WASHINGTON, D.C. – USDA Forest Service, has been awarded a $130,000 grant through the Native American Tourism and Improving Visitor Experience Act. Nez Perce Tourism, LLC is partnering with the Forest Service to plan and implement the grant under a participating agreement.

Projects will advance interpretive efforts including an assessment of the Nez Perce (Nee-ME-Poo) National Historic Trail route and Auto Tour to identify the best places to update and/or install new interpretive signs. Interpretive sign preparation will include recorded interviews and professional photography with tribal elders and members. Tribal artists will work with the agency to prepare artwork for the signs and will write interpretive messages for the signs that will feature traditional Nez Perce names and the Nez Perce language. Once signs are fabricated, tribal youth will help install them. And finally, traditional presenters will support the installation of the signs with appropriate ceremonies.  

“Updating interpretive signs with Nez Perce language is an important step in asserting the tribe’s presence and history in this area,” said Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee Chairman Samuel Penney.  “These places were often named based on their features or attributes and the names do not come from historical figures, but rather our people were often named after these places.”

Project leaders are Sandra Broncheau-McFarland, administrator of the 1,170-mile NPNHT and the 4,161 miles of roads, trails and routes along the NPNHT Auto Tour Route, and Stacia Morfin, CEO of Nez Perce Tourism, LLC.
Broncheau-McFarland has been working with strategic partners for years and recognizes that what is being learned from this project can be applied to other segments of the trail.

“We are so pleased to be working with two tribes on this project, the Nez Perce Tribe, whose homeland is the Forest Service’s Northern Region, and the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes who traditionally used the area,” she said.

“The two tribes have important history in this region and this project seeks to support each tribe’s need to further document their experiences on this landscape as well as share their heritage and stories with current inhabitants and visitors.”

Morfin’s business in Lewiston, Idaho, shares Nez Perce heritage through interpretive events and excursions created to connect visitors to Nimiipuu culture.

“Now is the time for tribal people to come together. It is important to uphold our inherent responsibility as the original inhabitants of this wéetes (land) and kuus (water),” Morfin added.

Morfin will be working closely with the Nez Perce Tribe, Shoshone-Bannock Tribe, both tribe’s Circle of Elders, the NPNHT, local forests and additional partners to ensure sacred and undisclosed areas remain protected, while those appropriate for sharing can be interpreted with signage and programs that visitors can experience.  

The NATIVE Act was passed by the US Congress in 2016 with the goal of empowering Indian tribes, tribal organizations, tribal business owners and entrepreneurs and tribal members to benefit from participation in the tourism industry in whatever way works best for each tribe.

Learn more about the NATIVE Act.