Marsha Small, Tsististas (Northern Cheyenne)

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Marsha Small, USA

Afilliation: Tsististas (Northern Cheyenne )  

Doctoral Student Earth Sciences, Montana State University            EMAIL(Montana State)

LINKEDIN:   "Preservation and conservation of sacred sites/places with GPR, GPS, and GIS, specifically in boarding school cemeteries"

Current Project Afilliation: Blackfeet Agricultural Land Management Project..

Proposed work includes:  spatial referencing and correlation with the Pikunni language of stewardship sites and projects, invasive plant species, bison migration and count, and traditional ecological knowledge as it applies to food sovereignty.

CHRONOLOGY

2021 Teppola Distinguished Professorship  Willamette University, Salem, Oregon (August 2019-May 2020)

2020 Scgis Tribal Scholar (see below) Society for Conservation Geographical Informational Systems Fellowship, Training, Software, and Instrument, 2020/2021

2019 National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition 2d Annual Conference Co-Presenter: “Unlocking the Gates of Indian Boarding School Cemeteries and Understanding the Death Rates”

2018 American Indigenous Research Association Annual Meeting Presentation: “Preservation and Conservation of Sacred Sites with GPS, GIS, and GPR: A Voice for the Children Who Remain in Historic Indian Boarding School Cemeteries.”

2018 Scgis Tribal Panelist Charter Member (see below)

2017-Present   Doctoral Student Earth Sciences, Montana State University

2017: helped survey the Nevada City (MT) Cemetery, for the Extreme History Project

2015 Bozeman Daily News Article about her work (see below)

2014-Present, Graduate Teaching Instructor, Native American Stuties, Montana State University

2013   Cultural Resource Intern, Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde

(Photo, working with ground penetrating radar in survey of the Nevada City Cemetery (MT))

2020 Scgis Tribal Scholar 

  “Tribal Nations control a vast amount of natural resources-both renewable and nonrenewable and are under impacts from climate change. With other people of like-minded agency, it is my goal to learn GIS and other platforms to better assist The People.   It is well-known that environmental racism is real and that NIMBY is a real factor, often leading to marginalized people experiencing higher levels of toxic risks. This applies to funding allocation to these areas. Areas of influence receive more federal funding to mitigate negative impacts such as fire. Working with SCGIS will allow me to develop an extended network with people who have GIS and resource management expertise to allay these impacts in these marginalized communities. This grant will help me to further my work for Tribes. During this life journey, funding has been scarce. I have been fortunate enough to qualify for funding to multiple conferences. Through hard work, dedication and commitment, I have received gifts that have allowed me to experience other cultures. This grant will be a key tool that will allow me to continue to work with tribes and perhaps, even the playing field. 

 

     While working with multiple entities will be difficult, it is a bridge that needs to have more of a solid foundation geared toward consensus. As one of the bridge makers, I can provide a template much like a recipe on how to deal with entities having varied interests and agenda. In addition, without a management plan developed with a GIS model which includes tribal protocols, over 573 Nations are at the whim of corporate and resource extraction industry. As a responsible tribal member, I must do my best to learn how to provide solutions. In working with ARMP, I can develop a skill set that can be shared to those who need it for resource management.

(Photo, Marsha speaking at the 2018 Scgis International Conference)

Afilliated Organization’s Work: The Blackfeet Agriculture Resource Management Plan (ARMP) provides long range natural and cultural resource documentation for the Blackfeet Nation. All investment will provide for the sustainable utilization, protection, conservation and restoration of agricultural lands for the benefit of the Blackfeet people and future generations. ARMP will provide a strategic plan for the comprehensive management of the reservations agricultural resources and develop tribal policies based on the visions that the tribe and tribal landowners have for their Homelands.  The Blackfeet Tribes have a comprehensive Climate Adaptation Strategy that will help guide practices.   My role will be to work with ARMP to input tribal data into cartographical instruments for resource management and other conservation modeling. In addition, it is the goal to teach an understanding of GIS to tribal members from multiple Nations  involved in various stewardship plans.

HISTORY: I have done a blue bird migratory study for a tribe. I have also worked with a northern California watershed organization developing daily work maps for invasive species mitigation. I have helped write grants to start community gardens in marginalized communities. For my dissertation, I am currently working in two Indian boarding school cemeteries working with ground penetrating radar (GPR), global positioning systems (GPS), geographical information systems (GIS). I have yet to apply the GIS.

ROLE IN SCGIS:I have presented at SCGIS as an Indigenous Consultant and I am a member. I also know Charles Convis and Sandra Coveny who have been instrumental in my involvement with SCGIS. We have been working since 2017 to figure out a way to create tribal chapters, laying the foundation for tribal chapters in the United States and the First Nations in Canada. My goal is to be a co-founder of that chapter.

Please describe your experience in teaching & leadership. I have been teaching Native American Studies since 2015 at Montana State University. I am currently teaching NAS at  Willamette University. During the year of 2017, I was a GTA for Earth Sciences-Weather and Climate at Montana State University. My leadership is multifaceted. I am involved with various watersheds as a volunteer.   I have also worked with the National Wildlife Federation on bison re-introduction to tribal lands. I am responsible to our Seventh Generations. Since I was very young, I have been taught the old ways of plant and animal stewardship. When gathering plants, be sure to talk to the being, tell it what you need it for, and never take more than what you need, always leave some for the bush or the tree and the birds. I currently facilitate an Indigenous Science workshop for Native American students interested in STEM. I promote the utility of GIS at this workshop and at almost every speaking engagement.

 

What is the most unique and challenging thing about the work that you do? I work with multiple tribes as an Indigenous liaison. In dealing with multiple sovereign Nations, it requires knowledge of various protocols and histories. I will also be working with two tribes of the same people separated by the international boundary. The Blackfeet (U.S.A.) and the Blackfoot (Canada) are of the same people. But with different policies. This means I will have to learn what barriers and benefits there are to dealing with multiple Nations at a national and international level. Current impacts to the Blackfeet nation are oil and gas drilling. The Blackfeet Homelands encompass a rugged wilderness. It is  located next to Glacier National Park (U.S.A.) When dealing with the Blackfoot Nation, the area will be located next to Waterton Lakes National Park. Both areas are rich in biodiversity, sacred sites, and high-risk terrain. The specific approaches I choose to address will be what the Tribes mandate. The work that I do is a personal journey. It is my life’s passion.

2020 Paper Title:: Modeling Soil Erodibility Risk for Fires on Reservations

2020 Paper Abstract:

Soil erosion, through fire impact, is one of the most important issues facing the world today. In the last decades, fires have become more frequent, intense, cost prohibitive, and fatal. Post fire risks include deconstruction of soil physical and chemical properties in turn leading to a decrease in vegetation cover, extreme flooding events, inflation of agricultural commodities and production, soil loss by migration of sediment load, negative impacts to stream and riparian health, and most important, major burden to the human factors. (Mallinis et al, 2003). The reasons are multiple, but fire coupled with other amplified climate factors have a direct influence on watershed health and the species dependent on it. (Martin, 2016) Fire and soil have had a beneficial and reciprocal relationship, one that relates from the earliest of time. (Pyne, 2016; Santin and Doerr, 2016) Since time immemorial under Native American stewardship, the method of cool burning decreased ladder fuels, created areas for easier passage, and with released nitrogen into the soil, a nutrient load for the enhanced species health. (Kimmerer and Lake, 2001). Fires now burn with intensity and volume creating catastrophic issues, and the trend is expected to continue.

2018 Scgis Tribal Panelist Charter Member

Presentation/Introduction at 2018 SCGIS Tribal Panel Discussion:

2015 Bozeman Daily News Article about her work:

Marsha Small, a 54-year-old grandmother who grew up on a ranch on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation, is far from the most likely person to be graduating from Montana State University with a master’s degree today.

There’s a good chance, however, that she’s also the most passionate about her studies.

“I never thought I would get this far,” the boisterous Small said this week in her Wilson Hall office, where her desk is decorated with pictures of her grandson and stacked with books like Paulo Friere’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.”

“Come on, I’m a kid from a reservation,” she said.

But ask her about her research — which used ground penetrating radar to map grave sites at a cemetery outside of Salem, Oregon, containing often unmarked remains from American Indian children who died while attending the nearby Chemawa boarding school — and it’s immediately clear why she’ll be crossing the Brick Breeden Fieldhouse stage this afternoon.

“If this was my grandson in there, and we lost his name, I would give anything for someone to come in and find him and give him his voice,” she said.

... "Stories of physical and sexual abuse at boarding schools are common, trauma that’s often referenced as an underlying cause of the high rates of violence and sex crimes faced by many tribal communities. Additionally, many of the Indian children who attended boarding schools — some leaving home as young as the age of 6, Small said — never returned.

She’s located “hundreds” of previously forgotten graves at the Chemawa cemetery. Her aunt and three of her uncles attended the school. Many of the burial markers have been lost over the years, she said, some stolen by vandals.

Her long-term goal is to make it possible for relatives of the children buried in the cemetery to reclaim remains, she said.

After graduating from high school in 1976, Small bounced around, working as a welder and gas station attendant in Montana and Oregon. She raised her daughter as a single mother while working nights as a bartender.

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