In this episode, we speak with BearPaw Shields from the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes. She is a Saint Cloud State University alumna and is currently the Indigenous Learning Community Program Coordinator at the University’s American Indian Center.
In her forties, she decided to go to college and get a degree so that she could make the change she wanted to see in the world. She does that now through her work at St. Cloud State’s American Indian Center, helping Native students to succeed in school and connect with their culture through language, field trips and other experiences.
As a board member with the Friends of the Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge, she had been instrumental in teaching park staff and visitors about the land’s Native history. Last year, that included the opening of an amphitheater with art provided by Indigenous artists and the names of park animals provided in Dakota and Ojibwemowin.
BearPaw Shields lives in Zimmerman where she likes to go on hikes and find her serenity at the nearby Refuge.
Transcript:
BearPaw Shields: I live like three miles away from the Refuge I’d like to hike, and so that’s my serenity, my peace of Heaven. That’s where I feel like I’m at home. I was in the Refuge. When I was hiking, there was no information about American Indians. So then I had a muster up that courage to talk to the then manager. That’s basically when it started, I volunteered to try to do something.
Leah Lemm: Boozhoo, hello, welcome to Native Lights, where Indigenous voices shine. I’m your host, Leah Lemm.
Cole Premo: And I’m your other host Cole Premo, miigwetch for joining us today. Native Lights is more than a podcast and radio show. It’s a place for Native folks to tell their stories. Each and every week, we have great conversations with wonderful guests from a whole lot of different backgrounds. We’re talking musicians, artists, community leaders, teachers, language warriors, you name it. They have a wonderful mix of passions, and we talk to them about their gifts and how they’re sharing them with the community, and it centers around finding purpose in our lives and amplifying Native Voices, and we’re doing that today. Leah, what’s going on?
Leah Lemm: Hey, you know, just trying to keep up, keep my ears clean, brush my teeth a couple times a day, and I’m doing good. How about you?
Cole Premo: I fail at that every now and then, especially the ears part. I’m just kidding. Man, you know, growing up, I would never think that I would need to pull out the ear hairs, and now I gotta tell the barber to trim my eyebrow hairs. It’s great. This is late 30s for you. Let’s do it.
Leah Lemm: Well, I mentioned the keeping ears clean, and maybe we keep this in. Maybe we don’t, I don’t know. But did you know a common symptom of perimenopause is itchy ears?
Cole Premo: I did not know. So today I learned.
Leah Lemm: Just putting that out there for no reason whatsoever. But seriously, I’m doing great. One cool thing that I could talk about the family is Marvin is going to Nationals for an archery tournament in Utah.
Cole Premo: Wow. He’s got some good aim. Wow, his archery skills. Very proud.
Leah Lemm: So as we record this, he’s off at practice.
Cole Premo: I have a bow and arrow, but in my suburban neighborhood, I don’t know if I could quite use it.
Leah Lemm: Probably not.
Cole Premo: It’s a little bit more friendly in Grand Rapids, in that rural area of yours, the tall and piney.
Leah Lemm: The tall and piney, absolutely. What do we got today?
Cole Premo: Our guest today, who we’re very excited to speak to, is BearPaw Shields.
Leah Lemm: Right on.
Cole Premo
BearPaw Shields is from the Fort Peck, Assiniboine and Sioux tribes, and she’s an alumni from St Cloud State University, where she is the Indigenous Learning Community Program Coordinator at the American Indian center there. Bearpaw Shields is also a board member of the Friends of Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge. A lot of things going on, a lot of good work. So here she is boozhoo, BearPaw Shields, how you doing?
Leah Lemm: Boozhoo, BearPaw.
BearPaw Shields: Hello.
Cole Premo: All right. Could you please start out by introducing yourself?
BearPaw Shields: BearPaw Shields, I’m Assiniboine and Sioux. My clans are Red Bottom and the Canoe Paddlers, which is located in Wolf Point, Montana. I currently live in Zimmerman, Minnesota. I grew up here in St Cloud. I’m currently an Indigenous Learning Community Program Coordinator here in the American Indian Center at St Cloud State University. Coming up here, this may will be my two years at this institution. I’m also an elected board member at the Friends of Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge, and a committee member at large for Sherburne County Parks and Trails. So I’m very honored to be here.
Cole Premo: Awesome. We also like to ask, you know, how are you doing? How’s the family doing?
BearPaw Shields: I am doing good. It is the end of the semester here at St Cloud State, and I am counting down the days. I’m really excited. We have three graduates in the cohort that I have. Just busy time of the year for me.
Leah Lemm: Well, we like to kick off our conversations by asking if there’s anything that you are particularly excited about or thinking about at the moment?
BearPaw Shields: That would be the graduation. So here at St Cloud State, I thought faculty could attend a graduation, but they cannot. They have to pay for their ticket. And so I said, Well, then I will volunteer all day so I can see my students walk the stage.
Cole Premo: So you have to pay for a ticket? Come on now.
Leah Lemm: Surprise. Well, how about you tell us a bit about your role at SCSU?
BearPaw Shields: The ILC, the Indigenous Learning Community program. It’s a newly funded program. The goal for this program is to help guide our Indigenous students on their path here for college, because a lot of them, this is their first time going to college, for probably their whole family. We call ourselves like the aunties. You know how your aunties can be. We’re all in the business. Why are you not going to class? Or we haven’t seen you around? What’s going on? How can we help? Following up. We do events. We do field trips. Darlene St Clair, she’s part of this program as well, and so she’ll do some educating. We do Dakota and we do Ojibwe, so we bring in both of the beautiful worlds together. We really focus on helping our students with identity. A lot of them kind of struggle with that. I know growing up, I struggled with that as well. So we know how important that is for our people as a whole, to have that strong identity, to embrace who they are, where they come from, learning the language too, and that’s part of it as well. Our language is alive and living, and it’s so important for who we are as Indian people, for our language. And so I really encourage our students as well. So Darlene has an elder from Mille Lacs Band that comes up and is helping the Ojibwe students with learning to do their greeting. And then she’s helping the Dakota students with the Dakota aspect.
Leah Lemm: You know, having a sense of identity is very complex, and like a language is a great way to get into that and grow that. What other aspects are there to helping connect identity?
BearPaw Shields: Well, we go and take field trips. So then we’ll go into Mille Lacs, let the students take a tour. We’ll talk to elders, because I think a lot of Ojibwe students, I mean, they’re probably around, of course, in Wisconsin, and they’re not from around here. So I think it’s great for them to see a different perspective or different lens for Dakota. We just recently did a trip to Upper Sioux and got to meet with Carrie. We call her Kushi [sp?] Carrie, Grandma Carrie. She is the oldest living, fluent, speaking Dakota for upper Sioux. And so that was really great to have that experience.
Leah Lemm: How did you build those relationships?
BearPaw Shields: Darlene St Clair knows a lot of people. She has a lot of great connections. I’m a talker. I love meeting people. I love interacting. For Upper Sioux. I actually met Kushi [sp?] Carrie’s daughter, I saw her TikTok, and I was like, Oh, I just love her video. She makes me feel so at home. And I was at a pow wow with a friend of mine, Stephanie. And I’m like, Stephanie, look, there’s that lady I follow on TikTok. I gotta go meet her. She’s like, a star. I just adore her. So I went up and introduced myself, and she was all excited. She’s like, I have a TikTok fan here. And so we started talking, and she does a lot of traditional things, whether it’s gathering plants, speaking the language and I just loved it. And so we just remained connected. And I said, Would you be willing to come up and help educate and help teach, and she embraced that.
Cole Premo: You’re listening to Native Lights, where Indigenous voices shine. Native Lights is produced by Minnesota Native News and Ampers, with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Today we’re speaking with BearPaw Shields. She’s from the Fort Peck, Assiniboine and Sioux tribes. She’s an alumni from St Cloud State University, and is currently the Indigenous Learning Community Program Coordinator at the University’s American Indian Center.
Leah Lemm: Part of this conversation is also exploring a bit of your journey. Can you tell us a bit about how you got into this position? How did you get to where you are?
BearPaw Shields: So, you know, obviously, I was an older adult going back to college. I was in my late 40s. What really sparked me to go to school was that I would always drive through the Refuge with my children, and I said, we need to have some type of representation here. And I would say it over and over, and then I realized, like, Hey, you’re just talking. There’s no action. So then I enrolled, and wanted to do something for our Native communities, so I went into communication studies, Native American Indian Studies. While I was doing that at school, I had Darlene St Clair’s class, Native Nations of Minnesota, Dr Robert Galler’s class, Native American Indian history, and I was inspired. I was inspired about the advocacy, being resilient and all these people, regardless what was happening to them, they pushed forward and not thinking of themselves, but thinking of the generations to come. I live like three miles away from the Refuge I’d like to hike, and so that’s my serenity, my peace of Heaven. That’s where I feel like I’m at home, as in the Refuge. When I was hiking, there was no information about American Indians, and I decided one time that I was going to go look in their gift store to see if they had pamphlets or if they had books for sale to learn about, you know, my ancestors, or the tribal nations that resided on that land, and they didn’t have anything. There was nothing to mention that Native Americans resided here at one time. So then I had to muster up the courage to talk to the then manager, Steve Carl. I introduced myself, what I was going to school for and I said I would really like to help educate children about American Indians, because we’re still here. We’re not going to go anywhere. I don’t know what information they’re being taught at school. We need to educate our kids, and if we can get to the kids, we can get to the adults. And so Mr. Carl, we had a really great conversation, even though I was really nervous. And so he invited me to their fall festival. He said I could have a table, I could have a little booth, and we would take it from there and see how it goes. I said, Okay, so I was super excited. And of course, I did the rookie mistake. I grabbed anything and everything. I had a books, artifacts, something that would pique the interest of people coming to the Refuge and for families, and I even had elder Joe Whitehawk come with me, because I’m like, I don’t know how these people are gonna react, you know, I didn’t know, but I didn’t want to be alone. We were busy at our booth, non stop. Barely had time to relieve ourselves. Had to find some food for the elder, get him some coffee, and it was a big hit. I was super excited. That’s basically when it started. In 2017 I volunteered to try to do something.
Cole Premo: So could you please just describe it more like, how big is it? Where is it? Just some background on that Refuge?
BearPaw Shields: The Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge? I’m not like an expert on it, but many, many acres. I do not remember what year it was founded, close to the 1950s, if not earlier than that. It’s a Refuge for animals. But then along the way, you know, there was many things that the park needed to do to create some type of revenue. So there’s hunting on there, only during certain seasons, and then they do the prescribed burns. And the Friends of the Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge was, I want to say, in 1993 founded, and that was kind of a support for the Refuge itself, because federal funding wasn’t really a lot of available, and they needed more volunteers, but they didn’t have the funding to have those staff, so people who really enjoyed nature would then volunteer to help with the park rangers, and then that’s what forms the Friends of the Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge. So we do work with The Federal Wildlife Refuge, but we are the Friends, a nonprofit organization, and so we do a lot of fundraising. You know, supplying the things that they can’t get funded for.
Cole Premo
Is the amphitheater. Included in that the amphitheater?
BearPaw Shields: Yes.
Cole Premo: Let’s talk about that.
Leah Lemm: But can I just add because, yeah, I looked it up. The Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge is 30,700 acres of space, of land, located 50 miles from Minnesota’s Twin Cities metro area. That’s from Friends of Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge. We’ll put that in there.
Cole Premo: Big place!
Leah Lemm: That’s big!
BearPaw Shields: And only three miles away from Bearpaw, though. Yes, the amphitheater. So you know, we were at a meeting and a board meeting, and Steve Carl, the previous manager. He was getting transferred to another location, and we were talking about the amphitheater, because we did the fundraising for it. And he’s like, BearPaw, if you could create a design, a Native American design, what would it be for the amphitheater? And I was like, Oh my goodness. Like I won the lottery, right? And I’m like, I don’t, I don’t know, but I can come up with something. And so that’s where the brainstorming began. We got, you know, a lot of consultation. We got another Indigenous person on our board, because, you know, at that moment, I was the only Indigenous person there. So it was a lot a lot of time, a lot of my time. So Stephanie and I, Stephanie is Ojibwe, and so we helped the board. We helped educate the board. And that process of looking for an artist, I said, if we have an artist, I think, because this is Minnesota, we should have Dakota and Ojibwe. That’s only what’s right, right? It’s makes sense. And being here at the American Indian Center, I get to look at that beautiful mural that Holly Young (Dakota) and Giizh Agaton Howes created. And so I’m like, you know? I. We should contact them. I see their work every day. It’s beautiful. I think it’s great. Plus they’ve worked together already. They already have a relationship together. So I reached out and they were excited. They’re like, yeah, we would love to and I said, this is exciting. So that was one of the hard ones to do, is to find the artist. Then the next thing was, what are they going to create? And then, because we have the federal Refuge, there’s some things that we have that we can’t do and we can do. So that was kind of interesting, too, but we left it up to the artist to come up with something, something that would be close to animals, that would be on the Refuge, something that, I don’t even know how to describe it, but I said it, you know, to include something sacred, of like our sacred medicine. So we have tobacco. So in the middle of the amphitheater, you have tobacco leaves for the four directions. Then you have the animals. I think there’s seven animals, so we have a bear on there, there’s an elk or a deer, and then we have other animals around the circle. And all of the animals around the circle connect to each other, because everything is interconnected, which I thought was beautiful. And then on the outside of that is we have Dakota floral art going all the way around, which is also beautiful. It’s just really breathtaking. It’s just to see it in person is just it’s just something wonderful about it. I don’t know. It just makes my heart so happy that I was part of that, you know, and then where you sit down, because we didn’t stop there, because we want this to be an education tool. So what we did was take the words for that animal and put it on the seating. So we have the word for bear in Dakota. Then we have the word for bear in Ojibwe, and then we did that for every single animal that we had displayed on the amphitheater. So now we can have that as a teaching tool for our students that we bring on there, because they do many, many schools out there educating them about nature. And now they get to learn about Native Nations of Minnesota, which is beautiful.
Cole Premo: Great. What was the opening like for that? It opened last year.
BearPaw Shields: It did. It did. And that was, that was a lot. It was a lot. It was worth it. The work was worth it. We invited, I thought it was very important that we had a Dakota elder and we had an Ojibwe elder. I wanted a Dakota drum group, and we needed to have Ojibwe drum group. And then I said, it’s important that we can extend the invitation to the chief executives for each tribal nation or community in Minnesota, and go beyond there. We invited Senator Kunesh, and she attended. I’m trying to think who else was there? There were a lot of people. For Shakopee, they sent some people in their place. And Mike, I can’t remember his name, Michael, but he is also a Friends member down in the Apple Valley area. But we also had chief executive, Virgil Wynn, came and attended, which was wonderful to see him.
Leah Lemm: You’re listening to Native Lights, where Indigenous voices shine. Native Lights is produced by Minnesota Native News and Ampers, with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Today we’re speaking with Bearpaw Shields. BearPaw is from the Fort Peck, Assiniboine and Sioux tribes. She’s an alumni from St Cloud State University and is currently the Indigenous Learning Community Program Coordinator at the University’s American Indian Center. That’s wonderful. I can only imagine all the jokes that were going around. I don’t know. I’m just guessing. There were some I see here that you coordinated sweetgrass planting.
BearPaw Shields: I did. So like a friend of mine, Gina Hugo works at Sherburne County Parks and Rec, and they acquired a piece of land that is very sacred to our Native Nations here in Minnesota. And during that I was talking with her, and I said, you know, what we really need is a place where, as Indian people, we can go and harvest right? There’s no sweetgrass anywhere. It’s all gone. The only place you can get really sweetgrass is up in Canada. I said, we should have sweetgrass, we should have tobacco, we should have cedar, and we should have sage and other medicines that we traditionally would have harvested, whether it be choke cherries, elderberries. And so she was able to find some sweetgrass that is original sweetgrass. I think she got it from the Dakotas I want to say. And so she multiplied the sweet grass. I can’t even think of the word, but she said, I have enough sweetgrass if you would like to have your students, because at the time, I was a culture liaison in Princeton School District, if you want to have your families come and we can plant the sweetgrass. And I said, Absolutely, this is beautiful. This is what we should be doing. So we had–one family came. We had other volunteers. We planted the sweetgrass. Then when I moved to St Cloud State, I said, first thing we’re going to do with our students, we’re going to go play, we’re going to plant that sweetgrass. And so we’ve been doing that every spring. Now we plant and we keep planting. And last year it was the most, I think I had the most fun last year, because as we’re planting, you know, you think about the weather, it’s just a thought, and it’s like, okay, it’s going to be clear. And then next thing, you know, there’s some dark skies coming. And I was like, Oh, now the students are going to be like, we got to go. It’s raining. We got to go. But they did the opposite. They did the opposite. They’re like, just think our ancestors did this. It was raining. That didn’t stop our ancestors. I’m like, oh my goodness, that’s great. Heck no. So yes. And so what we’re working on right now is Gina is trying to get other whether it be, you know, the APAC, the American Indian Parent Advisory Committee schools all over to come there, to be part of that, to plant, to harvest and to be who they are. You know, as Indian people do, we should be able to harvest.
Cole Premo: We always like to ask, you know, and you may have touched on this a little bit before, but what gives you, you know, the fuel to continue doing what you’re doing on a daily basis.
BearPaw Shields: Oh my gosh, that could make me emotional. I would say, for my people. Sorry. The last of my fathers passed away last year. And so, you know, I think of his teachings and I think of my kids, my son passed away in ‘21 and that was hard, very hard, so I just want to make them proud. I want to make our ancestors proud. You know, they didn’t fight that fight for nothing.
Leah Lemm: Thank you. I’m sorry for your loss.
Cole Premo: Thank you for sharing. So really appreciate it.
BearPaw Shields: Thank you.
Cole Premo: It sounds like you are doing them proud with the work you’re doing. So really appreciate it. We always like to ask as well, like mentors, people who have inspired you in your work.
BearPaw Shields: Yeah, that would have been, well, that is not been, but it is. It still continues to be, Darlene St Clair and Dr Galler, they inspire me all the time. And Dr, Robert Galler just finished a book regarding the crow Creek Reservation, and we went, I took the cohort that I have right now. I have 12 in my cohort, and we took him to his reading. And it’s so crazy because I was watching his lecture, and I was like, getting really inspired again. I’m like, oh my goodness, I need to write a book about our people, you know, it was just very inspiring. And I’m inspired about, you know, all other Native people out there doing the type of work that I’m doing, you know, because we all have a responsibility, and that’s just the way that I see that. I mean, you are in journalism, and we need more Native journalism, just like we need more Native, you know, communicators or doctors or therapists. You know, we all have a responsibility. So I think that I’m just trying to do my part.
Leah Lemm: How about the future? Like the future of the land at the Refuge? What do you see? What’s your hope for? What comes next?
BearPaw Shields: We have one sign, just one sign that is permanent. And that was a win for me, and that was probably about four or five years ago, talking about Ojibwe using wild rice as a food staple. And so I was like, okay, that’s a tiny step forward. That’s great, but now I think that there needs to be more representation on the Refuge, whether it’s, you know, we’re going to have a plaque for the amphitheater too. We can honor both artists and their work and to have a little bio for them. I think that that’s important. I think that it’s important to have pamphlets for handouts, whether it contains, you know, what tribes are located in Minnesota. You know, maybe their flags. We just need more representation. And I think, you know, being Indigenous and being part of the board the Friends, to have a Native voice is important. You know, I think we should have a voice at every table.
Leah Lemm: Do you foresee any hardships in light of our current environment? I won’t invoke…I won’t lead you on too much with that.
BearPaw Shields: Right? I know it’s like, oh my goodness, yeah, we are worried.
Leah Lemm: And you’re worried about funding.
BearPaw Shields: You know, how can we not be worried? Yes, but funding. Yes. You know, for our community engagement is what we’re calling things. Now, you know, we know that words have power, right? And so we unfortunately had to change our words so community engagement is what we’re using. I just think it’s really tough and it’s frustrating. I can’t imagine being in the position that current manager, Bill Peterson, has. You know, I admire him. He’s a great ally for us. And it’s just the uncertainty. I think the uncertainty is everywhere, especially here at St, Cloud State, I have some uncertainties as well. That’s being grant funded,
Leah Lemm: More federal funding.
Cole Premo: Are there plans, you know, being worked on to prepare for potential, you know, funding issues, situations like that here?
BearPaw Shields: At St, Cloud State? No, there is not, there is not. But I am trying to be optimistic, and I work really hard with our students, you know, and trying to get more students and create this safe space for them. And I just hope that our grantors, you know, that they’ll see this work and continue to fund us, quite honestly. I mean, as Indigenous people, I think we’re kind of used to the sometimes uncertainty, and we’re very resilient, so we’re gonna still push through no matter what. We’ll just find a different way.
Cole Premo: All right, BearPaw Shields. I like that lesson. You know, if you’re talking about something, if you’re like, I really want to do this, you find yourself saying it over and over again. You know, there’s something there.
Leah Lemm: I remember Dad saying, if you don’t do something about it, you can’t complain about it. It’s very wise,
Cole Premo: Pops. Okay, well, miigwetch, to our guest, Bearpaw Shields. She is an alumni from St Cloud State University and is currently the Indigenous Learning Community Program Coordinator at the University’s American Indian Center. I’m Cole Premo.
Leah Lemm: And I’m Leah Lemm. Miigwetch for listening, giga-waabamin. You’re listening to Native Lights, where Indigenous voices shine. Native Lights is produced by Minnesota Native News and Ampers with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
Subscribe to Native Lights wherever you get your podcasts
More from Native Lights
- Jonathan Thunder: Finding Joy in Art and Life
In today’s episode, we welcome back Jonathan Thunder, who last appeared on Native Lights in 2021. Since then, the Red Lake Nation citizen and multidisciplinary artist has become a father and opened an art gallery. - Dan Ninham: Honoring Athletes and Indigenous Sports Traditions
In this episode, we speak with Dan Ninham, PhD, a retired physical education teacher and coach, co-founder of the North American Indigenous Athletics Hall of Fame and prolific freelance writer. - BearPaw Shields: Leaving a Legacy for Future Generations
In this episode, we speak with BearPaw Shields from the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes. She is a Saint Cloud State University alumna and is currently the Indigenous Learning Community Program Coordinator at the University’s American Indian Center. In her forties, she decided to go to college and get a degree so that she could make the change she wanted to see in the world. She does that now through her work at St. Cloud State’s American Indian Center, helping Native students to succeed in school and connect with their culture through language, field trips and other experiences. As a board member with the Friends of the Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge, she had been instrumental in teaching park staff and visitors about the land’s Native history. Last year, that included the opening of an amphitheater with art provided by Indigenous artists and the names of park animals provided in Dakota and Ojibwemowin. BearPaw Shields lives in Zimmerman where she likes to go on hikes and find her serenity at the nearby Refuge.
Allison Waukau: Empowering Native Stories Through Community Service and Podcasting