Native Lights: Where Indigenous Voices Shine

Native Lights: Where Indigenous Voices Shine – Weekly Radio Show Native Lights is a weekly, half-hour radio program hosted by Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe members and siblings, Leah Lemm and Cole Premo. Native Lights is a space for people in Native communities around Mni Sota Mkoce -- a.k.a. Minnesota -- to tell their stories about finding their gifts and sharing them with the community. Native Light...

Host Leah Lemm (Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe) is back exploring how Indian Country in MN is responding and adapting to the current pandemic health crisis. On today’s show, Leah reflects on conversations about cultural medicines and viewing the pandemic and vaccinations through a lens of history and experience. We hear from Megan Schnitker (Lakota) who works with plant medicines. Megan learned about p...

Today on the show we meet Jessica Engelking, a descendent of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, who is a researcher with the Great Plains Action Society, and the author of a new book geared toward younger readers, called "Peggy Flanagan: Ogimaa Kwe, Lieutenant Governor." The book is part of the Minnesota Native American Lives series, a partnership between the Minnesota Humanities Center and the Minne...

Host Leah Lemm (Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe) is back exploring how Indian Country in MN is responding and adapting to the current pandemic health crisis.   On today’s show, we hear how two visionaries are looking forward to life after the pandemic, in their respective fields.  Rhiana Yazzie (Navajo) is a theatre artist, filmmaker, playwright, and she founded New Native Theatre twelve years ago. Mari...

Native Lights: Where Indigenous Voices Shine – Weekly Radio Show Native Lights is a weekly, half-hour radio program hosted by Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe members and siblings, Leah Lemm and Cole Premo. Native Lights is a space for people in Native communities around Mni Sota Mkoce -- a.k.a. Minnesota -- to tell their stories about finding their gifts and sharing them with the community. Native Light...

Today we talk with Kade Ferris (Metis Nation citizen of the Manitoba Metis Federation) who is an author, Indigenous historian, and researcher. Kade is from the Turtle Mountain community in North Dakota, and he currently lives and works for the Red Lake Nation as an archeologist.  Kade Ferris is the author of six books on the history and culture of the Ojibwe, Cree, and Metis people and has reached...

Host Leah Lemm (Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe) is back exploring how Indian Country in MN is responding and adapting to the current pandemic health crisis.   On today’s show, we hear how language education is thriving through the pandemic, as students, teachers, and schools all rise to meet many challenges over the past year. We talk with Barry Hand (Lakota) a Dakotiyapi Culture and History teacher at...

On today’s show, we hear from two Indian Education staff who are passionate about serving students in the ISD318 school district located in Itasca County, in the heart of Ojibwe country. Host Leah Lemm (Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe) is exploring how Indian Country in MN is responding and adapting to the current pandemic health crisis. We hear from Jessica Bobrowski (Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior...

Today, a nourishing discussion with Diane Wilson (Dakota), the award-winning writer who is also a speaker, editor, and is the executive director for the Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance.  We’re excited to speak with Diane Wilson about her new novel called The Seed Keeper, which is published by Milkweed Editions and came out in early March of 2021. Diane tells us how she uses her personal...

Today we’re talking with Fawn Sampson (Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe) who is a mom and partner, and an artist. Fawn shares her love of art: everything from charcoal drawings, beading, singing, and dancing, to screen printing, painting, stop animation, and theatre! Fawn shares a sweet story of how she met her husband Samsoche Sampson (well-known Hoop Dancer and featured guest on another episode of Nati...

Host Leah Lemm (Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe) is back exploring how Indian Country in MN is responding and adapting to the current pandemic health crisis. On today’s show, we celebrate successful vaccine rollouts in Indian Country!  And we hear from two dedicated health care professionals about their experiences providing good medicine to community members throughout the pandemic.    Dr. Angela Erdri...

Today we’re talking with Samsoche Sampson (Mvskoke Creek/Seneca) who is an interdisciplinary artist, powwow and hoop dancer, performer, musician, as well as a father and partner.  Samsoche and his brother, Luhme, make up the world-renowned hoop dancing team known as the Sampson Brothers, who over twenty-five years have performed throughout the world: on stage in big cities and at powwows in remote...

Host Leah Lemm (Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe) is back exploring how Indian Country in MN is responding and adapting to the current pandemic health crisis. Today we talk with Melissa Walls, Ph. D. (Bois Forte and Couchiching First Nation Anishinaabe) a social scientist and the Director of the Great Lakes Hub for the Center for American Indian Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Heal...

Native Lights: Where Indigenous Voices Shine – Weekly Radio Show Native Lights is a weekly, half-hour radio program hosted by Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe members and siblings, Leah Lemm and Cole Premo. Native Lights is a space for people in Native communities around Mni Sota Mkoce -- a.k.a. Minnesota -- to tell their stories about finding their gifts and sharing them with the community.   Native Lig...

Native Lights: Where Indigenous Voices Shine – Weekly Radio Show Native Lights is a weekly, half-hour radio program hosted by Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe members and siblings, Leah Lemm and Cole Premo. Native Lights is a space for people in Native communities around Mni Sota Mkoce -- a.k.a. Minnesota -- to tell their stories about finding their gifts and sharing them with the community.   Native Lig...

February 14th marks a day of honoring relatives lost in the ongoing epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives (MMIWR).  A recent report from the Minnesota Task Force on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women reveals a heartbreaking statistic: while Indigenous people make up just 1% of the state’s population, a stunning 9% of all murdered girls and women in Minnesota over the l...

This week, we continue our focus on how Indian Country in Minnesota is responding to the pandemic, now that COVID-19 vaccines are rolling out, with another Special Edition of Native Lights: Visiting Vaccines. In this show we check in with the Indian Health Service, we learn more about COVID resources, and we hear a firsthand account of going through the whole vaccination process from a Minneapolis...

Today we talk with Ramona Marozas (Bad River Band of Lake Superior) a multiplatform producer with over a decade of journalism experience, currently working in public television in Duluth, on the nationally syndicated news program, Native Report.    Ramona Morazas’s gift for uplifting Native voices through storytelling has been evident throughout her media career.  As a former board member of the N...

This week, another Special Edition of Native Lights: Visiting Vaccines, where we get a pulse on Indian Country’s response to COVID-19 vaccines, here in Minnesota.  On this show we hear from two people deeply committed to the health and well-being of Indigenous people and Native communities. Dr. Mary Owen speaks about working with other Native health experts to get the word out that the COVID-19 va...

Native Lights – The Gift for Building Supportive Environments with Kwe Pack   This week we revisit an earlier Native Lights episode which highlights Kwe Pack, a spectacular group of Native women supporting each other to run long-distance trail races. Kwe Pack has been featured on Good Morning America, ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and Oprah Winfrey’s World Vision Tour.  This group encourages each othe...

Native Lights: Where Indigenous Voices Shine – Weekly Radio Show Native Lights is a weekly, half-hour radio program hosted by Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe members and siblings, Leah Lemm and Cole Premo. Native Lights is a space for people in Native communities around Mni Sota Mkoce -- a.k.a. Minnesota -- to tell their stories about finding their gifts and sharing them with the community.   Native Lig...

This week we are happy to revisit our conversation with Lakota doula Takayla Lightfield (Mnicoujou Lakota, Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe of South Dakota), in this “Best of Native Lights” episode. Takayla stands side-by-side with Native women supporting the birth of the next generation as a doula, and as a breastfeeding consultant. Takayla is now working on her Master’s Degree in Public Health, in the...

Native Lights: Where Indigenous Voices Shine – Weekly Radio Show Native Lights is a weekly, half-hour radio program hosted by Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe members and siblings, Leah Lemm and Cole Premo. Native Lights is a space for people in Native communities around Mni Sota Mkoce -- a.k.a. Minnesota -- to tell their stories about finding their gifts and sharing them with the community.   Native Lig...

Today, a conversation with Ramona Kitto Stately (Santee Sioux Dakota Nation,) a beadwork artist, teacher, and leader in K-12 Indian Education in Minnesota, who is now Project Director for the We Are Still Here – Minnesota (WASH-MN), a network of people and organizations committed to the Reclaiming Native Truth research and its findings. Ramona tells us how her teaching career began, and how some b...

Today, a fun conversation with Robert Pilot (Ho-Chunk Nation), who is a teacher, water protector, and Host of Native Roots Radio, which amplifies many Native voices across the airways and on social media.  Robert speaks about the importance of building relationships, whether he’s working as an educator (teaching film and video production at Harding High in St. Paul) or producing and hosting radio...