This story was originally published on High Country News. It is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
On a warm August morning, laughter and the chirping grasshoppers mixed as young women from the Aaniiih tribe searched for sweetgrass. They ran their fingers through the vegetation to find out if they had rough sedges or satiny sweetgrass. As the sweetgrass scent drifted through air, one held strands in her mouth. Many Indigenous people present sweetgrass as gifts, including braiding it, for use in smudging ceremonies and here at Fort Belknap Indian Reservation. Savannah Spottedbird (17 years old) is a member of the Nakoda Tribe. She shouts across the meadow waving long grass blades and asks for permission to return next summer. This is what I want to do!
The aspen stands surrounded the moist meadow. Sweetgrass can be found along riverbanks and in wetlands, where it helps stabilize the soil against erosion. Fort Belknap covers 623,000 acres of prairie grassland in central Montana. Both the Aaniiih (Gros Ventre), and Nakoda tribes share the Fort Belknap Indian Community as their government. Tyrus Brockie (22-year-old Aaniiih Tribe member) stood nearby Spottedbird, busy snipping seed tops and dropping them in a paper bag.
These young adults were part of Fort Belknap Indian Community Grassland Rehabilitation Project. This project was a partnership between the Bureau of Land Management and the reservation. Collecting seeds from healthy plots, which is a visible sign of colonization, is the first step to restoring the dry, dusty, degraded land. This area has seen changes in land use since the Dawes Act (1887), when the federal government subdivided tribal land and attempted to force assimilation to US society.
The grassland restoration project was established to revive the land. However, it also benefits the young people who are involved in the work. Although they may not be aware of it, it is empowering for them. Dan Werk (Aaniiih), project coordinator and cultural liaison with the Tribal Historic Preservation Offices, said that while it is difficult to believe, they are very capable of knowing it. These young people will be able take control of the healing of Fort Belknap.
The project was born in Alberta, Canada. Cristina Eisenberg (program director), is Raramuri and Western Apache, and has been working with similar Kainai First Nation fieldwork since 2013. Eisenberg, an Oregon State University ecologist, said that what is most important to her is to empower young people. The BLM's plant conservation and restoration leader introduced Eisenberg in 2018 to Wendy Velman who was the head of the BLMs Botany Program for Montana and Dakotas. Velman was also working independently to partner with tribes regarding seed collection. They met with Fort Belknap Tribal Council members in 2019 and began grassland restoration last year.
The council would like the project to collect and assess seeds from sensitive plant populations on reservations. The plants are mostly used medicinally and their names, with the exception of sweetgrass, are kept secret. Five other species of seeds were also collected: western wheatgrass (bluebunch wheatgrass), junegrass and Sandberg bluegrass.
