Day 1

Monday, December 10, 2018 - This morning two students, my two sons and I began our journey to Las Cruces Biological Station near San Vito Costa Rica. We joined several indigenous college students (Approx 30) and their mentors from throughout the United States. The two students from Aaniiih Nakoda College attending 2018 CRIRE are environmental science majors on track to graduate in May 2019 with associates of science degrees. It is a true blessing to be allowed to return to this beautiful land. It is unfathomable that there are five people from the Fort Belknap Indian Community traipsing around the rain forest conducting research on streams in what could only be described as a holy place! Once you escape from the station and get deeper into the primary forest you can feel the true energy and the age of this place. Aaniiih Nakoda College has had four previous students come to Costa Rica to conduct research. Two attended with CRIRE with Dan Kinsey (Environmental Science Faculty at ANC) in 2015. The following summer 2016  we had a student who was paired with a mentor for the University of California- Berkley the student studied a certain type of Anole and examined if the dewlap size was a proportionate indicator of mating aggression in that species.The following summer 2017 another environmental science student paired with a professor from Purdue University examining fish habitat at various elevations. At CRIRE this year our group will examine benthic macro invertebrates as bio indicators of stream health. This is a reproduction of research these same students conduct in the Little Rocky Mountains in Montana. The Little Rockies are greatly impacted by a failed cyanide heap leach mine that operated in the 1990’s. Mining has taken place in the area since the mid 1800’s when westward expansion was climaxing due to the insatiable thirst for more gold and land and the completion of a few intercontinental railways. The Tribes that inhabited the North corridor of Montana and the Southern region of Canada circa Alberta found themselves in the midst of a hostile takeover. Illegal immigration is such a hot button topic in 2018 but these tribes have been witnessing the effects of rapists, drug dealers, murderers, and what one could suppose are a few good people for nearly two centuries now. All the while back by federal policies, legislation, and the Army. The Little Rocky Mountains known to the Aaniiih and Nakoda people as the Little Fur Caps and the Island Mountains respectively has been a historic refuge for prayer, habitation, hunting and other essentials since time immemorial but the encroachment driven by illegal exploitation of their natural resources have left lasting effects on both the land and the peoples of the area. We have Aaniiih and Nakoda people working in paradise honing and refining their skills to mitigate those effects and monitor their homeland. The cultural exchanges CRIRE offers with the Ngöbe people will allow them to see that there are indigenous people throughout the world striving for the same things; protecting the homelands and the people that belong to it! Muchos Gracias SKC, NSF, OTS, and all of the facilitators of CRIRE. Geniiiheiaan (Thank You) for allowing us to share and expand our knowledge with all of these awesome students and faculty! If I were to call this place anything in my language it would be Nii ii iinenhiidan (The land of good people)!