© 2025 Boise State Public Radio
NPR in Idaho
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Boise State Public Radio Music ushers in new shows after Arthur Balinger’s retirement
Our Living Lands is a collaboration of the Mountain West News Bureau, Koahnic Broadcast Corporation and Native Public Media.

Students explore creeks in Laramie County, connecting to treaty history and water management

Students explore Horse Creek during a field trip to the area focused on Indigenous history and hydrology.
Hannah Habermann
/
Wyoming Public Media
Students explore Horse Creek during a field trip to the area focused on Indigenous history and hydrology.

The U.S. government signed hundreds of treaties with tribal nations. Tribes across the country are still fighting for the rights and lands promised to them. And now, climate change has made the urgency of protecting Indigenous land and water even greater.

Wyoming Public Radio’s Hannah Habermann joined students on a trip to the last free-flowing groundwater stream in Wyoming’s Laramie County. The stream is located on land originally promised to Indigenous nations in a 19th century treaty. But that territory was drastically reduced by another treaty about twenty years later. The Northern Arapaho Tribe never received their own land and ended up on the Wind River Reservation with the Eastern Shoshone Tribe.

“My life is based upon the sacrifices our people made, which was giving up this land to be put on the reservations,” said Sandra Iron Cloud, who is Northern Arapaho and has been teaching at Wyoming Indian High School since 1985.

You make stories like this possible.

The biggest portion of Boise State Public Radio's funding comes from readers like you who value fact-based journalism and trustworthy information.

Your donation today helps make our local reporting free for our entire community.