January 17, 2023

History, Healing, and Re-story-ation: A public talk from Darren Parry, Environmental Humanities Practitioner-in-Residence

Darren Parry, former chairman and current councilman of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation, is the Spring ‘23 Practitioner-in-Residence for the University of Utah's Environmental Humanities Program. He will give a talk titled History, Healing, and Re-story-ation on Wednesday, January 18 at 7 pm in Crimson View (fourth floor of the Union Building).

Watch the recording of this talk here.

Darren will discuss how the Shoshone people are reclaiming their land, culture, and stories as we approach the 160th anniversary of the Bear River Massacre. Darren is the author of TheBear River Massacre: A Shoshone History and played a critical role in helping his Tribe buy back land at the site of the massacre in 2018. Now, the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation are restoring the land with native and culturally important plants and building a cultural center to tell their story.

“Telling the story of people is important but telling the story of the land is just as critical,” Darren says. “We can only heal as a community when we do both.”

The Bear River is Great Salt Lake’s major tributary, so Darren will also emphasize how healing and restoration at the site of the Bear River Massacre is a critical part of addressing the crisis at Great Salt Lake.