As an Indigenous, we are taught at a young age to understand the meaning of respecting and caring for the land for it takes care of us, the children of mother earth. Our morals and ethics start at an early age of how mother nature along with life are put in place for us to preserve and conserve the natural resources that can be utilized. 

Being in the Forest Service, I see the same ethics and morality that are adopted and informed to others (i.e., hired employees) on how to treat and see nature as a usage for recreation and conservation. It's nice to see how much efforts are put into action with advising and teaching the community about the Wild and Scenic Rivers principles of leaving no trace behind. With that said, I had the privileged of being in the most beautiful place in the state of Montana in the Hungry Horse-Glacier View district working alongside with the National Park Service and other organizations who all have the same intuition of caring for the land. Additionally, the highlight was being able to work with the tribal organization, Mission Mountain Youth Corp, from the Confederate Salish-Kootenai tribe and Blackfeet Nation. 

Before I came to Montana, my mentor kept in contact with me and was able to inform me about this partnership with tribal communities on doing a float trip with them on the river sometime in the future. As the day came about, I had the experience to know more about their customs and values, but more importantly to teach them about myself along with my culture too. However, from my experience it was far different than I expected, because the group were kids that were engaged into being exposed to the western Montana of the Flathead Reservation. Since the Flathead rivers are considered ancestral lands to the tribal members, they were able to teach me about the essence of land in their eyes. In contrast, I was able to teach them about our core values and job duties of patrolling the waters. Additionally, to teach the kids how to operate the oars in a raft, reading the waters, monitoring and collecting data of the people who are on the river. As we sat in the same boat for 4-5 hours asking questions, sharing stories, laughing at jokes, and learning other "slangs" we came to understand one another. That the intuition of respecting and caring for the land is an important duty to all indigenous people globally. Maybe that's why less than 5% of us defend mother earth.