When I Used to Fly

Future Leaders Driving! photo credit: Melina Dailey

I start a lot of stories now, with: “When I used to Fly.”

That was my last life.  

I used to have this superpower of flying all over the world.  It’s true. I flew out of Fargo’s Hector Airport to the far reaches of Italy, Istanbul, and even Calgary. Those were the days. I sat next to cool people.  I have a closet full of beautiful clothes that I used to wear when I would give a lecture at a university. Imagine this: I would talk, and people would clap. Wow, that was sort of an amazing time in my life.  And, more than that, I’ve met some admirable people in my life and travels- Archbishop Desmond Tutu, lots of musicians, and Indigenous leaders, Supreme Court Judges, organic farmers and political leaders. All inspirational.  

The memories are full of smells, tastes, and feelings. I would look forward to my trips.  I used to love getting through security at the airport. Like it was a safe place. My little world was perfect, get a cup of coffee, read a New York Times, watch some people. I loved TSA so much that I would chat with my friends there, and one of the TSA guys saved my relative who had a heart attack right there at the Fargo Airport. A whole world  at Hector Field.

That plane ticket and hotel room was like a working vacation from the huge household of grandchildren, dogs, horses and goats.  It was a sort of fabulous life I used to have. 

Photos by Sarah LittleRedfeather Design

That was then.  That’s not now.  

I have all sorts of clothes I don’t wear any more. I just look at those clothes and smile. They are distant memories.  My children and grand children do not clap for me when I speak.  I have adapted. 

Adaptation is something that a plant or an animal does to survive.  Not everyone makes it, some can’t adapt quickly enough to changing climate , big storms, or droughts.  

Like that shrimp that travels from where it’s raised in Scotland to China , where it is deveined, to a Walmart near you. That’s not sustainable. And, that was then, this is now.  

The fact is that this pandemic has brought the industrial world to its knees and shown us that we are actually not in charge. How amazing is that?  We can make up all sorts of predictions, run models till we are blue in the face, speculate on miracle cures, and we have no idea still how it is going to go. The US has a quarter of the world’s cases. And that number is not going down. So, I am going to focus on adapting. That seems like a smart idea. After all I come from peoples who have survived quite a bit. You could say I come from post apocalyptic  people- on both sides; the Jews and the Anishinaabe. So, I am going to see what I can learn from history and figure out how to survive with grace and elegance. 

In fact, I am going to make a better place and life. 

How to adapt?  

Get local, use our blessed postal service, and re-find yourself and your neighbors.    

What did I notice first?  Time. Time’s not what it used to be.  Instead of looking at my phone, a digital time, I check the weather. I wonder if the rice is ripe, or the maple sap is running. That’s time on the land.   

In Anishinaabemowin, this is Manoominike Giizis, the Wild Rice Making moon.  It’s the time of the chokecherries, bergamot and zucchinis for sure.  It’s the time  of manoominike giizis.  

Instead of hustling to pay bills, I’m cutting back. Getting rid of stuff, cleaning my darn house, and becoming more self sufficient- from food to energy. I am going for half the food in my house to  be from within l00 miles. And now, I’m planning for the power outages which will come with climate change, making sure I’ve enough wood to heat my house, and planning for solar. That’s a challenge I can live with. No masking up in this garden. I’m looking at my Amish neighbors, they speak about “that’s enough,” instead of always wanting more. 

That’s an ethic of adaptation, stop being excessive, be content.  

The schools look like a gamble in family health. Honestly, I am not sure what relevance some of the mass education has for my descendants. After all, they are my retirement plan. I think my 40l K is not going to be worth much, so I think I’ll make sure my grandchildren know how to garden, install solar energy and heat our homes. And, they should know some history; she’s a good teacher. 

Arundhati Roy, the Indian writer talks about pandemic as portal, noting that pandemics cause our worlds to change. In Ojibwe history we understand change and adaptation. We are, after all, post apocalyptic people, so we’ve got a few ideas. Change is inevitable.

I miss you TSA folks, for sure, and hope we all adapt. Maybe you all can work at the electric train powered by renewable energy from North Dakota, that would be a cool adaptation. In the meantime, be well, and let’s roll up our sleeves for a better re-localized future. 

Away is far, here is good. 

Fallen Idols by Winona LaDuke

Fallen Idols

Winona LaDuke

Nick Estes @nick_w_estes

Historian Here:

STANDING ROCK VERSUS THE DAKOTA ACCESS PIPELINE, AND THE LONG TRADITION OF INDIGENOUS RESISTANCEBy NICK ESTES

Our History Is the Future

Tearing down a statue is not erasing history.

Putting up a statue on land whose original caretakers you can’t name is.

Nick Estes Lakota Historian.

Across the country, statues of empire are tumbling. That’s the reality. The idols are indeed falling, the American idols that is. This is not just about statutes. It is about whose history is celebrated, the history of the oppressor, or the history of the oppressed. It looks like it may be time for a reconciliation.

George Floyd’s death has been the spark of an international movement for human rights and dignity. That spark is seen across the world, and it means that some big statues are coming down. The toppling of the Columbus statue in St. Paul by the American Indian Movement leaders, was one of many nationally, and the statue toppling has also included some conquistadors, and I predict, that before we are done, a whole bunch of Confederate leaders, some Indian War generals and some corrupt and genocide complicit governors will fall. And, it’s about time.

Heads are gonna roll. That’s for sure. A Columbus statue was beheaded in Boston, one was removed in Richmond ( landing in a lake) and on the June 25 Anniversary of the Little Big Horn, the Columbus statue came down in Denver. That’s after decades of opposition to the City’s proud Columbus Day celebrations.

“… The statue was found on its side on the sidewalk Friday morning…” the Denver Post reported.

There should be a way to have this discussion in civil society. But what this spring has taught us, is that if the system doesn’t work, and people keep trying to make change, something’s going to give. Now there’s supposed to be a process for removing statues, in Minnesota. There’s technically a board called the CAAP (Capitol Area Architectural and Planning Board) and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan chairs the CAAP board. However, the CAAP board has not removed a single statue in 52 years. That might need to change. Flanagan had to face reporters after the statue came down, this time by the hands of Mike Forcia, an Ojibwe businessman and community leader.

"I’m not going to perform for folks. I’m not gonna feign sadness. I’m not gonna shed a tear over the loss of a statue that honored someone who by of his own admission sold 9- and 10-year-old girls over sex slavery," Flanagan said at a news conference. This is a new Minnesota.

They are Falling

Other colonizers are falling as well. Juan De Onate, a conquistador who become the Governor of New Mexico in l598, was a brutal man. When his troops needed food, he demanded it of Acoma Pueblo, and when the Pueblo refused, and fought back, Onate ordered the massacre of 800 Acoma people . He also ordered the amputation of the right foot of any adult Acoma man in the village; 24 of them in total. They lived the rest of their lives with stumps. Oñate was recalled to Mexico City in 1606 to account for his conduct, where he was convicted of cruelty to both natives and colonists and banished from New Mexico for life.

He lived on, however as a statue. Mounted on a horse, the conquistador wore military regalia and loomed large on Highway 68, out of Santa Fe. On the eve of the 400th anniversary of Onate’s arrival into the region , December l997 someone sawed off Onate’s right foot and left a note saying, “Fair is fair.” This June, that statue came down.

Red Nation, an Indigenous youth group, organized a demonstration at the Onate statue. Sensing that Onate’s time had come, officials removed the statue for safe keeping. “It’s a win,” said Luis Pena, who started a petition to remove the statue and stood near the concrete platform covered with blood-red handprints. “Symbols are important, they shape the way we ingest the world … In reclaiming these symbols, we get a chance to tell a side of history that has been left out of the books.”

Another Onate statue came down in Albuquerque, and now Kit Carson is in question everywhere. Carson, who has National Forests, squares, and more named in his honor, burned the orchards of the Navajo and forced them on the Long Walk to Fort Redondo, many did not return.

Reporter Randall Balmer told a sweet story for the LA Times:

“For the first time in many years, we don’t have to stare at Oñate,” Elena Ortiz, a Red Nation leader, told the Santa Fe New Mexican.

“The presence of that statue was an act of violence upon Pueblo people from the moment it was put up and now, finally, it’s gone.

”When Than Tsídéh, whose name means Sun Bird in the Tewa language, arrived at the Oñate monument, ready to protest, the statue of the Pueblos’ tormentor was gone.

“I started to sing,” he explained, “in honor of my ancestors who I know were slaughtered by this man.” And then Than Tsídéh did what his long-ago ancestors, because of Onate’s cynical brutality, could not. He danced.

Over the past month, NASCAR has banned confederate flags, and the confederate statues are falling- Where do 700 confederate statues go? That’s a good question being asked nationally, and one which we should begin to ask in Minnesota. After all, we should have learned by now, that glorifying genocide in art is a bad idea; just take the Walker Art and Sam Durant’s sculpture Scaffold (2012):

The idea that Minnesota institutions can glorify genocide is problematic, and as statutes tumble across the world, now is a good time to figure out the next art installations. I believe that the Walker replaced the Scaffold, with a giant blue chicken. Really, they could have done something monumental, like pay a comparable commission to what they paid Durant, to a Native Artist. Our art is beautiful. Let’s replace Columbus with an Indigenous person.

My suggestion for the fallen idols is maybe a Statue Garden of Shame. It could be a learning exercise, sort of like looking at old statues or pictures of Hitler. Don’t keep that stuff around, it’s bad karma.

And for Minnesota, there’s a pretty decent list of folks who might need to take a hike to a new garden spot. I’d like to put Knute Nelson right there on top of that list. Nelson was responsible for the death, misery and theft of the lands of White Earth Anishinaabe people and went on to become governor. Sort of like Onate, but without the massacres. Our deaths took a couple of generations. His statue stands tall at the capital.

Let’s use this opportunity to make a new story, bring forth new art and dance together.

A case for Waawaatesi: That’s the Ojibwe name for firefly.

Waawaatesi: That’s the Ojibwe name for firefly.

Written By: Winona LaDuke | Jun 28th 2020 - 2pm.

It has to do with a flickering light. I live with the fireflies. They seem to be in abundance now, more than ever. Magical sparkles in the night, the edge of the prairie, the edge of the bush. That’s where they live.

A lot of people, I realize, don’t ever get to see a firefly. Scientifically, they are luminescent beetles which fly in the night, lighting up for an instant in a breathtaking spectacle of sparkles in only the darkest of nights.

There are all sorts of fireflies, and they are magical. It turns out, however, that they are threatened by something called light pollution. I never really thought about this. This is how it works: Outdoor lights prevent fireflies from seeing each other’s flashes. Thus, they have a hard time finding mates. The other stuff that is a problem for fireflies, is the usual: habitat loss, pesticide use and climate change.

So, maybe this is my case for fireflies forever.

Now, this may seem like an inconsequential insect, but they tell us something about our world and how it’s getting lighter all the time. And, what is not good for the firefly is probably not good for us either. That’s a strange thought, after all this rural electrification and street lighting. But maybe enough is enough, and we should revisit the benefit of the darkness.

Here’s the story.

Turns out that there is an organization and thousands of communities working on keeping things dark: the International Dark Sky Association. It’s been around since 1988, and seeks to encourage communities, parks and protected areas around the world to preserve and protect dark sites through responsible lighting policies and public education. The goal is to turn the lights out, or at least down.

What’s the big deal?

Think of it this way, your ancestors navigated by the stars, and today most people won’t walk outside without a GPS. That’s a crazy loss of direction or skill at some level for sure. And while Indigenous peoples and many rural peoples can still see the stars, most of the world’s population cannot. That’s particularly an urban thing, where there’s all this light. From my farm, through the open skies, at night I can see the glow of Detroit Lakes, and that’s 25 miles away

It turns out that being dark part of the time is a good idea for animals, and for ourselves. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.

As the Dark Skies Program explains on their website, "Experiencing the night sky provides perspective, inspiration, and leads us to reflect on our humanity and place in the universe. The history of scientific discovery and even human curiosity itself is indebted to the natural night sky.” More than that, it’s healthy to be in darkness.

Nocturnal animals sleep during the day and are active at night. Light pollution radically alters their world by turning night into day. Christopher Kyba is researcher who studies nocturnal animals. He notes, “the introduction of artificial light probably represents the most drastic change human beings have made to their environment.”

“Predators use light to hunt, and prey species use darkness as cover,” Kyba explains “Near cities, cloudy skies are now hundreds, or even thousands of times brighter than they were 200 years ago. We are only beginning to learn what a drastic effect this has had on nocturnal ecology.”

It’s not just owls. It’s things like frogs, who make it their business to croak at night, particularly when mating. Artificial lights disrupt their mojo and that means less frogs and reduced populations. Sea turtle babies get confused, and migrating birds get confused when they fly with the stars.

Every year millions of birds die colliding with needlessly illuminated buildings and towers. Migratory birds depend on cues from properly timed seasonal schedules. Artificial lights can cause them to migrate too early or too late and miss ideal climate conditions for nesting, foraging and other behaviors. Now it’s getting complicated.

While we are busy getting brighter and brighter screens, staying up all night, and thinking we are invincible, it turns out that we are supposed to be asleep in the dark times, just like your grandmother used to tell you. It turns out that, humans evolved to the rhythms of the natural light-dark cycle of day and night called circadian rhythm. The spread of artificial lighting means most of us no longer experience truly dark nights. That, according to researchers, can negatively affect human health, increasing risks for obesity, depression, sleep disorders, diabetes, breast cancer and more. Humans are not nocturnal creatures by design, despite what your teenager will tell you.

Melatonin is the hormone created in response to the circadian rhythm. Melatonin helps keep us healthy. It has antioxidant properties, induces sleep, boosts the immune system, lowers cholesterol, and helps the functioning of the thyroid, pancreas, ovaries, testes and adrenal glands. Nighttime exposure to artificial light suppresses melatonin production. We usually go buy a pill for that, but it turns out that, just hit the light, and you can be healthier.

For me, I’m going to hit the sack. Way past my bedtime as it is, and I’m going to see how dark it gets. It is the longest day of the year, after all.

And, I am going to welcome the darkness.

In praise of potato by Winona LaDuke

I’m particularly fond of purple potatoes. I grow them. Mewizha, way back in the day, my ancestors also grew a purple potato.

“The Ojibwe have cultivated this early potato, according to their traditions since aboriginal times, and it surely looks primitive enough. It is round in circumference, about two or three inches long, has purplish flesh, and never cooks to a mealy consistency. It is much prized for soups and is always firm and crisp when cooked..,” Ethnobotanist Huron Smith would report to the Milwaukee museum 100 years ago.

The story of the potato is a pretty epic one, from the 1,300 or so varieties cultivated in the Andes Mountains to the industrial potato dead zone emerging in northern Minnesota. Potatoes have changed the history of the world. They will again in a time of climate change and food scarcity.

They come from the Andean mountains. Sir Frances Drake brought the plant to Europe in the early 1500s. After looting the gold of the Incas, the potatoes were discovered, perhaps of more value. The magic of a potato is that it has few foes, in part because it lives underground. Locusts and agricultural plagues often destroyed crops in Europe, but the potato would survive.

The Smithsonian Magazine would write, “…Many historians believe that the potatoes arrival in northern Europe marked the end of the famines. France, … had 40 nationwide famines between 1500 and 1800, more than one per decade. ..France was not exceptional; England had 17 national and big regional famines between 1523 and 1623. The continent simply could not reliably feed itself.

"The potato changed all that. Every year, many farmers left fallow as much as half of their grain land, to rest the soil and fight weeds (which were plowed under in summer). Now smallholders could grow potatoes on the fallow land, controlling weeds by hoeing. Because potatoes were so productive, the effective result, in terms of calories, was to double Europe’s food supply.”

The potato, grown as a monocrop, also spelled disaster. Ireland was vulnerable to blight due to its dependence on just one type, the Irish Lumper. They lacked diversity. We should learn from that. Biodiversity is the stuff of life. Today, potatoes are the fifth largest agricultural crop in the world.

The potatoes we know in northern Minnesota are those largely of RD Offutt, with about 55,000 acres under cultivation and a good deal of controversy. The potato giant was pushed back by citizens in 2018 in their proposal to move into a Pine Lands expansion.

Mike Tauber, a rural resident of Backus, Minn., asked in a petition to the Department of Natural Resources, “Do you want to be able to drink water without treating it, go outside without thinking about chemical exposure? Do you want to hunt, fish, and gather, swim in lake, pond or stream?” Over 100 people signed that petition.

“The burdens of doing business in Minnesota outweigh its benefits, particularly when the Company sees others obtain numerous appropriation permits to farm new land in the Pineland Sands Area, without being required to undergo environmental review,” the company wrote.

Today, the small village of Pine Point is surrounded by potato fields, and the small speck of tribal land I farm organically is amidst the big irrigators of Offutt and other farmers. Crop dusters fly over the tribal field, leaving a film of residue on all life.

The Pine Point Elementary School is across the road from an RDO Field. With Offutt’s opposition near Hackensack, the company has returned to the Ponsford Prairie. What remaining trees on the prairie are being clear cut for industrial agriculture expansions, and more aerial spraying is apparent. That gets on the village and on the kids. That’s in addition to the 250 or so deep water wells serving the company, pumping 10.7 billion gallons of water a year from aquifers. When the water returns, it’s full of those chemicals. That’s a problem. That’s one kind of potato grower.

Then there’s the Indigenous potato growers. In a world with climate changing faster than most crops can adapt, the world is looking again to potatoes. The Potato Park in Cusco, Peru, is the epicenter of potato diversity today. The Peruvian museums host over 5,000 varieties of potatoes, and the park itself has about 1,300 varieties growing in the Sacred Valley of the Incas. Potatoes which saved Europe from famine 300 years ago are now being looked to for food security in the future. Alejandro Argumedo, is the founder of Asociación Andes, an NGO which supports the park.

“By sowing potatoes at different altitudes and in different combinations, these potatoes create new genetic expressions which will be very important to respond to the challenges of climate change,” he wrote. The Irish potato famine might have taught us that and today again Indigenous people and our potatoes may provide hope for future food security.

For me, I am doing my best with the purple potatoes. Higher in anti oxidants than the Russets, they, like all potatoes, are high in potassium, but more than that they are purple. And, I like the idea of growing something from back in the old days.

---

HISTORY

POTATL IS THE ORIGINAL WORD FROM WHICH OUR PRESENT-DAY POTATO COMES. THE WORD POTATL

was borrowed, as were the original words for tomato, avocado, and chocolate, from the Nahuatl language, a Native language still spoken in northern Mexico. Potatoes have been cultivated for at least 4,000 years, beginning with the Inca, Ayamara, Quechua, and other Indigenous peoples of the Andean region of South America. By the time the Spaniards rode into that region, more than 3,000 varieties of potatoes had been carefully nurtured to grow in diverse weather conditions, soil types, and growing seasons with a range of ripening schedules.

What we can learn from bats by Winona LaDuke

There are many old stories in Ojibwe culture. Those stories often tell of lessons brought to us by animals. There’s an old story about how the bat helped us win a lacrosse game and now that’s why the birds migrate. This time might be known as the time that the bat, or the bapakwaanaajiinh, taught us a lesson.

Written By: Winona LaDuke | Mar 16th 2020

It’s said that the coronavirus (COVID-19) originates from bats in China. Researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology found the genome in the virus found in patients was 96% identical to that of an existing bat coronavirus, according to a study published in the journal Nature. It’s not clear the intermediaries between bats and humans, but what is known is that the virus has traveled, and it's not done yet.

What does the bat teach us?

Well, first of all, it might teach us to slow down. That’s OK. Google and Amazon sent home their people. God only knows that their teams must have enough technology that they can work at home. And, what if that works out well, because people don’t have to commute, and can be happier and around their families.

Maybe there’s a lesson in this for some industries.

We learn about global trade. It turns out that we make a lot of stuff in China. We‘ve globalized our markets in such a way that if China closes down, a lot of stuff spins. Take the example of shrimp. Most restaurant shrimp are today farm raised in Scotland, shipped to China to be deveined and processed, then shipped to the U.S. to be served at the salad buffet. That seems like a lot of travel for a shrimp, if you ask me.

We learned that money is also fragile. There’s rich people crying over their investments. Investors continued to blame the spread and economic impact of the coronavirus for steep losses. They might want to invest in local, not global, economies.

Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte announced that all the country’s stores except pharmacies and groceries will be closed in a move deemed both necessary to safeguard human health and a threat to the country’s output.

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Wall Street worries that such measures could tip the global economy into recession, especially if Washington decides the disease is rampant enough in the U.S. to warrant similar measures. The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. We learned that it might be good to have local food security, and make sure there’s toilet paper, because everyone is stocking up, and there might be a crisis.

We learned that we are not prepared for outbreaks of viruses of this scale. When the first coronavirus case showed up in Seattle, Dr. Helen Chu, an infectious disease expert, needed some questions answered. According to a New York Times story, she asked for help from state and federal officials and was denied. She tried for a month to get approvals, then pushed ahead, finding that the virus had already established itself. The lack of coordination by federal officials, gutted research programs and what I refer to as “white tape” slowed our response. While South Korea can test l0,000 people a day for the virus, the U.S. did not have that capacity. We are still scrambling, and time matters.

Here’s another challenge: we don’t have a national health plan, so 44 million people don’t have health insurance and are probably not going to go in and get checked.

We learned that we don’t need as much oil as we thought. According to Bloomberg News, China is turning back oil from Saudi Arabia. “Chinese refiners have reduced the amount of crude they’re turning into fuels by about 15%, and may deepen those cuts in coming weeks. State-owned and private processors have pared back refining by at least 2 million barrels a day…” The price of oil has plummeted, and the largest tar sands mining project in the world was cancelled. We just don’t need it; we never did. We learned that we are not in control of everything we think we are.

For me? I’m going to head to the sugarbush and slow down. That’s the place in the north country where sugar comes from a tree, with the medicines of spring. Getting outside, getting fresh air, smelling sap as it boils is pretty healthy.

Then there’s the pleasure of continuing a tradition from time immemorial. The Ojibwe maple sugar bush doesn’t need anything from China or from the rest of the world. That seems like a good idea to me.

I’m going to take lessons from the bats and do my best to be healthy.

I come from people who have survived small pox glaucoma, tuberculosis and gas chambers.

I’ll try and survive this.

A single bat can eat up to 1,200 mosquitoes in an hour and pollinate all sorts of life.

In Minnesota we have a bat called the Long Eared Bat, it’s special to the Northwoods.

I am going to be grateful for that bat, and the lessons I’ve learned.

Indigenous fire management is the answer to raging wildfires by Winona LaDuke

Indigenous fire management is the answer to raging wildfires

Column is by Winona LaDuke.

Jan 28th 2020

As we watch Australia burn, it’s clear that indigenous fire management could have changed this story dramatically. Countless news stories have noted that land and homes are often saved in areas managed by aboriginal people using indigenous fire techniques.

Instead of listening, settlers come to indigenous lands and kill the inhabitants. They then proceed with a superior mind of land and natural resource management that punishes native people, denies us access to land, arrests us for harvesting, destroys our basket-making materials, and they bring in Smokey the Bear. Then, it all burns up.

The Australian fires are heartbreaking. Indeed, Australia is heartbreaking. Killing aboriginal people as sport, mass incarceration into boarding schools (see the movie "Rabbit Proof Fence") and an abomination of present human rights violations in such a “civilized country” is obscene. It’s an obscene history, as is this total denial of knowledge which could have saved much of that country.

Over the past decade, scientific journals have discussed indigenous fire management. Indeed, fire is a powerful tool when harnessed. North American indigenous people often burned the prairies to make grass and keep back trees. New grass is good for buffalo, and many plants are actually fire-germinated.

Traditional management of blueberry patches in the north woods often involved controlled burns. In California, native tribes there have been challenging and working with state agencies to control burn, not only to cut back extra debris, but to create a place for many medicines and basket materials.

The story in Australia is the same. A Ngurrumpaa camp, an isolated 160-acre bush property, stood in the way of the Gospers Mountain Fire. The fire quickly burned through the entire area, but controlled burns had been practiced for years. Two new managed burns in 2015 and 2016 diminished the debris, and the hut and outbuildings were saved.

Unlike hazard reduction burning, cultural burns are cooler and slower moving, usually no taller than knee height, leaving tree canopies untouched and allowing animals to take refuge from the flames. Small fires are lit with matches, instead of drip torches, and burn in a circular pattern.

Northern Australia fires burned 57% fewer acres than in previous years, where aboriginal people managed land for fire. Dean Yibarbuk, chairman of Warddeken Land Management, has 150 aboriginal rangers working there.

“We are very lucky in the north to be able to keep our traditional practices,” Yibarbuk said. “There’s a pride in going back to the country, managing it and making a difference.”

Ecologists fear that nearly 500 million mammals, reptiles and birds — including 8,000 koalas — are estimated to have been killed, although the current death toll is impossible to calculate. Some 87% of the animals in Australia are endemic, meaning they only live there.

Australia has some baffling logic in the face of climate change and the hottest year on record in 2019. That is, the country is still trying to unload coal reserves into Asian markets, as coal generation is diminishing worldwide.

Australia’s Morrison government committed to the Paris agreement goals, including limiting global heating to as close to 1.5C as possible. The United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change last year estimated that reaching the goal would require a 59% to 78% cut in coal use by 2030 compared with 2010 levels, followed by deeper reductions by mid-century. It’s like Australia is just saying “burn baby burn.”

Indigenous knowledge is part of how we are going to save ourselves, so let’s work together. George Nicholas writes in the Smithsonian Magazine, “… On the one hand, these types of knowledge are valued when they support or supplement archaeological, or other scientific evidence. But when the situation is reversed — when traditional knowledge is seen to challenge scientific 'truths' — then its utility is questioned or dismissed as myth. Science is promoted as objective, quantifiable, and the foundation for 'real' knowledge creation or evaluation while traditional knowledge may be seen as anecdotal, imprecise and unfamiliar in form.”

In other words, our knowledge is sought and valued sometimes. But when our knowledge runs contrary to political, economic or scientific interests, we are dismissed. Line 3 is a perfect example of that. I don’t want to say “we told you so” about the raging fires from Australia to California, but that’s pretty much the story.

LaDuke: Waabiziwag Giiwewag: The Return of the Swans

Waabiziwag Giiwewag:

The Return of the Swans

I often pass the shores of Shell Lake, one of the sources of the Mississippi River. Like all of us who live giiwedinong, here in the north country, I look to the birds, each month in succession, to see who has returned, what they are up to, and how they look. This year, it is the swans, or "waabizii" in Anishinaabemowin, the Ojibwe language. The swans dominate the northern lakes like Shell Lake, Round Lake and lakes near the Tamarac Wildlife Refuge. A flock of a hundred or more swans may grace a lake. It’s a beautiful sight.

Minwenzhaa, or "long ago, that’s when America was great," there were flocks of birds which darkened the skies—loons, geese and swans in abundance; fish in every lake; and, of course, buffalo. That was a long time ago. By the time Minnesota came around, things were not going so great.

The last recorded trumpeter nesting pair in Minnesota was in 1884-1885. Hunted for food and feathers, the swans were skinned and sold to Europe where the skin and down were used to put powder on women’s faces. By 1935 there were a 69 trumpeter swans left in the lower 48 states. That was a tragedy. Really. All for some powder on faces.

It took a few decades of missing the swans, when in l977, things began to change. Carroll Henderson with the Audubon Society recently presented in Alexandria, Minn., on the return of the swans. Henderson worked with Department of Natural Resource's non- game species program in the l970s. The goal was to establish 30 breeding pairs in Minnesota. In 1984, DNR staff flew to Alaska and returned with 50 swan eggs to Minnesota. The eggs hatched at Carlos Avery Refuge and lived there until they were adults. Age four is when swans nest and mate, so they aren’t in a big hurry.

Mike Swan from the White Earth Biology Department and the Tamarac Refuge staff joined the DNR to release the newly adult swans into the reservation and Tamarac Refuge. The non-game program continued collecting 50 swan eggs for the next two years. They also secured swans from zoos that had nesting pairs. These were all released on the White Earth Reservation and within the Tamarac Refuge. By 2000, there were 670 breeding pairs of swans in Minnesota.

I remember my daughter Waseyabin seeing the swans in the yard on the lake. “Mom”, she said, “Why do they have tags, are they for sale?” Those were some of the swans in the breeding program, nice orange tags. By 2015 there were 1,700 breeding pairs; and in 2018, it’s estimated there were 17,000 juvenile and adult trumpeter swans in Minnesota. Now that’s a comeback.

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Waabiziiwag giiwewag, "the swans return home." This work to restore some of the original dignity of this land and waters is the work of a lot of people and agencies who are often not acknowledged. These birds were returned from the brink of extinction because they were classified as a non-game species. They were restored because people worked together, and the swans wanted to come home. They are some pretty noble creatures.

As I pass the shores of Shell Lake, I often stop to put my tobacco out in prayer for the wonders of the north country, and the headwaters of the Mississippi, home of the Waabiziiwag. Their homecoming has been long awaited.

Photos by LittleRedfeather Design taken at Shell Lake, MN.

Welcome to the Kill Zone- the Shadow of Husky

Maximum Area Threatened: 22-mile radius ·

Maximum Residential Population Threatened: 180,000

“In four years, three major accidents have occurred that could have led to large hydrogen fluoride releases. This exposes a shocking level of disregard for public safety. Oil companies are passing along large accident-related costs to consumers while pleading poverty when asked to replace hydrogen fluoride with processes that use safer chemicals.” — Daniel Horowitz, former managing director of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, July 8th, 2019

READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE: http://duluthreader.com/articles/2019/12/05/18952_welcome_to_the_kill_zone_the_shadow_of_husky