My jaw just keeps dropping in awe and excitement for you. I would love to be involved in IndigiPalooza in some way, even if it’s just donating native seeds to give to speakers or something. So exciting and motivating to see you doing allllll the things. You’re doing the good work that is so desperately needed. 🖤
I donated a little to both IPfest and Chickadee. I’m really excited to know where to donate, since, as you say, there are not many clear options.
I’m looking forward to IP fest as well.
Finally, I’ve cast around my whole life looking for information on my own indigenous background. Meeting you last spring when you came to my school, and reading your book has inspired me to try again for more information on my tribal heritage. Though I found out that the language is officially extinct, I also learned that the tribe is working with linguists to bring back what they can.
I am grateful to you in so many ways, big and small, but mostly for being a part of refinding my path to my own heritage.
I was also a Wild Kingdom fan. I especially loved it when they featured Wild Horse Island on Flathead Lake, since that was just down the road from us. My dream as a child was to live in a cave and study bears, while also having books and other necessities air-dropped by helicopter.
"We are all in this together, this being creating a world that will be habitable by those to come after us. We need our entire community working together, and that can’t happen without reckoning with where we’ve been."
Plenty of good news in last-day-of-the-year post. Looking forward the release of your audiobook and being able to obtain it through Village Books here in Bellingham. I'll also ask the Bellingham Public Library to order a copy. The more people who read or listen to Becoming Little Shell the better. All the best to you and your beloveds in the coming year and always.
Thank you Chris for this latest demonstration that you are not only a terrific writer and human being but also my ideal reader! I had the same reaction when I came across the Zahniser story; I'm grateful that you voiced it... but I sure hope you didn't leave that magazine lying around Burbank! :)
Wow! Big stuff! I love it! As a beneficiary of the Salmon River Trip, I have to thank everyone who contributed. I had a once in a lifetime experience and gained the courage to put my writing out there - something I had never done. While still a work in progress, I enjoy writing a lot and find it healing. And the stories must be told! Chris - I am willing to help if you can use me. I'm really good at organizing events and might be able to help raise some funds. Also good with proomotion in Indian Country as I know people all over the place! I will also look at Anna's class because, working in Indigenous Education, primarily with elementary students I feel like the tipi, contest powwow, bison and veteran show we put on in Billings is pushing stereotypes, not values. And it pisses me off. In fact, I used to beat someone's ass if they asked me where my tipi, long dress or bow and arrow were. And I was 6! So, at 64, don't ask! How about some values and some talk about how we related to the earth and eachother? My bosses discount my rough experiences as a breed growing up in Blackfeet Country and city ghettos like so many of us didn't live that. With Veitnam veteran inspired trauma and violence combined with alcohol, violnece, pain and immense love - and that angers me too. So yeah, I'm in, however you can use me. Thanks for all you do - checking it all out!
The beginning of your newsletter , “…the absolute worst kind of real estate porn…” reminded me of a small town in Vermont ( my home state) . Social media posts of a quintessential spectacular fall foliage photograph. The likes of which are all over the countryside of our beautiful state . A farm house set in a hillside, exploding with autumn color. I searched for an article to show you, and ironically, the first one I found was written up in the Montana NBC news website. The entire road leading to resident’s driveway was closed during peak foliage season, the reason stated, "poorly behaved tourists” , and that was putting it lightly, the rest of the story ; “Poorly behaved tourists have damaged roads, had accidents, required towing out of ditches, trampled gardens, defecated on private property, parked in fields and driveways, and verbally assaulted residents."
Wishing you a wonderful new year, may you accomplish all you dream of achieving by continuing along the path you have found yourself on,
Thanks for the great news, great links, and interesting segue into the Wilderness Act.
OMG, Wild Kingdom! Ok, Jim, just grab that crocodile by the tail and put him back in the box…
Sunday nights were so great with that show and then Disney (kinda hit and miss, but if Tim Conway & Don Knotts were on, I was all in.)
The Native American Studies for Everyone looks awesome. Great way to raise funds. I will participate & encourage a colleague or two at my university to do so, as well. We’re (Southern OR U.) in the process of introducing Oregon public university system’s first IEFA-like course required for teacher licensure to support a similar law (Tribal History/Shared History) in Oregon with a similar set of central understandings. I was astounded when I arrived from Montana that the law was on the books since 2017 in OR but no teacher prep program had any specifically required curriculum to help prep teachers for working with indigenous curricula. It’s only one class, but it’s better than none. And it was originally designed by a great scholar, Dr. Chance White Eyes, now the tribal nations liaison at Oregon State University.
Anyhow, (TL/DR…) I’m STOKED to both jump in this every-person class AND support the IP efforts. Checking out my calendar to see if I can be around Missoula then.
Good start to the New Year, brother, even though I’ll be happily asleep in my warm bed as I have for most New Years Eves lately, having eschewed playing for those revels long ago.
I do welcome any defender of mother nature, hairy-chested, big breasted, well-rested, battle-tested, or otherwise.
IndigiPalooza MT will be amazing and an inspired offering / The collaboration with the library sparked me to look right under my nose to the Bozeman Public Library. Mountain Time Arts is committed to offering our works for free, but we have not reached out to the library as a partner. Miigwech for that prompt ! I'll spread the word far and wide about IndigiPalooza and will join the Chickadee Native American Studies Course.
IndigiPalooza sounds awesome. It has me pondering my calendar for the summer to see if I could somehow make it. I'm grateful that you are living "as an example that one may indeed take a nontraditional approach to a calling and succeed to some degree at it." Your example gives me hope for myself and also for a bunch of other people. Thank you.
"...we never know when our actions might inspire another person, or generation of persons..." this the truth and wisdom you share. The example you lead so others learn and follow.
You're amazing!!! Do you need more storytellers? Shoot me an email, please; Tongva artist may be interested and I'd get to see a dear soul I haven't had the pleasure of hugging for at least 20 years. sunday@sundaydutro.com
My jaw just keeps dropping in awe and excitement for you. I would love to be involved in IndigiPalooza in some way, even if it’s just donating native seeds to give to speakers or something. So exciting and motivating to see you doing allllll the things. You’re doing the good work that is so desperately needed. 🖤
If you can get out here I'm sure we can make something work! Do you have my number?
Boozhoo/Wingapo, Chris,
I donated a little to both IPfest and Chickadee. I’m really excited to know where to donate, since, as you say, there are not many clear options.
I’m looking forward to IP fest as well.
Finally, I’ve cast around my whole life looking for information on my own indigenous background. Meeting you last spring when you came to my school, and reading your book has inspired me to try again for more information on my tribal heritage. Though I found out that the language is officially extinct, I also learned that the tribe is working with linguists to bring back what they can.
I am grateful to you in so many ways, big and small, but mostly for being a part of refinding my path to my own heritage.
Miigwech/Kenah,
Kia Mathews
Kia, miigwech. 💚
I was also a Wild Kingdom fan. I especially loved it when they featured Wild Horse Island on Flathead Lake, since that was just down the road from us. My dream as a child was to live in a cave and study bears, while also having books and other necessities air-dropped by helicopter.
I think about that episode every time I pass Wild Horse Island!
"We are all in this together, this being creating a world that will be habitable by those to come after us. We need our entire community working together, and that can’t happen without reckoning with where we’ve been."
Plenty of good news in last-day-of-the-year post. Looking forward the release of your audiobook and being able to obtain it through Village Books here in Bellingham. I'll also ask the Bellingham Public Library to order a copy. The more people who read or listen to Becoming Little Shell the better. All the best to you and your beloveds in the coming year and always.
❤️
Thank you Chris for this latest demonstration that you are not only a terrific writer and human being but also my ideal reader! I had the same reaction when I came across the Zahniser story; I'm grateful that you voiced it... but I sure hope you didn't leave that magazine lying around Burbank! :)
I rolled down the window and threw it out somewhere over the desert in Nevada!
Wow! Big stuff! I love it! As a beneficiary of the Salmon River Trip, I have to thank everyone who contributed. I had a once in a lifetime experience and gained the courage to put my writing out there - something I had never done. While still a work in progress, I enjoy writing a lot and find it healing. And the stories must be told! Chris - I am willing to help if you can use me. I'm really good at organizing events and might be able to help raise some funds. Also good with proomotion in Indian Country as I know people all over the place! I will also look at Anna's class because, working in Indigenous Education, primarily with elementary students I feel like the tipi, contest powwow, bison and veteran show we put on in Billings is pushing stereotypes, not values. And it pisses me off. In fact, I used to beat someone's ass if they asked me where my tipi, long dress or bow and arrow were. And I was 6! So, at 64, don't ask! How about some values and some talk about how we related to the earth and eachother? My bosses discount my rough experiences as a breed growing up in Blackfeet Country and city ghettos like so many of us didn't live that. With Veitnam veteran inspired trauma and violence combined with alcohol, violnece, pain and immense love - and that angers me too. So yeah, I'm in, however you can use me. Thanks for all you do - checking it all out!
"I feel like the tipi, contest powwow, bison and veteran show we put on [ANYWHERE] is pushing stereotypes, not values."
I often feel this way myself. I like sharing our traditions but we aren't in the 1870s anymore.
The beginning of your newsletter , “…the absolute worst kind of real estate porn…” reminded me of a small town in Vermont ( my home state) . Social media posts of a quintessential spectacular fall foliage photograph. The likes of which are all over the countryside of our beautiful state . A farm house set in a hillside, exploding with autumn color. I searched for an article to show you, and ironically, the first one I found was written up in the Montana NBC news website. The entire road leading to resident’s driveway was closed during peak foliage season, the reason stated, "poorly behaved tourists” , and that was putting it lightly, the rest of the story ; “Poorly behaved tourists have damaged roads, had accidents, required towing out of ditches, trampled gardens, defecated on private property, parked in fields and driveways, and verbally assaulted residents."
Wishing you a wonderful new year, may you accomplish all you dream of achieving by continuing along the path you have found yourself on,
“…when our actions might inspire another person…”
Tourists. Ugh.
JR/RE (Just right/read everything.)
Thanks for the great news, great links, and interesting segue into the Wilderness Act.
OMG, Wild Kingdom! Ok, Jim, just grab that crocodile by the tail and put him back in the box…
Sunday nights were so great with that show and then Disney (kinda hit and miss, but if Tim Conway & Don Knotts were on, I was all in.)
The Native American Studies for Everyone looks awesome. Great way to raise funds. I will participate & encourage a colleague or two at my university to do so, as well. We’re (Southern OR U.) in the process of introducing Oregon public university system’s first IEFA-like course required for teacher licensure to support a similar law (Tribal History/Shared History) in Oregon with a similar set of central understandings. I was astounded when I arrived from Montana that the law was on the books since 2017 in OR but no teacher prep program had any specifically required curriculum to help prep teachers for working with indigenous curricula. It’s only one class, but it’s better than none. And it was originally designed by a great scholar, Dr. Chance White Eyes, now the tribal nations liaison at Oregon State University.
Anyhow, (TL/DR…) I’m STOKED to both jump in this every-person class AND support the IP efforts. Checking out my calendar to see if I can be around Missoula then.
Peace to you in the new year.
-Nigel
Hope you can make it!
Good start to the New Year, brother, even though I’ll be happily asleep in my warm bed as I have for most New Years Eves lately, having eschewed playing for those revels long ago.
I do welcome any defender of mother nature, hairy-chested, big breasted, well-rested, battle-tested, or otherwise.
Thanks, Phil.
IndigiPalooza MT will be amazing and an inspired offering / The collaboration with the library sparked me to look right under my nose to the Bozeman Public Library. Mountain Time Arts is committed to offering our works for free, but we have not reached out to the library as a partner. Miigwech for that prompt ! I'll spread the word far and wide about IndigiPalooza and will join the Chickadee Native American Studies Course.
Thanks, Jim. And FYI, every one of the IPFEST events will be free.
Keep doing the great work. I donated to Chickadee. They do great work too.
Thanks, Tom.
Thank you for another wonderful post and sharing John Clayton's article.
"The task is, not so much to see what no one has yet seen; but to think what nobody has yet thought, about that which everybody sees."
—Erwin Schrödinger
It's a great article.
IndigiPalooza sounds awesome. It has me pondering my calendar for the summer to see if I could somehow make it. I'm grateful that you are living "as an example that one may indeed take a nontraditional approach to a calling and succeed to some degree at it." Your example gives me hope for myself and also for a bunch of other people. Thank you.
I hope you can make it, Emily!
Me too! It would take some finagling:)
You are a whirlwind of inspiration and activity, Chris. Such good work and such good news.
Thank you!
"...we never know when our actions might inspire another person, or generation of persons..." this the truth and wisdom you share. The example you lead so others learn and follow.
💚
You're amazing!!! Do you need more storytellers? Shoot me an email, please; Tongva artist may be interested and I'd get to see a dear soul I haven't had the pleasure of hugging for at least 20 years. sunday@sundaydutro.com
I will!