The notion of kinship is embodied in the Lakota Sioux adage, mitakuyé oyás’i, “all are related.” This 10-day interdisciplinary biking expedition to South Dakota’s Mickelson Trail, through the heart of the famed Black Hills, affords students the opportunity to explore the rich natural, historical, and cultural contours of this complex western landscape. Here, in the ancestral home of the Lakota Sioux, students will contemplate the many connections that arise through an encounter with a place and its people, and how these connections can deepen our own understanding of kinship. 

The group will visit Badlands and Wind Cave National Parks, Crazy Horse Memorial and the Wounded Knee Massacre site at Pine Ridge Reservation, Custer State Park, Mount Rushmore, and the sacred indigenous site Bear Butte, where Red Cloud and Crazy Horse and other Native leaders performed the Sun Dance. We will complement these experiences with readings and resources and through conversations with various organizations and stakeholders along the way who will deepen our contemplation of this powerful place and its powerful history. 

In the end, students will emerge with a more nuanced understanding of indigenous history in the West, of the myriad challenges and opportunities facing the people who call this place home, and of how these stories can offer us new, powerful ways of thinking about our own home places, wherever they are.