Culture as Medicine: Long Time Charging Woman Kim Paul at Amskapi Piikani Blackfeet Nation

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
AJ (00:00):
Yeah, for all the things that aren't changing, huh?
These things feel like bigshifts.
Yeah.

Kim (00:06):
They are.
Yeah.
There are so many big shiftshappening, which is what I was
referring to early, that earlierthat dichotomy of there's still
this evil happening.
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.

(00:27):
And I think that's the hugefear.

AJ (00:30):
G'day, Anthony James here for The RegenNarration, your
ad-free, freely available,listener-supported podcast,
exploring how people areregenerating the systems and
stories we live by.
Today, an extremely specialepisode.
After we left the Wind RiverTribal Buffalo Initiative in
current-day Wyoming, but beforewe reached Paul Hawken back in

(00:52):
California, there was one morestop we had to make.
Or so we thought.
For having made it to the oldsalt festival that we podcast
about back in Montana last year,we met a special guest speaker
there, Miisami Sapai yi Aki.
I hope I pronounced that right.
Long Time Charging Woman, KimPaul, an elder of Amskapi

(01:15):
Piikani Blackfeet Nation.
Kim is founder and executivedirector of the Piikani Lodge
Health Institute.
I already knew about some ofits brilliant work, having read
Liz Carlisle's profound book,Healing Grounds: Climate,
Justice, and the Deep Roots ofRegenerative Farming.

(01:36):
That was thanks to a tip from alistener.
Cheers, Roni.
And then I'd seen theimpressive Latrice Tatsey, who
featured in Liz's book, presentat the Regenerate Conference in
Denver last November.
Which was also where theextraordinary documentary film
Bring Them Home on the BlackfeetBuffalo Restoration was
screened.
Those resurgent Blackfeetstories had felt like they were

(01:59):
constant accompaniment on ourjourney, so I'd lightly wondered
if we might end up visitingthem in their spectacular
country in the far north ofMontana, historically and
essentially still includingcurrent-day Glacier National
Park.
Alas, it looked like it wasn'tgonna happen.
But then, Kim, this high schooldropout, now with multiple

(02:21):
degrees, who carries the SiyehKsisk Staki Creation Bundle
and Pipes, again, I hope I didokay on the pronunciation, and
was transferred the rights towear the traditional stand-up
war bonnet.
We met after her presentationat the festival, and she warmly
invited us to visit as theyapproached their powwow in July.

(02:43):
Right now then, we're in thecar with Kim's grandson Trayson
and my family along for the rideas Kim guides us through some
of her wonderful country andculture.
Starting at the nation's latestreacquired lands, where Piikani
Lodge has a big dreamunfolding.
Later, we're into Glacier.

(03:04):
So climb aboard.
Here's Kim.

Kim (03:07):
So in this beautiful area, we have the five acres here to
the east, which will be the wedon't have a name for it yet,
but where we come together.
In our language, everything isvery descriptive.
This is the place where we cometogether would be the name of
it, kind of like that.

AJ (03:23):
And in language, what would it actually call it?

Kim (03:25):
I don't know how to say it all.
Yeah, so between thegenerations of boarding school,
um, we have three generations inmy family.
The language was um, you know,you were you were beaten, you
were hit with ruler, you wereyou couldn't speak the language.
Even when my grandmother cameand had her little ladies that

(03:45):
visited from, you know, themission, spent time in the
mission from the time she wassix to sixteen, breaking all the
ties to family in the land.
And, you know, just down theroad, you were never allowed to
go home, even if your motherdied.
Or anyway, um, they were veryseverely punished if they spoke
any black feet.
And so um when she got out, shewould go in the bedroom, and if

(04:07):
we uh the granddaughters had tobring her tea, her and her uh
friends would even still bespeaking black feet behind their
hands.
And they they felt they wereprotecting us, I think, by not
teaching us the language.
So But we're learning,learning, learning.
Um I've even still taken twoyears of language, and I can't
speak that sentence, the placewhere we gather.

(04:28):
But there will be a commercialkitchen on the bottom for
everyone to do uh small, likethey call it cottage business,
but it's a business incubator,right?
For people to come and make umour traditional teas, our
traditional medicines, our um uhSavasbury or choke cherry, our
jams and jellies and syrups, andthen we'll promote, um, you

(04:48):
know, teach basic businessprinciples uh to folks that want
to do that, and we will do thepushing, the marketing into the
park because with you know,upwards of four million visitors
a year, um, they're notsupporting our community and our
people, even though they're onour land, which is now called
Glacier National Park, um, inany way, shape, or form.

(05:09):
They're beginning to um thelast superintendent was very uh
well um ensconced in our our umum way of life and ceremony and
and wanted to be a part of that,but he recently retired and
we're making really greatstrides with him, and so now
there's a new superintendent ofthe park who we um hope to help

(05:30):
him understand the importance ofum you know hope and
empowerment um and the inclusionof the people of this land
within that landscape as well,because for 20,000 years that
was you know, and I hate sayingour because we weren't our type
of people, we were collectiveand self and you know,

(05:52):
sufficient or sustainable andyou know um more we're more
concerned of uh the wellness ofthe collective as opposed to
individuals.
But anyway, well so this willbe the training center here, and
then if you can envision as wego through the gate on this side
and this side, Metal Lodgesteepees, um, where it would be
like the welcome as you comethrough, welcome into this

(06:15):
reclaimed um scopi bikanihomeland.
Um we're going to have awalking path which will or
running, whatever you choose.
Grandma will walk, the kids canrun, but it'll it'll be about
five miles long.
And uh we've um uh been blessedto be a part of the walking
path that was created at uhBlackfeet Community College, our

(06:38):
local tribal community college.
And so we've had um uh goodexperience um on how to be proud
of our history and and learnmore.
And so there'll be a walkingpath that goes the whole
perimeter of this.
So this 628 acres and then fiveacres here.
It's just a clean landscape,it's um such an intact biosystem

(07:00):
with so many the the plantdiversity.
And we had Audubon come out anddo a bird survey here a few
weeks ago, and the the yeah,there's just so much here that's
been protected and not umoverrun, but uh mainly because
it was inherited land by thepeople who basically were kind
of carpet baggers, and um wewould get our groceries from in

(07:24):
trade for our land.
So to give this land back isvery important to us.
It's a coup.
We call it a coup.

AJ (07:32):
You were just having you you said it old salt, you just had
the ceremony for it a few daysprior to the festival.
So it's very recent.

Kim (07:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So we had uh a beautifulblessing of the land and the
work of our hands and thestewardship and the good works
that will come out, you know,just asking um uh creator, one
of our uh elders in the creationbundle, the beaver bundle, came
down and um and smoked pipe andjust you know did the prayers

(08:00):
of of everyone's prayers thatwas in attendance uh for what
will take place on this land andwith the land and for it to be
open to community and we havethis vision of folks who have
been fractionated off of theirland because the government back
um in the day of making well itstill is the same, making laws

(08:21):
that controlled us as far awayas the moon in a place called
Washington DC in a language thatwe didn't understand, so it's
kind of the same thing, but nowwe speak English.
Um, anyway, they created thisuh systematic way to take more
land, take more land, take moreland.
Beyond the Homestead Act camethe Dawes Act, and it was um the

(08:42):
ability to uh we were roundedup before that with um an
ability to hunt for our childrenand feed our families, and
there was a huge starvationwinter where you know, by their
count, 200 um expired.
By our count, you know, closeto 900 people starved to death
in a valley watching the elkwalk by and the moose and the

(09:06):
deer knowing what was out thereand and still starving to death.
So, anyway, with theseallotments um came the
fractionation of our land andthen their ability to only uh
create this reservation systemthat you know only encompassed
this small amount of land wherethe Blackfeet, the Blackfoot

(09:27):
Confederacy, ranged from theNorth Saskatchewan River to the
Yellowstone.
And um by the finding of ayoung child down by Helena by an
archaeology professor namedAnzig, so they named him the
Anzik Child.
He's carbon dated at 13,400 to13,800 years old, and he's

(09:50):
wrapped with um his hisbelongings like his rattle, his
little hand drum, uh theiniscum, which is a buffalo
stone, and is used in ourceremonies and is a huge part of
our life, but they were stillpainted with red holy paint.
So we know we've been on youknow this landscape for close to
20,000 years by otherarchaeological finds, but you

(10:13):
know, beyond beyond um whatWestern science says our oral
traditions uh date us back tothe time of the dinosaurs and to
the um the time of the thebigger bigger giants in the
megaphona.
Yeah, so we've been here for along time.
So it's so nice to have thislittle piece back, and for

(10:35):
people who've been fractionatedoff of those um small allotments
that were given, air quotes,given to us.
Um you know, if a family offour or five had 180 acres, and
then those three children hadfour or five children, then it's
divided again, you know, by byanother um four or five

(10:57):
fractionate, then they havechildren, and then all of a
sudden the small piece of landis fractionated into 30, 40, 50.
Like, you know, when uncle justpassed away recently having 47
grandchildren and 92 or 94 greatgrandchildren, like you can
imagine the fractionation thathappens very rapidly.
And so um there are a lot ofpeople who live in town who've

(11:19):
been fractionated off of theirland and don't have the ability
of other folks here at home whostill have um land-based many
have had people on council andand learned the ways to acquire
more land that way through umthrough legal systems within the
tribe.
And so there are there arefolks who hold a little more

(11:42):
land than others, and so ourhope with this land is to bring
um children from town, kids whodon't have the ability to get
out on the land, or maybe um thetransportation, or maybe
parents aren't as healthy asthey could be in the future, and
so to give these youths andyoung adults a place to be where
they can four or five of themraise a 4-H deer or a pig or a

(12:06):
chicken or come and learn how tocut dry meat or how to break a
colt, how to, you know, we werethe people of the horse.
Um, prior to the horse, we ranthe heene, the buffalo inn by by
gathering them and and havingthem go off these buffalo jumps.
This uh fishkin, but um rightnow uh we are the people of the

(12:28):
horse, but that I can see in mylifetime has diminished so
rapidly.
And so we're going to have somehorses that that the children
can you know connect with as faras what might be termed equine
therapy for us, you know, tobuild that relationship with an
animal to be responsible forfeeding and watering.
And this is only you know soclose to town, 1.08 miles.

(12:50):
There's a walking trail to thehigh school here, and that's
just a quarter mile from thisland base.
So you see, this is the creek.
Oh, yeah.
There are five active, large,large beaver dams and beaver
families that live in this creekthat runs year-round.
You can see one there, onelarge one here.
There's blue heron, there arecranes, there was a um a pelican

(13:16):
even here the other day.
And when we came for the pipeceremony, there was a huge eagle
sitting on the fence postthere, and it wouldn't leave.
No matter how many vehicleskept coming and coming and
coming, and the eagle stayedthere.
It was pretty beautiful.
Yeah.
And then there's a hawk familythat lives down.
When you see the old cabin,there's some brush next to it,

(13:37):
and the hawk family lives inthat.
There's a big nest in thatbrush.

AJ (13:43):
Wow.
Yeah, it looks beautifulbecause it's sort of got that
wetland.
Look, it's not just the creek,it's like the whole area around
it.
Yeah.
Beautiful.

Kim (13:53):
I know the young man from Audubon was quite thrilled.
He I think there were threemaybe species that they don't
find anywhere else in Montana.
No way.
Yeah, yeah, and the same withthe botanist who came.
We um like to bring people upfor the Western science side to
attach to our interns so thattheir world is expanded, that

(14:15):
they learn that they can go toschool for something um, you
know, that might uh resonatewith their core or with their
spirit.
And so um even the botanistsaid that I think she found
seven different species that shehasn't seen anywhere else.
So we're pretty excited aboutit.
So this goes all the way to thesee the ridge there with the

(14:38):
timber?
Yeah, yeah, right to there.

AJ (14:40):
This piece.
Awesome.
And is that the park at thetimber?

Kim (14:43):
Um, no, the park is about 1200 acres, I think, on the
other side.
Okay.
There's a uh um one ranch pastthat, which is, and this is all
very much grizz country, grizzlybear.

AJ (14:56):
Um I bought the spray.
Was that a good idea?

Kim (14:59):
Um, you know, I've never had that close of an encounter.
I've had a few encounters, butwe had chainsaws in our hands
and we were giving wood, and soum so my children's dad turned
around with the chainsaw and wasdoing this.
Then another time we werewalking in a friend of mine, um,
I kept telling him, I justdon't want to be here.

(15:19):
I'm such a bear magnet.
I think I'm gonna go back up onthe trail and go back to the
vehicle.
He's like, Oh no, it's okay,it's okay.
And just when we turned, I kepthearing bear, bear.
And um, I told him, Do you hearthat?
And he said, No, I don't hearanything.
And I said, No, it's I can hearit, I can hear it.
It's it's like, I don't know,maybe somebody's whispering,

(15:40):
it's like somebody whispering inmy ear.
I looked all around, I didn'tsee anybody.
He's like, Oh my gosh, you'resuch a freighty cat, right?
Like, never mind, it's okay.
And right then we turned aroundand there was three grizz, two
big grizz.
One stood up, and the other wasa small um cub of hers.
And then just when she startedto at us, the other one stood

(16:03):
up.
And my friend pushed me aside,go, go, you know, but don't run.
And I was walking very fastlyup to the trail, and then I'm
like, what am I doing?
I can't leave my friend here.
So I turned around to go back,and he said, No, go, go, and so
I went up to the trail and I waswatching, and he was yelling at
them in black feet, and theyjust dropped back down and went

(16:25):
away.
But it could have been veryugly.
Oh, yeah.
I was so mad at him when he gotback up on the trail, and just
as we he got back up there, somefolks came, um, tourists, and
they said, We were yelling, wewere trying to tell you.
Wow.
So I heard them yelling, butwe're looking at it was too
funny.
Yeah, so this is a four-bedroom,full basement house that we're

(16:49):
going to renew.

AJ (16:50):
Cool.

Kim (16:50):
Yeah, yeah, and this is where we had our ceremony here.

AJ (16:55):
An old corral boat, huh?

Kim (16:56):
Yeah, round corral.
So this is for breaking thecolts, and then there's another
round corral basket back there.
And it's our hope to put up anarena.
We have a um very rodeo-basedcommunity, and so the hope is to
build an indoor arena and havesome steers because we have
these world champion amazingropers, and you know, just these

(17:20):
amazing cowboys that live inthis country, nothing like an
Indian cowboy.
And so uh to put up a smallarena where they can come out
and rope, and maybe they pay usto rope on Monday and Wednesday,
and on Tuesday we they rope forfree, but then that money would
go to feed the um the youth andthe young adults for H animals
and for other programming, andbecause we have such avid team

(17:43):
rope or calf rope or like peoplelove to um be moving in that
rodeo life and to give them anindoor arena, a place where they
can do this through the winter,yeah.
You know, probably build it upon top.
But we'd like to put a smallround corral on the inside of
that arena as well with just afew benches, grandstands around

(18:03):
the round corral so parents cancome and see their children and
become everyone become healthyand strong and well together.
This was where the lodge was.
We opened the bundle here.
The our holy bundles um areopened in the spring and opened
in the fall, and all the vowsfrom the entire year or the
winter people have come and beenpainted and make a vow, like

(18:27):
for their mother who has cancer,or the brother who's struggling
with you know something.
And um, so they'll come and wepray they're prayed for
throughout the entire time, fromthe time they make their vow
till the time we open thebundle, and they come and maybe
they dance with an item withinthe bundle to not only humble
themselves before man but alsocreator and asking for this

(18:49):
thing.
And um, you know, they've beenin prayer about it, we've been
in prayer about it, whatever thevows that come.
They're continually prayed forin the morning, in the evening,
every day without fail, exceptlike now when we've lost a very
close loved one, the bundle'scovered, and yeah, we're kind of
in a hiatus until we'recleansed and then the bundle is
and then we're back into ourroutine of of prayer.

(19:10):
And it's such a beautiful thingfor people to come.
So we were able to open thebundle right here.
We put the lodges up and openthe bundle here um just a few
months ago, the springtimeopening here on the land.
So that was a huge blessing tothis land.

AJ (19:26):
Oh yeah.

Kim (19:27):
The creek goes up here.
We're looking to um build abridge.
So with having our throats cutby this current administration
and the four and five-yearcontracts that we had um for
developing these regenerative agprinciples and experimental
stations so that people can comeand see um instead of us going
out to each of the producers'landscape, which we would do

(19:51):
anyway, to do the analysis andyou know help them to make a
plan.
But currently we have 97producers and a hundred thousand
acres in regenerative ag umproduction.
That's amazing.
I know in just a few shortyears.
Is that Montana alone?
No, right here within theBlackfeet Nation.
Is that right?
Yeah, we have close to twomillion acres reclaimed now that

(20:12):
is in uh uh in possession of umthe Muscobi Becani people.
And with I think we have alittle over 200 producers, beef
and bison producers within thoseclose to two million acres, and
currently we have a hundredthousand acres in regenerative
ag practices just in a few shortyears from Pecani Lodge with

(20:37):
our outreach and work.
I mean, obviously not just us,because we have a whole
community here that's um uhdetermined to find better ways
and um help support our peoplein a better way.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay, but yeah, such beautiful.
There's two natural springs up.
You can see the two green,there's a large green leafed-out

(20:59):
area there, and then one aboveit.
Yeah, those are two naturalsprings that need to be um
promoted, or I don't know thecorrect word for that, but but
built up so that we have thatintact water system.
Clean slates.
So across this hill and therewill all be Savusbury bushes and
trees, um, so it has access tothe water, but they like those

(21:23):
the hillsides and not toomarshy, and so this will all be
Savusbury here.
We're hoping to put ourgreenhouses here.
So this is all growingbeautifully, and but we have to
be careful about where it mightflood with the springtime.
So we came out and tookpictures in the spring, and
we're just kind of tracking whatthe land does and um within

(21:44):
each season before uh making anydecision there.
We can also put them, you know,a little drier ground over
here, I think under thishillside.
We're looking for exposure andsun as well.
My cousin wants to buildgeodesic domes out here um with
uh to withstand the wind, right?

(22:05):
Like this is such a light,gentle breeze, but we get some
pretty ferocious.

AJ (22:10):
It feels like a wind to me.
Oh my god.

Kim (22:13):
We get ferocious winds, you know, 60, 70, 80 miles an hour.

AJ (22:17):
So yeah.
Wow.

Kim (22:18):
Yeah, so welcome to our home.

AJ (22:20):
Amazing.

Kim (22:22):
We had six years of work ahead of us in community doing,
you know, so much for so many.
The FSA um job that we got wasuh so exciting.
It was to um to developrelations.
So back in the day, well, evenstill, there's um something

(22:45):
called the Golden Trianglethroughout this whole area of
Montana, but it was never itnever included Blackfeet.
It was it never included anytribal nations, it was only
non-tribal people who werefarmers and producers who have
um much more ready access togovernment funding because we

(23:05):
have we're wards of thegovernment.
I could have my enrollmentnumber here on my wrist, which
is not anything againstHolocaust survivors, but we are
survivors, and and so I'm a wardof the government.
They manage any land that is inmy name.
Um, they lease it out to peoplewhoever they choose to lease it
out to.
We receive this marginal maybe7% of the the lease funding

(23:30):
because the rest is foradministrative fees, right?
Right as wards of thegovernment.
Um, if I were to shoot out, mynephew did this, uh light on a
poll, he went to federal prison,not state prison.
Just turned 18.
Federal prison, because we'rewards of the government, so

(23:51):
we're only uh federal, you know,to these federal institutions,
federal law, I don't know whatinstitutional is horrible.
It was a horrible situation,and and many of these things
occur.
People can come here and murderus and never be charged because
they're not tribal members.
They don't have to abide by ourlaws.
Yeah.
Paul Harvey, he was this oldradio commentator, and he uh

(24:13):
said, if you ever want to getaway with murder, go to
Browning, Montana.
Yeah, I know it was horrible,but it was true.
Yeah.
So anyway, the um the FSAcontract that we had was to
create a new golden triangle.
And so within this new goldentriangle came um the protection

(24:34):
of food systems.
That's how we were going tobuild um the large greenhouses
to incorporate traditional foodsinto our diets.
And then we did, um I createdthis hundred-day study with the
biomarkers IgG, IgA, IgM,cortisol, C reactive protein, of
course, uh um A1C for glucose,and then the ratio between

(24:58):
omega-3 and omega-6 because beefis very high in 6, the bad fat.
And ENI, bison, is very high inomega-3.
So we created this researchproject of a 100-day diet, and
it just the analysis wasfantastic, the the end results
were fantastic from baseline tothe end of the hundred days, and
and so we knew that we were onthat, well, we knew we were on

(25:19):
the right track anyway, becauseum we have the health
disparities are so high.
The the chronic disease fromdiabetes to obesity to cancer to
heart disease to um justanything, liver any major organ
system, we're you know,sometimes 500% higher than

(25:40):
non-native communities just 30miles away.
You can stand on one side ofthe river between at the end of
on the eastern end between youknow Blackfeet Country on one
side of the river to the otherside of the river, they live 20
to 27 years longer than us onaverage.
Is it isn't that ridiculous?
20 to 27, yeah, the inequity,you know, the lack of

(26:02):
infrastructure, the everyonethinks that Native people are
you know standing with our handsout and get a check every
month, or the what is thiselusive check you get every
month?
Where, you know, by treaty gaveaway the state, or we didn't
give it away, it was taken thestate of Montana, what looks
like the state of Montana now.
And it was for health care andeducation and housing, and and

(26:22):
you know, like we werediscussing that hypothetical
dollar scale where God bless ourveteran population, say they
get a dollar twenty-seven, andGod bless the federal inmate
population who gets a dollar forhealth care, we get like 24
cents on this hypotheticaldollar scale.
So there's no big handouthappening here, I can guarantee.
So to have this uh contractthat we had with the government

(26:47):
for um four years to create thisnew Golden Triangle to be
inclusive of the tribes alongthe High Line, too.
We had three locations.
Oh yeah, aren't they beautiful?
We had three locations in theBozeman area here and then uh in
the tribes of uh South Dakota,Minnesota.

(27:08):
We were going to reach out tothem to create our own new
Golden Triangle system, and itincluded uh this very popular um
James Beard chef called theSioux Chef, which their name is
really Oyate, the Oyate chef,and his beautiful promotion of
indigenous foods, and he's justuh such a um a good um person to

(27:34):
be a part of that trianglebecause then that encompasses
his homelands, you know, towardsMinnesota, and then down into
Bozeman, all the tribal nations,you know, we have eight
federally recognized, whether weneeded federal recognition or
not is is beyond my you knowcapacity of understanding.
But but anyway, um we'recreating this new golden

(27:54):
triangle, the look of indigenousfoods and the safety and
protection of our food systems,which we've proven within
Western science, you know, bingescience, that this diet and
this way of life is so muchbetter for our people who
epigenetically, you know,throughout the generations ate
these foods and we wereperfectly healthy and
sustainable.

(28:15):
And then just in the lasthundred years, the you know the
high in saturated fat, high inin preservative and food
coloring and sugar and thethings that we never had.
And so we went back to thistraditional diet, and within
this contract that we had withthe government with the FSA,
which was cut upon this newadministration just days after,

(28:37):
or terminated, legal contractterminated, um, we were really
going to continue to developthat food system and bring that
understanding back to the peopleto reduce death, to reduce
chronic disease.
And the people who were in thestudy for 100 days reported this
new wholeness, this newstrength, this new energy and

(28:59):
connection to their own selvesand their identity and
connection to um ancestor, youknow, our generations past, like
just this, and they're still onthe diet.
You know, we're 50 days pastit, and the one the one girl who
we were talking about who she'svery thrilled because she's
lost 50 pounds, but she's alsothrilled because before she
never wanted to get out of bed,she suffered under, you know, a

(29:22):
new term in our society calleddepression, which we didn't,
there's no word that we have fordepression, right?
So she was so thrilled aboutthis lack of inflammation that
was she was suffering underrheumatoid arthritis, etc.
And just switching back for theshort period to our traditional
diet, she's a new person.
She swears we saved her life.

(29:43):
She's hugging me and crying.
And you know, another personmade me this blanket.
She's like, Kim, I'm a new, newperson.
I'm 60 years old, and and I'velearned all these, you know, our
old ways of cooking this ordrying or preserving that, or
you know, and and now I haveanother life again.
I was thinking I was on thedownhill.
But now I have so much energy.
So this was a very importantcontract to have to create and

(30:06):
protect that food system thathas been uh exploded in any way.
So we're we're here at thisclean slate right now and um
trying to pivot and learn newways to still do the same work
and better ways at doing um someof the old work that we were

(30:26):
contracted to do and just tryingto figure out a way to do that.

AJ (30:30):
So yeah, a different way.

Kim (30:32):
Yeah.
So what was the the um diet?
Uh-huh.
The main foods.
Um so our diet is so limited,it's just bison, right?
So we we ate a lot of fat.
There was no dairy, no sugar,you know, nothing processed, but
you had to remain within.
We added some leafy greens thathad no effect on all of the

(30:52):
biomarkers so that people coulddo big, huge salads and eat, you
know, the bison, and we had umroasts and burger and steak and
ribs and everything um possiblefor that was that came off of
the animal along with all theorgan meats, etc.
But there was no dairy, nosugar, no.
So I think the biggest um wehad bone broth.

(31:14):
We had someone making us bonebroth.
Um we ended up letting folksuse a little bit of what was it?
A little bit of coffee.
There was one other deviationfrom not butter because that was
dairy.
I I'll have to think of itlater, but but it was basically
potato carrot, the rootvegetable.

(31:35):
Oh, we used um because we havewild turnip, so we use turnip.
Um real basic, as much fat aswe wanted.
Um grains, no um, no beans, nolegumes, no nothing like that
because we basically were uhBuffalo economy, Buffalo
subsistence.
So everything was just eamy.
So we butchered um initially wehad this wonderful group called

(31:59):
um Honest Bison who uh who umdonated a huge amount, I can't
even remember, maybe $12,000worth of bison burger to start
us out.
And then we slowly gathered,um, we got a small donation from
the Steel Reese Foundation, andthen the Foundation for Food

(32:21):
and Ag Research also helpedsupport the traditional diet.
So um unfortunately that waswhen COVID hit and the IRB, the
Institutional Review Board forthe Blackfeet Nation, went into
moratorium.
So we couldn't getinstitutional review approval
for um individual protections.
Are you familiar with IRBs,institutional review boards?

(32:42):
So any research that takesplace in any community
throughout the nation has to gounder an institutional review
board for beneficence versusrisk, and it all came out of the
old Tuskegee experiments whereum uh black airmen were um were
uh injected with syphilis.
And and the same thing with theHavasupai Indians in the Grand

(33:05):
Canyon.
Um blood was taken from themfor one specific research
project, but they used it formultiple mini research projects.
So there were these atrocitiesthat were committed against
African American folks andNative folks, and um so the the
Belmont report and the theability to um manage and protect

(33:26):
individuals, but it's reallyjust for individual systems, for
individual people protections.
Whereas within the BlackfeetNation, we've created an
institutional review board thatprotects our ceremony, our song,
our you know, everything fromNatu E to peaks, foom eat to
peaks, not to me to peaks, tooeat to peaks, the underwater
beings, the the water itself.
And so we've broadened ourbroadened as a sovereign nation,

(33:47):
we've broadened ourinstitutional review and
protections of our entire what'sremaining of our homeland and
and everything within it.
Whether it's a bird or a treeor so that's been a beautiful
work still we're still movingforward.
So anyway, the the IRB wentinto moratorium, so our diet was

(34:10):
placed in moratorium for acouple of years until everything
opened back up and peopleunderstood COVID and we were
able to meet again and be ableto move forward.
So we'll have our experimentalregenerative this whole area up

(34:58):
above.
And then um, of course, thesystem is a growth as soon as we
can find the funding to get ourgreenhouses, but they're going
to be geothermal fed.
So we learned so much from ourlocal tribal college and the
folks um doing so much good workthere and um down within their

(35:22):
um their workforce development.
And I'm not sure what each ofthe programs was called, but
they they built a smallgreenhouse and they ran PVC into
the ground.
I think three to five feetonly, and the heat coming out of
the earth the greenhouse, Ithink she said it 58, 60 degrees

(35:43):
through the winter.
I can't remember what thetemperature was, but it was
astounding considering it wasdirty below outside.
So this brush down here iswhere the Hawk family lives.
And then there's a large, youcan see the edge of that large
beaver down with the silverwillows behind it.
And there are five of thosesystems.

(36:04):
So now we'll take a ride up totrue looking glass and up to um
Upper Two Medicine, which is oneof my favorite places on earth.

AJ (36:18):
Yeah, I heard I was reading a bit about that place.
It sounds like it's um a realcenter point for the whole
nation.

Kim (36:26):
Upper two Medicine?
Yeah.
It's certainly the headwatersof um of um you know the
downflow into uh Missouri intothe Mississippi.

AJ (36:37):
Right.

Kim (36:37):
And along with divide, see this triple, this peak here, the
point.
Yeah, that's triple divide, andso water flows from there up
all the way to the ArcticCircle, also out to the
Mississippi, and then over tothe Columbia River, which then
feeds into the Pacific.
So it runs in three distinctdirections: north, east, and

(36:59):
west.
And so um, that's how it gotits name is Triple Divide.
So all of these mountainsreally are the headwaters to so
much uh support across the stateof Montana.
Um you know, very heated uharguments come about over water

(37:20):
rights and um, you know,headwaters water rights.
Yes.
Because back at the turn of thecentury and after the
depression, they had these workcrews that came and built a
canal system that takes all ofour water, or not all of it, but
a good majority of our waterthat's fed um north uh up into
Canada and over into the easternpart of Montana, and this has

(37:44):
been going on for almost 100 fora century.
The the now we can't get anyhelp in here for the highest
suicide rates in the nation forethnicity, for youth and young
adult suicide, and we can't getany help in here for the highest
chronic disease and you knowinfrastructure, we don't have
any um, we don't get the helpthat is needed or the assistance

(38:07):
that is needed to build astronger foundation.
But the minute the the canalsystem broke a bit, oh my god,
tens of millions of dollars ofyou know um construction going
on just instantly to get theirwater over to the eastern part
of the state.
There's no uh canal systemsthat feed our waters, we don't

(38:30):
have irrigation, we don't, youknow, with all this water that's
going through our homelands,there's no support to develop
that infrastructure that'sgreatly needed for our
production agriculture and justfor the health of the land, huh?
So yeah, and they they put in abigger plume, a bigger, huge,
huge, huge pipe to take morewater for you know gallons per

(38:54):
second.

AJ (38:54):
That'll fix it.

Kim (38:55):
Oh, that'll fix it.
That'll fix it for them.
Yeah.
I remember the lieutenantgovernor came years ago.
We're gonna build a biggerplume, we're gonna do all this
for you people.
I'm like, how is that for uspeople?
Oh well, you'll have we'llcreate three jobs and for how
long?
Oh, about three months.

AJ (39:16):
Five minutes, yeah.

Kim (39:16):
Yeah, and then you're going to take all of our water until
forever.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I hear they're quite awaiting list of such a clever
name.
John Sherman.
Yeah, it's it's clever, butonly if you're not zoo.
Because it's not a good word.

(39:37):
And so they've changed theirname back to Oyake, which is
their real name.
Like us, we are Pikani, we'renot blackbeat.
And so as people are umbeginning to become more, I
don't know, I hate to overusethe word empowered, but it's
true.
As we're beginning to becomemore um in place and uh

(39:59):
beautifully strong in ouridentity instead of the
oppression of reservation anddirty Indons and you know all of
that.
Um now we're reverting back tolike we are um scopi bikani as
opposed to blackfeet and uh I Ican't speak for the strong and
vibrant and beautiful anddetermined Sioux nations, the

(40:22):
Oyate nations, but it's myunderstanding that Oyate is the
correct correct word for theirtribal nations.
So um even here at home, likewe have our slang, and so you
know, on the res or the res thisor on a res grandma, or you
know, all of our slang, but umin my mind and in my spirit, I

(40:47):
keep promoting uh folks to saytribal nation because we are
sovereign nations as opposed tothe blackfeet reservation is the
blackfeet nation, right?
Because we are distinct andseparate.

AJ (41:00):
So I've cottoned onto that and and and across the country
too.
Like we visited the Osage andthe chief said that precisely.
It said the same words prettymuch.
Yeah, we're the Osage Nationbecause we are a nation.

Kim (41:13):
Yes, beautiful.
And so it's um, you know, we'reso far behind in so many
things.
I was working at NIH, theNational Institutes of Health,
and we had someone come in whopresented a you know PowerPoint
slideshow on on uh um thingsthat were happening within his
ethnicity, and and uh they askedfor my opinion, and I said,

(41:35):
well, we're about a hundred feetbehind that fence that you guys
are looking over and 40 feet inthe ground because you know
it's it's very convenient tokeep tribal nations out of the
limelight.
It's very convenient to not becalled out on um treaty uh
obligations.
It's very convenient for peopleto understand that there is no

(41:56):
legal system that reallyprotects our people.
It's very convenient, you know,for high incarceration rates of
Native people because the trustresponsibility then is you know
diminished and diminished.
It's very convenient for themto have their pedigree, uh like
a dog uh pedigree system for ourbloodlines because the less

(42:17):
people who are enrolled, thenthe less obligation there is,
even at that, you know,hypothetical dollar scale that I
was mentioning, 24 cents on thedollar for every um, you know,
like for healthcare or educationor say, oh, but you you get
educational support.
Well, I think the highereducation dollars um help with

(42:39):
maybe $800 a semester for fourstudents a year.
Like it's ridiculous.
It's not there's no um there'sno huge amount of money flowing
into our tribal nation and toour people that uh it's
convenient for people to saythat oh well you stand there
with your hand out for a checkand get all this Indian money.
It's convenient because thenyou don't have to directly deal

(43:02):
with um the truths of the landand the truths of the people and
the truths of the underfundingand lack of infrastructure and
you know health disparity andchronic disease and death and
suicide rates.
It just you can call call itwhatever you want to so that you
don't have to think about it.
Better to point a finger, eh?

AJ (43:24):
Well that's it, isn't it?
I just think that thatresonates so deeply because the
ways it's almost survivalmechanisms for humans, isn't it?
Is it's the stories we telleach other at times, and and
that's a form of it, I think.
That so much is jeopardized tobe able to own that truth.

(43:46):
I mean I'm trying to feel intoit, aren't I, because it's it's
just it's just so it's sohorrific.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That you try to understand whatit is that stops people just
being able to to love face itand love, yeah.
That's just that's just love.

Kim (44:05):
I know it's it's you know, and and we have these determined
passions to do just that andbuild this connected and
relationship-based society, andthen we're marching 48 miles to
beg the local law enforcement tocharge a non-native woman for
killing a young native lady, youknow, and and oh, they how

(44:28):
readily they charge her withchild endangerment of her two
non-native white childrenbecause they're in the vehicle,
but never, ever, ever a chargefor this young girl who was
walking 20 feet off the roadthat she ran into, hit and
killed, and fled the scene.
You know, you have to go allthe way to DC and bang on the
senator's desk to get a specialprosecutor in.

(44:48):
And you know, people who arenon-native don't have to march
for 48 miles with signs andcreate a global movement like
Micah Matters to get just justget you know the base baseline
of justice.
You know, let us just have somejustice.
And so we're we're saying, oh,let's live with love and treat
each other, you know, withmutual respect and and and uh

(45:12):
value, and then we have ourchildren murdered or our
grandchildren, and we're justyou know, hands up in the air.
How does this how do you evenum justify not charging this,
you know, woman who veryobviously had our child's
remains on her vehicle, but youcharge her with child
endangerment for her two whitechildren in the car.

(45:34):
But this young, beautifulukulele playing NASA camp
teaching, you know, spoke at theUnited Nations indigenous.
Oh yeah.
She was this beautiful younggirl who had an entire life
ahead of her, and and they won'teven charge the non-native
person with her death, right?
Until we raised so much heckacross the world that they had

(45:58):
to, but you know, how do youit's a duality, right?
Like we want to do so much, wewant to love so much, and we
want to respect, and isn't thatbeautiful those verses?
But then we're continually, youknow, confronted with how many
MMIP murdered, missing andmurdered indigenous people um to

(46:19):
date, you know, without anywe're we were the blessed and
lucky ones that we had some someform of justice that we had to
fight tooth and nail for, butthere are tens of thousands of
missing and murdered indigenouspeople that nothing is ever done
about right here at home.
You know, I can begin namingnames, yeah, very, very quickly

(46:42):
on go through all my fingers onmy hands and toes, and nothing
has ever been done.
So there are different thingsthat I think keep us as well
from from being able to fullycome together and I don't know.
I'm not a big theme.
Just a lot of heart.

(47:05):
There's our mountains, there'sTriple Divide, there's Mad Wolf
Basin, there's Upper Tumet,Cinepaw, you'll see when we get
up there.
It's so gorgeous.
And this is where we used tohave the 40 head of buffalo that
we had to go up into Canada andbuy horses off the racetrack to

(47:29):
be able to uh I hate the wordmanage, but yeah, to be able to
keep up with just over thisridge here.
And that's Red Blanket Ridge,that was our last tree burial.
Um because we buried our peoplein the trees with their
belongings.
And so Red Blanket was thelast, um really?
Yeah, the last man that was uhthat we know of by oral

(47:54):
tradition that was buried in thetrees.
But when are we talking?
I don't know.
I don't know the how does thathappen?
I think it's more of a frame.
You put a frame up with thebuffalo robe and put the person
on it and they're lifted up.

AJ (48:08):
Oh yeah.
Yes.

Kim (48:10):
I'm sure then we had rawhide that we used for our
robes.
Yes, of course.
And you know, for leverage andfulcrum pulley.

AJ (48:17):
You know, some of this the brilliant stuff and spirit that
you were talking about and withhere reminds me of our visit to
the Cheyenne River SiouxReservation.
It was a woman called, well, itwas the channel's daughter,
Kelsey Scott.
Ah that we spoke with there,and she said some of the folk

(48:37):
there have actually started toresume the sky burials.
Oh they're bringing them back.
Yeah, the daughter.

Kim (48:44):
Beautiful, yeah.
Wow.

AJ (48:46):
But yeah, we saw the scaffolding.
They had the scaffolding out ona piece of land out there.

Kim (48:51):
Uh-huh.
Um this uh reclamation ofidentity and homelands and our
culture is just so vibrant andstrong.
This next generation has sobeen taught by us um to not,
we're not going to do the otheranymore.

(49:11):
We're not going to accept thatas our reality anymore.
So I think that's all of themovement of passion and heart
from everywhere from uh music touh culture, you know.
We even have these amazingyoung indigenous designers, and
just there's just so much moreum uh ownership and and strength

(49:36):
and empowerment and the thingsthat are happening now for sure.
This is called Nine Mile, andof course, another place that is
not native-owned all of EastGlacier.
You know, uh folks came in atthe same time that I was talking
about with the land that we'vereclaimed, and because we can't

(49:57):
get loans, we could never walkinto a bank and get a loan
because trust property um it'snot the same as fee property, so
you can't put it out for aloan, or um, it just was policy.
Native people didn't, yeah, youcouldn't get a loan.
And so they were able to comein and start all these
businesses, East Glacier, St.
Mary's, and just make bank offof you know what is here for

(50:20):
industry, tourism, because ofwhat is now called Glacier
National Park.
So every business the tribe hashas uh in our brilliant
leadership purchased a few ofthe businesses that were going
out of business during COVID.
So we're beginning to get avery small foothold back in our
own homelands in East Glacier,where you know the the history

(50:42):
of the rail line that camethrough really for the
annihilation of the buffalo andthe creation of of uh these
large hotels that were, youknow, during Roosevelt, the
president's time, to have aplace for people to enjoy the
national parks that he wascreating.

(51:03):
Yeah, maybe more elitism kindof stuff, but um you know, our
people were starving to deathright here with this land taken
away and our ability to hunt andto legally.
We couldn't even butcher ourown cow.
I remember my grandfathersaying, My girl, I remember the
year you were born.
I will always remember thatyear.
It was the first year we couldbutcher one of our own cows

(51:25):
without having to write to thesuperintendent and ask his
permission that would then begranted months in it, you know,
months away.
So you couldn't even kill oneof your own cows.
We were so systematically, youknow, our spirit annihilated and
controlled and oppressed.
And yeah.
So yeah, that was uh and thatwas a long time ago, right?

(51:46):
1959.
Yeah.

AJ (51:49):
Well, that's the thing, it's not that long ago.

Kim (51:52):
Exactly.
Exactly.
My great-grandmother was takenaway in a rail car in the middle
of winter to this place is faraway.
Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

AJ (52:03):
Oh, she went to Carlo.

Kim (52:04):
Yeah, and never returned home until she was 21.
So you can imagine when thathappened, you know, to two or
three members of each family orfive members, and you know,
being away from your home andyour family for 15, 16, 20
years.
See, non-native.

AJ (52:20):
Yeah, right.

Kim (52:21):
Yeah.

AJ (52:22):
Oh.

Kim (52:23):
US Canadian.
Nor do they employ us.

AJ (52:27):
Really?
Yeah, really.
We're 38 miles away from Canada.

Kim (52:31):
Yeah, it's just right next to uh Nina, Staku, where we're
gonna go, Chief Mountain.
Going up through here, this iswhere I did my first fast.
I had um, yeah, just gotten myIndian name, Mesam Saipiaki,
which is uh it means long timecharging woman.

(52:51):
And I had been at my friend hadlost her son, her and her
husband.
Um, he was the baby, and theyhe was kind of a change of life
baby, and so he managedeverything, all the winter
feeding of the bee, the cattle,and just he took care of so
much.
And when he died um in anautomobile crash, they were just

(53:14):
so in such deep grief.
We all grieve deeply for thosewe love.
But this was a special griefthat they just couldn't, you
know, because he they were alsolosing their livelihood, their
you know, plus the love of thisonly male child, not that not
that we're a patriarchal societyor anything like that, but he
was the baby, so any, you know,the last born.

(53:37):
And um, they were so broken upwith grief, they called uh a
medicine person down fromCanada, and he came to to help
them.
And I was working asphalt.
We paved this road, as a matterof fact.
Can you imagine backing a bellydump up to the paver all the
way to the top 47 times?

(53:57):
You'll see how crooked the roadis, and then from the other
side to pave down that side andto pave down this side.
Anyway, we were we were pavingum we finally had the dirt roads
were um being paved in town,and so maybe about 20 years ago.
And she called me and said,Kim, can you come and help feed,
help serve?
Um, this man is coming to helpus.

(54:19):
And I'm like, Of course, butyou know, I'll be in my work
clothes because uh we're workingand this is what and so she
said it doesn't matter, justcome, come as you are, and can
you help?
And so I flew out there afterwork and got everyone fed.
It was so nice, and I lookedover her and at her and she was

(54:40):
smiling.
So everything that he didthere, the ceremony that he did
to help them, um, it relievedthe you know, some of the weight
that they were carrying.
And I was so excited for them,I kind of started to cry.
And I didn't want her to see mytears because I didn't want her
to mistake that for more grief,and so I kind of um uh secretly

(55:03):
left the house and uh went downto the crick and I was offering
some tobacco up to say thankyou to Creator for for helping
them, for helping them.
And um, I could hear heryelling for me at the house,
Kim, Kim, this man wants to knowif your children have Indian
names.
And so I went up there and Itold her that they did not, they

(55:25):
hadn't been named yet, and heoffered to name them and he
named them so beautifully.
My my daughter, uh Mastu Oki,uh Clear Water Woman, and he
told the story of when him andhis brother were up hunting in
the mountains that they knewsince childhood, and somehow
ended up getting lost.

(55:45):
And they were lost in their ownmountains that they they didn't
understand.
It was like they stepped into adifferent river or something.
And in the morning they cameacross some water that was just
like the most refreshing andlife-saving water, and so that
was the name he gave her.
Was that what he saw in herbecause she was always taking
people in and giving them newlife basically?

(56:08):
My other son, who that you'vemet doing the uh first
promotion, uh the state championbox or golden gloves boxer
anyway, he's doing thispromotion of um the boxing to
bring kids off the streets to beable to have some kind of a
focus, and and so whether wecall it taekwondo or or um um

(56:32):
protection, self-protection orboxing or whatever, he's he's
doing this beautiful thing forum youths who don't really have
a place to go and big tonight.
Yeah, big one tonight, hisfirst one.
So his name is uh sh is uhstrong mountain.
He's a strong, uh strongmountain, and then the other

(56:53):
one, his name um he didn'treally like.
You could see him kind of hisshoulders lift up when he named
him uh magpie mamiatsiki.
Uh but he said, no, no, no, Ican tell that you don't
understand your name, but thethe magpie is the smartest of
birds, the best hunter, theluckiest, you know, all of these

(57:14):
things.
And it wasn't long after thatthat my son contracted um an
Ebola-like hemorrhagic fevercalled uh Hontavirus, and you
know, lived through being on aventilator and uh, you know,
this hemorrhagic fever.
Obviously, his organs wereturning to mush, etc.
So he was very lucky that helived through that.

(57:34):
And now, um, because when hegoes hunting, he gets the huge
boon and crocket elk and themagic buffalo that comes across
the border 20 years ago.
There were no buffalo up there,and and this big huge buffalo
appeared out of nowhere, and sohe fed us for the entire winter
on that buffalo.
And so um he very much is hisname.

(57:55):
And then I was given the namelong time charging woman that I
didn't understand 20 years ago,but I certainly understand it.

AJ (58:02):
It seems it seems pretty apparent.

Kim (58:07):
Isn't this beautiful?

AJ (58:09):
But this is a common thing I hear too, huh?
I think even Latrice said itwas a bit like, I don't know,
about the name I've been givenLatrice had been talking about
earlier out of the book that Iread in the book Healing Grounds
and then or in the RegenerateConference at Timberlata has
come to it.

Kim (58:25):
Yeah, grown into her now because they know like when he
put his hand on my head beforehe named me, I felt him go away.
I his hand remained on my head,his physical body was here, but
I felt him go, you know, to theancestors or to you know
however you want to talk aboutthis Holy Spirit or the
grandmothers, the grandfathersto the helpers, right?
Who who told him what to nameme.

AJ (58:47):
And so they knew who I was going to be.
Right.
And yeah.
And how do you say that?
Me some safe.
Okay.

Kim (59:02):
So this is uh we've ran cows up in here for 10 years.
It was very much grizzledcountry, so I pulled over just
in case we might see a grizzlybear.
But you have to be very wellmounted to ride this country.
And I had the best horse ever.
He was a red drone, his namewas Rex.

(59:24):
And my cousins brought him fromthe movies.
He came out of he was a moviehorse, so he reared up and he
and they want they brought himhome to rope on him because he
was so smart and so fast.
But he kept rearing up, Ithink, and um when they back up,
you know, to get behind thebarrier.
And so we traded this paint,red paint stud for him.

(59:45):
And oh, he loved me.
He would just jump up and downon all in the corral when he saw
me coming.
He was so excited to get to go.
And he was just the best horse.
He would keep my legs away fromthe trees, you know, when we're
getting.
Through the brush really fastwhen we were trying to go in and
get some cows out, and he justwas so protective and go down

(01:00:06):
the back side of these mountainson the shale and keep me
upright, and he just was thebest horse ever.
So after I got my name, um,that saddle here, right up
there, I went up to fast becauseI was just so grateful and I
didn't understand things.
And I had um come home fromworking in Arizona, and I went

(01:00:29):
to our elders at the time,Georgia Molly Kickham Woman, and
um they sent me to go uh sweatbecause they said I had all of
the stuff on me that I broughthome from, you know, down there.
And they wanted me protectedand clean cleansed and
protected.
So I went to sweat um for thefirst time in my life, and uh

(01:00:50):
the elder of the sweat, the onethat ran it, he told me in the
second round the grandfathers,the grandmothers would come and
doctor me and take all of thatoff of me.
And you could hear all of thesevoices, the old speaking old
black feet.
And um the eagle came by me allacross me and you know, just
like it was really beautiful.

(01:01:12):
And um, when I came out of thesecond round, he told me that
they had left thunder for me formy protection.
And his brother was like,excuse my language, but he's
like, Holy shit, Kim, I've beenI've been sweating for 20 years,
I never got thunder for myprotection.
Oh no, he said, holy shit,tourist.
Or I should say holy heckbecause I should clean up my

(01:01:34):
language for this podcast.
He said, Holy heck, Kim.
I've been sweating for 20 yearsand I never got thunder for my
protection.
So um uh you must be eitherreally, really, really bad or
really, really, really good.
I'm like, no, no, no.
I'm not, I don't think I'm bad.
I don't know if I'm bad, Idon't know.
Anyway, I didn't understand andI I didn't understand what it

(01:01:57):
meant to get thunder as myprotection.
And so I kept wanting to comeright up here because this is a
spot that just was calling methat saddle right there where
that peak is, where the rock iscoming down.
And so I told my sweetheart umeach day after I was named, I
have to go up there and make anoffering, I have to leave some
tobacco, I have to, I have to goup there and fast.

(01:02:19):
And the wind was blowing moreseverely than I had ever, ever
been in.
And he said, We can't ride upthere, the wind's too bad.
You have to wait.
So I started my fast down atthe house, which is right down
there at Kiowa.
And on the second day, got upand wanted to get up your
horseback, and he's like, No,no, no, the wind is too bad,
Kim.
It's like a hundred miles anhour.

(01:02:40):
You can't, you just can't.
And so I kept fasting.
The third day, it's like I haveto go up there now, whether the
wind is a hundred, and so hesaid, I knew you were gonna say
that, your horse is alreadysaddled up.
I'm like, oh, thank you.
And anyway, he rode up herewith me, but he stayed below the
shale down there.
Right.
And I went up through there andback up there, and there was an

(01:03:01):
old bristle cone pine, one treethat was up there.
And so I was on the third dayof my fast, so I was pretty
weak, but um, even to get upthere, the wind was blowing so
hard that I had my um arm aroundthe saddle horn, and then I had
a mane hole too because it wasblowing me out of the saddle,
but I wouldn't give up.

(01:03:21):
And I went up there with mytobacco, and I was a stinking
creator, and I don't understandhow things work.
I know that you know I neverwas raised in a church and I
wasn't raised with our old ways,but when um when my life was in
danger and someone had a gun tomy head, I cried out, Jesus, if
you're real, save me, and I wassaved.
So I never want to walk awayfrom from what you've already

(01:03:45):
done for me, but I just want toknow, can you help me?
Can you help me please?
Is this all the same?
Did you give us our old ways,which are our current ways, and
then give us, you know, your sonor your sons of all of these,
you know, people across theglobe who came in different
times to help us?
Did you give us that along withour old ways?

(01:04:08):
I just want to learn if it'sokay if I can learn and it's all
the same.
Can you just give me a sign?
And I'm like just really bracedwith this bristle cone pine.
My arm is around it and I'mbeing buffeted like crazy.
And when I say, Can you give mea sign?
Everything stopped.
The wind stopped.
You could hear a pine needledrop like three days of this

(01:04:30):
crazy, crazy, crazy wind.
And he just made it all stop.
And I fell, of course, becauseI'm leaning into the west and
I'm fall- I fell to my knees andI'm sobbing, you know, like
snot sobbing, you know, when thesnot comes to your nose.
I'm like, thank you, thank you,thank you.
Oh my gosh, I I who knew, youknow, I'm just so grateful,

(01:04:52):
thank you so much.
We get to learn it all, andit's all the same, it's just
love.
So I I gather myself and I getback up, and um, in some ways,
uh, that people worship here isuh ohate, the sundance.
Um, the the Oyate brought thisto us and taught us this in a
way for helping our people,also.

(01:05:13):
And some people practice that.
And I know that um they use uhblue cloth, you know, for
thunder.
And so I had all this tobaccoand I put it in this blue cloth
and I'm crying because he juststopped the wind.
And I was there, you know, likeI asked for the sign, and so
I'm sobbing, I'm wiping my nose,and holding this cloth up, and

(01:05:34):
I'm praying, and I'm like, Idon't know what I'm doing.
I just know I I just got myIndian name, my kids got their
Indian name.
I'm just so grateful to bealive and to be breathing in and
out, and you just stopped thewind.
And and I'm like, uh, that'sour word for thunder.
I don't know what it means toget you as as my protection, but
I'm just so grateful.
I just have this pitiful littlegift to say thank you.

(01:05:56):
And and I had um put seven, youknow, bunches of tobacco in
this blue cloth, and I washolding it up and I'm praying
with my eyes closed.
Thank you so much.
I just I'm so grateful to you.
I know this is pitiful, and Ireally don't know what I'm
doing.
If you could just have pity onme, this is this is what I'm
offering to say thank you, and Iknow that it's it's nothing,

(01:06:16):
and I know I don't understandany of this, and and I'm I'm
standing there with my eyesclosed, and you've heard a
supersonic jet, the thesupersonic boom.
Yeah, and I'm standing therelike this, and boom, boom, boom,
boom, like almost blew me offthat mountain.
And in the same moment that I'mpraying, I'm cussing.
I'm like, what the hell?

(01:06:37):
Open my eyes, and I'm like,okay, okay, I'm sorry, I'm
sorry, I don't mean to cuss.
But there was nothing there.
I thought there was jetspracticing or something.
There was nothing there.
And it was silent again.
So um I know that those thunderbeings came and took my pitiful

(01:06:57):
little thank you, and theyshowed me that they're real, and
so to have that hugeness asyour protection.
Not that I try to jump off amountain and test it or
anything, but but it was justum, I think a teaching, um, a
blessing for us to allunderstand that we are being

(01:07:18):
protected at all times and tomake good choices and to um use
the gifts that we're given tohelp others, to let people know
that that this is a reality thatmaybe we don't see, but it's
going on all around us.
Yeah.
Anyway, so that's that's whatit meant to have other beings,
and that's what that saddlemeans to me up there with that

(01:07:41):
one bristle cone pine.

AJ (01:07:43):
Yeah.

Kim (01:07:44):
Yeah.

AJ (01:07:45):
Oh, it just it puts a whole other lens.
I mean, I'm really feeling intothe questions you took up
there, puts a whole other lenson everything that you have
experienced and are experiencingthat is so just wrong.
Yeah, that there's still abigger lens.

Kim (01:08:05):
Yeah, way beyond that.

AJ (01:08:07):
Yeah.

Kim (01:08:08):
Right?
I know when I rode back down towhere my sweetheart was, the
horseback, and he's like, holycow, Kim, I've I've seen you
pray for people, but neverstopped the win.
Old cowboy, right?
Old punk riding, barebackriding guy.
And um, I'm like, no, no, no,Harry, that wasn't no no no,
that was creator God, thatwasn't me.
I didn't, I just asked thequestion for a sign, and that's

(01:08:30):
what he did.
It wasn't, you know, we don'thave we're humans, we're just
babies in this this life, huh?
So yeah.
That's the GoombeeksyThunderbird story.
And who could have you don'timagine those?
I mean, maybe people with greatimagination imagine those
things, but I could not haveimagined that happening.

(01:08:52):
I was shocked beyond measure.
So this is uh looking glassroad going up to Upper Two
Medicine.
Can you imagine backing a bigbelly dump up there?
There was only a few of us thatum would do it, would take take
up the cross.
Take up the it was really a fewquit the first few days because

(01:09:16):
it's very hard to back a biglong huge trailer all the way up
to the top, and you know, tosection back up, back up, back
up, and then on the other sidewe had to pave the other side
too, but trying to save theroad.
I thought it was fun.
Here we are.
Oh my goodness.

(01:09:37):
Oh my god.
It's it's crazy.
It's a good day, huh?

AJ (01:09:48):
It's clear and dramatic skies.
It's not nice.

Kim (01:09:52):
Welcome to Blackfeet Country.

AJ (01:09:55):
Welcome to Katani Country.
Wow.

Kim (01:09:59):
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 (01:10:08):
Really?

Kim (01:10:08):
Yes.

AJ (01:10:09):
Awesome.
Yeah.
Not where we go swimming.
Yeah.
Or now.
Well, it's summertime, yes.

Kim (01:10:15):
Like yesterday when it was so hot, like that.
Those are the days we go.
And maybe tomorrow will be likethat.
Yeah.
What's the big peak?
Cinepah.
It's just it's uh our uh fox.
Cinepa.
Yeah.
So we gather some of oursmudges up here.

(01:10:36):
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.

(01:10:59):
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, the all of theum gadgets.
And um the vision is to have itin all four seasons.
But we started with winterbecause my friend knew people in

(01:11:24):
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

(01:11:44):
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 ski programnow with a snow machine and a

(01:12:05):
groomer, and we have a cargotrailer with a hundred sets of
skis and boots to cross-countryski 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.

(01:12:25):
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

(01:12:45):
winter clothing clothing andkeep it.
And uh, oh my gosh, we havefun, huh, Trayson?
Yeah, but I was so sick onoxygen, I never got to ski with
them.
Oh yeah, so this will be myfirst winter to get to go out
and ski with them, and thenwe'll do uh summer swimming,

(01:13:05):
kayaking, boating, you know,summer safety, and my son wants
to do um survival skills, sofishing and all of the safety
and uh um uh ability to care foroneself, 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

(01:13:28):
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 you

(01:13:53):
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?

(01:14:15):
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

(01:14:40):
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

(01:15:01):
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 (01:15:16):
But it's the way you said it, it's the reverence that it's
held in, it's the the love thatit's held in, even even in the
kill.
It's a totally different frameof action.

Kim (01:15:29):
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.

(01:15:52):
Like when my son got that firstEni 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

(01:16:12):
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

(01:16:35):
there's hardly anything left tobe called Glacier National Park.

AJ (01:16:40):
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'vejust I imagined coming in what
you would say, and what we wouldsay.
Yeah.
Does that light the freeze?

Kim (01:16:58):
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

(01:17:18):
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.

(01:17:38):
When was that?
That was about eight years ago.

AJ (01:17:43):
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?

(01:18:03):
These things feel like bigshifts.
Yeah.

Kim (01:18:07):
They are.

AJ (01:18:08):
Yeah.

Kim (01:18:08):
There are so many big shifts happening, which is what
I was referring to early, thatearlier, that dichotomy of
there's still this evilhappening, you know, the killing
of our children and our youthwithout 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?

(01:18:31):
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.

(01:18:51):
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

(01:19:14):
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 yeah.

AJ (01:19:27):
I was well, I was just gonna say, I feel that.
Yeah, I feel that, and I I kindof feel it's important, like
that it's part of it to be ableto feel that.
Like to turn the light on.

Kim (01:19:40):
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 (01:19:53):
I've been waiting for a grizz.

Kim (01:19:55):
I've been calling it.
In the evening is a good timewe 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

(01:20:15):
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,

(01:20:38):
more of a celebratory way withthe powwow dancing.
Yes.
You know, of our double bustlesand our beautiful jingle
dresses, and so people come fromall 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.

(01:20:58):
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 (01:21:13):
Is there at least some kind of move to co-manage a place
like this, the national park?

Kim (01:21:21):
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.

(01:21:42):
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

(01:22:04):
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

(01:22:24):
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

(01:22:47):
different X's.
But for this particular leaseof 99 years for a dollar, um the
X's 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 it backin um control of our people and

(01:23:13):
keep it just as pristine andbeautiful 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.

(01:23:33):
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 atraditional treaty right that we
have as Pecani.
And it's hard to say thosewords to people because you're

(01:23:56):
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

(01:24:19):
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.

(01:24:40):
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 yearsago it was 1.8 million, and now

(01:25:02):
it's all the way to fourmillion.
Yeah, it's only going tocontinue to increase because
people, you know, they want tobreathe and they 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

(01:25:23):
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?

AJ (01:25:38):
Did you tell me you're a traveler?

Kim (01:25:40):
I am.
Oh yeah, you're good to go.
Okay, thank you.
It's so pretty.

AJ (01:25:44):
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 (01:25:59):
Yes.

AJ (01:26:00):
You both.

Kim (01:26:01):
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 be puton a reservation.
Yeah.
Last tribe.
Isn't that gorgeous?
Okay, so here's a little walkup to a little fall.

(01:26:23):
Would you like to go there?
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
You saw a blue jay.
Hey, look, there's a parkingplace.

AJ (01:26:35):
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
See, you talk about like youpull out music references.
Running Eagle Falls.
It still has all these 80names, huh?

Kim (01:26:45):
Even though it's not easy.
This was one of the first.
This was one of the first.
It was Trick Falls Forever.
Oh, really?
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.

(01:27:06):
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
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.

(01:27:27):
And so everything was oraltradition, but as we were
decimated, like just in sevenyears, we went from 60,000 to
3,800.
Just in seven years of smallpoxdiphtheria, you know.
So I think a lot was lost.

AJ (01:27:41):
Late 19th century?

Kim (01:27:44):
Yeah.
So um at the late 19th, early20th.
Yes.

AJ (01:27:50):
Yes, yes.

Kim (01:27:51):
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.

(01:28:12):
So we just have to get past thewhole suicide stuff.
Oh, I think I'll wipe myfingers.
Oh, maybe not.

AJ (01:28:24):
Wow.

Kim (01:28:25):
What tree is that?
This was just the sap from thatpine tree back there.
Yeah.

AJ (01:28:32):
It's very piney.

Kim (01:28:33):
It's very sticky.

AJ (01:28:34):
It's very pine.
Oh, it smells delicious.
Isn't that one?
You can have the sticky stuffon the smell.
Oh my lord, look at thatwaterfall.

Kim (01:28:42):
Boy.
Oh.
Oh, they've already gone down.
Okay.

AJ (01:28:47):
It's all sticky, too.
Oh, it's just gorgeous, isn'tit?

Kim (01:28:52):
Beautiful.

AJ (01:28:53):
So I instantly feel shifted.
You feel that too, huh?
Yeah.

Kim (01:28:57):
Absolutely.

AJ (01:28:58):
They finally fixed the bridge.
Oh, the colours of the rocks.
Yeah.
Absolutely amazing.

Kim (01:29:14):
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 burner,greenwood burners, you know,
like we had different bands aswell.

(01:29:34):
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, so her name isThunder Charging Woman.

(01:29:55):
Yeah.
And then my daughter wanted herfirstborn named after me.
She's a pretty charging woman.
And then my other son wantedhis daughter, his firstborn
daughter, long, um, long timecharging ones the same as me.
So it was beautiful.
I think we were just having kindof a tool that conversation.

(01:30:19):
Um before it was very angerinspiring, and because we were
treated so poorly in the park,you know, even 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

(01:30:40):
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 still beautiful that people
can come here and enjoy this.
And so you can throw that othermindset away and not let those
things happen or inside of youinternalize it and just be so um

(01:31:04):
so proud because once youtravel 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-mechanized island off ofSavannah, Georgia, it's called
Austabaugh Island.
So it was the EnvironmentalProtection Conservation Society.
It was the first conference I'dever gone to.

(01:31:25):
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
along this island, and there'sa big slug or swamp or whatever

(01:31:47):
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.
My cousin grabbed me like whatare you doing?
And it's like people here theyjump out if there's a bear to
take a picture of the grizzly.
It's like, what are you doing?

(01:32:08):
You're 50 years old if you'venot learned anything.
Yeah.
But how I think of howawe-inspiring and how beautiful
it is to go other places.
And so you flip that mentality,right?
From not really being welcomedin the park to now just it's
beautiful.
But I still say what is nowcalled.

(01:32:30):
I won't give that up.
Depending on well, shall wejourney forward or you guys want
more time here?
Oh, look at the littlechipmunk.
This is the berry we lived offof.
This is Savus Berry.
So this is our whole diet here.
This is the holy berry.
Yeah, why?
We can't start any ceremonywithout this berry, and we can't

(01:32:53):
end any ceremony without thisberry.
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.
We dried it, pick it, dry it.
So uh another month they'll beready, and we pick them and now

(01:33:17):
we have freezers, but in thedays, you know, just not too
long past, and even still manypeople still dry the berry, and
then when we have our fallceremony, you know, um, or
spring, because we've comethrough winter, but the berries
aren't growing yet.
Then we had the dried berrythat we make our soup in our for
the ceremony.
Or like me, you have them inthe freezer.

AJ (01:33:38):
Yeah.

Kim (01:33:39):
So this is the main berry, our whole main, that and the
buffalo, the ini.
Yeah.

AJ (01:33:45):
It's brought to mind Robin Wall Kimmer's book on the
service berry.

Kim (01:33:48):
Oh, yeah.
So 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 Mount and Bonnie,
Sachatello Sawyer.
She started the strengtheningthe circle, and some people say,

(01:34:08):
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 acircle where tying just
different indigenous women umthroughout Montana to each

(01:34:34):
other.
And she brought Robin WallKimmerer 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 BradingSweetgrass on uh audio.
Yeah.
I haven't read it.

AJ (01:34:55):
We listened to it coming across the East.

Kim (01:34:58):
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.

(01:35:19):
Yeah.
I don't know if it's out onaudiobook yet.

AJ (01:35:22):
Yeah.
She's certainly moved.
Non-Indian folk, you know?
She's really reached inpowerful ways, I think.

Kim (01:35:31):
Oh, good.

AJ (01:35:32):
Yeah.

Kim (01:35:33):
Good.
I know uh one for a good readthat you may get a kick out of,
especially after being todifferent Indian countries.
Yeah.
Areas is uh neither wolf nordog.
I was so angry at this book.
It was required reading in oneof my classes, the first couple
of chapters, the arrogance, theentitlement of the author.

(01:35:56):
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 in.
Because I was going to give upreading it like ten times and
throw it against the wall.
It was so hurtful to me, thearrogance of this guy and the

(01:36:19):
lack of appreciation and thelack of gratefulness, right?
But as the book goes on, it'sthese old Indian, like at
wounded knee.
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
Lake, maybe the massacre orsomething, and the grandfather

(01:36:40):
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 in uh wounded me.
And so then it's all hisarrogance for a few, three
chapters.
But as the book builds, it'sthis beautiful transition of him

(01:37:02):
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 him.
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 (01:37:21):
It takes because yeah, the the temptation, and many would
take it to paint yourself as theauthor in the best of possible
light.

Kim (01:37:29):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So it takes him to own that.
Absolutely.
Absolutely, yeah, it is.

AJ (01:37:35):
But but for the better.
Like for the better.
Yeah, for the better.
If you can own your stuff.

Kim (01:37:40):
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 don't want to bereading 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.

(01:38:02):
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.

(01:38:22):
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 we still arenot included in the industry of
it that would give hope, thatwould save lives, that would,
you know, keep people fromtaking their own lives, which is

(01:38:45):
such a such a hard thing.
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.

(01:39:09):
So uh last year we had all highschool students.
This year we have uh four highschool and two uh first year
college.
So just trying to inspire.

AJ (01:39:20):
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 (01:39:30):
Here, I'll show you proton.

AJ (01:39:33):
You're right, Kim.
It opens up opportunity,doesn't it?
Being adjacent and with the newwell, the reclaimed land.
Yes, um, the opportunity,because 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 clamor these days.

(01:39:55):
Like there are places like theones you're envisioning on that
land, they go in numbers.

Kim (01:40:00):
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 we had a crew working on our
marketing, you know, ourfeasibility study for the
processing plant.

(01:40:21):
And he's like, Kim, you guysare small, but you're mighty,
and but we can't do it all byourselves.
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 that people mightwant to.

(01:40:41):
And how do you what do you callit?
Do you call it ecotourism,cultural tourism, you know, do
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, there was so many people.
Even in this pouring rain.

(01:41:03):
And you know, how do you createwhat he's done to bring these
people together to bring themtogether up here?
Because there's also the um youknow, the best kept secrets
left under the road kind ofpolicy of um interaction with
native people, our mentality'schanging to where people really

(01:41:25):
truly want to come and be a partof this, be a part of the
change.
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 theway, not only do you get to go

(01:41:46):
and see some Indians, but youcan see all this, right?
That's really not how I want tosay anything.
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 or

(01:42:08):
even to like one person um whomet, you know, one of our
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

(01:42:28):
and um comforting and andproviding this rebar, this uh
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

(01:42:53):
of the other way.
I don't know.
To me, that seems like veryhard, a harder way to deal with
death.

AJ (01:42:59):
Yeah, but 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 (01:43:12):
Yeah, expensive.
I mean, everything.
Oh yeah.
My uh cousin who just left themorning that you arrived, lost
her son recently.
And she said everything, it wasso transactional, everything
was money, everything washorrendous amounts of money.
Money that should never havebeen, you know, things should
never have been at that level ofexpense.

(01:43:35):
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
their memory and their remains.

(01:43:56):
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 thatyou know you say, how do you
feel about this?
Well, when I can't get my ownparking place, I tell you how I
feel.
I feel like I'll just parkanywhere I want.
There you go.

(01:44:16):
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 (01:44:31):
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.
Where you could do it.
It was an old cemetery, sort ofalmost, I think almost, if not
disused, in a in a rural area.
Uh as we could just go and doit.
In a simple pine box.

(01:44:51):
Yeah.

Kim (01:44:52):
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 through toI'm just kidding.
I'm just kidding, but please,no hearse and no, you know, all
of the expense and more expenseand more expense.
Yeah.

AJ (01:45:06):
That's why when I saw that scaffolding up with Kelsey, I
was like, I'd go that.
I mean, yeah.
For me, it's probably more takeme out to the ocean and feed me
two sharps.
Yeah, but the people the the isgive me an is funeral.
Yeah, yeah.
But you can't do that's illegalto drop drop yourself in the
ocean.
It's illegal around it.

Kim (01:45:28):
Yeah, you just don't tell anybody, right?
Yes.
You just you just do it.
So this is Cinepaw.
Right here is Cinepaw.
What an extraordinary this wasmy grandmother's favorite place
as well.

AJ (01:45:40):
Really?

Kim (01:45:41):
So when she passed, I came and brought her uh 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 a it was a
forcible reaction, right?
And so the the thing was tobreak down the bloodlines, and

(01:46:04):
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

(01:46:27):
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 knowstages 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.

(01:46:47):
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.

(01:47:08):
And you can look at um, you canGoogle Glacier National Park,
Receding Glaciers, or then andnow.

AJ (01:47:17):
Amazing little forms on the slope, right?

Kim (01:47:20):
Yeah.

AJ (01:47:20):
And over there just sitting up.

Kim (01:47:23):
That's those old ones watching over us.
Yeah.
Come on, goats.
Come on, grizzlies.
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.
Yeah.
And so my grandmother, who wasin Carlisle all her life, um,

(01:47:46):
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
apart.
Very it's very delicate.
And bring it home to her, andshe had her mason jars.
She would fill them with waterand food coloring.

(01:48:08):
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 thrill for oh,here's one here.
And back then they didn't havenice cars and you know, to be

(01:48:28):
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.
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

(01:48:51):
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.
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

(01:49:13):
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?
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.

(01:49:34):
She told us there's bad thingsburied 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.
Well, the Atomic EnergyCommission in 1961 um made a
proposal to our tribe to burynot less than one million

(01:49:56):
gallons of irradiated wastewaterand byproducts from the
enrichment of uranium up toplutonium for the bombs that
were dropped on Nagasaki andHiroshima.
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

(01:50:19):
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
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

(01:50:40):
product, etc.
And they didn't even knowthemselves the 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.
And so they um they uhrequested, 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.

(01:51:05):
If you look for white spotsthat are moving, you will spot a
goat.
Um, a mountain goat.
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

(01:51:28):
council meetings and the minutesof the council meetings, and
and I found this collection ofcouncil meetings of all the
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

(01:51:49):
while she was there uhministering to the people and to
native people.
Um the people of the city burntthem out.
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

(01:52:09):
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
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 burnt out.
And when they burnt all theirlodges, they moved up to the

(01:52:32):
dump.
So they're finding all thesepieces of metal and wood, and
you know what our winters arelike nine months of you know
they were very harsh back then,40 below, 60 below, and they're
trying to save their childrenliving 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?

(01:52:53):
The minutes, to send her copiesof the monthly meeting with the
tribal um councils.
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

(01:53:15):
of our records.
And so I found these recordsthat um talked about the irony
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

(01:53:38):
council chambers and banged hisstaff on the floor and spoke in
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

(01:54:00):
thinking of of the explosion,you know, because of the
enrichment up to plutonium, um,because they'd already
experienced Nagasaki.
So this was in the 50s.
1961, I'm sorry.
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

(01:54:21):
year later.
So we thought maybe there wereI thought maybe there was some
cursory dumping that was takingplace.
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

(01:54:43):
land had cancer on that that 10mile stretch.
Really?
Yeah, except for one family whohad moved in there just a few
years before that and uh built alittle campground, but they
were non-native, they hadn'tlived there for so man, I dug
into that and I had 62 samplesites and you know, uh took
water from all the cricks andthe runoff and the beaver dams

(01:55:06):
and the house water, you know,coming out of their faucets,
their wells, everything.
But you know, I was in mygraduate studies, I wasn't
funded, I didn't have any money.
I was just trying to pay rentand pay rent up here because my
you know, a couple of my uh kidshad 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

(01:55:28):
just didn't have the money toreally um do the analysis on my
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 G
mass spec, but for me to lookfor the isotopes I was looking
for that were a byproduct of theenrichment of uranium up to

(01:55:49):
plutonium, like cesium andstrontium and and C uh and just
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.

(01:56:11):
So there could have beenstrontium, there could have been
cesium, there could have, youknow, there could have been
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

(01:56:34):
mass prednisone on my brain, butanyway, um, so I couldn't find
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

(01:56:55):
cancer cluster, but they wouldnot do it, and it was so hard to
get medical records, etc.
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.

AJ (01:57:12):
Oh right.

Kim (01:57:13):
But people had leukemia and they had um different forms of
cancer, so the primary cancerwasn't the same.
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 (01:57:32):
It's pretty funny how we it's classic reductionism, isn't
it?
Yeah.
There's a clear pattern at adevastating one.

Kim (01:57:39):
Right.
It's like, ah no, it doesn'tquite losing two or three
members of your 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

(01:57:59):
waste from I think it was here,wasn't it, Poppy?

AJ (01:58:01):
I thought so.
Yeah.
Take it from here.
Oh and of course, where wouldthey propose to put it?
Right.
Aboriginal community.

Kim (01:58:08):
Oh, of course.
Not in my backyard.
You should you should see thedocument, you should see the
language of this document.
It is your patriotic duty.

AJ (01:58:17):
Yeah.

Kim (01:58:17):
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

(01:58:39):
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

(01:58:59):
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, my people might have Imight be going the wrong way.
So your podcasts are what is thename?
Is it like your Regenerationwith the twist of the stories of

(01:59:23):
things that work?
Mine's all been so negative.

AJ (01:59:25):
Let's talk about the good stuff.
Yeah, no, we've been talkingabout good stuff.
Don't remember that.
It's been there's been somegold.
It's like, oh yeah, this is whyyou record.
Like so we'll have a lot ofjust you know, conversations
like that, but then bits inbetween is like, oh, that was
amazing.

Kim (01:59:40):
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 man show.
Right, John?
I can't wait to explore.

AJ (01:59:56):
Thanks, Kim.
Thanks for being interested.
Yeah, definitely.

Kim (02:00:00):
Well that's also all those episodes you did recently for
the RSA.

AJ (02:00:04):
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 Chief said downthere.

Kim (02:00:15):
What was his name?

AJ (02:00:16):
Uh Standing Bear, Chief uh Jeffrey Standing Bear.
Um Yeah, really interestingguy.
Doing some great stuff too.
No, I'll have to look him up.
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,

(02:00:38):
which is a big greenhouse inOklahoma.
They're growing pineapples inOklahoma to beautiful.
And uh they have the heat.
They got the heat and they hadthe pineapples, would you
believe, from Leonardo DiCaprio,one of 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

(02:01:02):
pull the heads and be growingpineapples in Oklahoma.
Oh nice.
But yeah, big greenhouse,multi-process multi-u-species
processing facility, uh mobileharvesting facility.

Kim (02:01:14):
Yes.

AJ (02:01:15):
You know, all these sorts of things.

Kim (02:01:16):
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

(02:01:39):
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?

(02:02:00):
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

(02:02:20):
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

(02:02:45):
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.

(02:03:07):
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

(02:03:27):
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.

(02:03:52):
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 it's a beautiful circle wherepeople are benefiting even more
than just people who have thefinancial ability to purchase

(02:04:15):
meat.
Um the food banks are buyingthis meat at fair market price
for this man.
So it's kind of like therethere's stores here in the
States called Goodwill, wherepeople bring in and donate.
And so the for-profit business,Goodwill, brings in all this

(02:04:36):
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.

(02:04:58):
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

(02:05:19):
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 it'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

(02:05:41):
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'teven, it's not enough gas to
drive 140 miles to the nextdoor, you know, to go to Callis
Well or Great Falls.
And she just sobbed in my armsand I smudged her off and

(02:06:01):
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

(02:06:23):
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.

(02:06:44):
It was just like we were livingin the middle of such a
surreal.

AJ (02:06:50):
Really?

Kim (02:06:50):
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 (02:07:04):
Totally.

Kim (02:07:05):
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, 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

(02:07:29):
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, you had to have a goodfour-wheel vehicle.
And so then we started skiingright in little neighborhoods.
Really?
Yeah, also grooming, you know,just going and grooming a little
track and skiing right next tothe small neighborhoods so kids
could just come.
Yeah.
They didn't have to haveoversight, and they could also

(02:07:52):
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 thenation.
We have Heart View, BirchCreek, Badger Creek, Two

(02:08:13):
Medicine, Um, East Glacier, uhStar School, uh, Fisher Flat,
Seville, St.
Marybab, and I'm missingsomeone.
Anyway, we have all of thesesubcommunities.
Oh, Blackfoot, that's it.

(02:08:33):
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, you had to
be.

AJ (02:08:45):
You have to come to that?

Kim (02:08:46):
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.
I dropped out in the ninthgrade myself and went for 28

(02:09:08):
years before, you know, um goingto school and now have quite a
bit more education than that.
Yeah.

AJ (02:09:17):
How many degrees you got?

Kim (02:09:19):
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

(02:09:39):
everything from the metaboliclevel, both environmentally and
um 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 and uhenvironmental chemistry.

(02:10:00):
So yeah, that many.
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 (02:10:14):
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 systems,and and obviously yeah,

(02:10:36):
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

(02:10:57):
because nothing was turning thelight on.
Right.
To have then found what Iloved, I felt that same hunger.

Kim (02:11:04):
Yeah.
So then you found the path.

AJ (02:11:07):
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.
Yeah, exactly.

Kim (02:11:27):
Whoa! Yeah.
So these are the in thekitchen.
This is why the railroad wasput through to annihilate the
buffalo and build these thislodge here and at Mini Glacier
for Teddy Roosevelt.

AJ (02:11:42):
Yeah, it looks like the one at Grand Canyon.
Yeah, as well.
Yeah, they're all the nationalparking system.

Kim (02:11:46):
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 (02:11:56):
Yeah.

Kim (02:11:57):
Yeah.
So this is the first CR flag.
The first business we've everbeen able to reclaim here.
Yeah.
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 (02:12:17):
It doesn't look like it.
We can't eat pizza.

Kim (02:12:21):
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 (02:12:39):
Man.

Kim (02:12:40):
Yeah.
But hopefully we regroup thatmoney.

AJ (02:12:44):
Yeah.

Kim (02:12:45):
Yeah.
And he's the one that owned thegrocery store before or that
little gas station.
Yeah.
So now he owns this wholehillside, and 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

(02:13:08):
Mississippi.

AJ (02:13:08):
Wow.
It's a beautiful.

Kim (02:13:10):
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

(02:13:31):
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.

AJ (02:13:47):
No, that's right, but I did it at the festival.
Worst drought in 50 yearswasn't.

Kim (02:13:52):
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 (02:14:02):
You were going to get on to the start of the Picards.
Sorry.
I distracted.

Kim (02:14:08):
Sorry.
So um coming from the Himalayasand seeing this beautiful
Mountain Shepherd businessmodel, um, and then with uh
being at the university andseeing so much research because
for uh doctorate in the Statesit has to be novel research,
something new, somethingunpublished, and so um a lot of

(02:14:30):
uh grants were being written andcareers built on research
within Indian communities,indigenous communities, um, but
they weren't benefiting anyonein indigenous communities, and
careers weren't being built hereat home.
And so um with being asked tobe on the Blyfe Nation

(02:14:52):
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.

(02:15:16):
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.

(02:15:37):
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

(02:15:58):
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

(02:16:19):
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

(02:16:39):
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

(02:17:00):
up at me.
He's like, Kim, you know, hewas so embarrassed, so deeply
embarrassed.
And um for this woman whohappened to be the director of
the Bridges to theBaccalaureate.
Right, who I immediately got ajob with so that I could change
what was going on within herbrain.
Cool.
And um, unfortunately, she wasnew to that program and she

(02:17:23):
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

(02:17:46):
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

(02:18:06):
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

(02:18:27):
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.

(02:18:47):
I just hadn't 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

(02:19:09):
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,

(02:19:32):
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

(02:19:52):
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?

(02:20:13):
Like we're a third world nationwithin a nation and and let um
uh create curriculum so that thestudy 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

(02:20:34):
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

(02:20:55):
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

(02:21:18):
Food and Ag Research and thesebeautiful humans back in DC, and
this program caught the visionof the traditional diet.
And then you could, you couldthe contract, the work contract
was to um help strengthen foodsystems policy to protect local
food systems, is the way wewrote it up, and then the

(02:21:38):
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

(02:22:01):
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.

(02:22:22):
And so created that program andthen, sorry, um ended up uh uh
handing it over to myadministrative assistant who
still has it running to thisday, and I focused on the honey
lodge after a couple years doingthat, putting up lodges, having

(02:22:42):
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 funding

(02:23:04):
from the Foundation of Food andAgricultural Agricultural
Research supported the dietstudy and back in 2018?
2018?
Yeah.
Yeah, but then COVID.

AJ (02:23:15):
Yeah, thank you.

Kim (02:23:16):
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.
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

(02:23:38):
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
boxes and take it out to the 11outlying communities,
especially to our elders and ourimmunosuppressed,

(02:23:58):
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.
And so um we put all our workaside.
We voted to put our work asideand then people just joined us
and volunteered with their carsand then the leadership um and

(02:24:22):
our senior citizens um startedcooking the meals and we
supplied over 48,000.
That's why the refrigeratorsand the yes, the tables, the
stainless work.
Um so while while the EagleShields um senior center here
put all this work into creatingall these hot meals a day.

(02:24:43):
We delivered 297 hot meals aday, and um I was in the
background because I was so sickon oxygen, getting sicker and
sicker because COVID hit me hardas well.
Um I was uh just the oddsbehind the curtain, they called
me, and I was just writing allthese little state grants that
um that uh brought in 2,000 or3,000 or anyway.

(02:25:09):
Yeah, so that was really thebirth of Pecani Lodge was those
48,000 meals and um the 13,800food boxes, and I was just
writing and writing and writingand writing and writing and
writing and writing and bringingin a thousand here and five
hundred there, and that's how umwe met this amazing man out of

(02:25:30):
California who um he called meone day and he's like, him I
didn't know who he was, and hesaid, I have to ask you a
question.
This young man is down here andhe said he worked for you, and
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

(02:25:53):
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
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.

(02:26:14):
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
way, but it I can only donate toa nonprofit.
And from what I've heard andgone up on your website, which
was very, very, very primary andstill is, um, I want to donate

(02:26:38):
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
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

(02:27:00):
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
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.

(02:27:23):
Uh Bonnie Satchatello out of uhHopa Mountain um would make a
$5,000 donation, we'd buy $5,000worth of food.
Then she made a $2,000, webought $2,000 worth of material
and they were making masks andit was very much a community
outreach.
And so um the real heart ofPecani Lodge uh was I guess um

(02:27:46):
beating stronger and strongerand stronger, and then we moved
from there to um once COVID waswe had more understanding and
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

(02:28:06):
puzzles that could be Walmartalways great us with that
sanitizer?
I do remember, I do.
Oh, it was horrible, yeah.
Just trying to keep everyonesafe and so that was really the
beginning of the heart, and thenum realized that we could never
really create the beautifulecotourism model that we wanted

(02:28:30):
to without trying to find somefunding, and I think now that we
have this land, we're going tobe one step closer.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

AJ (02:28:38):
That is beautiful.
Thanks so much for that, Kim.

Kim (02:28:43):
You guys are welcome.

AJ (02:28:46):
That was Long Time Charging Woman Kim Paul, founder and ED
of the Piikani Lodge HealthInstitute on Amskapi Piikani
Blackfeet Nation, with grandsonTrayson and my fam along for the
ride.
That was our first daytogether.
Our second was to come.
Every bit as special with someadditional prized company as we

(02:29:08):
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 BecHammersley for keeping the
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.

(02:29:32):
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
prompts.
You'll find a few photos on theepisode webpage too, with more
for subscribers as always,including of the wonderful
Powwow and North American IndianDays Festival generally.

(02:29:55):
And those Indian relays we'dbeen hearing about.
Wow.
For more on the Mika Matterscampaign, including This
American Life's podcast on thestory, I've included a link in
the show notes for that too.
In deep admiration for thelegacy Mika and her family are
honouring and creating.
And for those wondering, as Iwas, that Senator was Jon

(02:30:18):
Tester.
Finally, Kim, I have NeitherWolf Nor Dog on order.
The music you're hearing isRegeneration by Amelia Barden.
My name's Anthony James.
Thanks for listening.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

24/7 News: The Latest

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Culture as Medicine: Long Time Charging Woman Kim Paul at Amskapi Piikani Blackfeet Nation

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

24/7 News: The Latest

Dateline NBC

All Episodes

Culture as Medicine: Long Time Charging Woman Kim Paul at Amskapi Piikani Blackfeet Nation

My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark