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White sands tower over the deep blue water of Lake Michigan at Sleeping Bear Dunes, or Ininwewi-gichigami to the Anishinaabe people who have always called this place home.

The of how this place came to be starts with a great wildfire. As flames engulfed the western shores of the lake, a mama bear fled, swimming across the lake with two cubs in tow. She reached the eastern shore, where the park now lies, and climbed onto a high bluff overlooking the lake to wait for her babies. Neither ever arrived. Exhausted, the cubs had drowned in the lake. But high on her perch, the mother never stopped watching for them. Impressed with her watch, Creator made two islands in the cubs鈥� memory. The mother waits to this day, looking to the lake from the sand dunes that carry her name and form.

The U.S. federal government authorized the area as a national park in 1970, part of the more than now scattered across the country. The National Park Service controls these lands in order to protect what it considers special places, so that, as described on its homepage, 鈥渁ll may experience our heritage.鈥� The model is a point of pride for the country and has been exported around the world. 

For many people indigenous to this land, the creation of national parks has not been positive. Anishinaabe people, including the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, have had to fight to ensure their basic treaty rights, like hunting and fishing, are respected in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. And there are still strict limitations on how they can interact with the land.

鈥淭he history of Western conservation vis-脿-vis land protection, it鈥檚 been a violent, horrible erasure of Indigenous people that environmentalists look at as a point of pride,鈥� says , a citizen of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians and an associate professor of Native American and Indigenous studies and environmental studies at Dartmouth College. Environmentalists believe that they鈥檝e 鈥渟aved鈥� something precious. But for Reo and other Indigenous people, it鈥檚 the losses that stand out.

from their traditional homelands. National parks, forests,
and shorelines are painful reminders for Indigenous people that this history of separation is ongoing. 

Parks serve a key function in propping up capitalist economies. The parks were created by and for as a 鈥�,鈥� according to the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act of 1872. And they have strong support from the ; in 2020, the parks generated around , and park visitors, according to the park service鈥檚 most recent survey, are nearly .  

The same settler capitalists that are eating up land and resources, Reo says, are then trying to set areas aside elsewhere to protect those places from themselves. 鈥淭hese acts interfere with our [Indigenous] peoples鈥� ability to fulfill our cultural obligations to take care of place, to fulfill our spiritual needs and mandate, to be deeply connected to 鈥� and doing things with and for the land,鈥� he says.

But Indigenous people say there鈥檚 a different way forward: returning these lands to those who have always called them home. Transforming parks from places of Indigenous exclusion to places of Indigenous power, Reo and others believe, would address the parks鈥� damaging legacy and repair the relationship with land for the future. In this vision, parks would be treated and viewed according to an Indigenous worldview, where Native language and culture could thrive.

鈥淚 think it all needs to be returned,鈥� Reo says. And he believes it should start with the National Park Service.

Dispelling the Myth of Untouched Lands 

Like many undeveloped parts of the country, national parks are mythologized as pristine wilderness areas that are set aside to prevent people from spoiling them. , such as on cultural burning in the Boundary Waters in northeastern Minnesota, reflects what Indigenous people say: These spaces have always been tended to and cared for by humans鈥攁nd that鈥檚 part of why they flourished. 

There is a growing consensus that white Western conservation is because it erases the way Indigenous people have always cared for these landscapes, and reinforces people鈥檚 separation from the ecosystem. That would change under tribal control of the national parks.

鈥淵ou can imagine practices that have been on the landscape for millennia, in particular things like cultural burning, or wildlife migration patterns, or knowledge of native plants and interrelationships between plants and other resources,鈥� says Monte Mills, director of the Native American Law Center at the University of Washington. 鈥淎ll of these connections that many Native folks have had to these landscapes for generations can help inform how those landscapes are used, utilized, visited.鈥�

The population of wild, , for example, is the last in the country. But the park service manages them to minimize the impact on neighboring landowners and the cattle industry in Montana and Wyoming by restricting or prohibiting the bison鈥檚 migration, and killing some of the animals to keep their numbers down. 

鈥淛ust the starting point鈥攖hat the park service is in the business of preventing wild animals from doing what they do鈥攕uggests there might be some different approaches that are actually more closely connected to the ways in which these ecosystems work,鈥� Mills says. 

with bison relocation, re-entry, and reintroduction, and an Indigenous approach could take into account the ways bison are connected to other parts of the ecosystem, such as the benefits they bring to the grasses and waterways.

Resting the Land 

This vision of the national parks would move away from the current emphasis on land management or stewardship, and instead focus on a reciprocal relationship between people and the land. Deepening this relationship could benefit animals, plants, and humans alike. 

At Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, for the first time, tribes have over a monument not located on reservation lands. A commission made up of five tribes鈥攖he Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Pueblo of Zuni, and Ute Indian Tribe鈥攏ow shares equal decision-making with the federal agencies managing the monument. 

鈥淓very time I go into Bears Ears, it feels like home,鈥� says , co-director of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition and member of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Tribe in northeast Kansas. 鈥淚t feels like your people, your ancestors, the living creatures, the plants, even the soil itself 鈥� is welcoming you back, because it鈥檚 a place that our tribes have always known.鈥�

The coalition has created a that starts with Indigenous values, as opposed to Western conventions, and without the imposition of a federal agency overseeing the process. Some of the plan鈥檚 suggestions reflect how sacred the land is and how to get visitors to behave accordingly. 

鈥溾�嬧�婩rom a Native perspective, the natural world is much more than just a physical realm to sustain the material needs of life,鈥� according to the plan. 鈥淭he natural resources of the Bears Ears cultural landscape鈥攚ater, land, wind, sound鈥攁re imbued by powerful religious, artistic, and other cultural meanings significant to Native communities with ancestral ties to this region.鈥� This perspective diverges from the way federal agencies typically understand the landscape. For the tribes, every plant carries deep medicinal, cultural, and spiritual meaning. For the tribes, the land is a living being that requires rest.

鈥淲e may ask people to visit sites in a way that you would visit a church, where we ask you to be really respectful, really quiet, and we ask you to limit your photography or to limit sharing on social media so that the site actually has time to rest,鈥� Miijessepe-Wilson says. 

For Reo, using this kind of Indigenous framework to relate to the land can disrupt settler capitalism in other important ways, like upending the current assumption that land management should maximize economic gain or recreational opportunities.

Such a transition of control can cause tension, as those who are used to being able to turn a profit off the land see their returns diminished. That was the case at Devils Tower in the Black Hills, known to tribes as Bear鈥檚 Lodge, another national monument that is both a religious site for tribes and a popular rock climbing destination. Members of both groups agreed to a to allow the site time to rest, but after a property-rights group filed a , . 

We must look to Colombia, a country with an entirely different relationship to capitalism and to its Indigenous people, to see a successfully implemented example of this model. Tayrona National Park closes a few times a year for two-week periods when the Indigenous peoples of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta conduct ceremony and allow the ecosystem to recover. 

In Bears Ears, that means the landscape shouldn鈥檛 be treated as a playground鈥攚ith visitors engaged in harmful behavior, like climbing the arches鈥攂ut rather with reverence, says Miijessepe-Wilson. According to her, the landscape deserves respect because it is your relative.

Restoring Relations

鈥淗ow do you develop relationship with a place, let alone an individual plant or an individual rock, if you鈥檙e going there once a year or once a month?鈥� Reo asks. 鈥淚 think that those places, those plants, those rocks and waters, they want to be in relationship with us. And when we ignore the gifts they鈥檙e offering鈥攚e don鈥檛 pick the berries that they offer us every year鈥攊t鈥檚 like if you lived in a neighborhood and the neighbor never made eye contact, never said hi, never learned your name. After years and years and years, you might just give up.鈥�

Under tribal leadership, national parks can become places where Indigenous people can fulfill those responsibilities, without the current red tape preventing Indigenous cultural practices. Currently, Reo鈥檚 son can鈥檛 go to parkland and undertake the four-day fast that鈥檚 traditionally part of an Ojibwe person鈥檚 transition from childhood to adulthood without requesting permission from the park service. In a park returned to the tribes, his right to do so would be guaranteed, as would other long-standing cultural practices like picking berries or hunting deer. 

People could come to these places regularly and interact with them, returning to the sugar bush each year to make maple syrup; looking for deer; sitting, visiting, and talking around a campfire. It could be a place for people to learn about being good neighbors to the natural elements. Those land uses rather than .

鈥淲e鈥檙e part of it,鈥� says Michael Isham, director of the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission and member of the Lac Courte Oreilles Tribe. Isham works with government agencies on co-stewardship agreements, which give a greater voice to tribes regarding management of and relationship with public lands. 鈥淲e each have responsibilities within the relationships we have,鈥� he says.

Implementing this Indigenous vision wouldn鈥檛 make the country鈥檚 national parks unrecognizable to those who frequent them today. Even its current staff, with valuable knowledge about how the parks operate, could be invited to 鈥渟tay, but differently,鈥� Reo says. The changes would give the original inhabitants a place to 鈥渇ully be themselves,鈥� immersed in ceremony, where Indigenous languages and cultures can thrive.

鈥淟ooking ahead, I think about those places being happier, our people being involved in their happiness,鈥� Reo says.

Removing Native people from the places they cared for inflicted tragedy and pain. At Sleeping Bear Dunes, the mother鈥檚 wait is eternal. But ending the national parks could restore relationships and end the long wait for relatives to come home.