Gerard Baker, superintendent of the Lewis and Clark National historic trail talks about the commemoration in front of his mothers house on the Ft. Berthold reservation in N. Dakota. |
As he sits in his front yard with his coffee mug, cell phone and his mother, Gerard Baker has to work at staying optimistic. Baker, a Mandan, is a key player in the National Park Service’s planning for the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial. He’s also a superintendent with the National Park Service, the highest-ranking Indian with the NPS. And though his office is located in Omaha, Neb., his work still finds him at Fort Berthold. Whenever his cell phone can pick up service, that is.
For the past year, Baker has been making the rounds throughout Indian Country trying to convince tribes that it is in their best interest to participate in commemoration festivities, a series of signature events held along the trail for four years.
Getting tribal participation has been a hard sell at times.
"We’re too busy fighting for survival," Baker said.
Yet Baker reminds himself of a meeting he had with officials from the Nez Perce Tribe earlier in the year. Getting their participation was a hard sell during that meeting, Baker recalls.
"Until an elder got up and said ‘I’m celebrating this because we still can sing our songs. I can still speak my language and teach my children,’ " Baker remembers hearing.
Down the road from Baker’s yard is the Four Bears Casino on the Fort Berthold Reservation. Here the buffet is almost as big a hit as the powwow under way in town. But other than the kitchen staff, no one is in a hurry.
Darryl McKay, Manitoba Sioux, walks with his daughters Nia, 3 and Wakpa Iuwega, 1 at the Ft. Berthold powwow in New Town, ND in August 2003. |
It has been a long, hot August day. Mothers hold their sleeping infants in their arms and bask in the cool cafeteria air. A young jingle dress dancer sets out her knife, fork, and folds her napkin. The buffet might be one of the new attractions for those who love to powwow. For those out-of-towners, it seems to be a special treat, maybe the secret reason to come to the powwow.
Pamela Johnson sells Hulk character merchandise and urban wear hats and t-shirts at the Fort Berthold powwow in New Town, N. Dakota. |
Baker couldn’t make it to the powwow. It’s been his turn among his siblings to be with their mother on the family ranch.
Baker says his mother is the last surviving member of her generation of those who were relocated from the river bank in order to make way for progress. In her 90s now, Mother, as Baker refers to her, seems to have adjusted to her new home long ago. Though she is frail and needs her son to assist her to the table for meals, to do the cooking, the cleaning, she has a golden smile. They speak their language to one another the way the old ones did: without arrogance, without the intent to impress.
Indians at Fort Berthold, home of the Three Affiliated Tribes (Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikarra), have been surviving, adjusting to increased European expansion into their lands before and after Lewis and Clark.
A horse grazes in the morning sun on the Ft. Berthold reservation August 2003 |
One of the biggest adjustments has been with the change in the course of the Missouri River, which had sustained the tribes for generations. When Lewis, Clark and their Corps of Discovery crew paddled upstream, the river was ten miles wide in places. In the past 50 years the federal government has dramatically altered the river with massive dams.
Environmental disruptions aside, damming up the river had a mammoth impact on tribes. Flooding meant the removal of families who lived along the banks for generations, and it meant turning sacred places into watery graves.
Gerard Baker, Park Service superintendent for Lewis and Clark bicentennial commemoration. |
That’s the kind of story that could come out nationally because of the Lewis and Clark commemorations, Baker said. This is an opportunity to educate and promote understanding about how Indians are alive today, Baker said. While he has been successful with most tribes, some are reluctant to give any recognition to Lewis and Clark.
"We can’t put our heads in the sand, get mad at folks (tourists) coming up the river," Baker said. "We have to take advantage of the situation."
Baker has a towering frame. One can imagine that his physical presence alone could effectively enforce Smokey Bear’s warning about preventing forest fires. After spoiling a college basketball scholarship because of his youthful passions, Baker settled down in a career as a NPS ranger. He moved up through the ranks as any dutiful ranger.
Today, as a high-ranking superintendent, Baker has been able to yield influence over preparations for the commemorations. He says it was paramount for him to get assurance that organizers would give tribes every opportunity to tell their stories, even if those stories cast an indicting shadow on what that trek across the West meant for Indian people.
NPS allocated $55 million for tribes to tap into in order to tell their stories. And given the debacle that occurred during the 1992 Christopher Columbus anniversary events where many Native people felt that genocide and land-theft was nothing to celebrate, organizers for Lewis and Clark have been careful to label the bicentennial as a commemoration and not a celebration.
However, Baker will soon be leaving the trail.
Next year he will return to Montana, where he had served at the Little Big Horn Battlefield National Monument for four years. This time he’ll be the state coordinator for the National Park Service's Intermountain Region. He is confident that his work with tribes has been accomplished. And he is looking forward to continuing his work with tribes on other NPS matters.
"It’s an opportunity to assist National Park Service superintendents in Montana and to work with state, federal, local and tribal partners," he said.
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