Year of new haunts, big tragedy

By Dorreen Yellow Bird
Grand Forks Herald

It was only a few weeks into 2005 when I received a call from Standing Rock. The call made my hair stand on end. The caller was hesitant about alerting the media coverage on reservations tends to be less than accurate, he said.

Five young people committed suicide during December and January, he reported. As I looked into the story, I found there were many more attempted suicides.

It was hard for me to understand why young people would be so miserable they choose death over life. And why our Indian children, I wondered? National statistics show suicide is the third-leading cause of death for our young people. The columns and stories that followed led to congressional hearings.

Spring came with steady rain and turned the rolling prairie near Fort Yates, N.D., and the buffalo pasture into emerald green. The change in weather seemed to bring calm to a community in mourning.

Then, the gnarled hands of death twisted and turned north toward the Red Lake Band of Chippewa. Shots rang out across the reservation and echoed way beyond Minnesota and even the United States. Jeffery Wiese ended the lives of 10 people, including himself, in a movielike stand guns blazing and a long black coat whipping in the backfire of the gun reports.

It was a long month.

The communities that surround the then frozen Red Lake blinked in the camera lights of throngs of national reporters. It was as if a giant magnifying glass were held over the reservation. The Ojibwa people squirmed under the exposure. The band pulled in and closed down, causing some overzealous reporters to do stories molded out of stereotypes.

It isn't over. An accomplice was identified, and some of the issues hang in limbo, but the community is healing.

Healing came to me last year at the Sitting Bull camp and Sundance in South Dakota. It was a week of ceremony under the full moon.

My son, Tony, came home in August. We usually visit relatives or stay at home during his visits, but this year, I planned something different.

Jenny Moorman of Baudette, Minn. invited us to howl with the wolves in northern Minnesota. It's one of those adventures of 2005 etched in my brain. We went deep into the pitch-black forest. When we arrived, it was so dark, the darkness seemed heavy enough to touch.

I whispered to my son: Remember the wolves ate Little Red Ridding Hood's grandmother, and I dug my nails into his arm. Then, I looked up. The night sky just seemed to drop around us, and we stood looking up into the face of night awestruck.

From there, I took "Son" to Canada, up near the Ojibwa reserves, and then we dropped down to Ely, Minnesota. Ely is a beautiful little village with log buildings and a homemade ice cream shop to die for. On a whim, I called Lynn Rogers, "the man who talks to bears." He just returned from Alaska but was kind enough to let us visit.

He was looking through recent photographs and tapes he made on his visit to Alaska and grizzlies bears. Did you know, I asked him, that a photographer who lived in the grizzlies' homeland was killed by them? Yah, he said, he was one of the first ones on site of the grizzly attack.

Grizzlies are much bigger than the black bear that Rogers befriends and much more aggressive. I didn't have time to question him further because three cubs and their mother came to the window. Big teddy bearlike cubs came in through the window and took nuts from my hand. I actually ran my hand over them like petting a dog. One, as I told in my column, bit my finger, but it didn't break the skin.

Rogers is adamant that bears are wild animals, but that's easy to forget when they act like cute puppies.

Last fall, I also picked juneberries and blueberries then canned till I nearly was blue. I photographed the beautiful showy lady-slipper that grows wild along the roadside near Baudette. I am impressed with the area that seems to have new beauty at each turn of the season.

Finally, as the days grew shorter and the autumn rain began to fall, I attended the ribbon cutting of Four Bears bridge in New Town, N.D. The narrow, horse and buggy bridge was dangerously outdated. What I remember most about the opening was Gov. John Hoeven, Rep. Earl Pomroy and Chairman Tex Hall riding horseback across the bridge with a whole bridge full of the community following.

I am thankful to the Creator for the gift of adventure and keeping all of us safe for another year. This year, I see even more clearly "we are all related"plants, animals, birds and people all.

Mitakuye Oyasin.