UTV engine sound On a warm, sunny day in October.

people from the Pokagon Band of the Potawatomi Nation are working to restore a sacred place .

1147 acres of tribal property Located near North Liberty Indiana, outside of South Bend.

The acreage is a small remnant of a vast area once known as the Everglades of The Grand Kankakee Marsh.

Potawatomi as a whole our historical, territory before the treaties was, our historical, territory before the treaties was, all the way up to Grand River, Michigan,all the way down the Wabash River, Indiana, all the way over to Detroit, a, good chunk of northeast Illinois and then eastern Wiscon all the way in the Door Peninsula.

That was all Potawatomi territory.

Now, Pokagon Band, our band, heavily are in Dwagiac, Hartford Niles.

South Bend was about the four biggest.

This area has a pretty high historical prevalence to the Potawatomi.

this area was a huge area for wildlife.

I see a hawk or something flying over there right now.

there's a, huge wildlife presence in this area and food and water resources.

What we now call northern Indiana was once a vast ecosystem.

supporting one of the highest concentrations of wildlife on the planet.

It was nearly a million acres of wetlands.

abundant with plants and animals which attracted native people.

my name is Bmethwen, or my English name is Kyle Malot I am from the Eagle Clan.

I am from Niles, Michigan, which Pawating place of the Rapids.

So back in the day, there was a villages within the Kankakee Marsh area.

and due to that other villages would come down here and visit and trade and, trade goods together.

The Odawa would come down here in winter with us.

but you could have any, any type of meat that you wanted any type of fur was here.

everything.

And so we follow where the resources are.

And this is a huge area for that But the area was attractive to settlers, too.

The United States took land away from the native people, and agriculture became the main objective.

by the early 1900s, the Kankakee River was straightened to half of its original length.

and the wetlands were dredged and drained.

Farmers installed drainage tiles and planted corn.

What was once a wooded, gently meandering river became a fast flowing street ditch, collecting muddy runoff from the surrounding crops.

I'm Deb Knepp.

I'm the district conservationist for USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service.

So we are charged with helping people help the land, getting conservation out on the ground, for the betterment of soil health, water quality, air quality, wildlife habitats, and the health of the plants that are growing.

we work voluntarily.

with the landowners and the farmers, in the area.

And, yeah, just talk to them and get their goals.

what they want to see out here a work, work to help them meet that.

Deb works with clients like the Pokagon Band of the Potawatomie who want to restore their property to wetlands.

The USDA facilitates and pays for the restoration Pays for the value of the land and the property is protected in an easement.

The waitlist is longand the prog is growing in popularity because as people restore wetlands, they in turn protect crops.

they have levees on downstream.

And before this went in here at site, every year the levee would break somewhere and somebody's crop field was flooded and they weren't getting their crop out that year.

Since this has gone in, that happens very rarely.

Wetlands as well as providing habitat They also do a lot of storage of water.

They recharge our groundwater.

They actually filter out a lot of, chemicals or pollutants that may be in water that flows through, the low areas before going to ditches and rivers.

so they do a lot to clean up the environment.

And, keep water where it belongs so that, the farming operations can happen on the farm fields and the water can stay, where it to stay in that create a lot of So, yeah, there's a lot of, benefits to the wetlands.

they're just so important.

people don't realize how important they are.

they're like the kidneys of the of the landscape.

So they capture the water, filter it, and when the water comes out of it, like we're seeing here, these seeps coming out of the bank, that's cleaner water than this w running over the edge and falling down.

I'll say Buju.

my name is Grant Poole.

I'm the water quality specialist for the Pokagon of Potawatomi.

for me, the healthy water is one that's resilient.

So I'm also looking at the fish and other macro invertebrates, along with potential contaminants and things like that.

and the Great Lakes region here, we unfortunately have the issue of historic PCBs and then mercury.

So all aquatic life is kind of impaired because of those two remnant, pollutants.

were seeing some darters were seeing some creek chubs.

but the overall Kankakee River system is still impaired for aquatic life.

And we're working with federal p state partners, and our local watershed groups or basin commissions to hopefully address those issues.

But that's going to be a long haul down the road.

This is a favorite spot for the deer.

Since 2001, the USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service and the Pokagon bands team of scientists have been working hard to monitor and manage the land.

They've plugged ditches and made shallow impressions in the earth called scrapes, so the land will hold more water They're removing invasive species with controlled They're studying water and soils and planting native species favorable to animals, pollinators, and the tribe.

Today one of the things that we're doing is we're planting the the final manomin or wild rice of the season.

So, mano is good and min is berr So the good berry, and then toss it in we're going to be planting the final rice of the season down here, near the, Miller ditch.

it is good to just kind of get s in here.

we have an area that has shown some success in the past with growth with wild rice.

So we're going to try to seed that area a bit more this year.

my name is Jennifer Kanine.

I am the director of the department formerly known as Natural Resources for the Band of Potawatomi Indians, now known as Kowabdanawa ode ke, which is they watch over this land.

We've been working towards, changing it from my, agricultural fields and trying to put that prairie restoration back in place, but also identifying those locations with NRCs of where can we create these wetlands, where can we create scrapes, where can we just plug a ditch and then all that water will back up behind it?

that question, answers that question.

that ones producing fruit And over time we've just tried to put as much water on the property as possible and provide this biodiversity that you see, as well as the habitats that we have on the property, It's not just prairies, not wetlands, it's forested wetlands.

It's the forest behind you.

one of the reasons why we have so many species out here in the first place.

we've actually been able to observe, 191 different species of birds on the property.

And some of those are threatened species.

some of those are state endangered species.

Sandhill Cranes will use this as a stopover in the springtime and in the fall as well, and we'll see them gather in up to the tens of thousands here.

as some of the original residents of the Grand Kankakee return, The Pokagon Band has found a place to enjoy the outdoors and their culture, a culture that never left.

when we talk to our tribal citizens, one of the things that we say to them is that we believe this is one of our jewel properties.

it's a place that people can come and just be with nature.

They can immerse themselves in what, you know, used to be here by this little remnant that we've created here.

And hopefully, you know, find something that they enjoy while they're out here.

this property here having such, prevalence of wildlife, we're able to come down here and hunt and gather and get things that we need, and we have them for ceremonies and things like that.

Oh, that's really important.

our band did not get removed out west due to the fact of what Leopold for us at the Treaty of Chicago.

in order to stay here, we gave away a lot.

over the years, our ways kind of went away for a while.

so we are still here.

Our our culture is still around.

we still practice it.

and it's just who we are.

It's it's not a set religion or anything.

Just a way of life.

so this is how we live our life, and this is a beautiful way to live.

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