Friday Focus: Indigenous Peoples Day
Dean Simmons with her late grandmother, Jenny Huntington, her mother, Marie Simmons, and her daughter, Tassy Nelson. Four generations of intergenerational healing.
Oct. 10, 2025
— By Teisha Simmons, College of Indigenous Studies dean
In the gentle whispers of the fall wind that once guided my late grandmother, Jennie Luke Huntington, across seasonal camps in 1915, there lives a story of resilience that flows through my veins. The journey from those nomadic days to the present moment is not just a timeline of events, but a sacred narrative of strength, survival, loss, and profound healing.
I think of my own mother’s story - it touches my heart deeply. She was a nine-year-old child sent hundreds of miles away from her family to boarding schools. Some boarding schools were loving and nurturing, while others were cold and unkind. She returned as a young woman at the age of 19, with a decade of her heritage that slipped through her fingers like snow that drifts in and quickly melts. The boarding school system that separated so many Indigenous children from their families created wounds that echo through generations. Yet in that echo, I see and hear something remarkable: the sound of healing, learning, and mending.
My mother's story doesn’t end with her return from boarding school and the disconnection from her culture. At eighty years old, she sat with the late Poldine Carlo, who was 90 years old at the time. Poldine patiently and lovingly taught her the traditional practice of sewing and beadwork. My mother’s 80-year-old fingers were learning the ancient patterns of beadwork from an elder a decade her senior. In that moment, time itself seemed to bend, allowing what was broken to be restored. This is not just learning a craft—it is reclaiming identity, it is ancestors speaking through her hands, it is healing that transcends a single lifetime.
The late Traditional Doctor Rita Blumenstein's wisdom resonates with such truth: "We are our ancestors. When we can heal ourselves, we also heal our ancestors, our grandmothers, our grandfathers, and our children." In your intentional journey to reconnect with your culture and traditions, you are not just healing yourself—you are mending a tapestry that stretches backward through time and forward into futures not yet born.
As Indigenous Peoples Day approaches on Monday, Oct. 13, UAF students prepare to celebrate the rich cultural heritage of ÐÓ°ÉÔ°æ's Indigenous peoples. I am moved by the full circle of this journey. From my late grandmother's time of seasonal migration, through the trauma of forced assimilation, to this moment of celebration and pride — the thread connecting us to our ancestors was never broken.
I would like to invite you to celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day with us on Oct. 13 through song and dance, traditional arts, and an Elders Panel. We invite you to join us as we celebrate and uplift indigenous people, practices, and knowledge.
For a full list of events and activities, please visit the CIS Event website.
Friday Focus is a column written by a different member of UAF's leadership team every week. On occasion, a guest writer is invited to contribute a column.