- On this "Native Report" Thomas Crawford of the Blackfeet Nation shares with us about the importance of horses to him and his ancestors.

And we meet with a father and son outfitting team of Glacier Sun Tours, to learn more about the history of the Blackfeet Nation and their lands.

Plus we visit with a mother and artist who shares her passion behind her piece that was commissioned by the La Pointe's Art Committee on Madeline Island, Wisconsin.

We also learned what we can do to lead healthier lives and hear from our elders.

(light acoustic music) - [Announcer] Production for "Native Report" is made possible by grants from the Blandin Foundation, Anishinabe Fund, and Alexandra Smith Fund, in support of Native American treaty rights administered through the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation.

The generous support from viewers like Jack and Sharon Kemp.

DSGW Architects, personalizing architecture, online at dsgw.com.

And viewers like you.

(light acoustic music) - Welcome to "Native Report" and thanks for tuning in.

I'm Rita Karppinen.

In this episode we are exploring how past traditions are influencing and inspiring the directions taken in life.

Members of the Blackfeet Nation have called North America home for thousands of years.

On the Blackfeet Indian Reservation near Glacier National Park in Northwest Montana, we learn about a multi-generational family that honors sacred traditions while ranching in the region.

(light acoustic music) (light music) - When they put our people on the reservation they allotted them land, but nothing to generate funding.

So my grandpa was fortunate enough to work on a ranch off the rez to understand the cattle business.

So then when he come back under rez he bought cows.

And that's how they made their living is just ranching.

I grew up with the cattle and the horses.

My whole family, even my children and grandchildren, has grown up with the horses.

So they're really a big importance in our lives.

My family, we got close to 1,600 acres of our own, and we leased about 9,000 acres from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Blackfeet BIA, that we pasture cattle on.

We've got a, business that's where we take trail rides.

We go up along the mountain front, a half a day, a full day.

We also do camp outs if they wanna camp.

We take and show 'em some of the historic points like tipi rings, where they had battles with different tribes, things like that.

Back in the late forties, mid fifties, heartbeat was the center of the reservation.

That's and then when they made Glacier Park a park, they moved it into Browning and then they set up everything, so now that's the center of the reservation now.

(light acoustic music) So most of your historic sites, like there's buffalo jumps down here that's nobody sees.

That was where they used to run the buffalo off a cliff before they endured the horses.

So they would make a pile of rocks and they'd hide behind that.

And they would have this one guy who'd would take a wolf pelt and he'd cover himself and he'd go amongst the buffalo.

And the lead cow would usually try to hook him, so he'd just coax that lead cow.

And then when he got close to the cliff, he'd get up.

Well then all the people that were behind these rocks would take their use these hides and they'd scare those buffalo and they'd stampede 'em off the cliff.

And so that's how they used to hunt them long ago.

Well then they got the horses.

Well the horses they could go out there wherever they're at and run alongside of 'em and then shoot 'em with arrows.

I said, you take the cattle kind of replaces the buffalo.

So we got no more buffalo to chase, but now we got cattle.

So we still end up chasing the cattle, bringing them in and all that stuff.

So a horse to all Native people is a really a sacred animal.

So in the Blackfeet way, our dogs and our horses are the most honored in our traditional ways.

Then plus one of our sacred mountains up here besides Chief Mountain, heartbeat mountain what the community's named after, we have that right in our backyard.

(birds chirping) So we're pretty fortunate I guess you'd say.

Being traditionalist in the ceremonial ways goes with the horses, goes with the ranching.

'Cause as a rancher, I gotta make sure that I'm taking care of Mother Earth, huh?

So you can't just go out there and misuse it and then expect it to give, come back.

It teaches you respect.

You gotta respect the land, you gotta respect your animals.

So you gotta make it so everything works.

So we always say the circle, the circle of life, that's what that means.

You use that whole circle so that way it will be here again tomorrow, you're not destroying it.

- The Blackfeet Reservation was established in 1855, and with more than 17,000 members is one of the largest tribes in the United States.

(light acoustic music) - Seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, is a type of depression that is related to the change of seasons.

SAD generally begins and ends about the same time every year.

Most episodes of SAD start when daylight starts to get shorter in the fall and continues through the winter.

Spring and summer seem like a long time away.

Winters can be long and dreary for people with SAD.

The most common symptoms are lack of energy and motivation.

Things you normally enjoy just don't seem as attractive and it's hard to finish projects you start.

Sleeping too much, feeling hopeless and listless, and problems with concentration make everyday tasks more difficult.

Carbohydrate cravings and overeating often lead to weight gain.

More severe cases can make people have thoughts of not wanting to live.

People with bipolar disorder are at increased risk of SAD.

Other risk factors include a family history of depression, and a family history of SAD.

SAD seems to be more common among people who live far from the equator, most likely because of decreased winter sunlight.

Vitamin D is produced in the skin when it's exposed to sunlight, and vitamin D can boost serotonin activity.

Low serotonin levels are linked to depression.

SAD should be taken seriously and not just dismissed as a case of the winter blues.

Social withdrawal, problems with work or school, substance abuse, and thoughts of suicide can result from SAD.

Treatment of sad includes psychotherapy, light therapy, and medications.

If this happens to you every year, starting treatment a month before it usually starts can really be helpful.

Talk to your healthcare provider, don't try to tough this out on your own.

And remember to call an elder, they've been waiting for your call.

I'm Dr. Arne Vainio, and this is Health Matters.

(light acoustic music) - The Blackfeet Nation of Montana is bordered by Glacier National Park and home to amazing scenery.

We met with a father and son outfitting team of Glacier Sun Tours to learn more about the history of Blackfeet Nation and their lands.

And who better to tag along with than Blackfeet guides who share cultural aspects to their original ancestral territory which is now known as Glacier National Park.

(light acoustic music) (soft music) - We are Sun Tours, we're a Blackfeet interpretive tour company in Blackfeet country.

Extends into Glacier National Park in Montana.

Right now we are in our headquarters building in East Glacier, which is on the east side of Glacier National Park on the Blackfeet Reservation.

- For many years we have existed here as Blackfeet.

And where we are today is on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, right under what we call the backbone (man with black hat speaks foreign language) of the mountains in the shadow of the Rockies, the Northern Rockies.

And so we are here in our headquarters of Sun Tours that I started in 1992 with the intention of establishing a Native interpretive tour company to represent our tribe in its homeland that has been here for thousands of years.

That was non-existent in the tour companies that were here.

When I started my company, I started with my first cousin and one of my classmates.

And so we've always had the connection of family.

And it's a great pleasure for me to be able to work with my son, my other son, my two sons, my daughter has worked with us before.

- I was probably like 12 and got roped into washing a bus.

(man with black shirt laughs) It changed for me when I left and went to school and came back and I studied business, and I grew up with two entrepreneurial parents.

So I think that I just kind of had that undertaking to hustle a little bit.

And so there was an opportunity to work under my dad who started the company, and that's kinda what started it for me.

For a lot of people, it's their first time here.

And so we always like to welcome people to this area, to the mountains, and kind of explain what that means as you're going into the national park.

A lot of people recognize this area as big sky country, right?

And you can see in a full panorama around you.

And when you're out on the planes, that's really obvious.

As you get closer and closer to the mountains you have this extreme switch of elevation and the landscape totally changes.

So that first stop that we do on tour usually just blows people away because you go from one extreme to another.

It's powerful, and that's what we talk about on tour, and what we've recognized as our connection here to everything that's here, but the mountains play such a large role in that.

And you can feel that power when you step off the bus.

You're on the side of the road and you have these enormous rocks towering above you over 10,000 feet.

Our band that's down here is what we call the Amskapi Piikani, the Southern Piikan, because we were the southern most part of that tribe.

So the each band has a different name, but part of what connected us, it was the language itself, what we call Blackfoot.

Because you have a lot of elevation gain when you're going up into the mountains and you're going up to what they call the continental divide, it's like you get closer and closer to the sun, right?

The sun in our language is (man with black shirt speaks foreign language) and it's kind of like without the sun nothing can live, right?

And part of our philosophy of life was that we recognize the sun and our creator as kind of two sides to the same coin.

Going to the Sun Mountain has a different meaning for us because it reestablishes every time we travel into the mountains as the snow melts a greater connection with what we call our creator.

And because it's like you're going into this abundant land that provided everything for us.

Being here and seeing the community that's here, and understanding that kind of in a firsthand way really can be a profound experience for a lot of people that we take on tour as we go across the reservation before we get into the national park and understanding the dynamic of where we are today versus where we used to be.

And that connection that is separated by landscapes that we crossed over traditionally from the flatland into the mountains.

Every now and then, we have, you know guests that are from Montana.

And a lot of people, even when you're from here, non-native or non-Blackfeet people don't understand the connection that we have to the park.

And so that is really vital to being able to share what it means to be here, not just on the reservation, but our connection that extends across the border into the park.

- We're starting our 30th season this year.

I had a vision to start a company that would reflect that part of history that was overlooked.

And so there was always in our interpretation of history that was vacant from anything taught or shared with the traveling public through the National Park Service.

And I had a big obstacle to convince the National Park Service to allow us to do this.

The battle ensued to get a permit and they said, "well, it's worth exploring "and we'll hire you as a bus driver, "and you could tell your story driving one of our buses."

And I said, "well I'm not really interested in that.

"I'm starting a bus company "that we're touring on reservation lands "and we're touring into Canada, "and we're gonna be touring into the National Park.

"So you gotta find a way to accommodate me."

And so we had negotiations with the Park Service and the tribal council representatives, and the Glacier Park Incorporated, and we weren't really getting anywhere.

And so my constituents and the representation of the Blackfeet Tribal Business Council said, "well this is not right because we don't feel "this is a fair opportunity for an entrepreneur "to start a business."

We held a big protest in front of the lodge at the start of summer, and we alleged that it was unfair treatment to the Blackfeet and it was unfair treatment of our recognition of our treaty rights.

And so we started negotiations further to accomplish a way to be a tour operator in the National Park.

But we were fined, we were issued citations, and we appealed them as a business going forward.

We made the argument that we had the right to provide an income, a business opportunity for my family to arrive at income in a modern world as other concessioners were doing.

And so by the time our court case came up, we had already been granted permission under a contract with the Department of Interior, the National Park Service.

I guess it's my hopes that as a business owner and a resident of this land in this community, that I would really like to see other entrepreneurs do similar things that I have done, that provides an income for a staff of people that are all part of our community, that that money goes back into our community.

And so I would like to see the future of other entrepreneurs utilize the Native Act, Native American tourism improving visitor experience.

And my goal is to get every child in Blackfeet schools on a Sun Tour and educate them about our history.

- It has been Sun Tour's mission to educate and inspire all to a higher respect, appreciation, and understanding of the Blackfeet world.

We talk with a Minnesota artist who shares her passion and inspiration behind our artwork, and how she was chosen by La Pointe's Art Committee on Madeline Island to create a statue to help commemorate its strong connection to its people.

(light acoustic music) (light acoustic music) - My name is Lisa Perrin-Kosmo and we're in Two Harbors Minnesota.

I am a mother first of all, an artist close runner up.

I've been pursuing my career all my life I guess.

I went to school for four years at it used to be College of Associated Arts, and then it was College of Visual Arts.

It no longer exists, but it was on Summit Avenue in St. Paul.

So I had four years, and I have a BFA in illustration in fine arts.

When my oldest son was little, I remember holding him in my arms and painting at the same time, you know, and he would stand at the easel or stand on my easel and he would, you know walk around and you know, paint too or something.

But it's so nice to be doing something that I love, I feel very blessed.

I decided to take a break when the kids were little, and I put everything away, didn't wanna be tempted at all.

But then when I turned 50 I decided I that's when I had to kind of just focus mainly on my art, so that's what I've been doing.

I've been mainly a painter, mainly a 2D.

You know but I love the opportunity to work three dimensionally.

I love the surrealism.

I would, I still incorporate that quite a bit along with realistic landscapes.

During the pandemic I was actually fortunate enough to work on a commission piece for the hospital, and it was a nice sunny lake scene I did, and that was wonderful.

It was like a three piece panel, a triptych too, so it allowed me to keep it large enough but keep the size workable.

But I wanted it to be really serene so that people can escape while they're sitting there because they're dealing with, I'm sure heavy medical issues.

(light acoustic music) My aunt and uncle that still live over there in Bayfield reached out to me and they said, "look there's this sculptor competition going on."

And so it was pretty close to the deadline so I just dropped everything and worked on that and got in there on time.

And it was chosen by the La Pointe's Arts Committee board.

There weren't many multiple concepts.

I just fell in love with the idea that I had initially and went with that.

I wasn't really entirely sure where the site was gonna be.

So the site was gonna be, this was a rock basin seat.

So that's what this was, this is what a proposal, how it would look with the rock.

Right away I started making my three-dimensional mini piece, and then it went on from there.

It took me a weekend maybe to do the mock up and stuff.

Some things that, you know, we found out in the shop once it was up was the movement.

So we did a little bit of bracing and stuff, and I think that worked out really nice.

I didn't wanna make it real obvious.

This is what I had so I could kind of explain to people what it was about and stuff.

It says Gateway to Madeline Island.

This is a very personal piece to me because I am a descendant of Princess Madeline and Michael Cadotte, her husband.

I am also a member of the Red Cliff Band, Bayfield, Wisconsin.

I have many fond memories of trips to the island and still visit family members who live in Bayfield.

Loving the imagery of Madeline's father's name, Chief White Crane, and discovering that the crane clan were identified as founders of the Ojibwe villages on Madeline Island helped me create my peace.

I also wanted to incorporate imagery essential to the island's history.

Fur trading, logging, winter fishing, Native American heritage, flora, reptile, land, and animal.

My thought is to have the white crane rising from the red earth and being the only winged animal represented in my sculpture.

It's an outdoor piece that is almost entirely steel.

It was manufactured locally by North Shore Steel.

It sits on a cement base.

So the medallions go on the outside there, and they have two medallions on each of the four-sided base now.

It incorporates Ikwezewe's image, princess Madeline's image in the crane itself.

I was always told by my family, you know, you're related to Princess Madeline.

And then, you know growing up I thought, that's just kind of, I think are they just telling me that?

You know and I didn't realize it was actually true until about I don't know, maybe 20 years ago when I got some papers about it.

And I thought, oh that's pretty special you know?

So to have this sculpture incorporated with my family's history is such a blessing and such an honor to represent the Native American community.

This is probably my biggest, it is my biggest achievement.

I always say probably, 'cause I'm thinking did I forget something?

(Lisa laughs) It's so important, people that have been oppressed I think need to see a positive reinforcement of their history, and things that have gone on in the past, the wrong are terrible things, you know, to all sorts of people.

But I think it brings people hope that there's, we're learning to respect each other more.

Very grateful for being able to do the island sculpture.

And hopefully it does expand on even more sculptures in the area that represent more Native American prominent leaders.

There can't be enough representation of positive humanity.

- The 10 foot tall sculpture weighs 1.5 tons and is fabricated from half inch steel.

If you missed a show or wanna catch up online, find us at nativereport.org and follow us on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram for behind the scene updates.

And drop a comment on social media if you enjoyed the show.

Thanks for spending time with your friends and neighbors from across Indian Country.

I'm Rita Karppinen.

We'll see you next time on "Native Report".

(light acoustic music) - [Announcer] Production for "Native Report" is made possible by grants from the Blandin Foundation, Anishinabe Fund, and Alexandra Smith Fund, in support of Native American Treaty rights administered through the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation.

The generous support from viewers like Jack and Sharon Kemp.

DSGW Architects, personalizing architecture, online at dsgw.com.

And viewers like you.

(light music)