South Dakota Focus: Developing Native American Tourism
- A powwow is one of the most recognizable examples South Dakota host their Each year, powwows can draw hundreds of visitors, vendors, from across the regionompes to the host communities. The Lakota word for powwow is Wacipi, meaning they dance. One of the largest powwows in the nation is the Black Hills Powwow Dew Bad Warrior Ganje is the vice president of the Black Hills Powwow Board.
She says, powwows aren't only for tribal members. - A Wacipi is a celebration. So it's a beautiful celebration where we all come together with our relatives from near and far. And so we, it's a way that we welcome everybody to our communities.
And so it's a gathering space that everyone is welcome. As a Blawow, we offer a Wac101. weom ce o, the cultural significances, the protocols, and answer any questions just to help build bridges with, with our culture.
And just to understand, I mean, we have a beautiful culture and a lot of people have questions about it. And so we just wanna offer a safe space that people can learn and appreciate what they're seeing in a different way. - The Black Hills Powwow draws thousands of dancers and attendees to Rapid City.
Each fall ticket sales fund, the Wapi, years in that time, it's grown6 to include other events as well. - We have the Lakota Language Summit, we have our tribal chairman's meetings. We have different gatherings and spaces, and so the amount of traffic that comes through and just people from all over the country coming, it's a huge impact for our community.
- Early fall has become an increasingly busy season for the Black Hills region. A couple weeks before the Black Hills powwow, there's another decades old tradition. The Custer State Park Buffalo Roundup has been a unique spectacle for visitors for almost six decades. In recent years, it's drawn record baking crowds.
This year's Roundup brought more than 24,000 people to the Black Hills during what used to be well past the end of the traditional summer tourist season. Instead, some attractions are adding events to draw in the Roundup crowd. Whitney Rencountre is the CEO of the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation.
This year, crazy Horse hosted its first Tatanka Day, the day after the Custer Buffalo Roundup, - Which is a western perspective of rounding up the buffalo herd that exists here in the Black Hills. So since Crazy Horse Memorial is close in vicinity, we felt that this was a great opportunity to also share the perspective that Native people have. Because of our historical relationship, the buffalo provided food, clothing, shelter, much more teachings, values our relationship. The livelihood of our people depended on the buffalo. And so we wanted to be able to showcase and highlight that to honor the buffalo and the relationship and the connections that we as Native people have with the buffalo and, and all that they provided to our people.
- An exhibit in the Native American Educational and Cultural Center shares some of that story along with the efforts to preserve the buffalo population after it was nearly decimated. Tatanka Day also included special performances on the viewing deck. But even without special programming in tandem with the Buffalo Roundup Crazy Horse Memorial has become one of the most popular attractions in South Dakota. It's the largest mountain carving in the world and has been under construction for more than 75 years.
It began with a solemn purpose. - The origin of Crazy Horse Memorial started with Chief Henry Standing Bear, who was taken from his home as a child and was sent to Carlisle Indian School against his will, along with many other native children across North America. And when Chief Henry Standing Bear was there, he realized that the government was trying to terminate the Native American culture.
And he felt that as he grew older, he was so proud of his first cousin. Crazy Horse Tasunke Witko who led the battle against Custer in the Seventh Calvary during the Battle of Little Bighorn are also known as the Battle of Greasy Grass. And so Chief Henry's standing Bear felt that not only the story of Crazy Horse needed to be shared, but also the story of the North American tribes. And so to have a, the sacrifice that he put in mind was that if I endorse, or if I ask and invite Chief Korczak Ziolkowski to come to the Black Hills, to carve this mountain and to establish a university, a museum, a place for people to learn that even if the government was successful in terminating the tribes, there will always be a place for the world to be interested and, and wondering what is the Native American people, the culture, the traditions, - The tribes were not terminated, but the impact of boarding schools and other rmfugovernment policies connuday. The history is not so distant. For instance, it was illegal for native people to practice their traditional ceremonies until Congress passed the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, not even 50 years ago. Like Henry Standing Bear,
a painter from the Sisseton Wahpeton tribe worried about losing cultural knowledge. Paul War Cloud painted scenes the early seventies when theirfn practice was still a crime. Now, some of those paintings are in the Sisseton Wahpeton Tribal Archives on the Lake Traverse Reservation in the northeast corner of the state. Tamara St. John is the tribe's archivist. She often brings visitors to see the expanding collection of artifacts.
- Well, you will find that I'm a big advocate for tourism. In fact, I warn people, if you don't wanna talk about tourism, probably don't talk to me because you know, I see so much in it. You know, as a historian, I love our history. I love Northeast South Dakota, South Dakota in general, and American history.
And we have great stories to tell and it's really all around us, especially in this realm. And that part is something, but the tribes, also the tribes in their story, I believe that it is an act of sovereignty for a tribe to take control of their cultural history by telling their own story. And what a better way to do that than tourism with people from your local community to even internationally. - St. John's belief in the opportunity tourism offers tribal
communities let her to spend the last five years as a state representative. - I had been looking at tourism and wanting to ensure that as a tribe. This whole northeast corner, you know, was really a lot of our history and finding that maybe we're not connecting up here the way that we could. And seeing that tourism is such a huge economic driver for the state of South Dakota, and, you know, it really could benefit our area.
And so who could find that would help to push that forward or, you know, at least speak to that. And I really couldn't find anybody, even though, you know, we have great people in state level, I wanted somebody great pushing them right here, wound up having to be me. - It was around the same time momentum was developing to build an alliance of tribal tourism. South Dakota Tourism Secretary Jim Hagen supports the development. - We've had fits and starts for decades with tribal tourism.
But about five years ago there, we really made a concerted effort to reach out to our tribes, tribal partners and friends and say, let's really get this going. We needed some outside help. We found an entity in George Washington University in DC that really special has been specializing in helping our indigenous people create tourism on their reservations.
- The International Institute of Tourism Studies at George Washington University served as an early facilitator of meetings with various stakeholders. The group eventually became the South Dakota Native Tourism Alliance, or SDNTA, Frank Kills in Water is the board chair of the SDNTA. - We got together as an ad hoc network in the beginning and started having these meetings of who was who in their respective entities.
And we started to brainstorm and put ideas together of how the future of native tourism would look. And in, in that became the SDNTA, we, we sort of followed footsteps in the, of what the North Dakota Native Tourism Alliance did. And from there, it grew to where we were no longer an ad hoc network, but we became an actual organization. And together we represent and we trying to get representation from all nine tribes in our area. And between North Dakota and South Dakota. It helps us as an alliance to
have partners in, in on every reservation to help, to help bring tourism to each reservation in, in a good way. - The early work of SDNTA and George Washington University resulted in a five year Native American tourism development and management plan. The a hundred plus page plan includes existing attractions across the state's, nine reservations, along with opportunities for further development.
- But through these collaborations, we've come to find out that our experiences in Indian country are very unique. And GW helped us to kind of enrich those and, and point them out not only to the tourism industry, but to ourselves as well. So we came to understand in these meetings that our culture was the way that we were going to be able to show the rest of the world that we're still here.
- Some of the goals outlined in the management plan include creating iconic Native American experiences, preparing a skilled workforce for tourism, and increasing awareness of Native American tourism offerings. Earlier this year, the South Dakota Native Tourism Alliance became a 501C3 nonprofit organization. Crazy Horse Memorial hosted its quarterly Frank Kills in Water hopes the SDNTA can become the to help develop tourism opportunities for native people.
- Having our cultural ways being preserved and being put to the forefront is a way for us to, to preserve that now, that, Ikce Wicasa that that Common Man and that knowledge that he holds and that he possesses can be used for a way for him to, you know, make some money for his family. If he can go out and he can identify a tree that's been struck by lightning and the icagipa, that's where we get our bows from, then that man can take a tour down there, take a group of people and go show him, show those people the plants on the way the medicine plants the animal tracks, and show them individuals who may come from a big city and have never been anywhere but Central Park. And we can take and show them that this is part of our culture. - Preserving and sharing culture aren't the only benefits of developing native tourism.
After all, tourism is a nearly $5 billion industry in South Dakota. - I think the other benefit is that in, in tribal communities, there are often very few jobs and you know, we've really begun to look at things like that spirit of entrepreneurialship and having people look at starting their own business. And so when I see people that maybe like a young couple that have an amazing food truck or people that are starting a business with food sales or else like a hunting guide, hunting, fishing guide, all of those sort of things, even the arts and crafts that are available, authentic Native American made arts and crafts.
Those things are, they put seeds on the table as the tribal people in an area where sometimes there, - The entrepreneurial aspect this is giving individuals a chance to go out and become tour guides. It's giving them a chance to show and to showcase their skills and what do, and that's giving them a voice. It's giving them that support, it's giving them that sense of value to themselves, and that's going to help them be a better tour guide. It's gonna help them be better at what they do.
It's going to help them help their families in the end. The tourism that we wanna start isn't going to make our tribes rich. To me, that's not the goal. The ultimate goal is that individual that I spoke of earlier, that Ikce Wicasa going out and using that skill and using something that he's learned through the work of our alliance and our, our partners in the industry to go and bring that, that dollar home to his family. - One of the small business members of the South Dakota Native Tourism Alliance is Tatanka Rez Tourz.
It's the only native American owned tour company in the state. Guss and Tianna Yellow Hair are the father daughter duo that operate the business on the Pine Ridge reservation. It began when Tianna presented a business plan as a high school senior during a competition at the Lakota Nation Invitational. - And so, and they actually like the idea so much that they gifted, they gifted me a larger scholarship amount. And so since that time, of course, that was in 2011, and then it was probably about 20, the end of 2014, the beginning of 2015, when we finally decided that we were going to do Tatanka Rez Tourz as a full-blown business.
That was the idea. And so we started it in 2015, and here we are in 2024, about nine years later. - Tianna's dad, Guss suggested the idea of a tour guide business.
He began giving tours while working as a cultural consultant for the Pine Ridge Chamber of Commerce. - A lot of people were asking questions, and in my mind I was thinking, well, who better than to tell our story than, you know, me, Lakota, Cheyenne person who grew up, you know, on the reservation. There's a lot of stereotypes about native people, you know? And so a lot of the questions that I get, do you still eat buffalo? I tell 'em, yeah, but just the wings, you know, and so just, just those type of things, you know, I mean, just trying to make 'em at ease as, as they come through Lakota country, you know, - Tatanka Rez Tourz offers three tour packages, a tour of the Pine Ridge Reservation, a tour of Badlands, flora and fauna, and a six hour tour of the Black Hills.
Each option includes discussions of history, culture, and contemporary issues. - So we really take your, we try to accommodate you and take that into consideration, but while still following who we are and why we started this, which is to educate our visitors on things that are, have already been in the public, but also to knock down a lot of those stereotypical views that people have of us while still being able to say, we have your interests at heart. - They also highlight the many non-profit organizations operating on the Pine Ridge Reservation.
- And so all these things, building, trying to build a strong future and letting these, letting our visitors know that, you know, they're, although we're dealing with a lot of social measurements of health, there are people that are working for towards the healing and moving forward as a nation of people. - The economic difficulties on South Dakota reservations make developing robust tourism services an uphill battle. The development and management plan from George Washington University notes many of these challenges from the remote location of reservations compared to other attractions, to the lack of public restrooms and other conveniences. - Because a lot of times people who come through South Dakota, they wanna see an Indian Reservation or a Native Reservation. That's their response.
And what we found in each of these reservations is the, we are open to the tourists, but we don't have the facilities to really host them, which is not only the restrooms, the ATMs, also our roads are an issue. Hotel stays, places to eat restaurants, we really lack a lot of that tourist accommodations. - Investing in accommodations for visitors can be a hard sell, especially when so many residents have their own needs. - The tribe really isn't on board yet. But, you know, with this SDNTA work that we're doing then, you know, slowly, you know, giving them, you know, opening their eyes to the possibilities of tourism and the opportunity that brings, not only to, you know, people that, 'cause we we're dealing with 70 to 80% unemployment and you know, I mean there's in tourism, you know, it's the second leading industry in South Dakota. And so you can, you can see that there's opportunity there.
- Well, some of the grassroots challenges for our people is getting that buy-in from our tribes. Our own people feel like when a bus comes through, they're looked at us like we're animals in cages. They come and they see all our trash and our boarded up houses and you know, just the, the struggles on reservations life that they will never get to experience or they never will experience. And some of our people have become, they see tourism in a negative light.
They see that, oh, oh, we're selling ourselves out, we're selling our culture. We don't want to share any of that with, with whoever. - There are those that maybe object because they're thinking in terms of this sort of old tourism that didn't connect to tribes personally and maybe utilizes things that might be more exploitive and things of that sort. And that's the extreme, you know, I think those things are things of the past and you know, now is now and here we are and we can do things, we can do a much better job ourselves. having strangers on their tribal lands.
Are they gonna be respectful? Well, I would say that by developing a tourism program, control those things. o here people can g What would you like them to see? What would you like them to know? It's really a way of taking control. And, you know, so for those that maybe are a little resistant and thinking about that old model tourism, you know, there's a new way, and I think tribes are leading that, - But the members of the SDNTA see each challenge as an opportunity - Because it's not just non-natives that come through here. We have Natives that come here for a connection. And how do you as, as Lakota people connect to your culture, your language, your history, and how do you continue that? In today's world? Because as Lakota people, we walk in two different worlds and it's very hard.
I can tell you, as someone who does it, it's very hard to do. It's very hard to balance. And for me, my hope is that people see what cultural tourism can do for our reservations. Not only the revenue portion of it, but also the education that it brings, the awareness that it brings for our people for a lot of the things that we are facing.
Issues such as MMIW, land back treaties, you know, and not on that, but also how our reservations are ran, exa how the, you know, the social detriments ar plagur people. But also keeping in mind and considering that we are have a lot, we do have a lot of positive things happening on the reservations, not just here in Pine Ridge, but all of the other nine and all of the other indigenous communities. There's a lot of positive happening as well.
And those are things we wanna highlight too. - And, and once we can change that perception, not only of ourselves, but then we can change the world and the people's perception of who we are. We're not alcoholics, we're not all drug addicts, we're not, you know, we're not the bad people we're portrayed to be on the streets of our, of our cities here in South Dakota. So, those are the deeper challenges of, of not only the SDNTA, but each member that's working on the respected reservations that's their challenge as well. We need to be able to make sure that those individuals who are coming here to our reservations and to South Dakota will have that story, not only from the family, that it may have happened to that family who has ties to a historical event. Their ancestors is still alive here to tell that story.
So for us to have that unique indigenous perspective on, on our history and how we want to tell it, not reading it from a book and not reading it from a script and, not hearing it third hand or fourth hand. We're hearing it from our grandmothers, we're hearing it from our grandfathers, we're hearing it from our uncles and our aunties who live that way, who understand that way and, and understand that having an oral tradition, it's going to be one of the only ways that we can preserve this. - When people come here, the first thing that I like to show them is here in the tribal archives. And it is something that has just grown in the past, I'd say even four or five years.
The space that we had here now, is located in the tribal administration building and the tribe has been very accommodating, but we have outgrown that. And we know that, you know, outside of the amount of visitors we have, you know, when you look at tourism and the idea of having a place for visitors to come, that's just off of the interstate. I think that is like tourism gold.
And so to build a visitor center there that would house our tribal archives, collections, all of our historic preservation and, you know, give some space to people that are doing some pretty amazing cultural things, is gonna be tremendous. So we are just in it. It has been a long journey to get there. And I think we're at a stage now where we are so close to looking at, you know, how we we're going to do the groundbreaking ceremony for, it's really an amazing exciting thing.
- I want changes for, you know, my children and my grandchildren. You know, I want them to be a part of that American dream, you know, to be able to go and make a good life for themselves, you know, and, and hold their head up and be proud of who they are. Why I am Lakota, I am Native, you know, and I have a culture that's thousands and thousands of years old, you know? So just things like that, you know? So in closing, you know, that's my takes. I want to tell, you know, come, come one, come all, you know, we've got a story to share.
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