For several days in early August, I was part of a nibiwalk, a water walk led by Indigenous women. On Aug. 1, we dipped a copper pail into the headwaters of the Red River at Breckenridge/Wahpeton — on the North Dakota/Minnesota border — at the confluence of the Ottertail and Bois de Sioux rivers. We covered it with a red cloth, blessed …
I knew her as Martha, my mother. Martha was skillful and competent. She could build a ship in a bottle, make a model airplane with her grandson, draw a map of Pelican Lake to scale and mount it on the wall, fix the pipes underneath the sink, pull in a dozen walleye, change a flat tire, feed a throng and …
After a 40-year hiatus, the stark beauty of North Dakota captured my heart and drew me home. I was awestruck by the vast ineffable horizons, the wheat and sunflowers undulating in the wind and the other-worldly color of the Badlands and buttes. Returning to my roots, I remembered why I loved the landscape, the land itself and the powerful Missouri …