Posted inCOVID, News

Why are Colorado’s rural counties vaccinating people faster than urban ones?

Across much of the Front Range and Colorado’s other biggest counties, securing a coronavirus vaccine remains an arduous endeavor. Overloaded websites. Lengthy wait lists. Hair-pulling frustration. But, in southwest Colorado, the state’s smallest county has a different problem: It’s run out of people to vaccinate, at least for now. Barely two months after shots started […]

Posted inBusiness, Coloradans, COVID, Culture

Ute tribes reimagine Bear Dances, a key ceremony of renewal, as coronavirus locks down Colorado reservations

In normal, non-pandemic times, this is the season when the thrumming notes of a ceremonial song, the rasping of metal sticks rubbed on notched wood and the swinging and flicking of colorful fringed shawls would be kicking off the annual Bear Dances on Colorado’s American Indian reservations. Groups of dancers would sway back and forth, […]

Posted inColoradans, Education, News

Colorado boarding school, where government sought to assimilate tribal students, listed as a “most endangered” place

Just outside the southwest Colorado town of Ignacio, on Southern Ute tribal land, remnants of a campus where the federal government carried out its campaign to assimilate American Indian youth and eradicate their culture juts from the landscape.  Only a few buildings, a former parade ground and a flagpole still stand, relics of the military-style […]