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ā€œI am someone who, like many of us, is in the process of making history. My people knew that our great grandchildren would talk about the day that their grandparents went and stood in front of the pipeline that never became. And that is the story I want told in museums.ā€

Winona LaDuke is an internationally renowned activist working on issues of sustainable development renewable energy and food systems. She lives and works on the White Earth reservation in northern Minnesota, and is a two-time vice presidential candidate with Ralph Nader for the Green Party.

As Program Director of the Honor the Earth, she works nationally and internationally on the issues of climate change, renewable energy, and environmental justice with Indigenous communities. And in her own community, she is the founder of the White Earth Land Recovery Project, one of the largest reservation based non-profit organizations in the country and a leader in the issues of culturally based sustainable development strategies, renewable energy, and food systems. In this work, she also continues national and international work to protect Indigenous plants and heritage foods from patenting and genetic engineering.

In this video, Master Carver Jewell James (Lummi) presentsĀ the House of Tears Carvers’ Totem Pole Journeys as a response toĀ the challenges we face in our struggles for a just and liveable planet for all.

The Lummi Nationā€™s House of Tears carvers has created a tradition of carving and delivering totem poles to areas struck by disaster or otherwise in need of hope and healing. In 2013 the House of Tears Carvers began a yearly totem pole journey highlighting the impacts of fossil fuels across tribal lands throughout North America. These journeys raise awareness and strengthen and expand cooperation between tribes, intertribal organizations, faith-based communities, environmentalists and community leaders who oppose fossil fuel expansion projects.

ā€œThe totem pole journey does not draw a new line as much as it traces over one that already exists, making it visible. This line runs through the rocks, through the trees, through the sky, through the oceans. It is also a line that runs from the past to the present, and into the future.ā€

Narrated by Phreddie Lane of the Lummi Nation, this video was part of the exhibitionĀ Kwel’ Hoy: We Draw the Line, which launched at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in 2017.

More information:Ā https://thenaturalhistorymuseum.org/events/kwel-hoy-we-draw-the-line/

“Despite the fact that entire nations have been built atop the idea that objects contained within museums represent dead cultures, there is a spirit that lives on in them that can never be extinguished. And this is what ‘Kwel’ Hoy: We Draw the Line’ is all about.”

In this promotional video, the Lummi Nation’s Phreddie Lane and The Natural History Museum’s Jason Jones introduce our first collaboration,Ā Kwel’ Hoy: We Draw the Line, a cross-country totem pole journey and museum exhibition in 2017.

More information here:Ā https://thenaturalhistorymuseum.org/events/kwel-hoy-we-draw-the-line/

Science serves the common good. It protects the health of our communities, the safety of our families, the education of our children, the foundation of our economy and jobs, and the future we all want to live in and preserve for coming generations. Faced with the muzzling of scientists and government agencies, the immigration ban, the deletion of scientific data, and the de-funding of public science under the Trump Administration,Ā the NHM co-organized a series of rallies that led to the International March or Science, which drew millions on all 7 continents.

This video profiles a rally held in Boston during the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science convention, where 3,000 scientists and supporters stood behind the message:Ā Science must serve the interests of all people, not just those in power.

More info here:Ā https://thenaturalhistorymuseum.org/thousands-of-scientists-rally-outside-of-aaas-conference/