The View From Montana: Native Woman Storytelling & Moccasin Making

My experiments in mass media began as long ago as 1990;  I began to write about the Zortman Landusky mine on the southern border of the Ft. Belknap Indian Reservation.  I began narratives of the native experience as told from the eyes of the people who were fighting the contamination of their tribe's drinking water caused by the open pit cyanide heap leach gold mine.

The environmental justice fight began with a few people, and one person--me: with foresight to effectively use mass media to engage the public, and tell the story of the people in this mass media environment.  This was the age before Twitter and Facebook, it presented challenges.  The media was more open in many ways back then, than it is now. It was easier to bring a story about, in a sense, back then, than it is now.  I wrote the native perspective using the Great Falls Tribune as a forum for the tribal people addressing this environmental issue.  The early effort helped galvanize public support; as this issue was eventually covered and picked up by major news networks such as CNN.  Reporter Peter Arnett covered the controversy at a key time in this effort.

By 1996, I was writing a weekly column for a short lived weekly newspaper in Great Falls called the Great Times weekly.  This weekly was published by friend Lauren Dundee; who had previously run a small town news paper out of Stockett, Montana.  She was perhaps more successful in the Stockett enterprise than with the Great Times weekly.  I am not sure as to why Great Times shut down; she hinted that she maybe needed more of a business plan.  My own estimation is she started a weekly venture at a time when on-line media was in its infancy, and about to burst onto the scene.  Coupled with the inability to compete with a larger corporate media holding like the Great Falls Tribune, acquired by Gannett in 1992.  

I was not actively in media until 2009; in that time I raised a family of four children.  I began blogging for the Huffington Post.  I began this by highlighting the need for health care reform that embraced the needs of the average person.  We went from hopes of a single payer system:  the more progressive elements of the Democratic Party were boxed in to arguing for a public option in the insurance exchanges.  This was not what we had envisioned.  It is my belief to this day; as the mold was cast as an industry friendly bill, in fact, an industry insider wrote the bill--this cost the Democrats the U.S. House in 2010.  The loss of the U.S. House was stunning, and something the Democrats have yet to recover from.

The ground I carved out as a nationally and internationally visible Huffington Post blogger, I still occasionally blog--was instrumental in that it made Native women visible to a mass media market as never before.  I am as visible and a known quantity in the USA and Canada.  What happened next is phenomenal.  Stephen Harper's government made a drastic move to pass Bill C-45; gutting Canada's protection of its major waterways and curtailing the sovereignty of First Nations across Canada.  The controversy exploded on-line, and ushered in a new age of prominence and visibility of native women activists who blazed on with the Idle No More movement.  This winter marks its one year anniversary.  

While inroads are carved; there is more work to be done.  In 2010 my first attempt at a run for federal office wound down:  I came in a close third to Tyler Gernant in the Montana primary.  I averaged a cost of .35 cents per vote.  I did not set out to win in 2010, I merely wanted to test the strength of my name recognition, and I lacked, and still lack the major party support.  I did another thing in 2010; I completed my first 120 minute screenplay, Thundering Eagle's War.  This is a personal narrative set in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.  It is significant for the reason, it may be the first war screenplay penned by a Native woman.  It quickly attracted the attention of Washington state producers who will assist in bringing this venture to the big screen.

Success for me is measured in the words I write, and the vision I attempt to project to be spot on in the work I do.  I am continuing in this venture I began so many years ago.  My soul as a writer began on the top of the cusp of Hill 57 in Great Falls, Montana.  I came from an impoverished family, sometimes my only outlet was writing.  I would often go on long walks along this cusp of ground, descend back down the hill and find a pen and paper.  I honed my thought process freestyle, with little formal guidance.  I feel this is the best way to enable a person to become a free thinker;  minimal interruption and room for creativity.  

When I wasn't doing that, my sisters and I helped our mother Dorothy and late aunt, Rose Gopher Bacon, "tan" hides.  This was our traditional craft and occupation, and we transformed the finished product into moccasins.  We were a family of moccasin makers.  My writing has been my self reliance, and when I get too far from my own sense of self, I pull out the beads and bead.  It always brings me back to where I need to be.  

I am preparing for continued ventures:  I am exploring the possibility of bringing the story of James Many White Horses to the big screen.  I have major film ventures in my own company's pipeline.  My production company will pitch endeavors to Current TV, the Women's Channel and OWN.  I remain hopeful and self-reliant.  From my humble beginnings on Hill 57; I am positioning for a major media brand.  I am grateful.