As an Indigenous woman and a state representative from Mandaree, I was raised to understand that land carries memory. The hills, rivers, and plains of this region hold the stories of our ancestors. That is why I am troubled by the recent secretarial order issued by Doug Burgum, which has led to the removal and alteration of historical interpretation across our national parks. Our national parks are classrooms, cultural sites, and living archives of our country’s full history.

Agencies like the National Park Service, operating under the United States Department of the Interior, have spent decades working to tell a more complete story of America, one that includes Indigenous nations, the dispossession of Native lands, and the resilience of our people. This new directive undermines that progress. Reports from parks across the country show that exhibits and educational materials discussing Indigenous history, colonial violence, and the experiences of Native communities are being quietly removed or rewritten. These decisions are being made behind closed doors, without consultation with tribal nations whose histories are directly affected. Indigenous history is not up for an abstract policy debate. Our stories are allowed to exist in public spaces.

Our history is the history of this country. My own community has lived on this land for generations. Our elders fought to ensure that places like Theodore Roosevelt National Park acknowledge that the lands visitors admire today were once home to the first people that dwelled these lands. Those acknowledgments are about accepting truth. And erasing that truth does not unify us. It diminishes us. History is complex. It includes triumph and tragedy, innovation and injustice. Pretending otherwise does not make our country stronger; it makes our public institutions less honest.

National parks should be places where Americans confront the full scope of our shared past, not places where uncomfortable chapters are quietly edited away. As an elected leader I believe we owe the truth to our future generations. We should be expanding Indigenous voices in the interpretation of our public lands, not erasing them.

Secretary Burgum should reverse this order and engage directly with tribal nations, historians, and park staff. Our national parks belong to all Americans, and their history must reflect the truth of this land and the people who have always called it home. We cannot protect what we refuse to remember. I call on former Governor Burgum to reverse course and preserve history at our National Parks.