Latest / Follow the Leighder / The Little Shell Tribe and Landless Indigenous People | Chris La Tray

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The Little Shell Tribe and Landless Indigenous People | Chris La Tray · Follow the Leighder

• Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, howdy folks and welcome back to another episode of Follow the Leighder. I am just so excited. I am bringing to you from Missoula, Montana, poet and author Chris Latre. Welcome. Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': Bonjour, thank you for having me. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Chris, I am so glad that you made time out of your busy schedule. Y'all, he travels talking about his poetry, talking about his three books, which we have here. First being One Sentence Journal, which got him the Montana Book Award in 2018 and the High Plains Book Award in 2019. Then your second book, which by the way, the spining on this, the binding with the string, nice. Nice touch, very nice. This is also another one of the short form haikus. ⁓ And then finally, Becoming Little Shell, a landless Indian's journey home. is his memoir that now did this book itself or the books he previously wrote get you the Montana Poet Laureate Award? Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': It would be the first two because my term as poet laureate started a year before Becoming Little Shell came out. Leigh/@followtheleighder: The first two. Okay, wow, that is really, I didn't know that timeline. how did that, when we look at your books and folks, ⁓ Chris primarily focuses, like he says, becoming Little Shell, a landless Indian's journey home. He talks about the Chippewa, ⁓ Métis, talks about the Little Shell. Can you inform or educate folks who may not know that history? Who are the Little Shell? What does that mean? ⁓ and why did you feel called to write that book? Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': Well, I'll try and be brief. I could churn up the whole rest of this hour just talking about that. It's almost a 200-year story from when we were disenrolled essentially by the federal government, ⁓ from what we would know today as the Turtle Mountain Chippewa in North Dakota. We were originally part of a larger group called the Pembina Chippewa. and Chief Little Shell for whom we are named was a hereditary chief of the Pemba-Nechipawa. And through all of the shenanigans of land theft that the United States has been dealing in for 500 years, began before the United States was technically even the United States. if we want to... since this is the 250 year anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, let's just say 250 years. But we were disenrolled and became a diaspora of people who were known as the landless Indians. And over the next 150 plus years, at multiple times, we would send delegations to the United States government to make an effort for us to be... restored to our original status, which is a sovereign nation. And that finally happened in December of 2019. So that is when the little shell became, was restored to this relationship with the United States government, which for those people who don't understand, you, you are recognized by the United States as a sovereign nation, then your interaction is a government to government. Like we have our own constitution. We can make our own laws. we exist as kind of a nation within a larger nation, that being the United States. So that stuff gets very complicated. But, you know, for more, for like I said, between 150, 200 years, we didn't have any of that, though the state of Montana, which is where we're based now in Great Falls, recognized us in the early 2000s as being a legitimate tribe. So it's been this big story and that's kind of what Becoming Little Shell talks about is how that happened and how the steps we went through to be restored. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, and you talk about how a lot of this was started by the passing of your father. I'm so sorry. And then, like you said, how that coincides with the little show. ⁓ think they have the largest reservation. Like it's an urban reservation. It's a different structure than in other places. Am I, is that correct? It's, I mean, mean, urban, so there's no boundary, political boundary. Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': No, we don't have a reservation and we never will. There isn't. So the vast majority of ⁓ indigenous people, Indians, regardless of tribe. ⁓ Leigh/@followtheleighder: of what now. Wow. Okay. Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': are urban Indians. So it's a relatively small percentage of native people who actually live on reservations. Most of us are urban. We live outside of the reservation. And in our case, all of us do, though many of us will live on other reservations. So there are little shell people living on the Blackfeet Reservation. There are little shell people living on the CSKT Reservation, Crow Reservation, Northern Cheyenne. You name it, Fort Peck, Fort Belknap, Rocky Boy especially. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Alright. Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': The Rocky Boy, Chippewa Cree are part of that same diaspora from the Pembina Chippewa, or many of them are, that we come from as are people who live, who are part of the Manitoba Metis Federation in Canada. So, you we spread out all over. But yeah, we don't have one and we never will. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Thank you for clarifying that. There was some discussion about, there's the Little Shell Community Center that's going in locally. they were, I was overhearing someone talk about like, what are the structures look like for that? like you said, it's a sovereign government. But again, totally makes sense. Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': Yeah, we actually have two. We have two community centers, one that we built on land that we own just like as any other private landowner. We own a fair amount of land as private landowners. Now, when we received our federal restoration in 2019, we get 200 acres that can be turned into trust land, which is essentially very similar to how reservation land is held. It's land held in trust by the federal government. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': Currently we don't have, we haven't, we have to buy that land first. And there's a parcel that I think we're gonna turn into trust land here soon. But as in anything dealing with the feds and the BIA, it's a long and tedious bureaucratic process. so we have two, one community center that was built I think like in 2012 or 13. And then we just opened another one. behind this big warehouse that we built that's essentially like a food pantry type thing where people can come and pick up food if you're suffering from food scarcity. ⁓ So there's that. And so yeah, we have kind of almost a little campus of places, of things that we own, but it is not reservation land. It's just private land that we own. Leigh/@followtheleighder: And it goes to show a like you were talking about the diaspora of all sorts of people on different reservations, but also The idea of being landless needing to form a private group buy back land It's dystopian it is I get and I it's it's enraging. I got my guys you're talking about it. I can Talk to me what has been your involvement or how was Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': Absolutely. Leigh/@followtheleighder: As you're learning what it means to be little shell, you're observing a lot of institutional collaboration. don't even know if collaboration is not the word, engagement, I guess, because I don't know how many folks are all collaborating with one another. But like you said, you got the feds and the BIA. What was it like to go through these historical documents and see the way, ⁓ like in order to write this book? to see the way that the government has talked about Indigenous people versus the stories that you were also learning ⁓ through your research of your community. Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': Well, we can go back to the Declaration of Independence, which we're celebrating, and the Declaration of Independence describes Indigenous people as merciless Indian savages. So when those guys wrote the Declaration of Independence, they were using Native North Americans as a wedge issue to kind of claim that the English government was using us to stir up violence against these brave settlers who were trying to become the United States. Right from the founding document of our country, we are held as this thing that literally savages. And we had a vast continent spanning network of sovereign nations and trade networks and all of these things that were far more sophisticated than until recently people were willing to give us credit for. And so right out of the gate, this relationship is antagonistic. And, know, that's kind of one of the things that, that I've kind of made my mission, at least for this year is to kind of push back against this whole narrative that, what a wonderful place this has been. And we have these 250 years to celebrate as well. Not all of us for the vast amount of that time. It's if you weren't a white male, it really wasn't that great to be in the United States, you know? So, so I think that, and that isn't to necessarily burst anybody's bubble. It's like, let's, let's talk about the real. history of who we are and where we come from. And by we, I mean the whole inter-tribal relationship of people from all over the world, as well as the people who were indigenous here since time immemorial, because we all have to live together, right? So that's what we need to be talking about. And we can't move into the future without accepting what has happened in the past. Otherwise, we're doomed to repeat it as the story goes, right? So, you we we need to tell those stories and the story of the little shell just happened to be the one that I was living. So of course that's the one that I was gonna tell. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah, absolutely. Well, and like you said, this 250 years of like, it was all jolly and look, we just did all and it's like, no, I mean, clearly, ooh, I'm gonna, is it the 10 penny? No, 10 penny treaty? 10 cent treaty. Yeah, the 10 cent treaty. ⁓ The exploitation, the bait and switch. Like folks, these are legal documents of the government. Like you have a paper trail. Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': 10 cent treaty, yep, 10 cent treaty. Leigh/@followtheleighder: of bait and switch corrupt, dishonest negotiations. ⁓ Negotiations not even the word either. When you talk about, I like the way, or I hadn't heard this, but the mighty Red River of the North. You spent a lot of time. What was it like being out in that part of the country? It's a very isolated part of the country. There's also, like I said, not a ton of people, lots of nature. ⁓ but also a lot of history of land sale and ⁓ battles for a place where you look around and doesn't seem like a whole lot of nothing. Can you talk about ⁓ doing the research for this book and going out into these places and getting your boots on the ground? Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': Yeah, I like to define it as the mighty Red River of the North because there's an off-brand Red River to the south down in like a different part of the continent that I don't want anybody to make the mistake that that's where we come from. So our river, the mighty Red River of the North. So that is the border today of so-called Minnesota and North Dakota and it flows north into Manitoba. Through the city of Winnipeg and drains into Lake Winnipeg, which ultimately drains into Hudson space So Winnipeg Manitoba the city which is one of the largest cities in Canada now is the original Red River settlement. So, you know when we talk about the Métis people Which the little shell are largely comprised of Métis people ⁓ that is where it all started in beginning in the late 1600s is that region and ⁓ I so so there were trips I made that I don't that don't necessarily show up much in the book, yet are foundational to the spirit of what the book. is about and you know I know you're working on a book and I know that you can probably relate to the idea that there are things that you have learned that may not land on the page but the book would not be what it's going to be if you hadn't had those experiences and it just becomes part of the spirit of this piece of effort that you're going to devote so much time and energy to. you know like trips I made out there you know the were pretty profound and So for example, and this was during my book tour. So it was even after the book came out, I got to visit the Red Lake Chippewa reservation for the first time. And that was one of those times where I'm driving through it was a day kind of like we're having in. the Missoula area today where it's cloudy and rainy and just misty and there was no one around. Like this is northern Minnesota, know, and there's no one around and there's just these trees and I passed this sign, you know, entering the Red Lake reservation. And it was one of those just profound moments of like, wow, you know, this is where my people are from more than any other place that I visited, you know, but Leigh/@followtheleighder: Hmm. Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': You know, one of the things that I love, like I was invited to speak at a language conference in Belcourt, North Dakota, which is where the Turtle Mountain Reservation is headquartered. And there's a little shell street and busts of little shell in these different places. you know, going there and interacting with people who are kind of speaking this, you know, mostly English, but peppered with with Anishinaabemowin, which is our Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm-hmm. Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': Chippewa language and and Michif, which is the Métis language, just the just this blend. I don't ever hear that here where I live, you know, so so going there and experiencing that was was also just a profound kind of soulful opportunity. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, and speaking of soulful, like I said, this was prompted with you looking around at your father's funeral and learning this whole new side of your grandfather's funeral. Thank you. A whole new side of yourself. But you're wasn't communicated this story. Is that when you wrestled with that, when did it become like, okay, this is just something I'm going to do for myself and to more like, no, this is something I'm advocating for. I'm fully behind this now. Can you talk about that transition? Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': Yeah, so the introduction to Becoming Little Shell is the description of that funeral. I grew up, like I can look out my window and I can see the remains of the paper mill in French town where my father worked for 43 years. so I'm living now very close to where I grew up. And my whole life, My father and my grandfather denied that we were native at all. But my grandmother made it very clear that we were Chippewa. And so I grew up and I took that. It's like, I'm Chippewa, I'm gonna tell everybody I am. even though didn't know what it meant. So when I go to that funeral, my grandfather's funeral in 1996, and I show up and the church is full of Indians who we supposedly aren't related to. My dad had always said we weren't related to any of the other latrées in Montana either, yet here are all these latrées that I've never seen or heard of before who are clearly my relatives. That was really one of the first major bell-ringing moments about, here's this story that there's more to it than what dad and grandpa have been saying. But it's not until over the next... Like that planted the seed, but that seed didn't really bear any growth until... You know, 2013 when I meet Nicholas Vrooman, who wrote this book, The Whole Country Was One Robe, which is about the little shell. And there's a whole chapter in the book devoted to this interaction as well. And, you know, I picked the book up and there's all these latrées referenced in the index and there's all these donies, which is what my grandmother's side of the family ⁓ were. And, you know, I meet Nicholas and that's the first time I ever say out loud to anybody that I'm thinking of writing a book about who we are and my family and all that stuff and he says yeah you have to this is your story you need to tell it and so that's 2013 or whatever and that was like the root that that was like when the when the starting flag dropped you know and I and I was off and even though it was a slow process to really get the project going that that's kind of the ultimate kickoff point. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Well, and I'm so glad you did. I'm so glad you listened to him. And I'm so glad you took this on because ⁓ it's important. It's important to the little show's history. It's important to Montana's history. I snidely think it's funny that forever, ⁓ based on your books about poetry, but your name and face will... forever, the state of Montana. And it doesn't matter if the governor likes you or not, your face and go, and I think that's so like, you went, what a really cool journey. again, it all. Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': God, literally. Literally. Well, had to, you know, that was one of the things, because it was, it was Governor Greg Gianforte who appointed me Montana State Poet Laureate. And it happened five years to the day when my first book came out, One Sentence Journal, August 14th, 2018, is when that came out. I'd never had any plan to be a poet or anything, but when that book came out, people started calling me one. I was like, Okay, I'll be one. You know, I wanted to write a book of poetry at some time, but I figured that'd be way down the road. know, Gianforte then calls me August 14th, 2023, five years today, the book coming out to say that that I was he was appointing me poet laureate. And, you know, I feel like that was kind of a political decision. It looks good for him to appoint an indigenous person to this position. I don't have anything bad to say about Gene Forte when it comes to his role in getting the little shell restored. You know, he had to convince that because he was our representative for the federal. He was our state representative at the time and he got all of those people to buy into the legitimacy of who we are. So that's great. But now you look in the news today where he's like, he's like this huge anti-Buffalo ⁓ person and he's the most difficult person to to restore Buffalo and the decisions he's making related to like American prairies efforts to have a Buffalo herd in central Montana. Buffalo belong there. Buffalo belong there more than anybody, more than we do. And so that to me is an indication of this guy doesn't really care about the reality of these relationships of this place that we live in. That we've only been here for just the tiniest fraction of time that the place has existed. you know, That to me is important and that to me shows his true colors. The fact that he doesn't want this land to be occupied by this magnificent manatee spirit that has been here for thousands of years. So, you know, it's one of those clashes of indigenous ⁓ cultural view and worldview versus this, let's just burn it all down and worry about it and make it somebody else's problem in the future. Leigh/@followtheleighder: And that's exactly what it is. It's take, take, take now. We'll figure it out down the line. And the line is running out. I want to touch on, for those who may not understand, like you said, the bison or buffalo politics, the American prairie politics which are going on for, like you said, they are native to Montana, to the region, to the Dakotas. Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': Mm-hmm. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Also, eastern Montana, for those who are like, what goes on on that side of the world? A whole lot of nothing but grasslands. But here the thing, those grasslands, there's only four of them worldwide. There's like another one down in Southampton. There's another one in Australia. I want to say there's one in like Central Asia or something, these grasslands. Yeah. And I'm so sorry. Did you say bison or buffalo? I know that that word like. Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': Yeah, like Mongolia. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Did you say personally? Do you use? You tell me. Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': Well... I, I, I, so that's funny. One time I was in, ⁓ buildings talking about Buffalo and this woman down the hall who was over listening to our conversation said, actually it's bison, you know, because technically the American bison is the official name. ⁓ but everybody calls it Buffalo. And I turned to her and I said, well, actually it's busy key because busy key is the initial Nabe word for Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm-hmm. Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': for our relative. So I like to say bijiki, but when people don't know what that word is, I'll say buffalo 90 % of the time, just because it's a cooler word, you know, especially if you, especially if you drop the middle A and you pronounce it like it's B-U-F-F apostrophe L-O, buffalo, buffalo. So yes, that's, that's what I call it. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yes. Buffalo. spoken like a writer, that whole response. My allegiance isn't to science. Yes, it's the language. ⁓ yes, well, my point being, they've been here for thousands of years. ⁓ Cattle have not. Cattle in terms of domesticated cow and what they do to those grasslands. Those grasslands are what holds all of it together. It's super boring, folks, but those roots go deep. They hold the top soil together. Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': Right, Language matters. correct. Leigh/@followtheleighder: and domesticated cattle will stomp on it over and over and they keep contained. And so that's a major part of it from the environmental side. But please, can you tell us culturally also what the bison, buffalo and Beijing, I'm sorry, Bajiqui, can you tell us what their significance is to the Métis or Chippewa? Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': Bijaki, bijaki. Well, to any of the indigenous people of the Northern Plains, you know, we were all Buffalo people. you know, one of the kind of words you hear all the time in conservation circles is stewards of the land. And I hate that term because stewards still creates this hierarchy that says, humans, human people are the top and we're the ones managing everything else. And if you look at historically the Northern Plains, the Central Plains, most of North America, Bishiki buffalo was the one, you know, because you talked about that grassland and how that affects the the ecosystem below ground of insects and how those insects are key to Plant survival as well as as food to you know birds and those birds are eaten by bigger birds and and the the grass that is nourished by the passage of millions of hooves over thousands of years. You know, all the fertility of the American bread basket isn't there just because some white bearded old dude living in the sky said, we're going to make the Americans, you know, the chosen ones. And here's this great place to grow food. No, it's there because of millions of hooves of buffalo turning it into the soil it is. And they're, you know, leaving behind as they pass. you know, that relationship is deep, not just with humans, but with everybody else that shared this place, other predators. So that like what American Empire is doing and even the folks working for the national parks trying to create this, you know, Yellowstone to the Yukon connections for older than human relatives to be able to move back and forth like they always did, I think it's critical to our survival. And you know I was at a writing conference last year in Crested Butte, Colorado and there was a panel discussion and the topic was the future of wildlife in the West. And I should have known better to go because then to go because the panel consisted of three white dudes and a white woman. And while they are all knowledgeable and great writers, excellent thinkers know this thing. The fact that you're going to have this conversation and not include at least one non-white person, particularly indigenous person, just shows that you're not really paying attention. Because there is no future in the West without involvement of indigenous people. So I was already in... entering the conversation annoyed and there was one guy who who'd written a book about I think it was grizzly bears and he multiple occasions talked about the mythological relationship that native tribes had with some of these, you know, apex animals and, you know, bears and wolves and buffalo and stuff. And I finally kind of erupted. I'd had enough and said, you know, this is not a mythological relationship. This is a relationship that we still, you know, live and die by. There's a reason why the buffalo is front and center on the little shell flag. It's because that relationship was the most important one to us. You know, they fed us, they clothed us. They represent respect in the seven grandfather teachings of the Anishinaabe people, which is like our code for how we're supposed to live our lives and Buffalo is there. This is not a mythological relationship. It's a current and a relationship that has existed since time immemorial. I hate when that's why it's important for us to be included in these conversations, because it's a different perspective. Leigh/@followtheleighder: It absolutely is. It absolutely is. one of the things that you talk about is that you've talked about this myth, the myth, that phrase, the mythological relationship, which is really interesting because in another part of the book, you talk about your relationship with Catholicism, not to be demented to religious folks. I'm like, speaking of other mythological relationships, you. You talk about you had a relationship with ⁓ you're employed in the tech world. You have a background in Catholicism from your mother is what I recall your mother's line. ⁓ Can you talk about how this journey has expanded or changed your faith at all? What that looks like today? Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': Yeah. I didn't have a faith. So the Catholicism comes from my father's side, actually, because the Metis people are deeply Catholic. Leigh/@followtheleighder: ⁓ you're mine. Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': And so, but my mom, you know, kind of experimented with different churches and, you know, has spent time in the Catholic Church more as a place to go, I think, for a certain amount of spiritual comfort, not so much, you know, I don't know if she's even baptized, to be honest with you. I was because my grandfather, my grandparents, you know, made it necessary that I was going to be baptized. But, you know, when you're an infant, you don't really have a say in that. But to say, I wouldn't say I was an atheist, but I certainly wasn't Catholic and I wasn't any, you know, particular denomination. And today I would say that's my biggest struggle because on the one hand, there are many people, not just in the Little Shell tribe, but in all of these Northern Plains tribes that I'm related to. Christianity still has their claws in and a lot of people get a lot of emotional comfort from their faith. And it's hard for me to say, yeah, you're wrong. So on the one hand, you have to let them whatever it takes for them to survive, whatever they need to get through their day to day lives. I'm not going to judge people for that. But at the same time, I feel like that is also the, if not the most, it's certainly in the top tier of betrayal. You know, Catholicism primarily was like the bloody spear tip of colonialism. You know, those were the guys who came in and built schools and started taking children from families even before the boarding school era to re-educate them, to disconnect them from their indigenous heritage. And, you for hundred years, the two kind of lived hand in hand and it was beautiful. But then the boarding schools happen and language and culture is literally beaten out of people and all of the abuses that happened and all of the unmarked graves around these mission schools, it's profoundly evil. You know, what was done to indigenous people by Catholicism, by Christianity is the definition of evil in every possible way that you can imagine, except for what some things that people will cherry pick from their holy book to say, well, it's our right as Christians to make the world Christian or whatever you want to say. So that that's the struggle. is the people who continue to be Christian and need that to live their lives versus the reality of what that faith has done not just to our tribe but to tribes across the continent, around the world really. Leigh/@followtheleighder: It is and that's an interesting, you talk about it being a betrayal, you have the egregious, the overwhelming, very in your face evil of the boarding schools. You also have forced sterilization of women. I talked to... Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': Mm-hmm. At the same time though, we have these folks that's part of our intertribal relationship that we need to find, make peace with and be able to work together because Christians aren't going anywhere. And I don't want to broad brush every Christian with the brand that thinks that our current president is in some way representative of their faith. I just don't get that. But There are plenty of people I know who are Christian, native and non-native, who I am happy to spend time with and I have trust that they will hold up their end when the time comes for us to do whatever we need to do to ensure our future. So again, it's the complexity of the world we're in right now, of all these different ideas and trying to make things work together. I'm sorry I interrupted you, Leigh/@followtheleighder: No, no, mean, and that was a great point. I was just commenting on Christianity being used, know, egregiously over time, which I didn't need to recount to you as you were saying because, no, it's 2026, it's very much here. We're talking about holy wars again. We're talking about conquest. Still, like, this is it. And this idea that there were ever... Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': Mm-hmm. Leigh/@followtheleighder: the heritage. is, they're just owning it at this point. This is our heritage. This is who we are. We're Christians. We're, you know, and it's not familiar to how I understand Jesus or how I was raised. But I also know that faith or spirituality, I often find it out in the mountains, out in nature. I love spending time with my dog. ⁓ I love just going out on a good hike. And what I appreciate about you is in your poems, one sentence journal and descended from a travel born satchel, which is a haiku. ⁓ You do such a beautiful job of talking about and capturing what it's like to be out in the Montana wilderness. ⁓ How has this time alone or with others hiking and being out, how has that helped shape and ⁓ give you time to process all of this insight and all of this research, all of these people, these stories? I mean, you're a storyteller, but you accumulate stories too. ⁓ Talk about ⁓ what it's like to process. some of these stories, talk about what it's like to spend time in nature and considering this. What is that like? I know that you're in French town, not Missoula specific. Do you appreciate being in a smaller town versus Missoula? Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': Well, absolutely. And I'm kind of like like my address is technically a Missoula address, but the kids in my neighborhood go to French town. So as far as I'm concerned, it's French town and it was French town when it was just a field to me when I was growing up. You know, none of this was here, but yeah, absolutely. And. You know, I read a statistic ⁓ about. ⁓ Leigh/@followtheleighder: Okay, all right, yeah. Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': You know, for the vast amount of human history, we're talking thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of years, humans spent like 99.9 % of their time outdoors because we didn't have houses like we have now and things like that. And now in just this tiny little fraction of time that humans have been here, now we spend 93 % of our time indoors. And of those the seven percent of time that we're not indoors the majority of that time is spent you know moving from our our cars to indoors so like that 93 also includes being in our car so the and then the majority of time of that we're not in one of those two places we are moving from one to the other so the point i'm making is that we are wired to be outside and you know it being outdoors and spending out time going on hikes and just sitting by the river and all those things were part of me as long as I've been alive. And I think what was revealed to me is that our original instructions as Indigenous people come from the land. You know, and our creation story and the creation of the first human in the Anishinaabe creation story and the first task that that first human is given is to go out in the world and pay attention to it and learn from all of these other relatives who are here first how we're supposed to interact with each other to survive in this new place. you know, growing up. not part of any community of elders or culture or anything, I realized that I was learning how to be in the shinabe the way we did in the beginning, which was just spending time outside. whenever, you know, whenever I get in these stretches where I'm not doing enough to be out, whether it's hiking or just sitting, ⁓ that's when I start to fall apart. So that I think has just even been magnified since I've been doing this, you know, work of really thinking about what does it mean to be up on top of a mountain? What does it mean just to be sitting on my porch in the morning with my coffee, paying attention to the birds and who's migrated back? And I saw 25 Sandhill cranes fly by me this morning that I never would have knew were out there if I was just sitting in here. doom scrolling or something, you know? So it's critical to me. I think it's critical to many people even who don't really realize it yet. Leigh/@followtheleighder: And as you were talking, I was realizing that so many of the folks who don't spend, who are outside but live in urban environments, they're outside, might be golf courses or very curated, refined outdoor spaces. And that's what the resources that are around them, not everyone gets to have Montana in their backyard, I recognize that. But there is something to be said and learned from the realities of rugged nature. Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': Mm-hmm. Leigh/@followtheleighder: that we are not in control, it doesn't look fine and pretty and perfectly usable and ⁓ that dangerous things can happen. ⁓ And it's not, there's almost a mortality piece to it too that I appreciate after being in the outdoors. Like it's like healthy, it's not like doing risky things for the sake of it, but it reminds me of just how human I am. and that's the temperance of it all, maybe. Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': Mm-hmm. Leigh/@followtheleighder: You talked about how the wildlife has been here older than many of the humans. One of the things I felt and have felt in a few different spaces in the American West, I've certainly spent some time in New England and Appalachia, but I love the American West. But there are some places where you can, where they feel, I don't know, spiritually powerful, potent. Than others for me one of those places was was in the Black Hills I just like I remember thinking that I was like the old gods have been here And I don't know what that means or what that looks like I don't even know what I just said But I just know that something old has walked these lands and you can feel it Did you feel that sense of interconnectedness as you were traveling as you were researching or even as you were making these relationships with those that you interviewed? Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': that feeling happens all time. It's not something that happened, it happens all the time. And the most recent profound one was in your neck of the woods. I was invited by ⁓ the Native Americans Education Department at Great Falls Public Schools last February to... ⁓ be like the artist in residence. So I spent three days talking to high school classes and then they said, we're gonna do a bison harvest the day after you leave. Do you wanna stay an extra day and join us for this? And I was, yes, I've never done one before. So we went out ⁓ to the front range and ⁓ arranged to kill a bison. And ⁓ it was a very, very... beautifully bright sunny day, but it was like 10 below zero when we were out there. So it was all of these perfect Northern Plains conditions. just to shorten the story a little bit, I know we're starting to run low on time here, but I ended up holding the heart of this buffalo that had just been killed while the heart is still warm. And I... tasted some of the blood, you know, as we would traditionally do. you know, I have to say, you know, it wasn't the biggest, certainly not the biggest buffalo I've ever seen. But the heart was this big, you know, it was huge. And again, just to... be a little more brief than I normally would be telling this story. That was one of those moments. That was those moments where I felt more connected to these countless generations of buffalo hunters, which my people were and were very, very good at it. My connection to them, but also the connection to all of the ancestors of this buffalo and what they meant to our people and what our relationship has meant to that place for thousands of years. You know, you can do aerial photography of the central Montana and you can see signs where the landscape has been shaped by all of those hooves that for thousands of years would migrate from the north all the way to the Missouri River to the Yellowstone and down to the south and up along the front range of the Rockies right through what's today is Choteau and Dupuyere and all of those places. And it just happened over and over and over again. And here I am in the shadow of those same mountains. holding this warm heart, it was profound. And I think that's an example of what you're asking me about. It happens all the time. I think the more you open yourself up to it, the more it happens. I think the coincidence of the date of my first book coming out and me kind of being birthed into the world is this storyteller that people seem to want to invite to come and talk to them. And that then coincidence of the poet laureateship being appointed onto me, you know, on the same date but five years later. Those are all things I think were doors have opened for me that that never should have been if it wasn't for the hands of my ancestors kind of guiding me. You know, I didn't. I never went to school. I've never taken any writing classes or any poetry classes or any of that stuff. I have a high school diploma. I was going to be a rock star, you know, and that didn't work out and I just kept writing and here we are. it's certainly nothing I did all on my own. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. ⁓ that is so powerful. And thank you for that. ⁓ The story, not only of the Buffalo Heart, but the ancestral trust, that feeling you have of being connected to so much more than just being alone in this world. And I think that's very powerful. And also, Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': Mm-hmm. That was one of the things with becoming Little Shell that I mentioned in the book. I've literally just had this realization just now talking to you is the desire to want to be part of something bigger and just be a part of something. And I'd never felt part of anything. And becoming my application for enrollment with the Little Shell being accepted, I thought that was going to be that thing that felt. part of something bigger. But I have kind of a conflicted relationship with what it means to be little shells. So that wholeness has not been achieved. Where I feel connected is to that wider connection to just indigeneity and that... multicultural, multi-tribal, inter-tribal, across the northern plains and all of our older than human relatives. That's the connection I feel. That's the something bigger that I feel that I never felt before in my life. And you might call that faith, you might call it spirituality. but to actually be able to define it and actually be able to look and see these are the relationships we had and they are tenuous in our modern day and we need to return to a strong relationship with those. That's the connection I feel that was lacking, I think. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, and one of the ways that you also feel connected and feel supported, as you said, we're running out of time, ⁓ was your dog Darla. ⁓ And you have had many dogs in the past, but one of the you talk about is ⁓ the sacred art of dog walking, which comes from the sacred art of log sitting. But it's just. the appreciation, it's the sacred duty and the honor of walking your dog. Can you talk about your relationship with dogs and the role that they play in your life? Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': Yeah, so the sacred art of log sitting was a poem from Jim Harrison's last book before he died, last book of poetry before he died, Dead Man's Float. And I had a real connection to that. And he was a big dog guy also. in his, I think in that particular. poem he talks about his dog Zilpha who also dies and Darla was kind of my companion that I spent a lot of time with when I was working through just a profound amount of grief ⁓ after my father passed away and just the state of my life you know is a hundred pounds almost heavier than I am now I was just like just unhealthy both physically and emotionally and just all of those things and We'd lost a bunch of pets from the household also. Darla was, I think it was her and a cat out of six pets. So we just started going on these walks. I realized that she was kind of like, the need to take her out was also a need I had that I didn't realize until I was out doing it. you know these companions we have you know their their family and and their big parts of our lives and it's a it's something that I think connects us it's a way for us like you know my neighbors I know their dogs names but I don't necessarily know my neighbors names you know I just passed one Leigh/@followtheleighder: ⁓ even he... Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': I just passed one rushing back to get here in time to do our discussion and had to stop so that Grim, the little shit rat, could growl at me like he always does, you know, but I don't know, you know, the woman who owned, who shares the house with him, I can't always remember her name, but so yeah, there's just something about our relationship that we have that I think speaks to the relationship that we had with the entire world at one point. And if there's to me any hope that we can return to that, it's just how important our horses and dogs and cats can be to all of us and that to me is a seed to what the future could be. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Absolutely. I mean, that passage in your book talk, I mean, I have, it's haunted me in the middle of the winter in Montana, Chris, where I'll be like, no, it's too cold. I don't want to take my dog on a walk. I'm like, but Chris said, it's a sacred art and that it's an honor to do this for your dog, but for yourself. There's an honor in taking care of these and being in related, of having these animals. Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': Yeah. Yeah, it is. Leigh/@followtheleighder: I get to do this for my dog. I get to take care of you. And it was just so beautifully worded. And you laugh about not knowing your neighbor's names. Like, as you were saying, I was like, that's so funny because I knew Darla's name, but I did not remember if it was his grandfather's funeral or if it was his mom who was Catholic. But I knew, I knew his dog's name. And it's just like, there's little, it's just, yeah. Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': Right. Right, Uh-huh. That's right. That's right. Leigh/@followtheleighder: They teach us unconditional love. They teach us being seen. Someone joked the other day that I take my dog with me everywhere. a service dog. I bet you wish he could talk. And I was like, oh, he knows too much. I don't know, actually, if I do want him to talk. I think he's perfect the way he is, actually. We signed some NDNAs something. So Chris, what is next for you? Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': Huh? Uh-huh. Leigh/@followtheleighder: And where can folks follow you to keep up with all that you're doing and to learn more? Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': Well, the best way to keep up with what I'm doing is probably my newsletter, An Irritable Metis, which is on Substack currently. I'm hoping to move it off there or here in the next year or so, but that's where it is now. That's, you know, it's the only, I don't have any social media or anything like that. So my newsletter is the place. I feel like I actually started my next book of nonfiction last night because I started the bibliography because, That was one of the last things I did for Becoming Little Shell and it was a struggle going back through to make a list of the books. So the ones that I've been, you know, getting ideas from and pulling quotes from and stuff that may or may not end up in the book at all anyway, ⁓ I've been keeping track of them as I go. So I actually took the bibliography from, you know, Becoming Little Shell and just repurposed it to start putting new books into it for this one. So I guess that means I have actually started it now. Poetry, I've got another manuscript that should be out this summer, small press type thing. But the big thing is a couple of friends of mine and I last year debuted this indigenous festival called Indigia Palooza. I'm wearing the t-shirt right now. Indigia Palooza Montana. So last year was a celebration of native storytelling and Leigh/@followtheleighder: You are, yeah. Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': We had Joy Harjo as our keynote headliner. She's the first native poet laureate in the history of US poet laureates. So she was the US poet laureate. And it was dedicated to just all the ways that Indigenous people still tell stories. So we had poets and writers, but we also had ⁓ musicians. We had music there, and we had a cooking demo. Mariah Gladstone came down, because that's storytelling also. That was the theme last year and it was great. It was in Missoula. It was at the public library. ⁓ And then we said, well, let's do it again. So this year we're doing it and the theme is ⁓ Resistance 250 plus. So it's not a literary festival at all, although we have some writers coming. Our keynote this year is Robin Wall Kimmerer, who wrote Braiding Sweetgrass. And we have some other native writers, but then we have people working like in Leigh/@followtheleighder: ⁓ well. Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': Buffalo restoration on reservations and we have a panel devoted to, you know, indigenous joy and well-being and, you know, the re-empowerment of women with, you know, because of things like MMIW and all of that. So it's this broad ⁓ celebration of all these different things that are happening today. know, things that Native people are doing today to... Leigh/@followtheleighder: Wow. Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': allow us to thrive in the wake of this 250 plus year effort to eliminate us. And so that's July 31st and August 1st in Missoula. And one of my favorite things is there's this indigenous punk rock band from Denver called Dead Pioneers. They're going to come and play a show also. And I'm pretty jacked about that. So yeah, it's going to be cool. So if you're in Montana, you should definitely come. Everything's free. Leigh/@followtheleighder: That is cool. Oh, yeah. Let me, I'm happy to promote anything for you guys leading up to it. Um, let's stay in chat. That's really cool and, um, fantastic about the keynote speakers on both accounts for your first and second year. You knocked it out of the park. Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, Joy was kind of a reach, but ⁓ Robin and I share a speaking agent and we've interacted, you done a couple events together in the past. So that was, that was more of a, we had a pretty good feeling that we were going to be able to have Robin come. So Joy was, Joy was one of those was kind of like a cold call and she was into it. But, but, but this year it's, a little different and I'm really excited about the folks that were, haven't come. Leigh/@followtheleighder: you Let's see. Well, you're doing so much for so many people. I am appreciative that you came by today. I do hope that you will return so we can do a deeper dive on any of numerous things we covered today. I know today was kind of a flyover skim of just trying to get to know you a little bit and introduce you to my audiences. But. you're a powerful writer, a very descriptive storyteller that tells things with passion and what I would call like respectful passion, like the emotional intensities there, but you don't sound, you know, propaganda or, you know, some of those other phrases that I think passionate people can sometimes veer into. And I really... I cried, I laughed, I've highlighted and folks who can't see if you're listening audio, but I tabbed up his books. Like there's a lot of quotables in there. ⁓ yeah, no, thank you for writing it. It's just, ⁓ because, and one thing we didn't get to folks that we will at some point is his one sentence journal. It's a book of short poems and essays from the world at large is what the subtitle is. But ⁓ again, based on this, Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': That's beautiful. Thank you. Leigh/@followtheleighder: writing practice of just one sentence a day and how much you can really capture in one sentence and what a lesson on brevity and detail at the same time. don't know, it's beautiful. Chris, is there anything else that you want to say before we wrap up? Chris La Tray, Poet, Author, and 'Irritiable Metis': Mm-hmm. I think that should do it. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Alrighty. Well folks, that was another episode of Follow the Leighder. I'm your host, Leigh Larson, and that was poet and author Chris Latre. You can find him, the Irritable Métis over on Substack. Tell me, what did you think about this ⁓ conversation? Let me know in the comments and don't forget to like, follow, subscribe. You guys know the drill. until next time, I'm Leigh Larson. This is Follow the Leighder. See ya. All right.