):
Recently or a while ago?
No, before the election.
Like during the election, Ithink maybe just before.
When he was running, when RFKwas still in the world.
Well it came out when he wasrunning.

Speaker 7 (01:07:57):
Wow.

AJ (01:07:57):
But I think it was recorded before.
That's interesting.
It's so interesting, man.
Yeah, yeah, that's wild.
There's so many layers to thisphenomenon right now.
Oh my god.
It's so not simple and it's sonot forlorn in that sense.
There's like there's anglesthat just so rough though.
Yeah.
Oh, I mean, exactly.
Yeah.

Andrew (01:08:14):
There's no denying.
We're half a mile from theborder.
Well, this one is closed allwinter, I know that, because
this road is not maintained.

AJ (01:08:21):
Really?
Yeah.

Andrew (01:08:23):
Um, that's really good.
But it's so bad.

AJ (01:08:25):
It's complex.
And that's the funny thing too,right?
RFK decides to stand Trump.
Well, Trump smashes region ageverywhere.
I know.

Andrew (01:08:33):
So it's like, it's so weird's just gonna pan out.
Well he smashes regen ag but hetries to stand by producers,
you know?

AJ (01:08:40):
Yeah, yeah.
For the votes of the peoplethat put him there.
It's well, exactly.
It can't.
I don't think thatcontradiction can actually
remain.
We're not actually going, butoh, there's a trailhead here?

Speaker 7 (01:08:51):
I didn't know that.
That's super cool.

Speaker 13 (01:08:53):
New Hampshire.
Live fields are one of ourfavourite numbers.

Speaker 9 (01:08:56):
Isn't that amazing?
Yeah.

Andrew (01:08:58):
Have you watched Breaking Bad?

Speaker 9 (01:08:59):
Have we?
Oh, okay, okay.
Someone put us on to it.
After being in New Mexico, youprobably should.
Yeah.
And New Had I won't even tellyou it plays a small role, but I
think Breaking Bad's amazing.

Andrew (01:09:12):
The Better Calls All series I think is almost even
better.
Really?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Which is like a spinoff.
I'm gonna get out, I think, fora minute.

AJ (01:09:19):
Yeah, we do.
Okay.

Andrew (01:09:22):
You ready to go hiking?
I think this is the border.
I think if we pop out the road,that's as closest we're gonna
get.
John Tester was a greatpartner.
He'd be here every year.
He'd be at Indian Days.
Is that right?
That's where we hung out withhim.
I mean, I, you know, got tomeet him a little.
He would be at the VeteransLodge with everybody.

(01:09:42):
I wonder if you still will.
It's a great question.
I wonder too.
It was so interesting here.
Like, did you hear like justthe the the that election?
We're just bummed he didn't getre-elected.
Oh totally.

AJ (01:09:53):
You know, yeah.

Andrew (01:09:54):
Uh when we went to when Kim was in Washington at that
time, we visited with JohnTester's office and he had a
tree.
Did you but yeah, one crazystat I'd heard because that the
tribal vote um determined muchof the election in Montana
because of that was like much ofthe swing swing vote.
So there's a lot of campaigninghere, and then Montana was

(01:10:15):
possibly going to determine theSenate, you know.
So I think the stat I saw wasthat there was some $390 million
in advertising money spent inMontana, which was like two
million dollars less than inPennsylvania.
Yeah, yeah.
And the population here is likeyou know, a million people, you
know what I mean?
Per capita.
Yeah, so per capita is prettyinsane.
Yeah, um, and yeah, it's I meansome of the tribal community

(01:10:38):
did not go for tester, you know?
Yeah, why is that?
Yeah, what's your read?
I honestly don't know.
It's the Crow nation thatdoesn't vote Democratic, they
vote Republican typically, andI'm not totally sure why.
Um I should I should know more,honestly.
Um I don't know, some of it maybe pro resource extraction, I'm
not really sure.

Speaker 7 (01:10:58):
Yeah, not really sure.

Andrew (01:11:00):
But it was also interesting because this was the
first time, like Montanashifted so much politically, but
this was the first time, likethat it was very rare that we
had a Democratic senator at all,right?
Because it's like a Republicanstate.
Yes.
But this was the first timethey were forced to like see
them on the same ballot becauseof the way the Senate terms are
every six years, you know what Imean?
Oh of course.
So like it staggered.
Of course.
So last Trump election, likeMontana win Trump, but they also

(01:11:22):
re-elected Tester, which isreally interesting.
Yeah, but this time they hadTrump and Tester on the same
ballot, and it wasn't good forthe Democrats at all for
whatever reason.
Yeah.
Yeah, I thought he did a lot ofgood things.
Yeah.
You know, he advocated for alot of tribal agriculture, and
you know, he's a agricultureproducer himself, so people
could relate.

AJ (01:11:42):
That's how we heard about him in Australia.
Really?
Yeah, and then he was onFoodies 2, the the film.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Andrew (01:11:48):
Oh, that's cool.
With Corey Booker.
Right.
He's great.
Yeah.
He's great.
He actually helped us a bit ona grant, like release some money
recently, which is prettyawesome.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He just like, you know,advocated for a program that we
were funded under and helpedrelease a lot of funding for a
lot of people on the agricultureproject.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Some sense it's almost, I don'tknow.

(01:12:10):
It's almost freeing becausepolitics here is so crazy.
Yes.
You're kind of like, well,screw it.
Like, we gotta do good stuff.
Yep.
As opposed to like sort ofbeing sucked into the two-party
system a little bit.
Um, so I don't know.
Yeah, and I've heard thatacross the country.
Like, I would hope, like you'redescribing, there's there's
more independent, you know, likegrassroots type.

(01:12:32):
I need to learn more about thatin Australia.
That's really interestingbecause the two-party system
here seems to be failing moreand more.
Exactly.

AJ (01:12:39):
Or just ripping the country apart.
Yeah.
And I wonder, you know, I'm nota fan of it, but I wonder what
must if it might break out.
I know this third party,whatever.

Andrew (01:12:48):
It might break open some more.
Maybe, maybe, maybe.
Yes, indeed.
Because yeah, I don't know ifthat yeah, if that's really a
future for the Democrats at all.
Yeah.
It may be a third thing.
Like I just can't see themidentifying with that or a
fourth thing.
Sure, great.

AJ (01:13:05):
And so what I wanted to tell you though was that I did find
people working in a very similarway to what's happening back
home.
So it really like it flashedlights at me because I
recognized it as not just afringe effort.
This this can work.
And and this the main exemplar,but it was by far not the only
one because even this woman hadlearned from other

(01:13:26):
organizations.
Right.
But she has since sincebecoming the youngest female
senator in Maine's history,right?
Didn't stand again to set up anon-profit to train and support
others, right?
Either stand or support thosewho stand.
It's called dirt roadorganizing.

Speaker 6 (01:13:43):
Okay.

AJ (01:13:44):
To bring essentially just kind, constructive politics back
to rural America, but politicalrepresentation back to rural
America that doesn't have tofeel like it needs to pull
extreme triggers like what Trumpwould bring.

Speaker 13 (01:13:58):
That's great.

AJ (01:13:58):
Because she was confronted when she came back from college
with the nasty politics that haddeveloped over those few years,
and she was like, What?

Andrew (01:14:04):
This is my community, what's going on?
Totally.
How does it I mean what Ithought for a while, which I uh
I don't know, I'm not trying tolike I I haven't talked to that
many people about it orwhatever, like haven't tried to
be an activist around it.
But it seems to me, naively,that like the state legislatures
in this country are like prettyunderrecognized.
Like in Montana, there's areally active state legislature.

(01:14:26):
Really?
We've got, yeah, you know, thestate representatives come some
come from here, like they onlymeet every other year, so they
meet every two years, and thiswas the session this year, which
is why I was thinking about it.
Yeah, and I don't know whythose state legislatures just
don't get to vote on nationalbills.

AJ (01:14:41):
Yes, like at a at a that's a good debate.

Andrew (01:14:43):
At a scale like this, like there's two senators for
every state, you know.
Montana's huge, yeah, it's notthat populous, uh, but still the
populist states also have twosenators, and they're the ones
voting on these bills.
And sure, there's congressmenalso who are supposed to
represent, but I don't reallyknow why, at least for certain
bills, again, naive, but likewhy can't these state

(01:15:04):
legislatures have a say on somemore of these national programs?
It just makes a lot more senseto me.
Yes, I agree.
Um, but yeah, we got to go downand lobby a little bit, which
was nice.
There's a lot of progressivefolks in the state legislature,
but also a lot of conservativefolks.

AJ (01:15:18):
Well, to your point about state legislature, so dirt road
organizing, by the time we metthem, they've since had another
cohort, but they'd had three gothrough.
So just the last the 18 monthsprior to the election type
stuff, three cohorts go through,six months each.
There were 78, 78 people,something like that.
Uh-huh.
39 of which stood for office,generally down ballot, so it's

(01:15:39):
often state level.
And out of that, yeah, four orfive won.
Like we did a debrief, I'm justtrying to remember off the top
of my head.
Four or five actually won.
Wow.
And another four or fiveoutperformed any previous
democratic effort.
Oh wow, it's huge.

Speaker 5 (01:15:57):
Wow.
Let's see.

Andrew (01:15:58):
Maybe I'll pull out just off to the framework.
It's really big.
Wow.
Good eye, whoever spotted that.
This is the spot to look.
This is where I see that allcrazy.

AJ (01:16:07):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Two dog flats.
Oh, and in front of that rangeI've been marveling at all day,
too.
Oh, that is crazy.

Speaker 5 (01:16:17):
We thought it was a buffalo.

AJ (01:16:19):
Yeah, it's so big, huh?
It's really big.
Whoa.
I know this is incredible.
Fair to say we made a gooddecision, huh?
Oh, this is a moment I've beenwaiting for for 15 months.
Yeah, right?
There you go.
And it's just out in the openin the office.

Andrew (01:16:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, right?
That's a big one.
I mean, that's far.

AJ (01:16:41):
Yeah, yeah.
It's funny, it's like thebuffalo just to the kings of the
terrain.
Yeah, that's a roll.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Oh, look at it move.

Andrew (01:16:51):
Kill it.

AJ (01:17:05):
Did you spot it?
Fifteen months in the waiting.
Trouble the whole country,twenty-five thousand miles.

Kim (01:17:16):
I'm so happy for you all.

AJ (01:17:21):
Having a wonder.

Kim (01:17:22):
Yeah.

AJ (01:17:23):
Here I am, piercingly looking into forests and looking
for any track that I couldfind.
Just coming in on the meadow.

Kim (01:17:31):
And such a funny time of day.
Yeah.

AJ (01:17:33):
Yeah.

Kim (01:17:36):
Come this way.

Andrew (01:17:37):
Yeah, right on.

Kim (01:17:38):
Books of box a queen.

Andrew (01:17:40):
Another quarter mile would be okay.
Maybe half.
Well, look how many people are.
Oh my god.
Bang.

AJ (01:17:48):
Oh my god.
Just came in, huh?

Kim (01:17:51):
Yeah.

AJ (01:17:51):
Who's sorry?
You?
Me.
Yeah, wow.

Kim (01:17:55):
Usually it's elk up in here.

AJ (01:17:57):
Yeah, that's a good idea.

Kim (01:17:59):
It used to be thousands of head.

Speaker 6 (01:18:01):
Really?

Kim (01:18:02):
Theologists decided to uh bring the Arctic wolf in here to
save the wolf.
Now we have no elk here.

AJ (01:18:09):
Oh no, really?

Speaker 5 (01:18:11):
For real.
Oh no.

Kim (01:18:12):
They kill a small uh pack of wolves.
They kill nine head of elk.
That's like a pack of five orsix.
And there are thousands ofwolves.
Really?
Yeah.
They've just because they'retop of the food chain, right?
For their food chain.

AJ (01:18:30):
It's going out of balance the other way.

Kim (01:18:32):
Yeah, way out of balance.
All the elk are are gone.
And I would bring the kids uphere and there'd be thousands
ahead.
This is called two dog flats.

Speaker 13 (01:18:41):
Yeah.

Kim (01:18:41):
Thousands and thousands of head of head.

AJ (01:18:45):
Where'd he go?
Where'd he go?

Kim (01:18:47):
Back into the brush, I think.

AJ (01:18:49):
Back into the I think so, yeah.
What a moment.

Kim (01:18:53):
Oh, I'm so glad.

AJ (01:18:56):
That's cool.
Isn't that cool?
That's cool.

Kim (01:19:00):
Alright.
Wow.

AJ (01:19:04):
Thank you.

Kim (01:19:05):
Yeah.
Look at this ugly country.
Who'd live here, Kim?
Who'd live here?
Who would live here?
So ugly.

AJ (01:19:15):
I guess if you have to.

Kim (01:19:17):
That's why Andrew always goes home.
He hates it.

AJ (01:19:20):
Can't wait to get back to Baltimore.
Right.
Nothing like that asphalt, letme tell you.
I love the lines in that range.
Yeah.
Bloody beautiful.

Kim (01:19:30):
Bloody beautiful.

AJ (01:19:31):
Bloody beautiful mate.

Speaker 9 (01:19:35):
You're good, you're good.
Oh yeah.
Okay.

AJ (01:19:44):
Yeah.

Kim (01:19:45):
Bloody beautiful mate.

AJ (01:19:48):
Like a parrot shouldn't repeat.

Kim (01:19:51):
Minor bird.

Speaker 9 (01:19:53):
Cool view of the fire from here.

Kim (01:19:54):
Who gets to see?
I haven't seen a birds inprobably four years.

Speaker 1 (01:19:58):
2015 or five.
You too.
It's been a while.

Kim (01:20:03):
Oh yeah.

Andrew (01:20:04):
You haven't since when, did you say?

Kim (01:20:05):
Probably four or five years.
Because four years I was sosick.
You weren't out as much as you.

AJ (01:20:12):
Didn't see when we saw a black bear on the road too.
We're crossing the road.

Andrew (01:20:20):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:20:21):
Pretty much.
Yeah.

Kim (01:20:22):
Coming off of Chinese mountain?

Speaker 1 (01:20:25):
Before.
Just after the bottom.

Kim (01:20:28):
Oh really?

Speaker 1 (01:20:29):
Yeah.

Kim (01:20:31):
No, it must have been behind us.
Yeah.
Oh, beautiful.

Speaker 13 (01:20:37):
Oh yeah.

Kim (01:20:39):
We're gonna come pick here.

Speaker 9 (01:20:41):
Yeah.

Kim (01:20:42):
Right here.

Speaker 9 (01:20:42):
Yeah.
Not right but all.

Kim (01:20:44):
No.
Oh, here are people.
Oh yeah.

Andrew (01:20:50):
A lot of people.
This is the one park inBrowning.
Actually, uh the drummer fromPearl Jam donated a skate park
for that park.
Now I'm questioning if it was aguitar player because I don't
know the band as well.
But it was definitely somebodyfrom Pearl Jam, so now we can
look it up.
Yeah.

AJ (01:21:10):
Mate, thanks.
Yeah, of course.
Outstanding.

Andrew (01:21:13):
Yeah, thanks for the journey today.
Covered a lot.

AJ (01:21:17):
That's one of the most special days ever, frankly.
Hello Georgino! That was AndrewBerger, Director of Agriculture
and Climate Adaptation Programsat Picani Lodge Health
Institute, alongside its ED andfounder, longtime charging woman
Kim Paul, with grandson Traysonand my fam along for the ride.

(01:21:39):
That concludes our series fromUmScappy Picani Blackfeet
Nation.
Though I do have one more briefoffering for you related to the
documentary that culminated atChief Mountain.
Bring them home.
Stand by for that in a fewdays.
You'll find a few photos on theepisode webpage, of course,
with more for subscribers asalways, including as promised

(01:22:02):
last week, some from the awesomePow Wow and North American
Indian Days Gathering generally.
All with great thanks formaking this episode possible,
and with special thanks thisweek for notching up a fourth
anniversary of your support, theincredibly generous Josie
Simons, also the instigator ofthe podcast playlist on Spotify,

(01:22:22):
Chris Dowling, Amy Rankin, MaryAnn, and Sven Stenvers, Love Is
All.
If you'd like to join us, bepart of a great community, get
some exclusive stuff, and helpkeep the show going, we'd love
you to by just heading to thewebsite, or the show notes, and
following the prompts.
Speaking of the playlist,Andrew did offer a few music

(01:22:43):
tips later on.
Johnny Corndog was a fave.
And on Return East, he went tothe famed Newport Folk Festival
and messaged in two highlightsPublic Enemy, the festival's
clearly come a long way sinceBob Dylan's Electric Foray, and
a young Cherokee singer namedKen Pomeroy.
I've been listening to her eversince.

(01:23:05):
The music you're hearing now isRegeneration by Amelia Bardin.
My name's Anthony James.
Thanks for listening.
I don't know.

(01:23:49):
I haven't got bothered to putthe headphones on.
Okay, good.
But if it's clipping, it'll bereally annoying, yeah.
Your sunnies?
Our little sunnies.
Yeah.
That's what you call it.
Anything that can beabbreviated will be able to.
I love it.
Yeah, you could be you'ddefinitely be Andy, probably to

(01:24:11):
a bunch of people.
Andy?
With your luck at all.

Andrew (01:24:15):
I've been Drew a few times, but I've never really
been an Andy.
I'd probably respond.
Andy?
Yeah.

AJ (01:24:21):
Well you could be A B.
A B.
There you go.
There you go.

Andrew (01:24:24):
What's his name?

AJ (01:24:25):
Burger.
Burger.

Andrew (01:24:26):
Burger?
Yeah.

AJ (01:24:27):
Burger.
Burger?
Burger?
Yeah.

Andrew (01:24:30):
Berger.
Yeah.
That that's what I have beenabbreviated as more often.
Berg's.
Berg.
I'll take that.
True.
Bergie.
I think that's my preference.
Burger.
Burgie is like what like weirdgirls called me in middle
school.
So is it right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I don't know if I can handlethat.
Burgy.

AJ (01:24:47):
You gotta love it.

Andrew (01:24:49):
You can include that in the podcast for sure.

AJ (01:24:54):
I put blue.
Yeah, good, good, good.

Andrew (01:24:57):
Do you really sometimes?
But that's fun.

AJ (01:24:59):
I don't know if anyone likes that thought.
That's great.

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