2026 Sicangu Food Summit

Back by popular demand, we held the fourth-annual Sicangu Food Summit last week! We're always so excited to bring people together and to share and to learn with one another.

For the first time ever, the Food Summit was two days. And it was a full and packed two days with gorgeous weather. The first day, we partnered with the Wolakota Buffalo Range to do a tatanka (buffalo) harvest.

This was really special for us. Tatanka are our relatives and historically provided everything we needed. Bringing them back home, where we can continue stewarding the land with them in a good way, is healing for us and for our relatives. The harvest is a traditional ceremony where we have the chance to thank them for all they do for us, for how they nourish us, not just physically, but spiritually as well.

Our partners at Wolakota brought our relative to the food summit, where we then spent the days learning how to process them with respect. Attendees learned about the different parts of the tatanka, and how our ancestors used everything. The harvest was always a team effort, and it's no different now. The Food Summit attendees came together and helped process the tatanka and even got to share a meal made with some of the meat from the event. The entire day was full of good energy, laughter, and learning. We love bringing people together around food, and we're so grateful to gather our people around the tatanka.

The second day of the Food Summit featured some hands-on workshops and even more delicious food. Attendees learned about seed saving, making tatanka jerky and bapa (dried meat), starting winter medicines, and more!

We're excited to see the Food Summit continue to grow (do you get the pun?) A huge shout out to all the volunteers and presenters who made the event possible. And an even bigger shout out to our oyate (people). The Food Summit is for you!

7Gen Music Festival🥁

As if the Food Summit wasn't enough, we also hosted the 7Gen Music Festival that same weekend!

This event brought people together at the Keya Wakpala Woiċaġeyapi site, where we hope to build an amphitheater. Despite the wind, we had lots of people come out and enjoy great entertainers, s’mores, and local food vendors.

Community is at the heart of Keya Wakpala Woiċaġeyapi. It’s a place where we want families to live, to grow food, to start businesses. It’s a place where we want to live more in harmony and intentionally with our plant relatives. This will be a slow and long process. Building a physical community will take time and effort and deep community engagement. The 7Gen Music Festival is part of building this community in a fun and different way. Wopila (thanks) to all our performers and to everyone who showed up!