Friday, May 23, 2025

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Photo: Bison from the city of Denver’s herds are in a pen waiting to be loaded onto a trailer. This year, the city donated 23 bison to tribes. (Courtesy Denver Parks and Recreation)

Bison are being restored to tribal lands across the Mountain West and the Great Plains.

As the Mountain West News Bureau’s Rachel Cohen reports, a herd managed in Colorado is playing a big role.

A few bison jumped into a grass-lined trailer. They were heading to the Kiowa Tribe in Oklahoma.

The bison are part of two herds that live in mountain parks owned by the City and County of Denver.

And the city gave these 10 away so the Kiowa Tribe could start its first herd in over 150 years.

Bison were hunted to near-extinction in the 1800s.

Rick Williams (Oglala Lakota and Northern Cheyenne) was at the bison transfer in March. He says it included a ceremony and songs for a safe journey.

“The buffalo were a sacred animal to us. You know, we knew that they provided all of our economy and our lifestyle and everything that we needed to survive.”

Denver’s donation is part of a larger effort to give surplus bison from conservation herds – and national parks – to tribes to restore cultural and environmental connections.

Over the past seven years, Denver has given 140 bison to 10 tribes. That includes the Northern Arapaho in Wyoming and the Northern Cheyenne in Montana.

Carol Pickett Hall was remembered at an Anchorage memorial ceremony as someone who was more than an athlete, but also a person who worked hard to build the Native Youth Olympics into the success it was today.

The Iñupiaq athlete died at the age of 61 at her home in Seward, Alaska on May 5.

As Rhonda McBride from our flagship station KNBA tells us, friends and competitors alike say she embodied the spirit of traditional Native games.

Carol Pickett Hull was only 5 feet 4 inches, but became a giant in her sport, when she set a new world record for the One-Foot High Kick at the 1989 World Eskimo Indian Olympics. That’s when she jumped with 1 foot, to kick a tiny ball, suspended 7 feet in the air.

“Tiny little powerhouses.”

That was how Nicole Johnson described herself and Carol, when they met as teenagers.

“There’s nothing that could stop us, our height, our weight, our ages. Nothing stopped Carol from doing what she loved to do.”

“When she won the One-Foot High Kick, she was asked if she wanted to go for the record. She had this infectious excitement. Yes.”

Reggie Joule is a ten-time gold medalist in the blanket toss. He says Carol and her teammates came along at a time when men dominated the games. But that soon changed.

“They were coming onto this scene with this energy but also with this hunger.”

A hunger for the strength and spirit of their culture, which Carol tried to embody.

Her 1989 record would stand at WEIO until last year, when Emily King, a Canadian from Whitehorse, would surpass Carol’s record by an inch … a memorable moment for Greg Nothstine, a longtime competitor and game official.

“Carol was out there being her biggest fan and said, ‘You can do it. You can do it.’”

Over the years, Carol Pickett Hull seemed to be an endless source of encouragement. She coached. She officiated and became one of her sport’s biggest cheerleaders.

When she first entered the scene, the games were held in small gymnasiums.

Today the statewide Native Youth Olympics draws thousands of athletes and their fans, a reminder of how a little encouragement can go a long way.

And on this day in 1838, the infamous forced march of thousands of Cherokees from their land began, a 1,000-mile trek towards Oklahoma that became known as the Trail of Tears.

U.S. troops were armed with rifles and bayonets, and many Cherokee died from starvation, illness, or hypothermia.

The estimated 25 million acres they were forced to relinquish in the southeast were taken by white settlers.

 

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