Some members of the state’s tribal nations are slowly starting to welcome visitors as the South Dakota Native Tourism Alliance (SDNTA) works with tribal leaders and organizations to transform tourism on the nine reservations as an engine of economic development.
Tourism and visitors have not always been positive concepts in these communities, SDNTA News Watch’s Sarah Kills In Water said. On reservations, there has long been a reluctance to allow outsiders into certain traditional spaces and a general fear of exploitation. This is especially true in South Dakota, where some Native lands are among the poorest regions in the country.
“When we first entered these spaces, they didn’t want to know about tourism. They already had the idea that we were selling our culture. So we had to do a lot of work in education,” Kills In Water said. “But as soon as we did that, their little light bulb started clicking and you could see them start dreaming and start thinking, ‘What can I do?’
SDNTA was recently awarded the $175,000 JM Kaplan Innovation Prize, one of 10 organizations with more than 3,500 applicants to receive ongoing funding, training and resources to grow their efforts.
Indigenous tourism emphasizes cultural reconnection, historical conversation
Rhea Waldman, executive director of SDNTA, and Kills In Water envision a world in which reservations are essential destinations for visitors to South Dakota, just like Mount Rushmore National Memorial, Badlands National Park and Crazy Horse Memorial.
“Tourism is a big thing in South Dakota right now. So we’re trying to highlight the gems that are on each individual reservation, and they’re very different. Each reservation has its own cultural pieces, its own stories, it’s got its own museums,” Waldman said.
Nationally, reservation tourism has quietly grown. The tribal lands of the Navajo (Diné) Nation are home to iconic natural landmarks like Monument Valley and Antelope Canyon — albeit with hiccups like the COVID-19 pandemic and a decline in international visitors hampered by some travel agencies.
Kills in Water said many of the options tribal members find most interesting are outdoor activities they think travelers will enjoy, which also allows for a connection to the land Native people have called home for thousands of years.
“There are a lot of ideas for outdoor recreation at Rosebud Preserve. Our people want to take people on hikes and look at our medicines and teach them about the flora and fauna of our preserve,” Kills in Water said.
Reconnecting Native Americans to their own culture
In addition to economic development, reconnecting with cultural traditions can also benefit tribal members, fostering greater community connection and leadership development.
“I see this as a major opportunity to reconnect our people with our culture. Through learning about our culture and reconnecting, they find ways to educate visitors about who we are today. Not in a way that exploits our culture, doesn’t sell our ceremonies. But educates our visitors about who we are today, all the things we’ve been through, and that we still have problems, but we’re still here.” still here to tell our story,” said Kills In Water.
There are several significant historic sites on these tribal lands, including the Wounded Knee Monument on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, land that President Donald Trump recently signed into law to protect.
Visitors interested in the country’s history would find tours of South Dakota reservations especially informative, according to Waldman.
However, tourism in tribal lands will always look different from other journeys across the country. The more rural nature of most reservations will change things, as will the inherent cultural conversations that occur when visiting historic sites or witnessing tribal traditions.
Sherry L. Rupert, CEO of the American Native Tourism Association, said experiences that tourists don’t expect, especially when it comes to Native culture, are often the most rewarding.
“Often people don’t know that, but that’s really what they’re looking for – to be out there and learn about people who have been here for thousands of years. It changes their worldview. They go back and share it with their families and it changes who they are as people,” Rupert said.
Barriers to successful tribal tourism
Although the opportunities offered by the tourism economy are attractive to many, there are still barriers that prevent many tribal peoples from entering the industry.
In South Dakota, where reservations and trusts make up more than 12% of the land, population centers are few and far between, which can make travel difficult.
Support services may also not be sufficient to accommodate groups of tourists.
“It’s really hard if you have a community that doesn’t have the infrastructure to bring tourists there,” Waldman said. “If the restaurant we were planning to go to is closed and there aren’t really many other options, and then you’re an hour and a half away from anything else, it’s not necessarily helpful.”
And then there is the challenge of basic economics.
“If you have a community that really wants to build tourism, and you have artisans and artists and other people in tourism trying to build their businesses,” Waldman said, you also need an influx of tourists and their dollars to support those entrepreneurs.
“So that’s really the big chicken-and-egg situation that we’re in where the real challenge is. How do we make sure we create demand and supply at the same time?”
The balance between allowing tourists to indigenous communities to learn more about the culture while protecting sacred sites is also a challenge, Waldman said. Tribal members’ comfort levels with tourist involvement vary widely, so any ongoing work requires customized plans for each tribe.
Trafalgar Bus Tours launched a 2022 “Dakota National Parks and Native Trails” tour that stopped at reservations in North Dakota and South Dakota, including the Pine Ridge, Rosebud, and Standing Rock reservations.
Although Waldman said large tours can often be difficult to navigate when it comes to lodging, dining and other logistics, continued partnerships with tour companies like this one allow for additional exposure among potential visitors.
“We’re trying to navigate this place and say, ‘What are you looking for?’ Because we don’t want to create something that no one buys. And some say, “Create what you want to create. We’ll find the right people.” Those are exactly the partners and partnerships we need,” Waldman said.
Government support is essential for continued tourism efforts
In 2016, a Republican in South Dakota US Senator John Thune co-sponsored the bipartisan NATIVE Act — or the Native American Tourism and Visitor Experience Improvement Act.
Passed unanimously by the Senate, this legislation ensures that tribal nations are represented among federal agencies involved in the tourism industry, that continued infrastructure development is encouraged, and that tribal tourism data is collected and analyzed.
“South Dakota is rich in the culture and traditions of the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota nations,” Thune said in a statement after the bill was passed. “We should do all we can to help celebrate and recognize the many and often invaluable contributions our tribal communities make to our state.”
Rupert told News Watch that continued collaboration with state and federal tourism agencies is critical to ensuring continued exposure to tribal experiences.
Travel South Dakota, which promotes the state as a vacation destination, did not respond to requests for comment for this story. The host agency a list of ways to experience native culture in South Dakota on their websiteincluding several attractions on tribal lands.
“Support from a state destination marketing organization or state tourism office is essential. They are tasked with marketing all the destinations and experiences in your state, and that should include Aboriginal offerings,” Rupert said.
Waldman said working with the state tourism office has allowed SDNTA to understand what visitors want from experiences, how to sell them and how to use data to their advantage.
“There are definitely places where collaboration is really important because they have a huge marketing budget, for example. They have a lot of contacts. So they help us get the word out and also make sure we’re at the table and making some of the bigger decisions,” Waldman said.
South Dakota is well-known for several attractions associated with indigenous culture – particularly in the Black Hills, the traditional sacred lands of the Lakota and other indigenous peoples. However, Waldman and Kills In Water hope that visitors will see the value of visiting the tribes where they currently exist.
“We hope to create these strong connections between our guests and who we are,” Kills In Water said. “We want them to see us for who we are, not what they think we are, not what someone else has told them we are. We want to authentically share our story with anyone who comes and is interested in learning.”
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This story was originally published by South Dakota News Watch and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
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