Native Lights: Where Indigenous Voices Shine

On this episode Leah and Cole speak with Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe citizen Bradley Harrington who recently penned an article in the Mille Lacs Band newspaper, Ojibwe Inaajimowin, about 250 years of US occupation as the country marks the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.     Bradley delves into the politics that led to the European occupation of the continent, and how a...

Today, we're excited to welcome Dr. Samantha Majhor to Native Lights . Samantha is a direct descendant of Fort Peck. She's Dakota and Assiniboine and is an assistant professor in American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota. She focuses on Native American literature, particularly literature by Dakota and Ojibwe writers around the Great Lakes region.    Samantha gives us an inside look at...

Today, we're speaking with Aleyna Morales. Aleyna grew up in the Twin Cities and Somerset, Wisconsin. Aleyna's heritage includes Ojibwe from the Fond du Lac Band community and Mexican. She is the creator and baker behind Baked to Bliss by Laney. You can catch her selling baked goods at the Carlton County Farmers Market.   Aleyna shares how a need to pull herself out of the lowest point in her life...

We're excited today to speak with Adam Savariego. He's a citizen of the Upper Sioux Community and is the Native American Affairs Advisor with the Minnesota Governor's Office. Prior to his current work, Adam served on the Upper Sioux Board of Trustees and as the community cultural liaison at Yellow Medicine East High School in Granite Falls Minnesota. He's also a traveler, a foodie and a cat lover....

Today, we're excited to welcome Dr. Antony Stately to Native Lights. Antony Stately is a transformative leader dedicated to health equity in Indigenous communities. He's enrolled with the Oneida Nation, and he's a descendant of both the Red Lake and White Earth nations here in Minnesota, and he has two sons. He's currently the Executive Officer and President for the Native American Community Clini...

Today, we're excited to be joined by one of the most recognizable faces in Indigenous film. Gary Farmer is from the Cayuga Nation and has a long career in movies and TV, and he's a musician, performing with his group Gary Farmer & The Troublemakers. Among his screen credits are Smoke Signals , Dead Man , Powwow Highway and, of course, more recently, he played Uncle Brownie in Reservation Dogs...

Today, Leah speaks with David Amitrano, the owner of Midwest All-Star Wrestling, a Minnesota-based, Native-owned independent wrestling organization in Woodbury.   He is originally from Ely, Minnesota and is a citizen of the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa. He and wife Brittney have four kids at home.   He got into wrestling as the CFO of Women of Nations, a women and children's domestic violence and s...

Today, we welcome Nikki Love Pieratos to Native Lights. An enrolled citizen of the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa, Nikki is the Executive Director of the Tiwahe Foundation, a community organization serving Native people around Minnesota. She’s also a part of the Metropolitan Urban Indian Directors group.  Leah speaks with her about the impact of Operation Metro Surge on Twin Cities Indigenous residen...

Today, we have a special edition of Native Lights to share with you. We’re talking with Robert Lilligren, CEO of the Native American Community Development Institute, which is based in Minneapolis. He is also a White Earth citizen. Robert discusses the unprecedented deployment of some 2,000 ICE and Border Patrol agents to Minneapolis and how that has impacted the Native community, especially in the...

Today, we’re excited to present Victoria Marie, an enrolled tribal member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate. She's the founder and owner of Indigenous Lotus, a wellness program that combines yoga classes, tribal dance, exercise and meditation with an emphasis on helping people cope with stress and trauma. Those stressors can include PTSD, homelessness, sexual exploitation and poverty. In addition to...

Today, we're excited to welcome Cole Redhorse Taylor to the Native Lights podcast. Cole is Mdewakanton Dakota and a member of the Prairie Island Indian Community. He's an artist, and has worked in many mediums: drawing, painting, beadwork, quill work, hockey helmets. He's created contemporary and traditional pieces heavily inspired by the artwork of his ancestors. And of course, if you're a sports...

Today, we welcome Carl Gawboy to the Native Lights podcast. Carl, born to a Finnish mother and an Ojibwe father, was raised in Ely and is a member of the Bois Forte Band of Ojibwe. Carl is an artist, whose primary medium is watercolors. But he turned to pen and ink for his recent graphic book Fur Trade Nation: An Ojibwe’s Graphic History.   For a number of years, Carl taught in the Indian Studies...

Today, we are excited to welcome Janis A. Fairbanks to Native Lights . Janis is a member of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. She recently released a book called Sugar Bush Babies: Stories of My Ojibwe Grandmother , a memoir in lessons learned from her grandmother during the era of Indian Relocation.   Janis also has a doctorate in Ojibwe language, literature and history. She is curr...

Today, we're thrilled to speak with Wookiye Win. Wookiye Win, Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, is an artist and educator. She teaches the Dakota language for the Dakota Language Nest Preschool program at the Institute of Child Development on the University of Minnesota campus. She's also the illustrator of Dakota language children's books.   Wookiye comes from an artistic family and has always been creati...

Today, we're excited to talk to Penny Kagigebi. Penny is a direct descendant of the White Earth Nation. She is a 2-Spirit queer community collaborator, artist, curator and teacher. She focuses on birch bark basketry and quill boxes and recently curated Queering Indigeneity for the Minnesota Museum of American Art, on exhibit from September 18, 2025 to August 16, 2026.   Penny turned to art after t...

Today, we’re excited to chat with Heid E. Erdrich. Heid is an author, researcher, educator, curator and member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa.    In 2024, she was the inaugural Minneapolis Poet Laureate and, in 2025, she served as the James and Lois Welch Distinguished Native American Visiting Writer at the University of Montana – Missoula.    Her recent books are Boundless: Abundance in...

Today, we’re excited to speak with Alexandra Buffalohead. Alex is from the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate and is the Director of Communications and Partnerships at the Native American Community Development Institute (NACDI). She’s also an artist, curator and musician.   Alex talks about what drives her work in the nonprofit world at NACDI and how she strives to find a good work/life balance to leave time...

Today, we are excited to welcome Sharon Day to the Native Lights Podcast. Sharon is enrolled with the Bois Forte Band of Ojibwe, and she serves as the executive director of the Indigenous Peoples Task Force. She's also a grandmother, an artist, a musician and writer, and she leads Water Walks, or Nibi Walks.   A deep reverence for all living things underpins the decades she has devoted to Nibi Wal...

Today, we're excited to speak with Teresa Peterson. Teresa is Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota and a member of the Upper Sioux Community. She is a passionate gardener, gatherer, lover of the land and author of several books, most recently the award-winning Perennial Ceremony .   Teresa talks to us about her love of growing things. That includes tending a large garden, where she forages for tossed salads a...

On this week's show, we revisit our conversation from June 2022 with Great-Grandmother Mary Lyons (Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe), a spiritual advisor, storyteller, activist, wisdom keeper, and revered elder. Mary Lyons is the founder of the Minnesota Coalition on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and serves as a counselor for the women's sobriety group, which she also co-founded, called Women of Wellbriety Inte...

Today, we’re excited to speak with Rick Haaland, an animal rescuer and advocate who is the Pets for Life community outreach manager for the Leech Lake Tribal Police.    Rick shares the story of the most memorable dog of his childhood, a stray that showed up one day and never left. Even when Rick spent the summer with his grandparents, Drifter, unwilling to be left behind, walked two days to reunit...

Today, we're very excited to speak with David Wise, descendant of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and founder of Native Wise, a farm which is focused on soil health, restorative farming and Indigenous agricultural practices.   David started his bison herd after a dream with Chief Buffalo, who told him to bring back his namesake. Starting with twelve, he now has a herd that numbers c...

Today, we are excited to speak with Wendy Roy, a beader and entrepreneur from the White Earth Nation. She mentors other artists and also teaches at White Earth Tribal and Community College.   Wendy learned beading from her grandmother, who shared the trick to knowing which bead colors go together. Her grandma would pour beads on a tray to see which beads grouped together and wanted to be friends w...

Today we are speaking with Giizh Sarah Agaton Howes. Howes is an award-winning Anishinaabe creator, artist and organizer from Fond Du Lac reservation and Muscogree Creek. She’s the CEO of Heart Berry, a contemporary Ojibwe Design brand that offers wool blankets, apparel, gifts and accessories rooted in Howes’s beadwork and Ojibwe floral designs.   Giizh was raised by an artist mother but never tho...

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.   He talks about how fatherhood has changed his approach to art and why lately he’s shifted his creative focus from sociopolitical ideas to joy. Thunder also shares the experience of cre...