In today’s episode, we welcome back Jonathan Thunder, who last appeared on Native Lights in 2021. Since then, the Red Lake Nation citizen and multidisciplinary artist has become a father and opened an art gallery.

He talks about how fatherhood has changed his approach to art and why lately he’s shifted his creative focus from sociopolitical ideas to joy. Thunder also shares the experience of creating a special work of art with his son.

The artist’s dreamy images have found their way onto canvases and murals and into animated films. Now you can also find them at Mishi Bizhaw Art Gallery. Thunder opened the gallery spring 2025 in Duluth, where he lives with his wife, author Tashia Hart, and their three-year-old, Minnow.

In this episode, we speak with Dan Ninham, PhD, a retired physical education teacher and coach, co-founder of the North American Indigenous Athletics Hall of Fame and prolific freelance writer. 

Dan, Wolf Clan from the Oneida Nation in Wisconsin, has had a lifelong interest in sports. This 6'10" college basketball player devoted his working life to coaching and teaching sports. Even though he's retired, he stays on the road much of the year, giving presentations at schools on Indigenous sports and foods and filing freelance stories for multiple outlets. 

With wife Susan, he co-founded the North American Indigenous Athletics Hall of Fame in 2022. The couple live in Red Lake and have recently celebrated the birth of a sixth granddaughter. 

In this episode, we speak with BearPaw Shields from the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes. She is a Saint Cloud State University alumna and is currently the Indigenous Learning Community Program Coordinator at the University’s American Indian Center.

In her forties, she decided to go to college and get a degree so that she could make the change she wanted to see in the world. She does that now through her work at St. Cloud State’s American Indian Center, helping Native students to succeed in school and connect with their culture through language, field trips and other experiences. 

As a board member with the Friends of the Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge, she had been instrumental in teaching park staff and visitors about the land’s Native history. Last year, that included the opening of an amphitheater with art provided by Indigenous artists and the names of park animals provided in Dakota and Ojibwemowin.

BearPaw Shields lives in Zimmerman where she likes to go on hikes and find her serenity at the nearby Refuge 

In this episode, we speak with Allison Waukau (Menominee/Navajo), who serves as the Tribal Liaison and Native Relations Coordinator at the Metropolitan Council. She previously worked at the Hennepin County Library and the Roseville School District as American Indian Community Liaison. 

Last year, she started a new podcast with Odia Wood-Krueger. Through “Books Are Good Medicine,” the co-hosts explore Native literature with the aim of increasing the knowledge of educators and libraries about Native American books and materials.

Allison Waukau lives in Minneapolis with her family, including a young son, and had a dream come true recently when she was selected to participate in Cohort 14 of the Native Governance Center’s Rebuilder Program.

Allison’s podcast with Odia Wood-Krueger can be found at Books Are Good Medicine.

In this episode, we hear from Dr. Amber Annis about the joys and challenges of rebuilding community and finding your voice as a leader.

Dr. Amber Annis is a citizen of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and the Executive Director of Native Governance Center. Prior to taking on her role at NGC in December 2024, she worked at the Minnesota Historical Society as Associate Vice President of Tribal Nation Relations and Native American Initiatives. She was also a member of NGC's Native Nations Rebuilder Program for Cohort 11. 

In her position at NGC, she supports efforts to rebuild Indigenous communities and empower leaders to find their strengths and their unique voices. A mother of two, she lives in St. Paul with her husband, a citizen of Turtle Mountain, and their dogs.

In this episode, we hear from Deven Current about tattooing, sports and the importance of sobriety, family and faith.

Deven is an Ojibwe tattoo artist, who connected with his culture later in life. Deven grew up in the Twin Cities and, at a young age, fell into drug addiction. He ended up incarcerated, but his time in prison introduced him to an unrealized talent - tattoo art. He turned that talent into a career and recently into his business, LuckyDuck Ink and Art in Atwater. Through his business and tattoo career, Deven honors a friend who passed away. 

Deven also spent time as a competitive mixed martial artist.

In 2025, Deven and his wife Sabrina are celebrating six years of sobriety and enjoying family time with their 11 children.

Producers/Hosts: Leah Lemm & Cole Premo
Editors: Britt Aamodt and Chris Harwood  

In this episode we hear from Korina Barry on her work with NDN Collective and the campaign to free Leonard Peltier, in addition to reflections on her roles as mother, doula, and metal fabricator in training.

A citizen of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, Korina Barry manages the organizing, policy and advocacy direct-action arm of NDN Collective, which, in January 2025, led the successful campaign to free Leonard Peltier from prison. 

She divides her creative energies between metal fabrication and sewing. It is her role as mother to a young daughter that trains her energies on creating a better world for the next generation to inherit. She also discusses how her childbirth experience led her to seek out training as a doula to help Indigenous mothers impacted by the medical system.

Producers/Hosts: Leah Lemm & Cole Premo
Editors: Britt Aamodt and Chris Harwood 

In this episode, we talk with Indigenous Affairs journalist and author Allison Herrera.

Allison’s indigenous ties are from her Xolon Salinan tribal heritage. Her family's village is in the Toro Creek area of the Central California coast. She didn’t take the traditional route into journalism with a degree. She just decided she wanted to do it and did it. Starting out at Minneapolis community station KFAI, she brought her talents and desire to report on indigenous stories to various media outlets. With Association for Independents in Radio (AIR), she had the opportunity to collaborate with an Oklahoma radio station that wanted to cover indigenous stories but didn’t have the resources for a producer. Immediately, she fell in love with the area and now splits her time between Minneapolis and Oklahoma. She is a journalist with APM Reports and is the author of Tribal Justice: The Struggle for Black Rights on Native Land, produced as an audiobook in 2024. 

Producer Hosts: Leah Lemm & Cole Premo
Editors: Britt Aamodt and Chris Harwood

In this episode, we talk with grantmaking officer and former educator and historian Mattie Harper DeCarlo, PhD.  

Mattie, a Bois Forte Band of Ojibwe citizen who grew up on Leech Lake Reservation, works in philanthropy at the Bush Foundation, focusing on Indigenous communities. She speaks with us about the nuance of supporting 23 Native nations through philanthropy, how to provide context to non-Native donors on what investment can look like, and her affection for Ojibwe language revitalization. 

Mattie also shares how journey of learning about herself and the history her people, and how it helped her fostered a sense of awe for the beauty of Ojibwe community. 

Tune in for an engaging conversation about investing in Indigenous self-sustainability through philanthropy!

Producer Hosts: Leah Lemm & Cole Premo
Editor: Britt Aamodt

In this episode, we talk with artist, public speaker, and community organizer Moira Villiard.

Moira, a Twin Cities-based visual artist and Fond Du Lac direct descendent, is a 2023 McKnight Foundation Community-Engaged Practice fellow and a 2024-2026 Bush Fellow. We chat with her about her current projects, Waiting for Beds, a traveling exhibition that explores the experience of waiting while in crisis, and a soon-to-be-released children’s book about the Ojibwe practice of prescribed fires that she illustrated.

Moira shares about her study of human rights, creating work for her inner child, and her rumination about the social-political bubbles many of us live in. For Moira, art is a venue to elicit these disconnects and ultimately birth understanding between people so that harmful histories don’t repeat. She also describes the process of creating art at the scale of mural, finding artistic courage from her father, and incorporating animals that cross her path into her art.

Tune in for an engaging conversation about Moira’s intentionality behind her creative practice.

Producer Hosts: Leah Lemm & Cole Premo
Editor: Britt Aamodt