Today, we're excited to talk to Penny Kagigebi. Penny is a direct descendant of the White Earth Nation. She is a 2-Spirit queer community collaborator, artist, curator and teacher. She focuses on birch bark basketry and quill boxes and recently curated Queering Indigeneity for the Minnesota Museum of American Art, on exhibit from September 18, 2025 to August 16, 2026.

Penny turned to art after the death of her son in 2008. She spent a year making gifts to put in the bundle she was sending to him. This work opened her to the healing power of art and to the idea that she is an artist.

In her art, she intertwines traditional craft with her identity as 2-Spirit/Native queer, whether it's rainbow colors or a fresh take on design. She also works to help other 2-Spirt/Native queer artists find their gifts and their medicines and share them with the community.

That vision informs the Minnesota Museum of American Art exhibit Queering Indigeneity. As a first-time curator, Penny had the opportunity to reach out to 2-Spirit/Native queer artists from across the Upper Midwest and ask, “What's your wildest idea? What do you have in your back pocket that you haven't been able to put forward yet?”

Penny lives in Detroit Lakes with her husband Rick, who is also an artist.
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Hosts / Producers: Leah Lemm, Cole Premo 

Editor: Britt Aamodt 

Editorial support: Emily Krumberger 

Mixing & mastering: Chris Harwood 

Today, we’re excited to chat with Heid E. Erdrich. Heid is an author, researcher, educator, curator and member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa. 

In 2024, she was the inaugural Minneapolis Poet Laureate and, in 2025, she served as the James and Lois Welch Distinguished Native American Visiting Writer at the University of Montana – Missoula. 

Her recent books are Boundless: Abundance in Native American Art and Literature, which she co-edited, and Verb Animate: Poems, Prose and Prompts from Collaborative Acts.

In our discussion, she examines her fascination with researching family history and with tracing the ancestral migrations that brought her to where she is now. A frequent collaborator, she talks about the power of working alongside literary and visual artists and how one of those partnerships inspired a unique synchronicity involving pink dolphins.

Heid also shares her “best bad habit” and her take on the greatest gift anyone can give a creative artist.

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Hosts / Producers: Leah Lemm, Cole Premo 

Editor: Britt Aamodt 

Editorial support: Emily Krumberger 

Mixing & mastering: Chris Harwood

Today, we’re excited to speak with Alexandra Buffalohead. Alex is from the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate and is the Director of Communications and Partnerships at the Native American Community Development Institute (NACDI). She’s also an artist, curator and musician.

Alex talks about what drives her work in the nonprofit world at NACDI and how she strives to find a good work/life balance to leave time for her many outside pursuits.

At 15, she was a disinterested piano student when her parents gave her the opportunity to join their blues-rock band Blue Dog. That’s when she caught the music bug and has been playing keys, performing and recording with them ever since.

As a visual artist, Alex has created works on canvas, paper and in sculpture. She is a curator and has put together shows for Twin Cities galleries that celebrate the voices of today’s young and established Native artists. She also talks to us about how important it is to have venues that consistently make space for Native artists to share and develop work.

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Hosts / Producers: Leah Lemm, Cole Premo

Editor: Britt Aamodt 

Editorial support: Emily Krumberger 

Mixing & mastering: Chris Harwood 

Today, we are excited to welcome Sharon Day to the Native Lights Podcast. Sharon is enrolled with the Bois Forte Band of Ojibwe, and she serves as the executive director of the Indigenous Peoples Task Force. She's also a grandmother, an artist, a musician and writer, and she leads Water Walks, or Nibi Walks.

A deep reverence for all living things underpins the decades she has devoted to Nibi Walks. She and fellow walkers gather water at the source and carry it the length or perimeter of the body of water. This can last weeks. They undertake these journeys to show respect for the water and to support its health. And because humans are mostly made of water, she is reminded that its health is our health too.

Sharon makes her home on a farm, which is also a home and sanctuary for many kinds of wildlife. Spending so much time outdoors, she is attuned to the seasons and the impacts of climate change. Every morning, she wakes with gratitude for the land and a hope that she can be a little more kinder that day.

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Hosts: Leah Lemm, Cole Premo 

Editor: Britt Aamodt 

Editorial support: Emily Krumberger 

Mixing & mastering: Chris Harwood

Today, we're excited to speak with Teresa Peterson. Teresa is Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota and a member of the Upper Sioux Community. She is a passionate gardener, gatherer, lover of the land and author of several books, most recently the award-winning Perennial Ceremony.

Teresa talks to us about her love of growing things. That includes tending a large garden, where she forages for tossed salads and asparagus on the grill, and taking care of her land. She chips her own mulch. She plants perennials to sequester carbon and prevent erosion. And she's working on getting a couple goats to eradicate invasive plants.

One of her mottos is: When you know who you are, no matter where you go, you belong. Writing has been part of that journey of self-knowledge. Her latest book, Perennial Ceremony: Lessons and Gifts from a Dakota Garden (2024), is an invitation to readers to join her on a seasonal journey of stories, poetry and recipes.

The mother of three, Teresa lives with her husband Jay on just over seven acres overlooking the Mni Sota River Valley. 
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Hosts: Leah Lemm, Cole Premo 

Editor: Britt Aamodt 

Editorial support: Emily Krumberger 

Mixing & mastering: Chris Harwood 

On this week's show, we revisit our conversation from June 2022 with Great-Grandmother Mary Lyons (Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe), a spiritual advisor, storyteller, activist, wisdom keeper, and revered elder. Mary Lyons is the founder of the Minnesota Coalition on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and serves as a counselor for the women's sobriety group, which she also co-founded, called Women of Wellbriety International.

Mary's inspiring book, Wisdom Lessons: Spirited Guidance from an Ojibwe Great-Grandmother, was published in 2018, and delivers love and advice through stories and perspectives grounded in traditional Indigenous values. Find Mary Lyons' book here: https://birchbarkbooks.com/products/wisdom-lessons

Chi Miigwech to Mary Lyons for generously sharing traditional teachings, your wise approach to healing, and life-changing spiritual guidance. 

Native Lights: Where Indigenous Voices Shine is a weekly, half-hour radio program hosted by Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe members and siblings, Leah Lemm and Cole Premo. Native Lights is a space for people in Native communities around Mni Sota Mkoce -- a.k.a. Minnesota -- to tell their stories about finding their gifts and sharing them with the community.
 
Native Lights: Where Indigenous Voices Shine is produced by Minnesota Native News and Ampers, Diverse Radio for Minnesota's Communities with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

Today, we’re excited to speak with Rick Haaland, an animal rescuer and advocate who is the Pets for Life community outreach manager for the Leech Lake Tribal Police. 

Rick shares the story of the most memorable dog of his childhood, a stray that showed up one day and never left. Even when Rick spent the summer with his grandparents, Drifter, unwilling to be left behind, walked two days to reunite with him.

A lifelong animal lover, Rick only came to animal rescue after 40 years in various jobs and as a small business owner. Through Pets for Life, he helps Leech Lake pet owners to keep their animals healthy with access to affordable vet care. This also includes the future building of a Leech Lake Animal Wellness Center to address the lack of nearby veterinarian services.

Rick is currently 5th district commissioner and Board Chair for Cass County. He and his family share their home with three dogs and one cat.

Today, we're very excited to speak with David Wise, descendant of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and founder of Native Wise, a farm which is focused on soil health, restorative farming and Indigenous agricultural practices.

David started his bison herd after a dream with Chief Buffalo, who told him to bring back his namesake. Starting with twelve, he now has a herd that numbers close to sixty, including Renegade and Brutus, two bulls that have become best buddies. The ranch is also home to three Ojibwe Spirit Horses.

David and wife Patra teach their kids that good food is good medicine. They share that good medicine with the community through Native Wise's seasonal CSAs and online store. 

Today, we are excited to speak with Wendy Roy, a beader and entrepreneur from the White Earth Nation. She mentors other artists and also teaches at White Earth Tribal and Community College.

Wendy learned beading from her grandmother, who shared the trick to knowing which bead colors go together. Her grandma would pour beads on a tray to see which beads grouped together and wanted to be friends with each other. She also taught her granddaughter that every bead you sew is a prayer for the person who will wear the object.

For Wendy, beading is not just a way to share her culture and make a living but also a form of healing. She talks about dealing with depression and coming back from a recent wrist injury that kept her from her beadwork.

In her free time, Wendy likes to read books, spend time with family and ride Harley Davidsons.

Today we are speaking with Giizh Sarah Agaton Howes. Howes is an award-winning Anishinaabe creator, artist and organizer from Fond Du Lac reservation and Muscogree Creek. She’s the CEO of Heart Berry, a contemporary Ojibwe Design brand that offers wool blankets, apparel, gifts and accessories rooted in Howes’s beadwork and Ojibwe floral designs.

Giizh was raised by an artist mother but never thought about herself as one until she realized art wasn’t just paintings in a museum but the cultural traditions from her Ojibwe community. She started with beading and moccasin making. That led to her teaching workshops so others could become cultural makers too.

She shares the origin story of Heart Berry, which grew out of a desire to see Ojibwe designs translated into contemporary apparel and to take back the wool blanket as a Native craft. 

She also talks about a recent mural project on the Cloquet bandshell, finding art that we love and that loves us back, and course correcting after a wrong turn. 

Giizh lives in Sawyer with her family. These days, she’s experiencing the bittersweet emotions of a parent who has recently seen her first child graduate from high school.