Buju, welcome to the 21st season of Native Report.

I'm Rita Carpin.

Production for Native Report is made possible by grants from the Blandon Foundation, the generous support from viewers like Jack and Sharon Kemp, and viewers like you.

At Dancing Crane Ranch in northern Minnesota, the belief that good food is good medicine is more than a saying.

It's a way of life.

Inspired by family teachings, ancestral dreams, and a deep connection to chief buffalo, this native owned ranch is working to restore bison to the landscape and bring healthy, culturally grounded foods back to the community.

We visit Native Wise LLC to hear how one family's vision grew into a movement of reconnection, stewardship, and revitalization.

Good food is good medicine.

And my grandmother kind of co coined that phrase.

That's what we modeled our ranch after was producing good quality Native American food.

I come from the crane clan and we have cranes that come here and dance on the ranch.

So we call this dancing crane ranch, but we're native wise um or good medicine food is what we produce.

It was a dream of David's uh my husband's.

Uh, so we decided to go into bison because he found his family connection to chief buffalo and it was really inspirational to him to want to bring buffalo back to the landscape.

For my job, I was supposed to do a research project on a native leader from the past.

And so I picked Chief Buffalo and he's my seven generations back.

He would have been my my grandfather.

And not long after I did that research and came up with that report for work, I started having these dreams about bison a lot.

And I've always been fascinated with with the buffalo or the bison.

And so when one of those dreams, Chief Buffalo kind of came to me and he said, "Bring back my namesake."

He said, "That'll help reconnect our people and bring good food and and we need that on our on our land again."

So I started looking into like how could I get you know I thought at the time I was like I didn't own her own own this land and you know we just had a smaller acreage and just about that time my cousin still own this land but she didn't live around here and she was like you know I'm thinking about selling the land it's just kind of a burden for me cuz I don't live around here and so I was like wow I'd love to buy the land cuz I've always hunted here with my family and remember many good times here um with my great aunt and um and so it was a natural to want to want to do something with this land and keep it in the family and at the same time I was having these dreams about the bison so it was like all coming together we ended up working with David's family to purchase um his family ranch uh that had pre previously had cattle on it.

So, we purchased the ranch and then we were able to partner with Tonka Fund to receive the buffalo and um it was a lot of fence building and a lot of infrastructure that we had to take on in order to be able to do that.

They helped us get our first bison and then um helped us with some of the infrastructure cuz some of the requirements are you had to have um the right kind of fencing and watering and so some of that was in place.

I had to take but I had to take down a lot of the old fencing because it wouldn't have been adequate and it would actually been dangerous for the animals.

Um so after getting all that set up um it's been amazing to have the bison back on the landscape.

We got 12 to start out with and we um we welcomed our community to come out and they did some really nice um um welcoming our relative the bison back here on the land again.

We had a drumming ceremony and a feast and um you know we did it did it in a good way bringing them back and I always think of it as it's part of our community.

I'm I'm the caretaker of them, but I really love having the community involved.

We love to supply meat to the local community.

It's a It's great thing to see it going right back into the community again and stimulating our economy right here and bringing back a good healthy food source for for our community as well.

We also um host three Oji boy spirit horses on our property and we are trying right now to build a breeding facility so that we can host an Oji boy stud and get into the breeding of Ojiway horses.

Uh we also um harvest and purchase and sell wild rice, honey, uh maple syrup, maple sugar, and other food products.

And we do that locally in restaurants.

We do it in stores like Whole Foods Co-op or other natural food stores and also in local restaurants.

So right now we utilize USDA processing facilities because if you sell it in stores or to restaurants, it has to be USDA processed and certified for safety.

Our goal is to be able to harvest on site and process on site into quarters and halves direct to the consumer and then they would process it further from there.

So we have to get certified by the state to be able to do that.

And I think it's um respectful and fair to the animal and then it's good for the community because they can come right to the farm, get their bison meat and it's a healthy food option that's local.

The bison pretty much take care of themselves.

We just, you know, it's been a lot of work taking the old fencing down because there was a lot of um old barbed wire fencing.

The ranch is 380 acres.

It kind of fell out of my family's tribal ownership.

It was our original land here.

It's been a lot of um you know, just kind of working our way through the process.

there's a little bit of red tape to deal with, but I think in the long run, we're going to build something that's going to be real sustainable and that's something our community can be proud of.

And um you know, we're starting to supply um some of our stuff to the local schools as well.

And so we're just trying to get good food or good medicine out there for the community.

Through hard work, partnership, and a commitment to cultural values, Native Wise LLC is restoring more than a herd.

They're restoring connection.

As the bison returns, so does a healthier food system, opportunities for local families, and a renewed relationship with the land.

Dancing crane stands as a reminder that good food, good medicine, and good healing begin at home.

Moralgia paristhetica causes numbness and pain in the outer thigh.

It's caused by compression of the nerve that provides sensation to that area.

This nerve runs under a ligament in the groin and it supplies sensation to the thigh.

Tight clothing, obesity, weight gain, heavy tool belts, and pregnancy are common causes of nerve compression.

It can also be due to diseases such as diabetes or injury.

People between the ages of 30 and 60 are at higher risk.

Symptoms commonly occur on one side of your body and might get worse after walking or standing.

It often responds to conservative measures such as wearing looser clothing, loosening tight belts, and losing weight.

If symptoms aren't relieved by those things, some medications may be helpful.

Surgery is rarely needed.

Diagnosis is based on a physical exam and your medical history.

You may need a nerve conduction test to check the nerves in your thigh.

Tracing out the numb or painful area can localize the area to the specific nerve.

Imaging studies might be needed if there is a concern something else is compressing the nerve.

Over-the-counter medicines such as ibuprofen and accetophin are usually sufficient.

Again, losing weight, wearing looser clothing, avoiding heavy tool belts, and controlling risk factors such as diabetes are mostly what is needed.

This usually resolves without any intervention and may take a few months.

As always, talk to your provider about your concerns.

Remember to call an elder.

They've been waiting for your call.

I'm Dr.

Arie Vineo and this is Health Matters.

On the waters of the St.

Louis River estuary, the 1854 Treaty Authority is working to restore a species once pushed to the brink.

Using set lines, a careful method designed to capture fish safely, biologist Nick Boio and his team collect vital data that will shape the future of Lake Sturgeon in northern Minnesota.

From tagging and genetics to tracking migration and spawning, each fish tells a story.

One that guides conservation, protects treaty rights, and strengthens cultural connections.

As the research unfolds, we also hear from a cultural expert who shares the deep cultural significance this sturgeon holds for native people, offering a powerful reminder of why this work matters.

Stay tuned for a closer look into the world of this ancient and resilient fish.

Set lines are pretty much a trot line, if you know what a trot line is, but it's deployed offshore.

So, it's got two buoy lines that run down to anchors and then a mother line runs along the bottom and then these little clips with hooks on them are baited with sucker.

So when the fish come and grab grabs onto it, it um gets caught, but they're still able to swim freely and it um greatly reduces mortality of captured fish versus a gil net.

So a lot of people might be concerned cuz we're using large hooks and they have very big barbs on them.

Um but actually all the fish that we've captured, we've captured over 150 at this point using this method, um have done real well.

The hook for the most part gets lodged in their vacuum mouth right near the tip.

So, we're able to actually pop that out pretty easy.

I'm Nick Bogey.

I'm a fisheries biologist with the 1854 Treaty Authority.

Um, today we'll be setting set lines for sturgeon.

This is a method seemed to work really well as far as reducing those by catch and also we also are catching more sturgeon.

We usually run this survey in August um out on Lake Superior, but we also in the fall time um set some in the St.

Louis River here.

FDL gans.

Hello, my name is Naokquay and I work here at the FondeLac Language and Cultural Building known as the Inisha Nabewagamic.

And this is where I work as the Ojiway language project manager for the Fondelac band.

There's many teachings around Nay as we call the sturgeon in our language.

You know the Nay is known as the one who gave Ba Duan to the Ojiway people.

Ba Duan is the stick ball game they call it.

But it's the great gift that was given to us uh by ne and for that reason because of everything that is involved with ba duan and everything that it gives to us uh the ne is highly regarded for that great gift that ne gave to us when I think about the ne of course the ne is regarded for its gift of food it's such a large fish you can uh harvest the ne almost year round.

And so because of that, it's been known and regarded as a great food source and one that gives us sustenance.

Beyond that, it also has another gift that's also connected to Ba Duan in that it the cartilage in the the nose of the ne has been known that you could make a biquac or a ball for ba duin out of its nose.

Once a fish is captured and put into our bin over here, we are um we scan them for a pit tag, which is a 15digit unique um code to that fish.

If it has one, we leave it alone and document it.

Um if it doesn't have one, we'll uh use a hypodermic needle to put it behind the second dorsal scoot.

The fish is then um measured, weighed, um a girth is taken and then we also remove a fin clip which was we can use it for genetics for where that fish um parentage came from.

And then also now we are giving them to the EPA.

They're actually able to sex the individuals cuz a lot of times you can only tell the sex in the spring when they're spawning and it's all compiled in one spot so we can look at that data over time.

You can see growth rates.

You can see um how often they're returning to spawn, which habitat they're using.

It's pretty unique.

The nay is a important part of the world just like everything else that's in it.

It has its place in the world and for that alone the nay should be taken care of and considered.

uh in this area specifically uh the Nay was almost wiped out.

And so here when the nay is taken care of, when we think about it, when we put effort into restoring the habitat for the nay, that's an indicator of how are we doing as humans in caring for not only the fish, not only the n, but also the world that they live in being our waters.

And so as we look at the health and well-being of the NA, it's an indicator of our work to make sure that the water is healthy not only for the NE but for everything and including humans uh that utilize and and are dependent upon good quality water.

We work for two bands, Boy Fort and Grand Portage Tribes.

Um their board of directors work as our bosses.

We take care of off-reservation treaty rights to protect and enhance them for future generations throughout the whole seated territory which is present day um northern Minnesota.

The NE is one of our clans with the clan system being a vitally important part of Ojiway society for a very very long time.

And so the N is one of those clans.

Obviously, it's one of the fish clans and the Nay is known for its knowledge and wisdom because of the long life and gentleness of the Nay and that's a very important gift and a very important part of the place that ne plays in Ojiway society.

So, this data is being used for a lot of different things.

Um, we're trying to reestablish this population that was once almost completely gone due to pollution, dams, and things like that.

I'd say what I'd like to see in the future is as we uh move forward, um, there's a couple issues with this population.

Um, I I would like to see more juveniles in the system.

As of right now, we're catching a lot of larae when we're laral drift netting, and then we're catching a lot of large adults that were stocked in the 80s and 90s.

What we're missing is those intermediate sizes, you know, 20-in sturgeon.

So, I hope with stocking efforts and maybe some of these larae recruiting to larger sizes, I hope to see those intermediate juvenilesized fish in the next 10, 15 years.

Well, I think it's important to remember that, you know, in Ojiway sometimes we say means everything is born of water, comes from the water.

And so you know in our world and in our understanding everything is interrelated everything is interconnected and the nay are part of that there everything has an importance everything has a purpose and if they are truly our relatives if the plants are truly our relatives if the fish are truly our relatives if the birds and the animals and everything are truly our relatives we'll treat them as such the work of the 1854 treaty authority combined with the teachings reminds us that science and culture walk hand in hand in protecting this ancient fish.

As restoration efforts move forward, each sturgeon tagged, studied, and released becomes part of a larger legacy, one that honors the past while safeguarding the future.

Thank you for joining us as we follow this remarkable journey of resilience, tradition, and renewal.

My name is Margaret Nak.

My mom mom named me after her friend Margaret.

And my last name is Nak, which was my mom's maiden name and her father's last name, which means to dive.

and my grandfather was from Big Dame Island off the coast of Gnome.

Elders in our villages are highly respected and have a lot of knowledge of the ways of life of that culture.

And so as a child, I grew up in the uh Eupic and Inupia culture because they were right at the borderline.

And I'd say most of the adults spoke both dialects.

I had been born in Gnome and my first language was English.

And later on when I went to uh a boarding school, all the girls were speaking up and that's when I picked up the language.

So I can say to our guests, That's the Eupic language.

And I said, I thank each one of you for coming here to learn about our people who have been on this land for a long time.

And I thank you again.

When I was seven, my aunt Bertha took care of us for a year and a half while my mom was in the hospital with tuberculosis.

And she was a great hunter, a great provider, and she made clothing for us.

For example, this fur coat.

She made me one of those when I was a young girl.

I made this one in memory of her.

And not only that, I trained five girls how to stitch it correctly.

See, here's the fur and here's the skin.

We uh sew the skins together.

And it took us six months to handstitch it.

So I am a trainer of the youth and I have been teaching bus loads of adults from all over the world and I thank you again.

Wisconsin Point is undergoing new restoration efforts that include a recent prescribed burn aimed at improving the health of the landscape.

As part of this ongoing work, indigenous land management practices are being incorporated to help guide the process.

We speak with Vern Northrup who was on site during the burn to learn more about why this approach matters and what the team hoped to accomplish.

times it just made me feel like I was home, you know, to hear that to hear the sound of that fire to to smell it and watching what it was doing and watching, you know, okay, watching the behavior of it, you know, is I I felt really good.

I was like, okay, this is perfect.

We use that fire the right way.

This is what we need to heal this.

This is the fire that is going to heal this part of the land.

I'm Vern Northrup.

I'm a retired wildland fire operation specialist.

And my role at Wisconsin Pointburn was as an advisor and as being an Fondelac elder.

Well, you have to understand what a prescribed fire is.

A prescribed fire is is literally a prescription for what we would like the fire to do on the ground.

And we're you have to understand as uh when you're working with fire, you have to be very precise on what you want to happen there and using the right parameters to make that happen.

And we didn't want it all burned up, all black from end to end.

We wanted just a slow low fire and let it crawl around on its own.

So it creates like a mosaic in the understory.

That way you have different species growing at different rates, which is what we want, not only for the wildlife, but for the plants themselves.

Plants grow better when they grow at different growth rates.

It started thousands of years ago because the Anesab and people throughout the world have used fire to manage their environment for at least 80 uses of fire that people use around the world to manage their environment.

Yana Shanabi have used it since the time of memorial and there's a lot of different ways they used it.

They used it for food.

They used it to build their canoes for the uh uh all kinds of use just to manage their yards.

In fact, to keep the bugs out of their yards.

We have records of people that burned every year.

My job in fire was, you know, to to put the wet stuff on the red stuff, you know, to put fires out.

But I knew, you know, in my training and as and using prescribed fire, I knew Wisconsin Point and Minnesota Point needed it very badly because you can't walk through portions of it.

You have to stay on those little paths.

But we're we're just we're trying all those things to help manage that forest to bring it back to where it was uh 100 years ago.

100.

The last fire that was there on Wisconsin Point was in 1859.

So, we're returning that spirit back there on on that point of land.

As far as prescribed fire is uh I'm not doing it for me.

I'm not doing it for my my children, my grandchildren.

I'm doing it for seven generations out because I want them to have some of the things we have.

The recent burn at Wisconsin Point is one example of how land managers and community partners are working together to support the long-term health of the area by reintroducing intentional fire and drawing from indigenous perspectives.

The restoration efforts aim to create a stronger, more resilient landscape for the future.

If you missed a show or want to catch up online, find us at nativereport.org.

And don't forget to follow us on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram for behindthescene updates.

Drop a comment on social media if you enjoyed the show.

Thank you for spending your time with your friends and neighbors from across Indian country.

I'm Rita Carpin.

We'll see you next time on Native Report.