Native American youth run for reserve

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Native American youth hope to bring change and awareness to environmental issues through Prayer Run for World Peace, a 3,000 kilometre run from Vancouver to the Eklutna reservation near Anchorage, Alaska.

Nine runners, ranging in age from 18 to 22 years from South Dakota and Minnesota will travel towards Eklutna carrying prayers for the preservation of the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve and the melting glaciers in Greenland. The 36-day event, which began on May 14, will culminate with the Alaskan sponsored World Peace and Prayer Day in Eklutna on June 21.

A pipe ceremony was held on May 14 at the Trout Lake Community Centre in east Vancouver to honor the runners. Robert Nahanee, who officiated, said "This is a good thing to see that the youth are carrying on traditions from the Elders and the teachings and they are looking at what our responsibilities are. Without the teachings and beliefs we get chaotic."

Following the ceremonies only five of the nine runners departed for Whistler, their first destination. The remaining four runners had been detained at the border for unknown reasons, but plan to join the run on May 20 in Prince George.

The Lakota and Dakota runners who departed Vancouver were joined by three Canadian urban Aboriginal youth who ran in the first leg of the day's journey to Horse Shoe Bay, located 20 miles outside of downtown Vancouver. One of the youth was 23-year-old Ryan Day of the Shuswap Nation, who placed second at the Canadian half marathon last year and eighth in the 2005 Ottawa marathon, ranking him number two among Canadians.

"This is such a perfect event running up the coast. The kids are going to be in touch with pristine wilderness . . .the experience of going through this and what it symbolizes, to learn from our youth and Aboriginal people and traditional values," said Day.

Grace Horne, 22, of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate Dakota tribe and her brother Sky Old Shield envisioned an event that would unite all nations and encouraged youth to take responsibility by providing positive solutions to current environmental issues. Their vision came to fruition in 2004 as the Prayer Run for World Peace, which is sponsored by the Wolakota Youth Council, of which Horne is president.

"Our Elders always tell us we are going to be inheriting something, inheriting the land, inheriting the animals. We always hear that but we never really get to see it and so with this opportunity we hope that the youth will get to see what they are inheriting and realize how precious it is to us. Also realizing that you have to take care of the people and we also hope that this will make them conscious and aware of their surroundings and more spiritually in tune," said Horne.

In 2005 the Wolakota Youth Council held the first Prayer Run for World Peace. This was a four directional run encompassing all nations with runners converging at Paha Sapa, Black Hills in South Dakota. According to Lakota tradition, all events occur in cycles of four and in the last year a Wopila (thank you ceremony) is held. This year's run, which focuses on the north, marks the first of four years. In 2007 the run will focus on the south in Mexico City. The following year's focus will be on the east and the west in New Zealand. The final year will see the run return to the sacred Black Hills in South Dakota.

"Every place we run to is actually a sacred site because we believe that grandmother earth has charkas all over her body in a hundred mile radius. So there's sacred sites all over her so we run to those sacred sites," said Horne.

The locations for the run were chosen to co-ordinate with the World Peace and Prayer Day, which was begun in 1996 by Chief Arvol Looking Horse, 19th Generation Keeper of the Tradition of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe. The Wolakota Youth Council is a branch of the Wolakota Foundation, a non-profit organization based in South Dakota that focuses on preserving Lakota, Dakota, and Naota traditions. The foundation was formed in 1996 following the first World Peace and Prayer Day.