Bois Forte Indian Reservation

It was a part of her daily life for over 40 years, and in 2013, she deepened her connection to that river by walking its banks for more than 60 days.

Sharon is a member of the Bois Forte Band of Ojibwe and is a Nibi Walk leader.

Sharon, welcome to Unreserved.

Yeah.

Um, I- I had a dream the other night, and I was walking.

There was a big, you know, hole in the ground here and another hole in the ground here, and I was walking in between them.

And there were people from my, uh, reservation, Bois Forte, were walking.

Our dreams are really important to us, right? And so I looked it up, and there are six active mines.

Northwood's removed books about racism, LGBTQ themes, and the Holocaust from the school library.

They pulled children's classics, including Charlotte's Web." How the hell do you pull Charlotte's Web off the shelves? "And Newbery Award-winners, bedtime stories, and cookbooks, books about dinosaurs and books by Native American authors purchased with students from the nearby Bois Forte Reservation in mind." It seems like if you're near a reservation, books by Native American authors might be a good one to have on the shelves.

"They pulled every book that the school had added to its collection at the request of newly hired library assistant Quinn Krebsbach." [laughs] Ol' Quinn had an itinerary it sounds like [laughs].

Uh, "the assistant principal wrote in an email act, uh, last October, quote, 'I need to see the inventory of books that you ordered this year, and I need you to bring all the new books that you ordered to my room.' The inventory included Charlotte's Web, Gender Queer, The Bluest Eye, A Wrinkle in Time, uh, Elie Wiesel's Holocaust memoir Night, and the John Deere Farm to Table Kids Cookbook." Yeah, I could see where that one would really be, uh, uh, messing kids up.

Nikki is the executive director of the Towaha Foundation, a Minnesota-based organization that supports Native leadership, cultural preservation, and economic opportunity through grants, leadership, opportunities, and community programs.

She is Bois Forte Anishinaabe.

Hi, Nikki.

Thank you for being here.

And is that something, Nikki, that, uh, is an example of, like, what's really going well?

That is definitely an example of what's going well, and I think even beyond where Sean makes the headlines.

And he-- actually, I remember when I was still living at Bois Forte, this might even be 10 years ago, um, and he was doing his, like, res tour with his first cookbook, Sioux Chef.

Mm-hmm.