Professional skier Connor Ryan had heard a rumor that there was backcountry skiing in Paha Sapa, the Black Hills of South Dakota, but until last winter, his relationship with the place he considers sacred had been formal and hallowed.
Ryan is Lakota. Though he grew up in Boulder, Colorado, his mother is from South Dakota, and his family would go back to Paha Sapa for festivals and ceremonies. Until 2019, he鈥檇 never skied there, even though that passion is one of the major ways he connects with nature.
A couple years ago,听at a sweat lodge, his uncle mentioned that there was a ski area in the Black Hills, and it piqued Ryan鈥檚 curiosity. So听when filmmaker Mike Whelan, who Ryan had worked with before through one of his sponsors, the media and gear company听, mentioned he was thinking about heading to the Black Hills as part of a project to ski from the highest point in every state, Ryan wanted in. 鈥淎s soon as I heard about it, I had to be a part of it,鈥 he says. 鈥淚t felt like I could be in the oldest place in the newest way.鈥
Last spring, Ryan teamed up with Whelan to ski-tour in his ancestral homeland for the first time. 鈥淚 kind of looked at it almost like a museum, it felt like a place full of old relics,鈥 Ryan听says听about skiing on sacred ground. 鈥淚鈥檇 had beautiful experiences there before, but it was like walking on eggshells, and it felt a little beyond me. Then, in the experience of getting to know places in the way that I get to know places鈥攖hrough skiing鈥攊t became more personally relatable.鈥 He documented that relationship in Paha Sapa, a short film released on February 4听and now . It鈥檚 part ski stoke, part cultural investigation, part homecoming story.听
The film also looks at the history of the area because, like so much tribal land that鈥檚 been taken听by force, Paha Sapa, which the U.S. government calls the Black Hills and which is the oldest mountain range in the nation, has a fraught story. Paha Sapa, a place the Lakota consider the center of the universe, a source of water and life, was their home long before听Europeans came to America. It听was deeded to them by the U.S. government in the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie听but then taken back in the Agreement of 1877, which established Indian reservations.听For the past hundred years, the highest mountain in the state (7,242 feet), which Ryan and Whelan skied, has been called Harney Peak听after a U.S. Army general who massacred 86 Lakota women and children in 1855. In 2016, the federal government, with the support of the tribe, changed the name to Black Elk Peak. That鈥檚 one cathartic step toward听trying to heal听and be more respectful going forward culturally and ecologically.
Ryan鈥檚 uncle was right about the skiing. There is a local ski hill, Terry Peak, just west of Deadwood, South Dakota, and a small, fervent scene of backcountry skiers, like local public-land advocate Brent Kertzman.
Ryan said he was initially nervous about how he would be perceived, because few Lakota ski, and also about how local skiers, who are almost all white, were treating the landscape. 鈥淭hese people ski in our sacred place,鈥 Ryan said. 鈥淚 was worried they would be like, 鈥楲akota kids don鈥檛 ski.鈥 And I also went in thinking, Are they being appropriately respectful?鈥
Skiing proved to be common ground. Ryan says shared stoke and shared stories, like the film, can be a subversively deep way to share native traditions and veneration. 鈥淏rent might not have the same level of reverence for the place, but he鈥檚 an advocate for mountain biking and climbing, and I think, Maybe I can make you understand the importance of our creation myth, so that if there was an outside threat for extraction, we would protect it together. Even if we don鈥檛 have the exact same reason we want to protect it, we want the same thing in the end.鈥
A big part of what he鈥檚 trying to explain in Papa Saha, Ryan says, is the idea of reciprocity with the landscape. He鈥檒l lay down tobacco and cornmeal as a sacrifice before he skis, because when he鈥檚 getting something from the mountain, he wants to be giving it something, too. 鈥淚f I鈥檓 going to go to a place, as much as I鈥檓 experiencing a place, a place is experiencing me,鈥 he says.听听
It鈥檚 part of a conversation that carries outside Paha Sapa. Ryan says Natives Outdoors has been working a lot on the overlap between culture and recreation. 鈥淲e鈥檙e really听maybe the two most oddly paired allies鈥攊ndigenous people and outdoor recreation鈥攂ecause I think it鈥檚 really easy for the outdoor community to have an extractive mindset,鈥 Ryan says. 鈥淏ut people who are on the land develop a reverence.鈥 Natives Outdoors is trying to use things like this film to explain the long-term respect and reciprocity that underscores its听outdoor ethic. 鈥淚f you look back at the indigenous history, no place is untouched, but we鈥檙e always thinking seven generations ahead,鈥 he says. 鈥淵ou live in a legacy of people who have thought about that wilderness before you. We have to bring that into the culture of the outdoor world.鈥
In Paha Sapa, Ryan听was able to ski the hallowed ground of his past听and tell a story about how to take care of it in the future. Skiing in a sacred landscape is a form of dedication, and recreation can be its own kind of ceremony. Ryan says that when undertaken with the right amount of reverence, adventures can become a bond to a place鈥攁nd the past and the future.