Happy Indigenous Peoples Day! Join us today, and every day, in honoring the Native American tribes that occupied the lower Cache la Poudre valley in northern Colorado for thousands of years before Euroamerican settlers arrived in the area. These tribes included the Kiowa, Comanche, Cheyenne, Pawnee, Ute, and Arapaho tribes. At the National Heritage Area, we seek to preserve and share the many different cultures that make the Cache la Poudre River valley so unique. Part of this work involves preserving historic knowledge, oral traditions, and language and honoring the ancestral connections these groups have to the land.
The “Lifting Voices from the Shadows” project is one such opportunity to preserve and share Native American history. In particular, an opportunity for Northern Arapaho women, like Florita Soldier Wolf featured in this video, to tell about their personal experiences with voting, both past and present. The project is funded by a “Women in Parks Innovation and Impact” grant from the National Park Foundation.
“I think it was a good thing that we voted ‘cuz we were counted too in our voting. So, that’s what I know about voting.” – Florita Soldier Wolf, Northern Arapaho
Learn more about the Poudre Heritage Alliance and the “Lifting Voices from the Shadows” project at: https://poudreheritage.org/lifting-voices/
