White Swans and Turtle Lake Wetlands

For the last two months I’ve been trying to get a good picture of the white swans that have been hanging out at Turtle Lake area. With all the stuff going on with this pandemic that we are dealing with, I thought that it would be great to get a picture of the white swans. So I set up my tripod with my 60 times zoom, and on March 17 I went out to try again. The white swans are such a beautiful bird, all our wetland birds are, but to me there was a good feeling to see them starting to hang out at Turtle Lake. I feel that the waterways on earth are the life blood of earth and our Rez, it’s the only water we have.

When I got my camera set up to try and get that special picture that I wanted, I zoomed in and instead of the white swans I see a 4-wheeler stuck in the lake bed at Turtle Lake, one of our wetland areas. It is depressing to see such disrespect for our wetlands here on the Rez. These people think they are being sneaky, but we can hear them and see their tracks.

My dad was a tribal officer back in the 1970s and it didn’t matter if it was his brother, sister, or cousin that were doing wrong, he would still cite them if necessary. “Can’t” was not in my dad’s vocabulary.

Sometimes I feel like I am on my own, trying to protect and preserve our tribal lands and our wetlands. I think we need more patrols, and every couple of years to replace the faded out signs or signs that have been torn off by the disrespectful 4-wheelers and dirt bike riders. But I would get in trouble if I didn’t follow the code of respect to protect and preserve our tribal lands, and all Mother Earth’s waterways and lands. I constructed my house with my own two hands and some help from my friends, that was 25 years ago. I love my home and our tribal lands. Please help protect and preserve our wetlands and our lands in general.

Every morning I step outside and take a breath of our good, clean air and take a drink of the good water we have and thank our mother nature for all she provides for us. This is something we will have for years to come, but we need to work together as a whole to keep our air, water, and lands safe and pure.

This is my opinion and I don’t mean to disrespect anyone but without the support from all our tribal and non-tribal people, we will be trying to find good water and land in the next hundred years. Karma will not let things go without future consequence.

—Joseph A. Wheeler