"The Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho have long fought for water sovereignty on the Wind River Indian Reservation, but their effort is being challenged by federal legislation and a changing water landscape."
"FT. WASHAKIE, Wyo. — Indigenous Peoples’ Day in October was thick with smoke on the Wind River Indian Reservation, with glimmers of fall foliage along its southwestern rivers shrouded in haze beneath a fuzzy horizon. Reservoirs were shriveled by drought, wildfires raged to the northwest, snow was conspicuously absent from mountain peaks and rivers dried to trickles. It wasn’t hard to imagine a future with much less water here.
Such a hereafter was at the forefront of Big Wind Carpenter’s mind as they sat on a soft gray beach beside Bull Lake Dam, the first of a triumvirate of federally-built and privately-managed dams on the reservation that feed a non-Indian irrigation district, and a place Big Wind’s family used to recreate when they were younger. Big Wind, a member of the Northern Arapaho, uses “they/them/their” pronouns, and asked to be identified by their nickname, after the Big Wind River running through the heart of the reservation, instead of their Anglo surname.
“I grew up here. We’d come here during the summer. We’d ice fish in the winter, and we’d set up a campfire over here,” Big Wind said, pointing to a shaded area surrounded by cottonwoods and junipers. The family could usually count on hauling in ling and trout, but today the climate activist isn’t so sure future generations will be able to enjoy this place in the same way. “I think of this resource not being here in the future,” Big Wind said.
As humanity continues to burn fossil fuels that heat the climate, glaciers in the mountains around the reservation are receding. Without the moisture that trickles down from them, Bull Lake and other reservoirs on the reservation could soon yield much less water, making agriculture, aquatic life and even human survival on the Wind River reservation—already rife with tension—even more difficult.
“It’s not looking good,” Big Wind said."
Jake Bolster reports for Inside Climate News February 2, 2025.
Advertisement 
