National parks are viewed as America’s “best idea.” But in reality, Indigenous people had been caring for and watching over those lands long before settlers arrived on the scene. In this episode of Unpacked, we go inside the movement to return national park land to its original stewards: Native Americans.
Read the transcript here: https://rebrand.ly/vetwd1h
Discover more episodes of the Unpacked by AFAR podcast here: https://www.afar.com/podcasts/unpacked
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Read the transcript here: https://rebrand.ly/vetwd1h
Discover more episodes of the Unpacked by AFAR podcast here: https://www.afar.com/podcasts/unpacked
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CONNECT WITH AFAR
Afar.com is a digital and print magazine that publishes travel tips, guides, news, and stories: https://www.afar.com
Get updates on the latest articles, travel news, and more from AFAR by signing up for the AFAR newsletter: https://afar.com/newsletters
Follow AFAR on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AfarMedia
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TravelTranscript
00:00 I'm Aislinn Green and this is Unpacked, the podcast that unpacks one tricky topic in travel
00:07 each week.
00:09 And this week we are exploring a different perspective on what is known as America's
00:13 best idea, our national parks.
00:17 Our guide this week is Mae Hamilton, AFAR's associate editor.
00:21 Mae heads up our art and culture beat.
00:23 She has written some fantastic stories, including an essay about her complex love for Texas
00:28 where she grew up, a story that we will link to in our show notes.
00:32 And she's really good at finding the stories that kind of try to show a fuller picture
00:36 of the world, a story just like the one you're about to hear.
00:42 Welcome Mae.
00:43 Hi Katie.
00:44 Today we're going to talk about your story, which I'm really excited for listeners to
00:47 hear.
00:48 But we were slacking about this beforehand and I was asking you about what drew you to
00:52 the story and what you wrote back was so beautiful and profound.
00:56 It felt like we just needed to have you say it.
00:58 So what did draw you to the story?
01:01 I grew up in a place where the narrative of the West is still very much alive, Texas.
01:06 It's a part of the way that people interpret not only the state's identity, but themselves
01:10 too.
01:11 But in the big historic conflict between Cowboys and Native Americans, I've always been more
01:16 interested in what Native Americans had to say.
01:19 And I love national parks.
01:21 In my opinion, they are one of the best things that the federal government has ever done.
01:26 Some of the most sublime moments I've had in my life took place in national parks, from
01:31 Big Bend to Acadia.
01:33 And like many other people, I was very much in the mindset that these are untouched landscapes.
01:38 But as I learned more about American history from a Native perspective, it was hard to
01:41 ignore how the legacy of our parks is still very painful for many Indigenous people.
01:46 When I first learned about Secretary Haaland being elected and then electing Director
01:50 Sands in turn, I felt like big changes could very much be on the horizon.
01:55 And maybe those changes could last well into the future.
01:58 To me, that was a story certainly worth telling.
02:01 And what do you hope that listeners might take away from this in terms of their own
02:05 relationships with national parks or just learning more about this movement?
02:08 Well, I think a few things.
02:10 Like I said, national parks are definitely my favorite thing about the government in
02:14 general.
02:16 And I think when I found out about this, I almost felt a little like, I don't want to
02:22 say like dirty, but I felt a little bit sad that like this thing that I thought was pure
02:27 and pure in a sense where it felt like purely for the people.
02:30 Like I just realized that it didn't exactly encompass the experience of all people.
02:34 I guess I don't want Americans as a whole to necessarily feel discouraged by that.
02:39 But I think that's like a conflict that we're having in general with our country, where
02:44 we do have painful parts of our history, but we're not sure how to integrate that knowledge
02:50 into our day to day lives in a way that's helpful for ourselves and for the people that
02:56 have been hurt.
02:57 I think that's what I really love about your story is that it does feel like a story of
03:00 integration or an attempt at integration.
03:04 And you have this great interview with the current director of the national parks, and
03:07 he seems very much aligned with that too, right?
03:10 I agree.
03:11 And I don't think this actually made it into the episode, but Director Sams is of mixed
03:16 heritage as well.
03:17 So he is like half white American, but also half native, and he's very much into bridging
03:23 those two narratives in his life.
03:25 And what a position of power to be able to do that and to be able to help with some of
03:28 these movements like the land back movement.
03:31 It feels like there's some really positive progress.
03:34 And it's also such a big topic.
03:35 Was there anything else that you didn't feel like you had room to add in this episode that
03:39 you want to share?
03:40 In general, I think we should hear from more native voices in the future.
03:45 Like not saying that we didn't include that in our podcast, but I think people should
03:50 really take the time to go out and seek those narratives.
03:53 You know what I mean?
03:54 Like listen to that history and listen to that pain.
03:57 Because it's something that it's not fed to us in school, in like popular modern culture.
04:04 You have to go and seek it.
04:06 And I think once you understand that better, you understand your country better.
04:14 Yellowstone, Yosemite, Acadia, Big Bend.
04:18 Roughly 300 million people visit America's national parks per year.
04:22 They are arguably the country's most beloved treasures.
04:26 They have the power to instill wonder, inspire awe, and help people feel closer to the natural
04:31 world.
04:32 We're four years old and we're standing at the precipice of the Grand Canyon.
04:35 We can't help but be awed by nature and how the canyon was created thousands of years.
04:41 Watch Charles F. "Chuck" Sams III, the current director of the National Park System.
04:47 Sams is also Cayuse and Walla Walla and an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes
04:52 of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Northeast Oregon.
04:56 He grew up visiting the national parks and he loves them as much as anyone else.
05:01 But even as a kid, he knew something was wrong with the origin myths of our national parks.
05:07 Growing up and seeing the park that was missing out of that story was how they ended up taking
05:11 land from people who were not only just occupying the land, but actually had cultivated, owned,
05:16 and oversaw the land for thousands of years.
05:19 Before they were displaced and even killed to make room for settlement, indigenous people
05:24 were careful stewards of the land.
05:27 What is now known as the United States was never an untouched wilderness.
05:33 Controlled burns were done to eliminate undergrowth and to open pasture land for animals like
05:37 deer, oak and chestnut orchards were sown and managed for acorns.
05:42 Many tribes were nomadic and understood the environmental dangers of overhunting or overfishing
05:47 in one particular area.
05:49 Director Sams has a deep cultural belief that Native peoples should again be stewards of
05:54 America's landscapes.
05:55 As I understand it, growing up on the Umatilla Indian Reservation, we as a people were created
06:00 from the floor and bottom.
06:02 My skin comes from the height of the oak, my eyesight comes from the eagle, my hearing
06:05 comes from the owls.
06:08 Director Sams says each of these gifts are what make up the Umatilla.
06:12 And in return, we are the protectors and preservers of both flora and fauna by stewarding those
06:17 resources not just for ourselves, but for the next seven generations to come.
06:22 That stewardship is something that Director Sams and many others are fighting to bring
06:26 back.
06:27 We want to incorporate tribal expertise and indigenous knowledge in the federal land and
06:33 resource management.
06:35 As we manage these federal lands and waters, we want to do so in a manner that seeks to
06:39 protect treaty rights, religious practices, subsistence uses, and cultural interests
06:45 for federally recognized tribes across the United States.
06:49 This concept is called co-management.
06:50 Basically, tribes and the government would work together to co-manage national parks
06:56 and make sure that the tribes have access to the resources they need to adequately take
07:00 care of the land.
07:02 It's a key part of several changes that are happening at the federal level.
07:08 The push for change all began with the Land Back movement.
07:11 The sentiments that gave rise to the modern day Land Back movement started more than 500
07:16 years ago when Native peoples first came into contact with colonizers and conquistadors.
07:22 But in 2018, R&L tail feathers of the Kainai tribe of the Blackfeet Confederacy of Canada
07:27 coined the term "Land Back" on an Instagram post, and the phrase took off like a rocket.
07:33 A couple of years later, in 2020, the indigenous organization NDN Collective launched a Land
07:39 Back manifesto that called for the reclamation of everything stolen from the original peoples.
07:45 Their terms include things like agency over tribe self-governance, education, language,
07:51 and perhaps most importantly, their right to land.
07:57 In 2021, President Biden appointed Deb Haaland, a registered member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe,
08:03 to be the Secretary of the Interior.
08:06 She's the first person of Native American descent to hold the position.
08:09 Haaland has done a number of much needed things.
08:12 There's now a new branch of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is solely dedicated
08:16 to investigating the murders and disappearances of Native people.
08:20 And she's also started an initiative that's researching and documenting the abuse that
08:24 occurred in residential schools.
08:27 In December 2021, she swore in Director Sams as the 19th Director of the National Park
08:32 Service.
08:33 He's also the first person of Native descent to hold his position.
08:38 And then in September 2022, Haaland issued Joint Secretarial Order 3403.
08:45 It sounds totally dry and bureaucratic, I know, but it has the possibility to be a game
08:51 changer.
08:52 Her order explains how the Department of the Interior and the Department of Agriculture
08:57 will strengthen tribal co-management efforts of federal lands and waters.
09:01 That also includes National Park land, all 85 million acres of it.
09:07 And through that order, the National Park Service has committed to identifying and increasing
09:11 co-management through opportunities between the parks and Native communities.
09:16 Under 3403, we have, and we are charged with the highest trust responsibility to protect
09:22 tribal interests and further our nation-to-nation relationship with tribes so that they are
09:27 able to bring their Indigenous knowledge to the table in helping manage these spaces,
09:33 either through co-stewardship and where there are legal opportunities to do so through co-management.
09:39 The relationship between Native communities and the National Park System has always been
09:43 tense.
09:44 And while some in those Native communities are optimistic, they are also skeptical as
09:48 to how much the new order can accomplish.
09:51 To many tribes, the land that National Parks are on are sacred and hold special meaning.
09:56 There's also often game or plants on these lands that tribes have used for thousands
10:01 of years for ceremonial purposes or for medicine.
10:04 Plants like pipsisua, a flowering herb that grows on Mount Rainier.
10:08 We use it for medicine for our liver and our kidneys.
10:12 It's like a drink.
10:13 That's Hanford McLeod, a member of the Nisqually Tribal Council, whose ancestral lands stretch
10:18 from Olympia, Washington to Mount Rainier.
10:22 Since the 1980s, the Nisqually tribe has butted heads with park rangers about collecting pipsisua.
10:28 Even one of his aunties ran into trouble in the past.
10:32 When she would go up, she would just pull off the side of the road and just start gathering
10:35 stuff and the rangers came in, they would tell her, "Ma'am, you can't gather."
10:39 She'd be like, "I've been coming here as a little girl and you can't."
10:43 And then she would argue with them, argue with them, literally have to stand there in
10:48 the road and argue with this park ranger who was ready to arrest her.
10:54 McLeod is cautiously optimistic about the new proposals.
10:58 He sees these agencies as being possibly more sincere than ever before.
11:03 Director Sams agrees.
11:04 There is a deep hunger within the National Park Service that I've seen that I was really
11:10 surprised about.
11:11 We have over 424 national parks, monuments, and memorials across the United States and
11:17 encompassing 85 million acres of land.
11:19 Right now, over 20% of them are engaged in some way with tribes and conversations about
11:25 indigenous ways of knowing and how we can bring those practices and understanding of
11:30 tribal science together with modern science, if you will, and merge those so that we can
11:36 protect these places, especially as we face climate change.
11:39 The hope is that with Secretarial Order 3403, that even more parks will work in unison with
11:45 tribes to manage parks.
11:47 Indigenous knowledge will be used to help care for the land while allowing Native communities
11:50 access to resources and the land itself.
12:05 In Acadia National Park, the park system is working on a multi-year project with the Wabanaki
12:11 Nations of Maine.
12:13 They're once again gathering sweetgrass, a cool season grass that's traditionally used
12:17 for smudging and basket weaving, after a nearly 100-year ban.
12:23 Gathering rights for tribes weren't really formalized until 2016.
12:27 In New York, the Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island have cooperative
12:32 agreements in place with the Stockbridge-Munsee Community Band of Mohicans, the Delaware Tribe
12:38 of Indians, and the Delaware Nation.
12:41 Together they will create displays that will help visitors better understand these parks
12:46 from an Indigenous perspective.
12:48 Tribal consultation has also been used to beautify Liberty Island with Native plants.
12:54 And Mount Rainier National Park is currently working with the Nisqually Tribe.
12:58 For the past five years, Nisqually Tribe members have been researching three species of plants
13:03 that the tribe has long harvested.
13:05 Their findings will be jointly presented by the park and the tribe.
13:09 The report will offer recommendations on how to gather herbs in a way that minimizes its
13:13 impact on the plants themselves.
13:16 But for many tribes, the goal is not exactly to co-manage the land, it's to co-steward
13:21 it.
13:22 At least that's the case for Tracey Rebus, a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation and
13:27 the Yuchi people.
13:28 They are two different things.
13:30 Co-management means that you are truly equal to equal when you create a management agreement
13:34 for any of these federal lands, whether it's BLM, whether it's forestry, Fish and Wildlife,
13:41 National Park.
13:43 Stewardship refers a lot to, we know that there are people who take care of that land.
13:47 That doesn't necessarily mean that that's going to be the same people who get to come
13:50 in and make the decisions for the land.
13:52 Rebus says that co-management is more about policy.
13:56 And policy can change every time a new president is elected.
14:00 Stewardship on the other hand, asks for an agreement that puts tribes on equal footing
14:05 with the parks.
14:06 In other words, they would share authority over how they would manage the land.
14:11 That could mean things like requiring that parks hire tribe members to be park rangers
14:15 or making tribal knowledge an integral part of running a park.
14:19 But still, Rebus says she's happy with the changes Secretary Haaland has made.
14:24 We've got to do more with telling the tribal stories, managing the land, tribal ecological
14:29 knowledge, the people who were always on that land, who knew about that land, named the
14:33 land, know the stories of that land.
14:35 Why are we not talking to them?
14:37 So that is what she's bringing in and saying, look, why are we ignoring Indian country?
14:42 This co-stewardship agreement, which is incredible, is directing other agencies to say, go back
14:48 and talk to the tribes, make sure that there's a cooperative agreement with the tribes.
14:53 Quit battling the tribes, bring them into the conversation.
14:56 Rebus was born in Oklahoma, but that's not where her tribe is from originally.
15:01 The Muscogee Creek tribes ancestral homelands encompass Southern Tennessee, much of Alabama,
15:07 Western Georgia, and parts of Northern Florida.
15:10 In 1821, a tribe was forced to leave their homes on a trail of tears.
15:15 They were made to live in what was then known as Indian territory, aka Oklahoma.
15:21 But their ancestral lands have been making headlines lately because Ocmulgee Mounds National
15:26 Historical Park could soon become Georgia's very first national park.
15:31 The 2,000 acre park was once a large city within the Muscogee Creek Nation.
15:37 There are seven mounds there, which were used as funerary sites and for other ceremonial
15:41 purposes.
15:42 But before it came under the protection of the national government, Ocmulgee Mounds was
15:47 the site of all sorts of land abuse.
15:49 That's right.
15:50 There's a story of what happens to the land.
15:52 You know, the railroad comes and desecrates a burial mound in 1840s.
15:58 It becomes a cotton farm and becomes a slave plantation.
16:01 They clear cut it.
16:02 It became a motorcycle track.
16:04 But when they cut through the mounds for the train, which is still there today, there are
16:11 bones flying everywhere.
16:14 You know that there's something here.
16:16 You went directly through a burial site.
16:19 It wasn't until the 30s when FDR visited the area that Ocmulgee Mounds became a National
16:25 Historic Park and a national monument.
16:28 He used the Antiquities Act to create the national monument.
16:33 And when he did that, that is also what triggered the largest archaeological dig in the U.S.,
16:38 which is at Ocmulgee.
16:41 Two point five million artifacts were recovered.
16:44 Despite the decades that they've been away, the Muscogee Creek Nation's ties to this land
16:48 are still as strong as ever and for several reasons.
16:52 Number one, our ancestors are buried here.
16:55 We've got to make sure that they are protected and where they remain is it remains sacred
17:00 and then make it a way for the future of the nation for those who have yet to come.
17:05 We care about that one because our artifacts and our people are here, but also because
17:10 our fires came from here.
17:11 What make us who we are in our ceremonies that we still have today are our fires at
17:16 the heart of every one of our towns and of these moundsites of these villages.
17:21 We had a fireplace, those tribal towns, those dalwas had fires.
17:25 Those fires went with us to Oklahoma.
17:28 Reva says as the nation kept getting moved from place to place, they would take those
17:32 burning coals.
17:34 They still burn today in Oklahoma.
17:36 We have 16 fires that still remain today and those fires came directly from these lands.
17:43 And so we're directly connected to what's happening here.
17:46 And Reva says the final reason the Muscogee Creek Nation has strong ties to this land
17:51 is because they own it.
17:54 Over the years, they've bought back land along the Okmulgee Corridor.
17:58 No one gave us this land.
17:59 We actually had to come in and buy it ourselves.
18:02 So we own land in this corridor where we continue to be a part of this community.
18:07 There is a possibility that a future co-management agreement with the park system could further
18:12 strengthen their relationship with Okmulgee Mounds.
18:15 We've been gone from the South for about 200 years now and people down here don't really
18:20 know who we are.
18:21 They know there were Indians and a lot of people have no idea that our words are etched
18:25 all over the entire landscape of the Southeast because this was our land.
18:29 We named it.
18:30 We named the waters.
18:31 We named the area.
18:32 And so you'll see our words all over the entire Southeast.
18:36 In addition to returning land back to its original owners, there's also the hope that
18:41 Joint Secretarial Order 3403 could help mitigate one of the biggest existential threats of
18:47 our lifetime, climate change.
18:50 Tribes have been here for at least 20 to 30,000 years.
18:54 In that time period, they've seen two major changes in ice flows as the ice both came
19:00 in and receded back on this landscape.
19:02 So they've lived through climate change.
19:05 So understanding what that may have looked like from their perspective through their
19:08 oral tradition and stories to be able to bring that knowledge forward so that we can figure
19:12 out what adaptation and resiliency would look like.
19:17 Hanford McLeod of the Nisqually Tribal Council agrees.
19:21 There's always this harmony of Mother Earth and this language, this internal language
19:25 we no longer listen for, or I should say hear for.
19:30 We listen, but we don't hear it.
19:32 And when you listen, you will hear your ancestors talk to you about, not about how it was, but
19:38 it's about how it needs to be.
19:41 So at the end of the day, Secretarial Order 3403 is meant to help right some of American
19:47 history's biggest wrongs.
19:49 And in the end, maybe it'll be better for all of us.
19:53 The leadership of both Secretary Holland and Agricultural Secretary Vilsack inside of 3403
19:59 set a new course and a new way of how we are going to help further that trust responsibility
20:05 we have with the American people, but also with tribes and the preservation of these
20:09 places.
20:14 And that is it for this week.
20:16 If you'd like to learn more about Secretarial Order 3403 and the ways in which it will benefit
20:21 the places we love, visit nps.gov.
20:25 We'll link to some of the news coverage in our show notes.
20:27 And you can follow Mae Hamilton on social media @bymaeham.
20:32 And be sure to follow her byline on afar.com.
20:36 To learn more about the Okmulgee National Park and Preserve Initiative, the project
20:40 that Tracey Revis is working on, visit okmulgeepark.org.
20:44 And finally, to learn about the Nisqually Tribal Council, visit nisqually-nsn.gov.
20:48 We'll see you next week.
20:52 Ready for more unpacking?
20:54 Visit afar.com and be sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter.
20:58 We're @AfarMedia.
21:00 If you enjoyed today's exploration, I hope you'll come back for more great stories.
21:04 Subscribing makes this easy.
21:06 You can find Unpacked on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform.
21:11 And be sure to rate and review the show.
21:13 It helps other travelers find it.
21:16 This season, we also want to hear from you.
21:18 Is there a travel dilemma, trend, or topic you'd like us to explore?
21:22 Email us at unpacked@afar.com.
21:26 This has been Unpacked, a production of Afar Media.
21:29 The podcast is produced by Aislinn Green and Nikki Galteland.
21:32 Music composition by Chris Collin.
21:35 And remember, the world is complicated.
21:37 We're here to help you unpack it.
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