It is easy to forget that, as Coloradoans, we live in one of the most envied states in the nation. A lack of saltwater notwithstanding, our state abounds in natural beauty and fascinating Western history. We get to live in one of America’s prime destinations, where the roof of the Rocky Mountains harbors world-class ski mountains and many of America’s most iconic and beautiful mountain towns. People from many eastern states dream for a lifetime of getting the chance to spend just a few days in the wonderland that is our backyard.

With such a scenic bounty at our doorstep, it’s easy to take it for granted. We’ve seen the Flatirons and the Maroon Bells; driven Trail Ridge Road and the Pikes Peak Highway; and visited most of the famous mountain ski towns. Now what? Well, we just need to look a little closer because, in the obscurity behind the hype of these iconic locations are layers upon layers of incredible “staycation” opportunities that even many long-time residents of Colorado may not be familiar with or have thought about as destinations.

Here are just a handful of those less obvious staycation ideas that might remind you of all the discoveries still to be made in our big and beautiful state if we’re willing to look a little closer.

Cortez and the Canyons of the Ancients

Colorado’s written history covers only a tiny blip of time in the long march of ancient human habitation. Around the time of the Chinese Song Dynasty, about a thousand years ago, Puebloan peoples were building extraordinary stone structures by hand among sandstone cliffs in the southwestern part of Colorado. Mesa Verde National Park represents some of the best preserved of these dwellings, but I’m focused on an area on the other side of Cortez from the famous national park. In a seemingly empty high desert expanse to the northwest of Cortez, extending to the Utah state line, there is a vast and contorted canyonscape called Canyons of the Ancients. It is here, and not the much more compact Mesa Verde, where there exists the greatest concentration of archeological sites in all of North America.

You read that correctly. Colorado’s Canyons of the Ancients National Monument is one of the nation’s newest national park system units. This gold mine of ancient native history and desert scenery went remarkably unrecognized and unprotected until the year 2000 when President Clinton used the Antiquities Act and designated it as a very large 176,000 acre national monument.

According to the National Park Service there are over 8,000 documented archeological sites here. But, remarkably, they believe there are over 22,000 additional undocumented sites within the monument, from stone granaries, to lookouts, to dwellings, to still undiscovered petroglyphs. They are not easy to find or get to, and it should remain that way. If you have an adventurous nature and some outdoor exploration skills, a sense of true discovery still awaits here. Be sure to respect what you find and leave it undisturbed, as these are not only historic, but also sacred.

St. Elmo and Tincup – Ghosts of the High Road

In 2018, there was somewhat of an uproar about people calling Tincup a “ghost town.” It seems the three year-round residents wanted to correct the record. There is a similar mystery on the other side of the high Sawatch Mountains to the east of Tincup in the historic mining town of St. Elmo.

Do people live there year-round or not?

It’s hard to confirm one way or another. Regardless, these two high country places were once both thriving mining centers of approximately 1,500 to 2,000 residents at their near simultaneous peaks in the late 1800s.

This history is common across Colorado’s mountains—of booming mining towns sprang up overnight to thousands of residents only to collapse into oblivion within a generation. Many of them disappeared into true “ghost towns,” their existence betrayed only by a few deteriorating old cabins and mine leavings. Some of them were rejuvenated into ski resorts or county seats. And still others, like St. Elmo and Tincup, hung onto a delicate thread of existence on the edge of oblivion, preserved only by the tenacity of a few stubborn old timers and then later a few wandering new-age hermits looking for a place to hide from a crazy world.

One thing cannot be denied: these old relics of the gold and silver mining eras are fascinating and set in stunningly beautiful locations. You need to own or rent a high-clearance four-by-four vehicle to link St. Elmo to Tincup over the tundra of Tincup Pass. At over 12,100 feet, the pass is one of Colorado’s highest and most beautiful.

On the east end is St. Elmo, a long drive up a back road from the Buena Vista area, reachable by a standard car. This gorgeous approach will take you right between two of Colorado’s fourteeners—Mounts Princeton and Antero. In St. Elmo, you’ll find a very well-preserved set of old cabins and storefronts and a couple of operating businesses in the summer, one of which will sell you a little bag of seeds for a couple of bucks.

The seeds are for a gang of overweight ground squirrels and chipmunks who live in a woodpile across the street and will eat out of your hand. Normally, feeding wildlife is a bad idea, but these particular critters are too corrupted for that to matter anymore. They waddle around scarfing seeds from the hands of giggling kids (and some adults) every day in summer and sleep off their extra fat in winter. Not a bad life.

From St. Elmo with your 4X4 you are likely to find yourself among a convoy of other off-roaders. You continue up and over the Sawatch Mountains on this rough road that, in the early 1900s, was considered a state highway. You’ll drop down the other side of the Continental Divide eventually to St. Elmo’s ghost twin, Tincup.

The town was originally incorporated as Virginia City, but that name was already taken elsewhere, which confused the postal service. It was then renamed Tincup because the first prospector to discover gold in the area was an 18-year-old kid who brought back his loot in a tin cup.

Despite its quaint name, Tincup was very much the outlaw town in its day. The Marshall was shot dead in 1882, and his replacement was shot down the next year in 1883. Back then the town was similar in population to present-day Buena Vista, complete with hotels, schools, many saloons and all the other trappings of a late nineteenth-century western mining town at over 10,000 feet in the Rockies.

Today, Tincup is much quieter, nicer, and likely prettier as the forest continues to regenerate along the formerly stripped hillsides, and much of the mountainous territory around Tincup (and St. Elmo) is now protected wilderness and national forest land. Indeed, these twin pseudo ghost towns are set in one of Colorado’s most beautiful corners

 Colfax Tourist Marathon

Colfax has quite a reputation. Its nickname is “the longest, wickedest street in America.” Longest is a fact. Colfax avenue is indeed the longest continuous city street in America at 26.5 miles, just beating the distance of a marathon.

Now, here’s an idea for a staycation that may really seem “out there.” But let’s turn away for a moment from those beautiful mountains to the west and look into the gritty underworld of Denver’s urban core. Colfax Avenue is Denver’s original Main Street. It cuts a swath across the entire city, from Aurora, in the east, to the edge of Golden in the west. Along much of this line a battle is taking place between Colfax’s seedy and gritty past, and more recent attempts at “upscaling” and rejuvenation. But as they say “Colfax is gonna Colfax.”

Despite its scary reputation, some of it very much deserved, there are gems to be found along these historic 26.5 miles if you’re the immersive urban tourist type, or just want to perhaps get out of your comfort zone. But, be prepared, you will see some “stuff” along the way.

The idea here is an urban slow marathon—an irregular multi-day journey along the entire length of America’s longest street and its nearby hoods. Keep your head on a swivel, seek discomfort, keep an open mind, and you might just have a blast.

The potential haunts and sights are way too numerous to list here, so we’ll stick with just a handful, rapid-fire style (and not necessarily in geographic order): Check out some vinyl at Twist and Shout, an old school record store. Catch a band at the Bluebird Theater and then follow it up with some punk at Lion’s Lair. Take a four-block side-trip north on the west side of the city to Sloans Lake Park. Find weird and cool outdoor art along the green line of 40 West Arts. Roll some strikes at the old school Holiday Bowling and Billiards. And, of course, love it or hate it, you can’t consider a Colfax tour complete without a dinner (or at least a famous sopapilla) at Casa Bonita.

Whether you are new to Colorado and looking to find a unique place to “staycation,” or a long-time resident searching for some new haunts, Colorado truly has many options close to home. The three examples here are just a sample of the wonderful secrets our state still harbors. So, get out there and explore your own beautiful back yard!

The post Staycations: Unexpected Historical Gems of Colorado appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Editor’s Note: Press Releases are provided to Yellow Scene. In an effort to keep our community informed, we publish some press releases in whole.

BOULDER, Colo. – The City of Boulder extends its gratitude to Tribal Representatives for nominating the city for an American Cultural Resources Association (ACRA) for its consultation and engagement efforts with American Indian Tribal Nations, which the city received at the association’s annual conference last week. The award honors organizations that have “demonstrated accomplishments and commitments above and beyond those required to meet laws and regulations pertaining to cultural resource management.”

“City staff who work with Tribal Representatives were deeply touched by the thoughtfulness Tribal Representatives put into their nomination that led to the city winning ACRA’s Industry Public Sector award,” said City Manager Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde, thanking Tribal Representatives who signed a nomination letter and those who wrote their own letters of support that helped the city win the award. “While this award is an honor, the true achievements are the meaningful relationships we have built with Tribal Nations and Tribal Representatives over the years.”

In an award nomination letter, co-developed by the Keystone Policy Center and Living Heritage Anthropology, Tribal Representatives recognized that the city “has been a respectful, adaptive partner who has invested time, energy and resources into making our requests happen.” Notable collaborative efforts between the city and Tribal Nations have included:

• Creating a collaborative concept plan with Arapaho and Cheyenne Tribal Representatives for the Fort Chambers – Poor Farm property, which has a community connection to the Sand Creek Massacre.

• Developing a new, collaborative Memorandum of Understanding with Tribal Nations, which has been discussed at several city-tribal consultations since 2019.
• Co-creating an ethnographic-education report, which is still in development, to welcome Tribal Representatives to share their enduring cultural, traditional and historical connections to the Boulder Valley.

• Collaborating to develop a community program to welcome Tribal Nations to share their perspectives, histories, cultures and traditions with the Boulder community.?While heavy snow canceled the event, Tribal Nation Representatives and singers and dancers who were in Boulder before the snow fell still celebrated their traditions, cultures and histories with songs and dancing.

• Renaming Settler’s Park to The Peoples’ Crossing – which has become an important symbol for the city’s ongoing collaboration with Tribal Nations – and helping the city to fulfill a key part of the city’s Indigenous Peoples Day Resolution.

• Removing harmful signs that included problematic and harmful imagery and narratives about Indigenous Peoples.

• Maintaining ongoing dialogue and sustaining relationships through a city-Tribal Nation Working Group that meets quarterly.

“Since the signing of their Indigenous People’s Day resolution in 2016, the City of Boulder has demonstrated a sincere commitment to acknowledging and addressing the history of Indigenous removal and mistreatment in the Boulder area, incorporating Indigenous voices into city-wide education and management programs, and cultivating authentic partnerships between Tribal and City governments,” the ACRA award nomination letter said. “As Tribal Representatives of the Working Group and Tribal Consultation, we have worked collaboratively with the City of Boulder since 2019 and agree that Boulder is a model to other cities in their Tribal Consultation efforts.”

City staff thank the Keystone Policy Center and Living Heritage Anthropology for their guidance in supporting the city’s tribal consultation efforts over the years. Additionally, the city recognizes the Human Relations Commission and community members for developing the Indigenous Peoples Day Resolution, which has been critical in helping the city build and strengthen relationships with Tribal Nations.

“As we look to the future, we remain focused on strengthening the relationships we have been fortunate to develop with Tribal Nations and look forward to more opportunities to collaborate and work together in the future,” Rivera-Vandermyde said.

The post City wins award for engagement and consultation with Tribal Nations | Press Release appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

By Alex Hager, KUNC

The arid West is getting drier, and shrinking water supplies pose a boatload of risks to human health throughout the region.

Those findings come from a new federal report on climate change that also covers a broad range of hazards brought on by changing climate patterns due to human activity. Those hazards span from flooding to wildfires, from drought to rising sea levels. The Fifth National Climate Assessment identified drying in the Colorado River basin as one of the greatest climate risks facing the Southwest, as well as the region’s biggest area for future climate mitigation and adaptation.

The problem hinges on one key fact: The Southwest is getting drier, and it’s likely not a temporary phenomenon. Climate change is shrinking the amount of water on the surface and underground, shaping a trend that goes beyond the normal ebb and flow of occasional drought. Instead, scientists say it’s a permanent resetting of the baseline for how much water the region should expect to see each year, a process called “aridification.”

Higher temperatures mean a shorter snow season and less water piling up as snow. Two-thirds of the Colorado River starts as snow in the state of Colorado. At the same time, the snowmelt that does fall is being absorbed by thirsty soil and failing to make it all the way to rivers.

Heidi Steltzer, a professor of environment and sustainability at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, said that means people living in a dry region will have to shift their behaviors and develop practices that use less water, changing from “a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset.”

“If we don’t have a lot of snow in any given winter, or over a five or 10 year stretch, where and how can we shift to some of these behaviors that ensure everybody has enough, even if it’s not as much as we used to have?” Steltzer asked.

Steltzer didn’t work on the Fifth National Climate Assessment but helped author a major United Nations climate report in 2019. She said rural communities, which often steward much of the nation’s land and natural resources through agriculture, should be a bigger part of conversations about combating climate change.

The new federal climate report doesn’t include many new scientific findings, but rather summarizes a lot of existing research and puts it in a context that is accessible to the general public. It also highlights the human health risks brought on by climate change. Across the country, those risks include heat-related deaths, breathing problems induced by poor air quality and wildfire smoke, and mental trauma brought on by natural disasters.

The report said already-marginalized groups—such as people of color, people with disabilities, and people experiencing homelessness—are disproportionately vulnerable to those climate-related health hazards.

The assessment’s authors say the latest report has an increased focus on climate justice compared to previous reports. In the Southwest, the report highlights drought-related health risks for Native American communities. Heather Tanana, a law professor at the University of California Irvine who focuses on tribal water infrastructure and Indigenous health policy, helped author the report.

The sun shines on homes in To’hajiilee, New Mexico on November 15, 2021. Like many other tribal communities in the Southwest, limited access to clean water poses health risks to residents. (Alex Hager/KUNC)

“In the Southwest, a lot of Native American homes don’t have infrastructure to get clean running water or sanitation,” she said. “The climate impacts of drought or flooding in an area where infrastructure is not sufficient is just going to make those inequities worse.”

Tanana said fixing those problems starts with better data about the impacts of climate change.

“When we have better data, we’re able to be more adaptive to implement climate solutions,” she said.
Climate data about tribal communities, in particular, has historically been limited.

Water policymakers across the Southwest are currently working on new ways to reduce demand as a response to shrinking water supplies brought on by climate change. State leaders are under pressure to agree on new water management rules by 2026, when the current set of guidelines for managing the Colorado River expires. They are also facing steady calls to give tribal groups a larger voice in those negotiations.

This story is part of ongoing coverage of the Colorado River, produced by KUNC and supported by the Walton Family Foundation.

The post New Climate Report Shows Hazards Of Drought To Human Health In The Southwest appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Editor’s Note: Press Releases are provided to Yellow Scene. In an effort to keep our community informed, we publish some press releases in whole.

(Boulder, CO – August 17, 2022) – The Dairy Arts Center is happy to announce the opening of the Creative Nations Sacred Space–a permanent, dedicated space for Indigenous artists at the Dairy Arts Center–on Friday, September 16th from 6 PM to 8 PM. The opening will begin with a traditional blessing officiated by Harvey Spoonhunter to officially open the space at 6 PM. The Sacred Space Opening will also feature a Native Art Exhibition curated by Robert Martinez and Bruce Cook, featuring works by Arapahoe, Cheyenne, and Ute artists. The art will be on display in the Sacred Space, which is free and open to the public, on view through November 2022. Robert Martinez and Bruce Cook will give a live art demonstration for attendees. Refreshments will be available for purchase.

Founded by five Indigenous artists representing the Hunkpapa Lakota from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Diné, Oglala Lakota, Mnicoujou Lakota band of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, Southern Ute, Pyramid Lake Paiute, and Duckwater Shoshone, Creative Nations is a collective of Indigenous artists whose guiding principles include: providing an accurate representation of Native arts in Colorado and surrounding areas; creating opportunities, resources, and platforms for emerging artists and youth through exhibitions, performances, and mentorship; and fostering empowerment of women and relatives through Indigenous cultural traditions to bring about a balance between the masculine and feminine.

“The concept for Creative Nations began during the Dairy’s pandemic closure when many of us witnessed horrific injustices and ongoing manifestations of historic power imbalances across the nation,” states Dairy Arts Center Executive Director Melissa Fathman. “The Dairy prides itself on presenting programs that champion a variety of cultures and art disciplines each year and yet the very people who used to live here, who were murdered or forced off the land the Dairy now occupies, have never been invited into this community. Acknowledging ancestral lands is important and I am glad more organizational leaders are choosing to do that, but I wanted to do more. I wanted to also acknowledge people and their creations. I cannot give back the land, but I can give indigenous artists a dedicated space at the Dairy to reconnect and come together in healing, celebration, and creation.”

During its first year, while the Sacred Space was being built, Creative Nations produced many programs in the Dairy’s galleries and theaters, including

• An exhibition that brought awareness to the legacy of violence perpetrated against Native women and children.

• Several live events including an Indigenous People’s Day Art Market featuring Native artisans with traditional social dance and music performances.

• A sold-out Native comedy showcase; a touring production of Bear Grease, a Native take on the nostalgic film, Grease.

• A Navajo blues guitarist concert featuring Levi Platero.

Creative Nations continues to grow and flourish with the recent hire of Marty Strenczewilk as Creative Nations’ first Managing Director. Strenczewilk is an emerging Ojibwe playwright and co-founder of an NYC Off-Broadway theater company, who is offering his skills to launch a Native Playwright series, the only opportunity of its kind in the state of Colorado. Through this initiative, Native playwrights and storytellers will see their work come to life in full productions at The Dairy, creating job opportunities for native crew, performers, and production teams behind the scenes. The new Sacred Space provides exhibition space, rehearsal space, and an intimate setting for readings and workshops, while Creative Nation’s access to every theater at The Dairy at no cost provides opportunities for full-scale production and world premieres of new work.

“The opening of the Sacred Space is an important moment for Colorado-based indigenous artists, as a tangible action toward Land Back to the first peoples of this land,” said Marty Strenczewilk, Managing Director of Creative Nations. “This space will provide real opportunities for Native artists to create new work and share it with the people of Colorado.”

Upcoming programming that Creative Nations’ artists are excited to bring to the Dairy includes the annual Indigenous People’s Day Weekend Art Market. The market will be open from October 7-10th, where patrons can purchase art from native vendors and food from native restaurants. The weekend will also feature traditional native dance groups, native music, a reading of a new native play, a native fashion show, and screenings of native films throughout the weekend.

For more information, please contact Creative Nations Managing Director, Marty Strenczewilk or Dairy Arts Center Executive Director, Melissa Fathman.

About Creative Nations

Creative Nations’ Sacred Space is a permanent onsite establishment for Indigenous Artists at the Dairy Arts Center in Boulder, Colorado. The goals at Creative Nations are to create a space for creation and collaboration, as well as foster opportunities for all Indigenous artists to thrive. All donations given to Creative Nations will be put towards causes, projects, and programming that benefit Native arts.

For more information, visit: https://creativenations.art

About the Dairy Arts Center

The Dairy Arts Center is Boulder’s largest multi-disciplinary arts venue, hosting an array of theatrical performances, concerts, visual art galleries, films, comedy, dance productions, and more within 42,000 square feet of newly-renovated facilities. The building’s transformation from a milk processing facility to an arts hub in 1992 is a nationally recognized example of constructive urban development and renewal. The Dairy houses three ultramodern live performance theaters, several studio art galleries, and an 80-seat art-house cinema. From weekly events like Friday Night Weird to community gatherings, creativity is always being celebrated at the Dairy.

For more information, visit: https://thedairy.org

About the Curators

Robert Martinez was born in Wyoming on the Wind River Reservation in the small city of Riverton. He grew up a part of many different cultures as his lineage is Spanish, Mexican, Scotts Irish, French Canadian and Northern Arapaho. He graduated Riverton High School at 17 and through a scholarship, attended the Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design. He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts specializing in Painting & Drawing and minoring in sculpture. In 3 years and at age 19, he became the Youngest Native American to graduate from RMCAD at that time.

As he was brought up in the center of the reservation, his native heritage remains a constant inspiration and source of ideas for his work. Living among the hard-working people of the West and experiencing their issues also deeply influences his creations. The past and present resonate strongly in Wyoming and those historical and contemporary chords echo throughout his pieces.

Much of Robert’s current work uses the historical imagery, myths and stories of the West & Arapaho Culture combined with modern themes to create images that have a statement on the issues of today. Using intense vibrant colors and contrasting shades of light and dark, he paints and draws striking forms that are confronting and engage the viewer.

His paintings and drawings have been shown across the Nation and have garnered noted acclaim. His work is included in the permanent collections of the Red Cloud Heritage Museum, The Brinton Museum, The Plains Indian Museum at the Cody Center of the West, and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.

A strong supporter of Education and of the Arts, Robert devotes time to helping and mentoring emerging artists on his reservation in Wyoming and the western region. He gives back to the community by speaking about art topics, giving workshops, and demonstrates his style to schools, agencies, and art groups.

Bruce Cook

As a Haida artist, I live on the edge of the knife; walking a fine line, which allows me to create simultaneously in both the traditional and contemporary styles. Learning from the past masters allows me to explore and innovate to now survive in this modern age.

Over the years I have been steeped in the traditional methods of carving, painting, printmaking, and toolmaking.  I have worked with some very well-known artists, who have all helped hone my craft.  The skills and techniques that I now use in my creations are becoming more widely accepted in the creation of Haida art.  For me to think I have done this on my own, would be foolish, my works in contemporary mediums relate directly back to my Haida ancestry, all the while knowing my work is part of a larger picture that is ever-changing.

My artistic education and training in Haida Art began in 1975 from the inspiration of my uncle, Glen Cook’s argillite and wood carvings.  In 1988, I worked with Haida Master Artist Warren Peele on flat design.  I later met Haida Master Artist Robert Davidson, which led me to an apprenticeship with Steven C. Brown, the Seattle Art Museum Curator of Northwest Coast Art.  From 1994-95, I attended Northwest Indian College and pursued a degree in Native American Studies and art, focusing on screen-printing and sculpture.  I also earned a degree from The Evergreen State College in Native American Studies focusing on graphics and sculpture in 1997.  To this day, my education continues, having taken classes from Master Artists to learn techniques in mask making, tool making, and jewelry making, as well as carving techniques and model canoe design, just to name a few.

Some of my many exhibitions include a showing at the Washakie Museum and Cultural Center with the Northern Arapaho Artist Society and the National Geographic Society involving the Greatest Photographs of the West and a series of carvings and paintings in 2016.  In 2015, I was featured in the Resurgence: Rivers of the Pacific Northwest at the Stonington Gallery in Seattle, Washington.  Also in 2015, I was featured in a Native Art Show with the Northern Arapaho Artist Society at the Rock Springs Fine Art Center in Rock Springs, Wyoming.

The post Creative Nations Sacred Space and Native Artists Exhibition to Open at the Dairy Arts Center appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Photo: Paul Wedlake. Graphic Image: De La Vaca

Connor Ryan – the Natives Outdoors wunderkind who’s been making waves across media channels and in the sports world – spoke with Yellow Scene Magazine the same week his new film was premiering in Vancouver. It’s the same week that Natives Outdoors were announcing the winners of their new scholarship to help get Natives, well, outdoors.

Let’s start with the history. He was “born and raised in Boulder,” he tells me. “My grandfather was born on Standing Rock reservation. He was taken by the boarding schools so they, you know, stole him from his family, as a kid. He was sent to an orphanage… served in the Navy, and was a prisoner of war in World War II.” I’m already in pain from the story. As a Native man, myself, I’ve been tracking the boarding school genocide, the horrors of babies and small children stolen – as his grandfather was – and the thousands of bodies found on boarding school grounds this last year.

I recently watched his debuted film, Spirit of the Peaks. In one poignant scene, he says, “If you’re going to be in the present and the future [of the mountain and the land], the only good way to know how to do that is by looking back.” He was talking about knowing how to exist as participants and givers on the land, instead of as takers, but I couldn’t help see the connection to a later scene where a friend sings a Native song on the mountaintop, in full ski gear, and Connor points out that, “someone just like you has stood right there and sang their song. That’s what matters. It doesn’t matter whether they’re wearing buckskin or Gore Tex. That’s what counts; it’s the souls of the people. That’s the victory.” Knowing his family history is part of that victory.

The victory is real. The story of a boarding school baby surviving, a family line surviving, and Connor being one of the first major Native American skiers, fighting to make way for native folks to live beyond the image of Natives as invisible people, who must uniformly embody tradition to be real Natives. We are real, and exist here, in all spaces, regardless of who wants us where or where we’re expected.

Photo: Paul Wedlake

Connor reminds us instead that Natives are diverse, distinct, evolving, and able to embrace the mountains and the outdoors in all ways. “Whatever Natives do on native lands, that’s what Natives do,” he says.

Connor’s mom was raised in Los Angeles, but found her way to Boulder, this beautiful, idyllic base of the mountains town on the edge of “our traditional homelands as Lakota people,” he tells me.

“It’s an interesting place to be Native,” he said, the irony of the fact that it’s his traditional, historic homeland heavy in the spaces between words. “Usually I’m the only Native in each grade, growing up… You get a lot of weird, kinda like, the racism that comes from ignorance, where you tell people you’re Native and they’re like, ‘no, you’re not, you don’t wear feathers on top of your head.’”

Raised without the cultural reference and “traditional” upbringing – never Native enough, never American enough – he learned skiing as a young boy, but it was cost-prohibitive. In his 20’s he felt the call to go back, and he returned to find the spirit of the land, of his ancestors, waiting.

A trip to the Black Hills, with other Lakota folks he met locally, was the first time he really connected with his cultural practices. “They pulled me into ceremony,” he recalls. “Same time I got back into skiing was the same time I went to sweat lodge and started learning my ceremonies, and language, and culture.”

In his 20’s he felt the call to go back, and he returned to find the spirit of the land, of his ancestors, waiting.

While going to fill water in a bucket for the sweat lodge, he realized the connection of his ceremony to the creek, to the water melting from the mountains and flowing down, connecting him to his culture and to the animals and birds that live there. That was at the base of Eldora. “This way that I was falling in love with nature through skiing, it was really about these principles and ideas and themes from my culture. And for me, as a Native person who grew up… removed from the land, it was skiing that gave me the opportunity for the first time to go, ‘oh, this is where I belong. And I had a passion. I couldn’t avoid making that cultural connection. It was also around when I founded Natives Outdoors.”

Natives Outdoors began as people connecting online, and became a Native social media company. They’ve expanded their work. His work with them brought his passion, his culture, and his hope for Native people full circle. The Natives Outdoors scholarship is the outcome. “I feel like I’m so lucky right now…and I just want more native folks to be able to experience that.”

The scholarship is for five children and five adults. It’s sponsored by Ikon Pass, Salomon, Smith Optics, and Patagonia. The goal is to help other Natives who haven’t had the chance, or the resources, to get out there where they belong, to connect and experience what he has, to reclaim Native space on sacred mountains.”

“After all we’ve experienced,” he says in a defining moment in his film, “Indigenous joy – on the land – is radical.”

The post Connor Ryan: Indigenous Joy – on the Land – is Radical | The ACTIONISTS Series appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

More than 1,300* unmarked graves have been discovered in Canada in just the last several weeks. These were Indigenous children,. These graves were on the grounds of church-run schools in Saskatchewan and British Columbia — schools that operated for decades as part of a cultural genocide perpetrated on Indigenous people across this continent.

In the United States, the forced removal of these children from their tribes and families was codified with the Civilization Fund Act of 1819. The act was a partnership between Christian missions — both Catholic and Protestant — and the U.S. government that provided funding for education in order to drive the “civilization process” of Indigenous people. Canada mirrored the U.S. system with the passage of their Indian Act in 1876.

The most generous way to look at any of this is through the lens of compulsory cultural assimilation. But even that belies the actual horrors that were clearly committed in the halls of these schools — horrors that haunt us with over 1,300 bodies discovered almost as soon as ground-penetrating radar was acquired and used.

I have no doubt that we are seeing the very tip of an unfathomable iceberg where this story is concerned. It has all the elements we’ve come to be familiar with in terms of Church-led carnage, up-to and including the stench of cover up.

“In 1960, there may have been marks on these graves,” said Chief Cadmus Delorme of the Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan in an interview with Al Jazeera on June 24. “The Catholic Church representatives removed these headstones and today they are unmarked graves.”

Make no mistake, this absolutely will happen here in the U.S. as well. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland announced the launch of the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative on a call with the National Congress of American Indians at the end of June.

According to the New York Times, “The new program… will identify the facilities and sites where there may have been student burials, as well as the tribal affiliations of the children… It will also mine records from 1819 to 1969 that were kept by the department, which had oversight of the facilities, working with tribal nations, Alaska Native corporations and Native Hawaiian organizations. A final report will be sent to Ms. Haaland by April 1 (2022).”

Indeed, there are undoubtedly people still alive today who participated in the abuse, torture, murder and cover-ups that occurred in these “schools” — with the shield of the Vatican, other churches and U.S. officials keeping them from accountability. Justice for those perpetrators will be an uphill, arduous battle. And it’s incumbent upon us to deliver it. And I have next to zero faith that this nation will.

Accountability seems to be antithetical to what it means to be an American lately. We are literally fighting an ongoing cultural war internally on this very topic, thanks to the leadership of White Rage demanding an abridged and highly edited version of history taught in our schools that erases the stains of blood, slavery, oppression and genocide from our past. Because there can be no plight of cognitive dissonance if there’s no recognition of what happened at all.

And all this will be just another chapter torn from the margins of our history books and used for kindling. 

#YouAreOnNativeLand

*At the time of writing. Current numbers are nearing 5,300.

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Woven Wisdom vests at Umba. Photo by Zoe Jennings.

It’s a fact that before colonization, the Apache nation, the Arapaho nation, the Cheyenne nation, the Pueblo tribes, the Shoshone tribe, the Ute nation, the Comanche tribe, the Kiowa tribe, and the Navajo tribe inhabited the land that’s now called Colorado.

Yet, while doing research for this article, it was difficult to find many stores that sold Indigenous-owned fashion in Boulder.

When I asked, store owners pointed to traditional Native decor like feathers but told me they weren’t produced by Indigenous people. Therein lies the problem. Many people can admire the art and style of Indigenous cultures, but it doesn’t matter to them if the product is made cheaply from someone who is not indigenous or the branding is misleading.

At the same time, many Indigenous people make a living off of selling their art and merchandise. With the privilege of admiring and buying Indigenous-inspired clothes comes the responsibility to research where those products are coming from and if they actually benefit indigenous people. To this end, we’ve found a handful of Boulder stores that honor Indigenous people by selling their products.  While we’d love to see more – or any – native-owned clothing and apparel companies in the area, we’re in love with buying local and supporting indigenous communities around the world.

“It’s totally cool to honor the styles, but you know you don’t want to be borrowing from another culture without actually honoring the people making it.”

Zuni

This family-owned shop opened in 1992 and partners with artisans of the Navajo Nation, the Zuni Pueblo, and the Hopi Tribe. Members of the Indian Arts and Crafts Association, they only sell authentic items from indigenous communities.

Native jewelry at Zuni. Photo by Zoe Jennings.

Woven Wisdom piece found on the clearance rack. Photo by Zoe Jennings.

Umba

Umba is a family-run business with a mission to celebrate sustainable living solutions. Umba began its business by selling wearable art at music festivals and transitioned to a store. Their profits support their organic farm in Oregon.

Umba carries boots, jewelry, vests, and shirts from Woven Wisdom, a non-profit, conscious collaboration with Indigenous Mayan artisans from Lake Atitlan, Guatemala. Their jewelry line uses the traditional beading technique of the Tz’utujil Mayans. Their non-profit funds education, social entrepreneurship, and health and nutrition efforts in Lake Atitlan.

Umba carries indigenous-made, beaded jewelry. Photo by Zoe Jennings.

Woven Wisdom boots sold at Umba. Photo by Zoe Jennings.

El Loro

Opened in 1977, El Loro is a Boulder mainstay that was founded before Pearl Street Mall was conceived. The couple who started the store wanted to share treasures from their travels with the Boulder community. The store currently sells authentic jewelry from Indigenous communities with merchandise clearly labelled with the community’s name and sometimes the artist’s name.

“We’ve been buying from the same groups for the last 20 to 30 years, and that includes the Native American work,” said manager Angel Brick. “If you’re going to sell Native American work, you definitely want the census number for artifacts. That’s a pretty huge thing to have. If you look at our pieces, they do have that. Anything you have that’s the artist’s name, the area where they’re from, the specific styles that they’re working in is a huge thing with Native work. It’s totally cool to honor the styles, but you know you don’t want to be borrowing from another culture without actually honoring the people making it.”

It’s worth noting that El Loro has some pieces that are in Indigenous styles but are not produced by Indigenous people. An example is their selection of shoes by Minnetonka, a non-Native owned company. Their branding and the fact that they sell moccasins can be misleading to some, and in 2020 the company committed to work more closely with and donate some proceeds to Native communities.

“We can definitely tell you what’s Native and what’s not,” Brick said. “If something isn’t marked as Native, we won’t claim that it is.”

El Loro labels all Indigenous-produced items. Photo by Zoe Jennings.

Art Mart Gifts

Art Mart is a woman-owned and operated art, jewelry, and gifts store opened in 1989. They sell collections of jewelry made by indigenous artists. The Indigenous-made jewelry comes from Peyote Bird designs in New Mexico, Al Zuni Global Jewelry, and Navajo Shiprock Santa Fe.

Art Mart’s Indigenous jewelry selection. Photo by Zoe Jennings.

Fair Trade Winds

Fair Trade Winds sells fair trade merchandise from all over the world. They work mindfully with sustainable and ethical businesses that don’t benefit from exploitation of people or the planet. Their bamboo infinity scarves are hand woven by women in an Indigenous cooperative in Guatemala. Currently the scarves are the only item in the store made by Indigenous people.

Additional items made by Indigenous businesses can be purchased on their online store. The kids knit animal hats, and adult mittens are knitted by indigenous women in Peru and Bolivia. The staff was friendly and knowledgeable on what in-store merchandise was made by indigenous people. New merchandise is always being rotated into the Boulder store.

Fair Trade Winds’ infinity scarves. Photo by Zoe Jennings.

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This Op-Ed submitted jointly by the Ute Indian Tribe and Yankton Sioux Tribe. 

July 16, 2019 

Although the bald eagle has served as a symbol of American freedom and values for upwards of two centuries, it, along with its close relative the golden eagle, have held sacred religious and cultural significance for members of federally recognized Indian tribes since time immemorial. Unfortunately, the eagle’s decline prompted Congress to act and in 1940 it passed the Eagle Protection Act which established a general ban on the killing and possession of bald eagles and their parts, including its feathers. In 1962, Congress recognized that eagles and eagle feathers play a critical part in many Native American religions and cultures and that many Indian tribes possessed treaty protected hunting and gathering rights to collect and maintain eagle feathers. 

Ute Indian Woman, Durango, Colorado, 1915-20s

As a result, in what the Supreme Court would later call a “specific, narrow exception” Congress, in recognition of these treaty rights, amended the Act to allow the Secretary of Interior to issue permits allowing the possession and use of bald and golden eagles ”for the religious purposes of Indian tribes.” Under this authority, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has promulgated regulations that allow members of federally recognized Indian tribes to apply for permits authorizing the use and possession of eagles and eagle feathers for religious purposes. Consistent with the statutory emphasis on “Indian tribes,” rather than individuals, the current regulations provide that permits may only be issued if the applicant is a member of a federally recognized Indian tribe. 

While this regulatory permitting process has been largely unchanged since its inception over fifty years ago, the Fish and Wildlife Service has recently agreed to consider a petition from a group of individuals that are not members of a federally recognized Indian tribe to possess eagle feathers. On April 30, 2019, the Service published a Request for Public Comments related to a Petition submitted by Pastor Robert Soto and the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. The Becket Fund- a conservative law firm best known for representing the evangelical Christian owners of Hobby 

Lobby in their efforts to deny their employees access to health care based on religious freedom – represents Pastor Soto after he was charged with possessing upwards of 50 eagle feathers in violation of the Eagle Protection Act in 2006. 

The petition for rulemaking’s main request is to expand the Indian tribe exception in the Eagle Protection Act to allow any and all “sincere religious believers” the ability to possess and use eagle feathers. The open ended classification of “sincere religious believers” set forth in the Petition invites non-Indians from all walks of life to fabricate Indian heritage, culture, and religion for personal and commercial claim. In doing so it would incentivize the appropriation and commercialization of Native American culture and religious beliefs. 

Additionally, the Petition’s request to allow non-Indians access to eagle feathers is in direct conflict with the express language of the Eagle Protection Act, which limits the exception to “Indian tribes,” as well legal precedent established in US. v. Dion. There, the Supreme Court specifically rejected the “patronizing and strained view” that the Indian tribe exception applies non-Indians and held that Congress intended the Eagle Protection Act to abrogate Indian treaty rights to hunt eagles, and after considering the special cultural and religious interests at stake, included the exception as a specific recognition of the impacts to those treaty rights. 

Any change that would allow ”all sincere believers” to possess eagle feathers would also diminish the rights of members of federally recognized tribes to the benefit non-Indians in violation of the federal government’s trust obligation to federally recognized tribes. For example, under the Petition, tribal members would be placed in the same position as non-Indians as having to prove the sincerity of their religious beliefs in order to possess and use eagle feathers. Tribal members would also be would be made to compete against non-Indians in an already broken permitting system that currently requires tribal members to wait months, if not years, before obtaining eagle feathers, many times in a state of unusable decay. There can hardly be a more clear-cut violation of the federal government’s trust duties then to amend regulations to benefit non-Indians at the expense of Indians. 

Image via 5280, by Jeffrey Decoster, 2014

Most importantly, in seeking to allow non-Indians access to eagle feathers under the politically based Indian tribe exception, the Petition threatens to undermine tribal treaty rights and the fundamental basis of tribal sovereignty. The Petition does not even attempt hide this fact by explicitly claiming that: 

“[t]he politically unique relationship between federally recognized tribes and the U.S. government does not justify granting [federally recognized tribes] a religious accommodation while denying it to others who engage in similar religious practices.” 

With these words the Petition unveils its true purposes. It is not to fix the arbitrary federal recognition process that prevents indigenous groups – such as state recognized tribes and terminated tribes – from being able to access eagle feathers and other federal programs available to federally recognized tribes. And it does not seek to uphold and protect Native American religious practices which are consistently appropriated and degraded. Instead, by arguing that the unique, politically based relationship between the federal government and federally recognized 

Indian tribes does not justify a treaty right based exception to possess eagle feathers, the Petition is explicitly undermining the sovereign and political status thattribes enjoy as separate sovereigns pre-existing the U.S. Constitution. 

At a very commonsense level, the legal categories of “Indian tribe,” “federally recognized tribe,” and “member of a federally recognized tribe” are inherently political based classifications, as evidenced by their treatment in the U.S. Constitution, hundreds of treaties, laws, executive orders, and court decisions dating back to the founding of this country. This founding principle of federal Indian law has been upheld by the Supreme Court and serves to protect the government-to­ government relationship Indian tribes maintain with the United States against misguided challenges, such as the Soto Petition, that do not account for tribal histories or governmental status. 

In the end, the Soto Petition’s request to allow non-Indians access to eagle feathers represents a storythat Indian country is all too familiar with. It is an example of non-Indians – in this case the conservative Becket Fund for Religious Liberty – co-opting the struggle of Native Americans in an effort push their own agenda. Under the guise of supporting Native American’s efforts to preserve their culture and meaningfully practice their religious, this group has introduced a Petition that does neither, but instead seeks to diminish the rights and sovereignty of federally recognized tribes under the banner of religious freedom. For these reasons, we call on all federally recognized Indian Tribes to oppose the Soto petition before the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and take all actions necessary to ensure our treaty rights, and more importantly, our sacred eagle feathers are protected and maintained for future generations. The most immediate step in ensuring these interests are protected is to keep the eligibility criteria in the current regulations unchanged. 

Luke Duncan

Chairman, Business Committee Ute Indian Tribe 

Robert Flying Hawk

Chairman, Business and Claims Committee Yankton Sioux Tribe 

The post Op-Ed: “For the Religious Purposes of Indian Tribes” – Petition to U.S. Fish and Wildlife seeks to expand law to allow non-Indians to possess eagle feathers.  appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

If you’ve read any memoirs of people’s time at Standing Rock, you’ve most likely concluded that it was a very special place to be a part of. I spent around four days there myself, and identifying as a middle-class to poor white girl from the city, it seems Standing Rock should have been an out of element experience for me, but in all honesty, I felt a very strong sense of belonging, like a calling that I had to stay. Alas, I couldn’t stay, though I wanted to so badly, but due to my lack of resources and prior responsibilities, I was destined to go back to Denver.

Although there is always something for me to do in most spaces I go into, at Standing Rock I actually felt an honor and desire to do my best with everything I sought out to do; a satisfaction, I am sad to admit, I rarely have found in the contrived, colonial, capitalist, city lifestyle I’ve been used to. It felt as if I had been given an opportunity to “start over” in a way in which I could learn and provide in a balance that was beneficial to myself and to people that I was grateful to be around. But by the end of my journey, I had realized that there is of  great importance in finding similar senses of value in the places where myself, my friends, and family live. It seems that I needed to be a part of an experience like Standing Rock in order for me to realize the importance of that truth; of Loving Always.

Standing Rock helped me see the true interconnectedness of nature, and it helped me realize that when we participate in standing together for the cause of spreading love and healing throughout the entire Earth, by actively living to understand what is needed in order to save our planet, by reconnecting to what it means to be human and to live within the natural systems and cycles of our planet’s healthiest states, we come to realize the power of the people.

Having always been a very emotional person, I cried many times throughout the duration of this trip. I cried because of my own and all affected people’s traumatized colonized experiences in society. I cried because of the black snakes. I cried because of white guilt; because of the pale pink tone of my epidermis, and how I have been treated in comparison to indigenous and non-indigenous people of color. I cried because of the words of acceptance shared various times throughout prayer; Native people sharing that we all have red blood and that we are all indigenous to Earth. Relief, deep sadness, yearning. I cried because I wished I had spent more of my life learning about Earth and Nature and the different Cultures of Diversity. I cried because of the beauty of the voices of people who sang songs and shared prayers. Sometimes when I cried, it seemed I felt both the negative and positive spectrum of possibility tied to that moment’s impact on me, at the same time; an overwhelming feeling that had also inspired me to feel thankful and grateful for being there; part of the collective burning of the Sacred Fire.

I have begun to live, building the realization. No war can be won because war is eternal, and peace can be within and without us all eternally. We must spread the awareness of transforming our systems, as it has been captured by capitalist greed, breeding negativity to permeate the energetic landscape. Just because we have the opportunity to understand what could happen in the future when we learn new things, does not mean we should seek to dominate the present. Those in capital and colonial control of the planet have that control because they have sought to dominate, and implemented systems that have killed and enslaved all forms of life-systems and beings of life in order to maintain their popularized monocultures of exchange. Our multidimensional spectrums of Human-to-Earth communities have been infected with monochromatic symptoms of disease spread by a hijacked mycelial nature of culture and resource control. Like the blue-stained pine beetles that kill the pine trees. Resulting in oozing wounds of cities-stabbed upon our motherly landscape; a land that once had nothing but epidermal-print grooves of the many dimensions of life that roamed upon her.

Standing Rock was not the beginning of my learning of the interconnectedness of nature, but it was my first collective experience of acknowledging, participating in and honoring its influence and capability to spread a loving understanding. At Standing Rock, when I saw and tasted the tears coming out of a red-wooded tree that De La and I chopped for firewood, I cried. Flashes of history’s gore reminisced throughout my dimension of life, as if for a moment I relived experiences once locked in the unconscious. I wonder if the great sacrifice of lives killed un-honorably for greed is now awakening in the spirits and experiences of today’s people; given a rebirth to guide healing our planet back to its positive-nature-states. That campfire that kept me from freezing in the night, not just in Standing Rock but since the beginning of my spirit life-time. This knowing, that has always been in our peripherals, is working hard to be unveiled, and those who are Native indigenous have known these truths consciously for centuries, truths that all beings can come to understand, in loving always.

While in Standing Rock, I kept a liquids-only fast. I drank coffee with cream and sugar, and benefited with great delight from Lexine’s amazing pozole broth. This was quite an accomplishment for me, as I have been struggling with addictive behaviors around food for quite some time in my life now, but I managed to keep my liquid-only fast, until I got back into Denver. The day we were to leave Standing Rock, my beloved crew went out to seek Buffalo burgers, and I stayed behind by the car and meditated with the stick I had gotten from Turtle Hill at an action day two days prior.

I was filming and taking pictures at the Non-Violent Direct Action site of resistance at the sacred Turtle Hill. The police were stationed on top of the hill, looking down upon water protectors, and used psycho-linguistic tactics to try and evoke us. For example, a police officer warned us to take off gas-masks because it showed them that we are “aggressive”, as if that justifies a probable cause for their violence, and to make it seem like we’re the violent perpetrators. Of course, protectors did yell back that they would take off their masks if the police would in turn stop using the gas on them and get rid of it.

An adorable puppy dog ran up to me with the stick; a black shoelace tied at the top of it. The pup wanted me to throw it so they could fetch, but because there were people and the river in front of and around me, I decided not to throw it. I tried to play tug-of-war and hand the stick back, but the pup wasn’t interested and kept dropping the stick in front of me. So I figured I was supposed to keep the stick. It was quite a nice height for me, rising just above my hip; the palm of my hand resting snug upon the top. The black shoelace tied to the top of it reminded me of a medicine-being’s staff. I felt honor and responsibility in my heart as I held the woody fibre, and kept it with me throughout the duration of the action.

As the Elders sang and played the drums delivering loving intention into the skies with their vibrations, I kept rhythm with the stick, with intent of delivering the loving vibrations into the ground beneath; tapping in unison with the drums. I had also brought my Malachite Turtle Stone with me, that my mother had given me as a gift from South Dakota when she visited Mt. Rushmore. I held the turtle in my left hand as I tapped the stick in the right. After the action, the stick and I headed back to camp.

So as I sat there, a few days later, paying attention to the stick again, as I held it firmly, and imprinted my dedication within it, placed it with its palm-rest facing Turtle Hill and it’s land-side facing me; I chanted Mni Winconi, Agua es Vida, and Water is Life in my head and with all of my loving being — joining the collective of people that were meditating together in spiritual unison from all around the world that day, in the unified destiny of saving Earth’s water. I did not want to leave Standing Rock, but even though I did physically, every time I must remember the importance of saving our water, I think back to that meditative feeling and close my eyes, and I try to remember; to keep the connection.

I could not shake the feeling that because it looked so much like a medicine stick, and that I honored it like it was one, that I was being culturally appropriative. So I left my stick in the dirt at Standing Rock instead of bringing it with me. It has been very difficult trying to balance my white privilege and white guilt in ways that don’t cause me to self-destruct. I am trying to balance what I feel I am meant to pursue and making sure that I don’t harm the movement and make sure to remember that people of color are the leaders of their liberation, and I will do what I can to keep from hindering any part of this (r)evolution. I truly dedicate myself to Loving Always in the name of Healing our Planet.

There is so much work to do, so much love to share; actions and awareness to be spread and built upon. So much pain to reveal and set free to heal. The children are the future, we must raise them with love and respect for all life and truly cherish them in these times of mass transformation. It’s time to get to know our communities and start building the future we want for our children. The awesome Natasha spoke to the need for us to reconnect in our communities quite well in her article memoir of Standing Rock.

I do have fear for our new administration. But without fear we would not know courage, just as we do not know light without darkness; and know love without pain. Together we must tap into the collective energetic catalysts of love that seek to change the direction of the eternal war. No war can be won, as war is eternal, it is the mixing of opposing energies that give us this life to begin with. But there can be a lead within the time-line of the energetic space, and since colonized industrialization and the globalized “new world”- our energetic space at this time has been hijacked by greed and the masking of the interconnected truth; the negative. It is time for us to campaign its unveiling. But there are so many questions. What is the meaning of death in the name of love? What does removing the small central-force that creates a massive harm mean to the whole? What does the non-violent warrior of peace do when they face the disease of our times?

I ask you please to ponder such inquiries. Ponder with the intention of love in your heart; seeing the end goal of the unknown as a matter of loving success, no matter how stark the inevitable may seem. Be prepared to face the darkness of fear and greed with the light of love and understanding from within you. I will face it with you, all of my relations, together our loving leads will shift the energies of the eternal war, in time and space we will live to tell, and die to see. Standing Rock is everywhere, in our hearts and souls, in our neighborhoods, in our communities. We must visualize and then build together, the decentralization movement. The sustainable movement. The movement of honoring life and of loving understanding. This is the time where we find the philosopher’s stone within us all, to bring us back to the truth of nature. We must learn to defend our communities in the name of love and the positive forces of understanding.

May these positive forces be with you always, Mitakuye Oyasin, Love Always, Mni Winconi. If you do not know what these sayings mean, please learn, my dear friend Maggie wrote a great article pertaining to such important intricacies of intention.

The post Voices from Standing Rock: Love Always appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Jackie Francke, Vice President of Programs Administration for First Nations Development Institute in Longmont.

Jackie Francke grew up on a flat expanse of land in northwestern New Mexico called Shiprock. Named after the giant slab of rock protruding from the desert like the overturned hull of a ship, Shiprock is home to a Navajo Nation reservation. Two coal mines run through the reservation — the Navajo mine and the San Juan mine — and power the community’s economic fortunes.

Francke, 51, recalls her childhood fascination with the mines and all the activity surrounding them. When the time came to go to college, she knew she wanted to be a part of that: Francke graduated from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology with a degree in mining engineering.

Today, 450 miles from the Navajo reservation she grew up on, Francke is the vice president of programs and administration for First Nations Development Institute in Longmont. It’s a role that allows Francke to apply her passion for problem solving in Native American communities like the one she was raised in. “I like coming up with unique solutions, developing solutions that are out of the box, and figuring out ways to make things happen,” she said.

First Nations, with a staff of 24 — many of whom are Native professionals — is a nonprofit organization that supports Native communities. Through technical assistance, training and advocacy, First Nations helps strengthen tribal education, economic, spiritual and cultural institutions. In August, the institute received a $2.5 million grant that will fund a two-year research program aimed improving the image of Native Americans.

Francke — who began working full time for the organization in 2010 after a year as a consultant — is the glue that binds the operation together. Her role, in her own words, is to ensure “programmatic efforts of our staff are on target with the mission,” and “to make sure our staff have all the resources to carry out our programmatic efforts and they aren’t overloaded.”

Francke saw firsthand the change her work can have during a recent trip to the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in Harlem, Montana, home of the Gros Ventre and Assiniboine Tribes. The community, on 675,000 acres near the Canadian border, is 40-60 miles from the nearest grocery store, by Francke’s estimate. Aided by two First Nation grants, the community is building its own grocery store, growing a garden (with lettuce, tomatoes, squash, cucumbers and carrots), and reviving walking trails. “When you see this work and you see the thought behind the plan, it’s very inspiring,” Francke said. “To have First Nations be a part of their vision, for their community, is pretty amazing.”

Longmont has been Francke’s home for 18 years, and where her son is preparing to graduate high school. Colorado has two federally recognized tribes: the Southern Ute Indian Tribe and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe.

While Francke’s connection to the land and Native heritage motivate her work, it was a breast cancer diagnosis in 2009 that propelled her to bring her professional skills to First Nations. The diagnosis changed her perspective. “You start to think about what you really want in life, and what you really want to do,” she said. “I thought First Nations provided the opportunity to really start giving back and to work in an arena that was really important to me.”

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