Program Description

This place-based talk explores how Indigenous stories, history, and lived relationships with land shape conservation in real and practical ways. Drawing from her field-based storytelling and visual storytelling (photo & video) work with Iron Shield Creative, Lailani shares how Indigenous knowledge systems are not symbolic or stuck in the past, but living ways of understanding stewardship, responsibility, and care for the natural world. Rooted in teachings that long predate Montana’s establishment in 1889, Indigenous stories offer guidance on reciprocity and relationship to place. Through story and time on the land, Lailani invites participants to reflect on their own connection to place and what it truly means to care for the “wider community” (natural world) and future generations.

Presenter Bio

Lailani Upham is an Amskapi Pikuni (Blackfeet Nation) tribal member, and a descendent from the Aaniiih, Nakoda, and Dakota tribes. She is a journalist, educator, filmmaker, and a business developer- Indigenous Storytelling and Creative Strategy Consultant.