Trail of a desperate man

On Episode 592 of Impact Boom, A/Prof Rick Macourt of First Nations Economics discusses how Indigenous-led governance models can disrupt traditional systems of economic development, the importance of self-determination in policymaking, and how shifting power to communities is key to closing the gap.

If you are a changemaker wanting to learn actionable steps to grow your organisations or level up your impact, don't miss out on this episode!

If you enjoyed this episode, then check out Episode 419 with Brian Wyborn on developing inclusive capital funding for First Nations businesses -> https://bit.ly/4oMHrPC

The team who made this episode happen were:
Host: Tom Allen
Guest(s): A/Prof Rick Macourt
Producer: Indio Myles

We invite you to join our community on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram to stay up to date on the latest social innovation news and resources to help you turn ideas into impact. You'll also find us on all the major podcast streaming platforms, where you can also leave a review and provide feedback.

Episode 592 (2025) A/Prof Rick Macourt On Advancing First Nations Prosperity

This piece is a cry of love, rage, and remembrance for our missing and murdered Indigenous women, daughters, and sisters. It stands as both a ritual and a protest, a refusal to let silence bury the truth.

Infused with cinematic weight, guttural Inupiaq chanting, and Cherokee verse, Our Daughters carries grief and fire, woven with haunting drums and rock undertones. It’s not only a song, but a call to remember, to speak their names, and to demand justice.

Symbolism woven into this piece: 
🌿 Raven & snow: Inupiaq connection to land and spirit.
🌊 River & flame: Resilience and memory.
🌸 Cherokee verse: A blessing of love, endurance, and kinship.
🪶 Inupiaq women’s voices: Grounding the song in truth, ancestry, and living strength. 

This song is for Florence Okpealuk. For Mingnuna Pootoogooluk.
For all our daughters. For those taken, silenced, and forgotten.
We carry you. We will never stop speaking your names.

ᎢᎦ ᎦᎵᏉᎩ ᏗᎦᏓᏟᏴᏗ
"We are carrying our daughters with love"


LYRICS:

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

[Intro]

Our daughters… taken from us, but never forgotten.
Siku uqaqtuq, it calls your names.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

[Verse 1]

Daughters of the North, walking with the snow,
The tundra your mother, the sea’s steady glow.
The raven was watching, the mountains stood near,
Your laughter was fire in the cold, sharp air.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

[Verse 2]

One night grew silent, your footsteps erased,
The shoreline unanswered, no justice embraced.
The calls went unheard, the cries pushed aside,
Our daughters forgotten while the system hides.

Your badges are hollow, your courts turn away,
The papers fall silent, the headlines decay.
You bury the cases, you silence the cries,
A system of power built on our daughters’ lives.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

[Chorus]

Our daughters, we carry you,
In the fire, in the storm, in the songs we renew.
Our daughters, we’ll speak your names,
Never forgotten, the world feels the flame.
Tavva unalu!

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

[Verse 3] 

Nakuuruŋa, uvagut aŋayuqaqput!
Inuuŋnaqtuq! Tavva itpich!
Qanuqtuurunniqsiaq! Nalunaiqsijugut!
Suliqatigiiktugut! Uqaqtugut!

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

[Verse 4]

Florence, Mingnuna, your names we cry,
But you are not alone, we will not deny.
Our daughters are rivers, our daughters are breath,
Inuuŋnaqtuq (they live), stronger than death.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

[Final Chorus]

Our daughters, we carry you,
In the fire, in the storm, in the songs we renew.
Our daughters, we’ll speak your names,
Never forgotten, the world feels the flame.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

[Outro – Vigil Chant]

Our daughters… never forgotten.
Tavva! Tavva!
Our daughters… never forgotten.
Inuuŋnaqtuq! They live on.

Our Daughters

On Episode 602 of Impact Boom, Levi-Joel Tamou of Love Ya Corporate Catering discusses the importance of reflection and understanding the change you want to bring to the community around you, and the importance of culturally conscious food security for rural First Nations communities.

If you are a changemaker wanting to learn actionable steps to grow your organisations or level up your impact, don't miss out on this episode!

If you enjoyed this episode, then check out Episode 545 with Kurt Gruber on supporting Indigenous youth through a sustainable data security enterprise -> https://bit.ly/3IaVT3r

The team who made this episode happen were:
Host: Tom Allen
Guest(s): Levi-Joel Tamou
Producer: Emma Dimech

We invite you to join our community on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram to stay up to date on the latest social innovation news and resources to help you turn ideas into impact. You'll also find us on all the major podcast streaming platforms, where you can also leave a review and provide feedback.

Episode 602 (2025) Levi-Joel Tamou On Creating Food Security And Anchoring Purpose in Culture

In commemoration of Canada’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, we present a BONUS EPISODE with excerpts from a conversation recorded by Feliks Banel in summer 2021 with Shelly Boyd and the late Michael Finley of the Colville Tribe in North Central Washington.

This was not long after the discovery near Kamloops, British Columbia of what appears to be hundreds of unmarked graves at the site of a former residential school. In our conversation, we touched on many chapters of Northwest and British Columbia history, including residential schools in Canada and the United States – where countless Indigenous children were abused, and from which some never returned.

The late Michael Finley was a tribal historian and former tribal chair, and served tribal liaison for the Washington State Historical Society. His cousin Shelly Boyd is a language scholar and co-founder of the Inchelium Language House, and authored the cover story for the autumn 2021 edition of COLUMBIA Magazine.

CASCADE OF HISTORY is broadcast LIVE most Sunday nights at 8pm Pacific Time via SPACE 101.1 FM in Seattle and gallantly streams everywhere via www.space101fm.org. The radio station is located at historic Magnuson Park - formerly Sand Point Naval Air Station - on the shores of Lake Washington in Seattle.

Subscribe to the CASCADE OF HISTORY podcast via most podcast platforms and never miss an episode.


BONUS EPISODE: Archival Conversation with Shelly Boyd and the late Michael Finley of the Colville Tribe on Residential Schools

Track 1 of 14 from the Oglala World 3 Album Produced by LIt Lakota.

Oglala World 3

Hurrricane Party Shawty

Lit Lakota - Hurricane Party Shawty

Track 2 out of 14 from the Oglala World 3 Album Produced by Lit Lakota.

Oglala World

Lit Lakota - 90s

Track 4 out of 14 from the Oglala World 3 Album Produced by Lit Lakota.

Oglala World Wide Web

Lit Lakota - Oglala World Wide Web

On Episode 611 of Impact Boom, Matthew Wright-Simon of Engage Change discusses how storytelling, Indigenous knowledge, regenerative thinking and creative strategy can empower changemakers, and why cross-sector collaborative leadership is essential for shaping more equitable futures.

If you are a changemaker wanting to learn actionable steps to grow your organisations or level up your impact, don't miss out on this episode!

If you enjoyed this episode, then check out Episode 592 with A/Prof Rick Macourt on disrupting inequitable economic systems to advance First Nations prosperity -> https://bit.ly/44liK3W

The team who made this episode happen were:
Host: Indio Myles
Guest(s): Matthew Wright-Simon
Producer: Indio Myles

We invite you to join our community on Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram to stay up to date on the latest social innovation news and resources to help you turn ideas into impact. You'll also find us on all the major podcast streaming platforms, where you can also leave a review and provide feedback.

Episode 611 (2025) Matthew Wright-Simon On Building Culturally Connected Systems for Impact

Turtle Island.
Before there were countries—before anyone called this land the United States, or Canada, or Mexico—this was Turtle Island. A continent of nations, overlapping territories, trade routes stretching farther than modern highways, and relationships thousands of years old.

Today, that history is being carried forward by contemporary Indigenous leaders at Fort Mason—San Francisco’s skyline in the backdrop, summit banners hanging over a conversation that reaches far beyond the city around it.

This is the First Nations Economic Compact. 

You’re in a conference room that usually sounds like quarterly forecasts, and suddenly Chief Redman is talking about an economic conversation older than all of that—older than the 1763 Royal Proclamation, older than colonial regulatory systems, older than the borders that now cut through nations whose trade routes once ran uninterrupted across the continent.

Long before GDP, First Nations had their own economic indicators: ecological balance, kinship networks, sustainable yields, inter-nation reciprocity. Systems the Doctrine of Discovery tried to erase. Systems that survived genocide, forced relocations, and treaties—signed, coerced, or never signed at all.

And yet: the nations remain.
The economies remain.
The knowledge remains.

Here, leaders are talking about restoring ancient trade corridors, sharing resources through ancestral law, and building a bio-economy centered on stewardship and community resilience. While modern governments argue over tariffs and trade wars, First Nations are putting forward something older and more future-ready: a sovereign economic compact drawn from traditional trade logic and built for today’s global market.

“If someone doesn’t want to deal with Canada or the United States… they can deal directly with First Nations,” Chief Redman says. It isn’t a request. It’s a reminder.

Suddenly, this summit doesn’t sound like policy talk—it sounds like nations dusting themselves off and reintroducing themselves. Not as stakeholders. Not as interest groups. But as governments.

This is what reconnection sounds like.
What continuity sounds like.
What a continent remembering itself sounds like.

Tate Chamberlin is with Chief Redman. Stay with us.

Music by Supaman

First Nations Economic Compact

Tayohi Storm is a Cherokee folk project born from river and sky, where ancestral echoes meet the pulse of modern storytelling. Rooted in the name Tayohi: the beaver, a builder and shaper of rivers, this music carries both legacy and resilience, weaving Cherokee traditions with raw, cinematic folk.

With a sound that drifts between intimate acoustic ballads, thunderous drumscapes, and ethereal, ritual-like chants, Tayohi Storm creates a space where nature, spirit, and storm converge. Each song is both a reflection and a call, songs of water shaping stone, of survival and memory, of voices that refuse to be silenced.

For listeners, Tayohi Storm is not just music, it’s an experience of grounding and transcendence, balancing stillness and power.

- Wolf Who Stands In Front From Bear Clan - WPG -

I Am Interchange, is a must-hear movement that immerses you in the world of adventure journalism, where we fearlessly explore the monumental global challenges of our time. Through raw, unfiltered storytelling, we dive into the tension and share the stories from the front lines of systems change.
THIS SEASON:  It seems, now more than ever, that we have found ourselves on the cusp of monumental worldwide change. Whether we consider the environment, politics, infrastructure, health, economics, or equities across a broad swath of social constructs, the consensus is clear and urgent: all is not as it should be. The United Nations (UN), a consortium of 193 Member States from around the globe, agrees. In 2015, the UN unanimously adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) calling for urgent action in global partnership to secure “peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future.” In alignment with the goals, HATCH — a curated network of innovators, artists, activists, and entrepreneurs working together to accelerate positive global change — focused its fall summit impact labs on topics related to their four impact pillars: EQUITY, EDUCATION, ENVIRONMENT, and EMPOWERMENT This series will explore those on the frontlines of transformational systems change, accelerating solutions for these human challenges.

Impact Boom searches the globe to find the people, stories & inspiration to help you create maximum positive impact.

We interview world-leading social innovators, entrepreneurs, changemakers, designers, educators, thinkers and doers who share Insights, ideas & inspiration. As long as these leaders are focussing their efforts on creating positive social and environmental change, we'll make sure you hear about it.

CASCADE OF HISTORY is the only LIVE radio show presenting news and stories about people doing cool things with and for history in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and British Columbia. We talk about people, artifacts, books, maps, photos, places, landmarks, public lands, state and national parks, trails, highways, and the historic events that can bring us all together.

The show is broadcast LIVE most Sunday nights at 8pm Pacific Time on SPACE 101.1 FM (and streaming via http://www.space101fm.org ) from studios located on the shores of Lake Washington in historic Magnuson Park in Seattle, former site of Sand Point Naval Air Station (though sometimes CASCADE OF HISTORY originates from remote locations around the region). The podcast feed consists of the weekly broadcast, plus frequent bonus episodes with timely and topical interviews, vintage local audio or other Pacific Northwest history-related content - and sometimes even BREAKING NEWS.

Producer and host Feliks Banel is an Emmy-winning and Edward R. Murrow Award-winning broadcaster, and former deputy director of Seattle's Museum of History & Industry (MOHAI).

Send your questions, comments, guest suggestions, news tips and other correspondence to cascadeofhistory@gmail.com.

New tracks tagged #firstnations