Indigenous Ground Leaders 2026: Connecting Youth To Ancestral Lands

Long before Grand Teton National Park was known by its current name, this land was home to many Indigenous nations, including the Kiowa people, whose ancestral territory once stretched across the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. This July, eleven youth and four chaperones from the Kiowa Tribe, including Kiowa Tribal Historic Preservation Officer Amanda Hill, traveled from southwest Oklahoma to Grand Teton for the second annual Kiowa Indigenous Ground Leaders (IGL) program. The week-long program offered young people the opportunity to build a relationship with the same land their ancestors once knew through education and stewardship, often pairing traditional practices with hands-on learning.

Participants camped along Jackson Lake, rode horses near Colter Bay, and canoed on String Lake with Teton Science Schools. They tried their hand at flintknapping and atlatl throwing, ancient skills once part of daily life in this landscape. A day trip to Yellowstone National Park brought them to Old Faithful and Artist Point, among other locations that are significant to their tribe. The week closed with a scenic float down the Snake River, a fitting final chapter to their time in the park.

Alongside recreation, the IGL program wove in real opportunities for cultural and scientific exchange. Participants worked with archaeologists from Grand Teton and the University of Wyoming, gaining insight into the prehistoric Indigenous presence on this land. They visited an active archaeological site and, guided by their own cultural knowledge alongside the researchers' findings, offered meaningful input about the impact of collecting these artifacts.

The group also spent time with an ethnobotany expert, who taught the group how to identify and responsibly harvest traditional medicinal plants, knowledge they plan to carry home and share with family and friends. They met with Yellowstone's buffalo biologists as well, connecting Indigenous knowledge with contemporary wildlife science.

For the eleven Kiowa youth on the trip, this was a chance to learn firsthand from both park experts and their leader, Amanda Hill. In her own reflection on the program, Hill described how the itinerary offered "teaching moments and opportunities to form relationships with ancestral lands." She added that the group's cultural knowledge, paired with insight from the park's specialists, let the Kiowa IGL contribute meaningfully to the park's ongoing historic preservation work. At the end of the week, several youth sang and signed a Kiowa hymn in gratitude for the hospitality they'd received. It was a moment that captured the spirit of the entire program and signified the passing of knowledge from one generation to the next.

Grand Teton National Park Foundation is proud to support this experience with the Kiowa tribe and looks forward to providing similar experiences for youth from the Shoshone Bannock tribes and the Wind River Reservation later this summer. Thank you to everyone who makes these programs possible!