An Indigenous man gestures while telling a story along a riverbed. A camera is set up to capture his story. Six Indigenous people of various ages and one white man look on.

Geologist and enrolled Choctaw tribal member Roger Amerman talks with Nez Perce elders and younger descendants from Chief Joseph’s band (Nespelem, Washington) about geology and native plants at a tribal gathering site along the Minam River.

Josephy Center Program Receives Oregon Stewardship Award

Lexie Briggs, Communications and Marketing Specialist

The Museum of Natural and Cultural History has bestowed the sixth annual Oregon Stewardship Award to Heads to Hearts, a project of the Josephy Center for Arts and Culture.

Administered by the museum’s advisory council, the award recognizes a project that has significantly involved its community in an environmental or cultural heritage project, one that aligns with the museum’s mission to inspire stewardship of our collective past, present and future.

Heads to Hearts explores the confluence between Indigenous and scientific understanding of place. Suggested by interpretive specialist and Indigenous artist Roger Amerman, the project has a specific focus on Nez Perce stories of landscapes and linking them with scientific geological and botanical knowledge of those landscapes to provide a more complete understanding of the landscape in Nez Perce lands in Northeastern Oregon, Western Idaho and Southeastern Washington.

Read the full story on Oregon News.