Winona LaDuke
Native American (Anishinaabe) activist, environmentalist, economist, author, mother and grandmother
Winona LaDuke is the Executive Director of Honor the Earth, Winona LaDuke is an Anishinaabekwe (Ojibwe) enrolled member of the Mississippi Band Anishinaabeg who lives and works on the White Earth Reservation in Northern Minnesota. She is rural development economist, environmentalist, activist, author, mother and grandmother. She is the founder of the White Earth Land Recovery Project, Native Harvest and co-founder of Honor the Earth. Her honors include the Reebok Human Rights Award, Ms Magazine Woman of the Year and many honorary doctorates. She inducted into the national women’s hall of fame in 2007 and author of six books including the most recent: Winona LaDuke Chronicles.
Gwe Gasco
Gwe Gasco is a student and he has studied activism at the GreenPeace Action Camp. Interested in Tribal traditional knowledge he is a student of the traditional Medewiwin Lodge. Concerned for the future generations he served on the board of the Colorado-based youth group Rize. Concerned for the future generations he walked in the NYC People’s Climate March and is a “Love Water Not Oil” rider.
Don Wedll
Don Wedll grew up on a farm, went to Moorhead State University majoring in Mathematics. He then worked on Tribal issues in Minnesota and Alaska for some 35 years. He has taught courses on Tribal History, Tribal Government, at Central Lakes Community Colleges in Minnesota and taught mathematics for the University of Alaska Fairbanks. His positions include the Director of Education, Principal of Nay ah shing School, Commissioner of Education, Commissioner of Natural Resources, Chief of Police, Economic developer, HIP director, Long Range Planning. He also chaired that National Tribal Operations committee for EPA, Member of EPA Science and Technology Committee, Member of EPA Senior Environmental Enforcement Committee, member of Minnesota Indian Scholarship Committee, member of Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, and Voigt Task Force.
ALSO FEATURED
Lorna Hanes, Northwindwoman, Segkeen First Nations, Caribou Clan. Mother is of Roseu River Band of Annishinaabeg and father is Sagkeen. I am in the seventh generation. I am not here by accident but by the will of the Great Mystery and am super thankful to my ancestor for being here right now to protect not protest our treaties and rights and this awesome gift of life and to ensure it for the next seven generations to come.
Nicolette Slagle is the holder of several degrees, a returned Peace Corps volunteer, and a former AmeriCorps member. She joined Honor the Earth in the summer of 2015 through an EPA internship program. She is now living in Finland and involved in the climate change battle there.
Ajuawak Kapashesit, Winona’s oldest biological son, has been working on language revitalization efforts since 2011. He is also an actor, playwright and freelance journalist. He currently resides in the Twin cities.
Waseyabin LaDuke is Winona’s daughter. She lives on the White Earth Reservation with her son Giiweden where she practices her traditional Anishinaabe culture.
Will Sayers is a student and he has studied activism at the GreenPeace Action Camp. Interested in Tribal traditional knowledge he is a student of the traditional Medewiwin Lodge. Concerned for the future generations he is a “Love Water Not Oil” rider and he walked in the People’s Climate March in New York City.
Michael Dahl, Anishinaabe from the White Earth Reservation, he is a traditional harvester of wild rice and the great great grandson of one of the signers of the 1855 treaty with the US Government.
Allison Akootchook Warden was raised with a strong Iñupiaq worldview, enveloped by Elders who grew up in a sod houses, living completely from the land for sustenance. She creates art to bring people into that perspective, to activate within the audience a connection to their ancestral memory, transporting them to their own personal long ago, to their connection with the mythos. “Unipkaaġusiksuġuvik (the place of the future/ancient)” is a solo installation performative work at the Anchorage Museum in October and November of 2016, creating a Iñupiaq ceremonial house, re-creating Museum artifacts using modern materials.
Thane Maxwell is an Irish/Scottish/Czech settler on Dakota/Lakota territory and an organizer with Honor the Earth. He supports the fight against the Sandpiper and Line 3 pipelines thru writing, media work, direct action, events, and holding partnerships with allies. He takes breaks to make music, play in the dirt, build things, care for children, and travel the rivers and lakes of the north by canoe and snowshoe. He is hopeful that the ongoing revolutions in his own mind and heart will soon find their reflections in society.
Frank Waln is an award winning Sicangu Lakota Hip Hop artist, producer, and performer from the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. A recipient of the Gates Millennium Scholarship, Waln attended Columbia College Chicago where he received a BA in Audio Arts and Acoustics. Waln’s awards include three Native American Music Awards, the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development 2014 Native American 40 Under 40, and the 2014 Chicago Mayor’s Award for Civic Engagement. He has been featured on Buzzfeed’s 12 Native Americans Who Are Making a Difference, USA Today, ESPN, and MTV’s Rebel Music Native America. Waln has written for various publications including Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education, and Society and The Guardian. Frank Waln travels the world spreading hope and inspiration through performance and workshops focusing on self-empowerment and the pursual of dreams.
Annie Humphrey is a mother, grandmother, veteran (USMC) for peace, singer, songwriter who resides on the Leech Lake reservation in Northern, MN. Annie’s father showed her how to make syrup, rice, net, clean fish and skin deer. Annie’s mother showed her the beauty around around her and within her.
Irene Bedard is a Native American actress, who has played many Native American characters in a variety of films, most notably Pocahontas in the 1995 film Pocahontas.
In 2012, she started “Sleeping Lady Films” and “Waking Giants Productions” with Canadian businessman Thom Denomme. The production companies, based out of Anchorage and Santa Fe, New Mexico, are dedicated to bringing stories that are both positive and inspirational from Indian Country to the world.
Shane Davis lives in Boulder, Co where he is the founder of “Fractivist.org”. Living in a neighborhood with multiple well pads has affected Shane’s immune system and turned him into a passionate watch-dog of the oil and gas industry. He sits on the board of numerous national and international environmental organizations fighting fossil fuels. Founder of ‘Energy Of Change’ and ‘Boulder Hemp Farm, he has appeared in numerous films including “Dear Governor Hickenlooper” and “Dear President Obama”.
Betty LaDuke, artist, educator, mother, grandmother. Winona’s mother paints to honor farm workers, men and women who work with food and water. Her opening at the Portland Art Museum reveals a life of activism and art and she brings Winona’s father Vincent LaDuke, also known as Sun Bear, into focus.
Thane Maxwell is an Irish/Scottish/Czech settler on Dakota/Lakota territory and an organizer with Honor the Earth. He supports the fight against the Sandpiper and Line 3 pipelines thru writing and media, actions, events, and partnerships with allied groups. He takes breaks to make music, play in the dirt, build things, care for children, and travel the rivers and lakes of the north by canoe and snowshoe. He is hopeful that the ongoing revolutions in his own mind and heart will soon find their reflections in society.
Tania Aubid, Tania is a traditional wild rice harvester. She comes from a traditional family and currently resides in the East Lake community on the Mille Lacs Reservation.
Algin Goodsky, hand drum and vocals, he joined the Love Water Not Oil tour in 2014 with his brother Harvey.
Tara Zhaabowekwe Houska Currently National Campaign Director for Honor the Earth, advisor for Bernie Sanders Presidential Campaign, contributor to The Huffington Post. Formerly a lawyer with Homer Law Chartered, Hobbs, Straus, Dean & Walker, LLP and the Indian Land Tenure Foundation.
Harvey Goodsky, hand drum and vocals, with his brother Elgin GoodSky. The GoodSky brothers joined the Love Water Not Oil campaign in 2014. Their father was a traditional rice harvester, and an elder in the Ojibwe Medewiwin tradition on the White Earth Reservation.
Emma Lockridge grew with black parents who had escaped the Jim Crow South to find employment in Detroit. She lived in a community that was home to Marathon Petroleum Corporation, a small refinery. After earning a degree in journalism from Wayne State University in the 1970’s, she eventually earned a job at NBC News Radio in New York. Lockridge returned to Detroit in the early ‘90s. In 2012 Marathon Petroleum Corporation upgraded its small refinery into a massive polluting $2.2 billion tar sands refining facility. Lockridge moved back into her childhood home to help her elderly mother age in place after the refinery’s 2012 upgrade. She discovered the emissions from the refinery were unbearable to breathe. That launched her environmental activism. Marathon had purchased homes of white people for the expansion but left her mother and neighbors to suffer the impact of the upgrade. Lockridge has been fighting for Marathon to also offer a home purchase plan for her black community like it did for the whites. Lockridge and her neighbors hold “Buy My Marathon Home” protest rallies, write their elected officials and participate in an ongoing media campaign to draw attention to their plight and fight for freedom to breathe fresh air.
James Botsford is the director of the Indian Law Center in Wisconsin, a judge, a ND farmer currently living in Wisconsin and being sued by Enbridge for not allowing Enbridge to claim eminent domain rights to lay pipeline on his 3rd generation ND family farm.
Dawn Goodwin: is an Anishinaabe educator, artist, environmental advocate, activist and water warrior.
Faith Spotted Eagle, Lakota leader on the #StopTheTarSands campaign to stop the KXL pipeline from moving through tribal lands on its way to New Orleans.