Five Native American women have disappeared or been killed along California's rugged Lost Coast in the past 18 months.

The crisis has spurred the Yurok Tribe to issue an emergency declaration and brought increased urgency to efforts to build the first database of such cases in California. The tribe also is working to gain supervision over foster care and build an indigenous justice system that would ultimately handle all but the most serious felonies.

Tribal officials say reclaiming sovereignty over such systems is the only way to end the cycle of loss that's taken the greatest toll on their women.

Blythe George, a Yurok tribal member also works on a project that documents the missing and said, “I came to this issue as both a researcher and a learner, but just in this last year, I knew three of the women who have gone missing or were murdered — and we shared so much in common.” George said, “You can’t help but see yourself in those people.”

One of the missing is 33-year-old Emmilee Risling who disappeared after she was last seen walking across a bridge in a remote part of the Yurok Reservation.

Reporting problems have made the true number of missing indigenous persons unknown, according to a 2021 U.S. Government Accountability Office report.

Native women are said to face murder rates that are nearly three times those of white women overall, and up to 10 times that of the national average in many locations. Just in California, the Yurok Tribe and the Sovereign Bodies Institute found 18 cases of missing or murdered Native American women in the past year or so.

FIDALGO ISLAND, WA — Hope is a rare term to be applied to the environment these days, but looking off into the horizon, the people who know this land best see a beautiful future in store for coastal communities both here and beyond.

Alana Quintasket and Joe Williams are members of the Swinomish tribe, whose traditions are deeply rooted in coastal life.

Digging for clams and other shellfish is a big part of their identity, as it has been for centuries, but what’s happening on their lands in western Washington is a reflection of what’s happening up, down and across coast lines nationwide.

"Our biologists, our shellfish team have been kind of documenting throughout the Puget Sound. They're noticing a definite decline in that population," said Williams.

The ocean absorbs 30% of the CO2 in the atmosphere. According to the National Ocean and Atmopheric Administration, the excess carbon in the atmosphere has not only led to warmer seas but it changes the ocean’s PH balance, making the water more acidic.

Coastal areas in the country have seen shellfish population drops as large as 85%. Nationally, if nothing changes its predicted that by the end of the century, shellfish populations nationwide will continue to drop by almost half.

"We're under apocalyptic circumstances, where it is a climate crisis and lives are at stake. As indigenous people and indigenous beings of the land, it's our responsibility to do what we can to restore the practices that have been left for us," said Quintasket.

In the face of a crisis, the Swinomish have a plan to restore the shellfish population: build the very clam gardens their ancestors did centuries ago.

In a few weeks, the Swinomish will be building a clam garden, a tough of rocks meant to be the ideal environment for clam and shellfish growth, on a section of coastline. This ancient practice can increase shellfish growth by 400%.

"It's really expanding the area where clams can grow," said Courtney Grenier, a marine ecologist with the Swinomish Tribal Community.

She says while the numbers don’t lie, scientists are still trying to figure out why the clam gardens are so successful.

"It doesn’t have to be confirmed by Western science to acknowledge there has been this technology that has been used and can still be implemented in a way that’s still in harmony with nature," she said.

The Swinomish are not only looking at this as an opportunity to combat climate change, but by making this a community project, they hope to physically reconnect generations after recent history and past tragedies have taken so much.

"Not only are we trying to get through this pandemic to make it an endemic, but we're also thinking of the fear for the climate, and for us to have something to be excited about is just something good for our people," said Quintasket.

As the project is set into motion, the Swinomish hope other coastal communities are listening and watching to see what native practices are already out there that we can use in our collective fight for our environment.

"There are plenty of teachings to help us get through this, this climate change, we just have to pay attention and be at one with our nature," said Williams.

CLEAR CREEK COUNTY, Colorado — Mountains can make people feel closer to earth, but when it has a name so derogatory many won’t dare to say it, there is a problem.

That’s why the Domestic Names Committee of the U.S. Board of Geographic Names officially approved the name change of a mountain in Clear Creek County, Colorado. It’s now called Mestaa’ėhehe Mountain.

“I’m feeling excited, I’m feeling just happy in general. I feel like the time is coming to change, the time for positive recognition in the Native community. Our voices are finally being heard," said MorningStar Jones, a member of the Mestaa’ėhehe Coalition. “I joined the fight in this past summer, I want to say in June of 2021.”

Colorado isn’t the first state to remove the offensive word from a landmark. Most recently, a well-known ski resort near Lake Tahoe California removed the term from its name. 

“So the 's word' is universally known as a sexual and ethnic slur for Native American women. This demeaning perception has led to thousands of missing and murdered Indigenous women," Jones said.

The coalition is fighting to change many mountain names, including Mt. Evans. It’s named after former Colorado Gov. John Evans. He's a man with a history of oppressing and murdering Native Americans. 

“It’s a time for us all to work together and try to get all these names changed, ones that everyone can be proud of," said Fred Mosqueda, who is an Arapaho Coordinator for the Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribes.

"It’s kind of like letting us tell our history, tell who we really are," he added.

Mosqueda points out that Mestaa’ėhehe Mountain is an interesting case. It is named after a prominent Native American woman. She worked hard to create better relationships between settlers.

“We don’t name mountains after people but, you know, this came up sudden, and it seemed like, again, the time was perfect and everyone accepted this name," Mosqueda said.

Jones’ says this is more than just a name change. It’s an opportunity to provide a level of respect to native women.

“It hurts to see Native people going through this because when I see this, I don’t just see a tragic thing that happened to a family, I see my aunts, I see my uncles, I see my relatives because we are all one," Jones said. “Moving forward, we are reclaiming the names of the lands of where our ancestors were."

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — The U.S. Senate has unanimously approved the nomination of Charles “Chuck” Sams III as National Park Service director.

He becomes the first Native American to lead the agency that oversees more than 131,000 square miles of parks and other landmarks.

Some conservationists hailed Sams’ confirmation as a commitment to equitable partnership with tribes, the original stewards of the land.

Sams told the Confederated Umatilla Journal that he's deeply honored.

Sams has said he would work to ensure that Indigenous history of National Park Service lands is included.

Sams is Cayuse and Walla Walla and lives on the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon.

BROWNING, MT. — The murder rate for Native American women is 10 times higher than the rate for non-indigenous women.

One man started a program to stop young girls on his reservation from becoming victims. The boxing gym teaches girls the skills that could save their lives.

Frank Kipp said his home in Browning, Montana is the only place on earth he’d want to be. That’s why he’s dedicated his life to helping the young people in his community.

“I always look at things like a quilt. There are some really beautiful pieces. There’s some questionable pieces,” said Kipp of his community. “There's been a lot of sorrow, but then there's a lot of good things here.”

Kipp is a big part of the goodness in his community.

“We're not just a boxing club; we're also prevention,” he said of the Blackfeet Nation Boxing Club.

Before each session, Kipp gathers the students in the ring to talk about drug and alcohol prevention and personal safety.

“I worry about a lot of you guys. I can’t help that,” he told the students.

Some are just 10 years old, some are about to graduate high school.

After Kipp’s time as an officer, he knew this gym was needed.

“I've dealt with molestation cases, rape cases, seen murder cases. I was the guy that picked up the pieces, but I just got to the point where, I just, I had enough,” he said.

That moment wasn’t his only breaking point.

“I'm a traumatic brain injury survivor. I am a cancer survivor. I'm a survivor of bullying.”

Now, Kipp is using his pain to help. He and his daughter, Beatrice, teamed up to train the next generation.

“Girls can box just as tough as boys,” said Kipp.

He believes it’s more than a sport; it's about safety. The White House released an Executive Order saying Native American women are at a much higher risk to be victims of domestic violence, assault, and murder than non-native women.

“If you don't fight back. You might not, you might not get a second chance,” said Kipp.

Now, the Kipp family is giving them one.

“I can help other girls protect themselves and be their bigger sister,” said Beatrice.

She may only 16, but she has the wisdom to know what’s at stake.

“I'm always afraid of going anywhere alone because I don't know if I'm going to be like one of those girls. I'm afraid that I won't come back or say goodbye to my family one last time,” she said.

But here, she and the girls share a growing confidence.

“I hope to like show strength, and to show that I can fight, that I am not going to back down on anything," the teen said.

“I'm just trying to protect myself,” said 10-year-old Dustilee Calflooking, who just started her boxing career and said she is excited to learn more.

“Punching a bag gets my anger out and makes me feel better, and it doesn’t make me think how I hate the confidence I have,” said Serenity Young Running Crane, who also started boxing in the last couple of years.

Seeing their confidence keeps Kipp going, too.

“I always tell people, my tomorrow's not promised. I’m a cancer survivor, my cancer could come back. I’m a traumatic brain injury survivor. I might forget who I am someday. As long as I’m here, I will do as much as I can to help people.”

The Blackfeet Nation Boxing Club just reopened after a year and a half of COVID-19 shutting it down. Kipp said he cannot wait to get kids back in the ring and be that gathering spot everyone can count on, once again.

If you'd like to help Kipp on his mission, you can donate to the club HERE.

CUSICK, Wa. – The pandemic is making learning tough on students across the country, but for one Native American school that relies on in-person learning, COVID-19 is threatening the core of its program.

It’s a language born in the mountains of northeastern Washington. The language, a special dialect called Salish, is the native language of the Kalispel Indian tribe.

“We live in the land along the rivers, we hunt we fish, that’s our way,” said JR Bluff, the language director of the Kalispel Tribe.

A crucial piece of living the Kalispel way is speaking the Salish language.

“Being connected to the ground, being connected to the world, our environment, the people, being connected to our ancestors, the language can do that. It gives you that identity,” said Bluff.

It's an identity that was about to be lost forever.

“We have four elders that have the language, they’re it, and so we have to move,” said Bluff.

So, each day, JR Bluff works to keep his heritage alive.

“We believe we are backed into the corner. We believe we don’t have tomorrow, it has to happen today,” said Bluff.

Several years ago, Bluff started an immersion school to pass that language down to the next generation. All of the lessons are in Salish.

Students who opt into the daily program come to the Salish school after a few hours at the public school across the street.

The immersion school not only meets common core education standards, it gives both students and teachers a deep connection to their roots.

“The language is healing. It filled a void I didn’t know I had,” said Jessie Isadore, the Language Program Coordinator. “When the kids have a strong foundation and know who they are and where they come from, they’ll be more successful.”

Just when JR and his team saw their language growing strong through the students, the pandemic threatened to take it all away.

“Our strength is relationships,” said Bluff. “You need to be in the seat with me.”

“If the kids aren’t in the classroom, they’re home doing online learning, it’s not the same as being in the classroom. We lose time and we lose language,” said Isadore.

To make sure that doesn’t happen, the school’s teachers are now creating Salish lessons online, something they’ve never done before.

“We have not done zoom with our students yet, so that’s going to be a new process this year,” said Isadore.

“We’re going to figure it out, and we have to figure it out. If I have to record, and we have to drop off a disc everyday, I’ll do it,” said Bluff.

It’ll take the extra effort in a place where WiFi is not reliable and instruction is best done in person.

“Our language, it’s a sacred breath, you’re not just hearing a word, you are with me and you’re hearing my breath, that’s the strength of our language,” said Bluff.

While the future of this classroom is left uncertain, the future of this culture is something JR knows he will protect for his entire life.

“Our language has had so many bumps in its thousand-year history, this is just another bump. It’s real in that it affects our community, affects our students, affects our parents, but I know it will pass,” said Bluff.

MISSOULA — Following the death of Gabby Petito, people nationwide are calling for more media coverage on other missing people.

Here in Montana, Native Americans are four times more likely to go missing, according to the state Missing and Murdered Indigenous People's database.

Kimberly Loring, whose sister Ashley Loring HeavyRunner is missing, was a key in creating that database and coordinating law enforcement resources.

MTN

MTN News had the chance to talk with her as a new podcast aimed to spotlight her missing sister's case.

Ashley Loring Heavyrunner disappeared from Browning in 2017 when she was 20 years old.

“We need to come together; our missing is important. They are not just a picture on a flyer. They are sisters or brothers. They are meant to be home with us,” Kimberly Loring said.

MTN News

Her sister has not stopped looking for answers. “Ashley’s case was mishandled during the most crucial time, and we need to bring more attention to this."

Kimberly says it took effort from the family to get Ashley’s story in the news. "It took Ashley a very long time to be be seen by the media."

She says it was also challenging to work with law enforcement, "they were able to hinder Ashley’s case.”

MTN

So, the family conducted their searches.

“It was very traumatic. I was very numb at the time. We were searching in the forest, and I was yelling her name, expecting her to be like, ‘I’m right here,” Kimberly recalled.

That was four years ago, "it was very, extremely hard. It was tough,” Kimberly told MTN News.

MTN News

Kimberly says she took to social media.

“It wasn’t until I got on Facebook and started posting and making sure everyone around in the town -- and people that I know, know. And people that care and love for her knew, and they were able to share that.”

Ashley’s whereabouts are still unknown, and as the search continues, the family is still looking for answers. But now, a new form of media is sharing Ashley’s story -- to anyone that will listen.

"Up & Vanished" podcast focuses on Ashley Loring Heavyrunner

“I hope at the end of the day, there is more coverage of her story,” said podcast host Payne Lindsey.

Kimberly believes something happened to Ashley, and she wants to know what.

“If we keep bringing more attention to Ashley’s case, then we will find answers.”

MTN News

Lindsey, the narrator for hit podcast Up and Vanished, agrees.

“I hope that the podcast keeps her story in the spotlight and encourages other people to talk about it," Lindsey told MTN News.

Up and Vanished has covered cold cases across the country, and the current season focuses on Ashley.

MTN News

Lindsey says he wants to solve Ashley’s case and draw attention to the thousands of other Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) in America.

National attention has been brought to Ashley’s story in recent years, and Kimberly says after all this time, she hopes to gain some closure eventually.

The investigation into Ashley's disappearance is ongoing, and the FBI is urging anyone with information to contact the Salt Lake City FBI office at (801) 579-1400 or 1-800-CALL-FBI. You can also submit tips in the case online here.

Katie Miller at KPAX first reported this story.

In the months before Mary Johnson disappeared, her sister said she wasn't herself.

Johnson and her husband, who had been living in the home of her sister Gerry Davis in Sedro-Woolley, Washington, abruptly left and moved to Marysville about 40 miles away, Davis said. She rarely answered her phone when Davis called, and only occasionally responded to texts. Then one day, Johnson's estranged husband contacted Davis to say he hadn't seen his wife in weeks.

The last time anyone said they saw Mary Johnson — also known as Mary Davis — was on Nov. 25, 2020. Johnson, an enrolled citizen of the Tulalip Tribes and then 39 years old, was walking on a road in Western Washington, en route to the house of some friends in a nearby town. She never made it there.

It's been nearly 10 months since Johnson was reported missing. A billboard on Interstate 5 and local media coverage have yielded few credible tips, and tribal police have yet to make an arrest in the case. Only last week did the FBI announce it would offer a reward of up to $10,000 for information about Johnson's disappearance. While family members and advocates welcome the move, they also wonder what took so long.

"If that was a little white girl out there or a white woman, I'm sure they would have had helicopters, airplanes and dogs and searches — a lot of manpower out there — scouring where that person was lost," Nona Blouin, Johnson's older sister, said. "None of that has happened for our sister."

Those feelings ring especially true this week, as the case of missing 22-year-old Gabby Petito captured the attention of the internet. Meanwhile, at least 710 Indigenous people — more than half of them women or girls — were reported missing between 2011 and September 2020 in Wyoming, where Petito's remains were found this week, according to a University of Wyoming report. While about half were usually found within a week of going missing, as per the report, family members and advocates said none received the same level of media coverage nor the same urgency in law enforcement's response as missing white people.

Too often, that means families like Johnson's are left waiting without answers.

Johnson's disappearance remains unsolved

There's a lot unknown about the circumstances under which Johnson disappeared last year.

The following sequence of events, based on a CNN interview with Tulalip Tribal Police Department Detective David Sallee and a local news report in The Everett Herald, is what authorities have pieced together based on cell phone records and conversations with people who saw her.

At the time Johnson disappeared, she and her husband weren't in a good place, Sallee said. She was staying mostly with friends, returning to the couple's shared house every few days to pick up her mail and take a shower before heading out again.

On Nov. 24, a day before she was last seen, Sallee said her estranged husband dropped her off with a suitcase at a friend's house on the Tulalip reservation. Johnson stayed there overnight, and planned the next day to head to the house of a couple she knew in Oso about 30 miles away.

The friend she was staying with was supposed to give her a ride to a nearby church, where someone else would pick her up and take her to the couple's house in Oso. A second man, who had been staying at the same house as Johnson, wanted a ride, too.

But things went awry on Nov. 25, and Sallee said Johnson's friend backtracked on the offer to give her and the second man a ride. Johnson set out toward the church on foot around 1:30 p.m., and the second man also started walking away from the house.

A third man who was set to pick Johnson up at the church and take her to Oso eventually drove by and saw her walking on Fire Trail Road with the man who also wanted a ride, Sallee said. He indicated he only had enough room in his vehicle for one person and kept on going, ultimately declining to give her a ride.

Johnson never made it to the couple's house in Oso, Sallee said. But before she disappeared she left that couple a voicemail, desperation in her voice as she urged them to pick up, according to records obtained by The Everett Herald. She also made another call around 2:30 p.m. — the woman who picked up reportedly said to police that she told Johnson she was too busy to speak.

Police believe that someone may have picked Johnson up at some point, because cell phone records indicate that about an hour after her last call, her phone connected to a tower in the Oso area — too great a distance for her to have walked so quickly. The phone then went offline for a period of time, Sallee said, before again connecting to a tower in the Greater Marysville Tulalip area that night. It remained in that location until the next morning, when it eventually powered off.

The man who was supposed to pick Johnson up from the church reportedly told police that he hadn't seen or heard from her since Nov. 25. The man who had been walking with her said the two went their separate ways and that he'd had no sign of her either.

On Dec. 9, 2020, Johnson's estranged husband reported her missing.

In the nearly 10 months since, there has been little movement in the investigation, which Sallee said remains "open and active." He said the police department had identified multiple persons of interest, though it has yet to make an arrest.

Because a body hasn't been recovered, Sallee said it's difficult to establish the probable cause necessary to seek specific search warrants. Because Johnson's disappearance was reported weeks after the fact, he said surveillance footage or precise location information that could offer clues has likely been overwritten. And because authorities don't know for sure whether Johnson disappeared on or off the reservation, he said it's unclear whether they can leverage federal grand jury subpoena powers or not.

"We don't know if she was kidnapped, held against her will, if she has been murdered. It could be argued maybe she just wandered off in the woods and got lost. Maybe she overdosed and passed away somewhere in a remote area and we don't know where she's at. Maybe she's just hiding, maybe she's in treatment," Sallee said. "There's a lot of maybes."

Authorities are often slow to act, advocates say

To advocates who work on the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, however, such challenges and uncertainties come off as excuses.

Abigail Echo-Hawk, chief research officer for the Seattle Indian Health Board and an enrolled member of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, says one of the primary barriers in addressing this crisis is the "maze of jurisdiction" in Indian Country. Cases of missing Indigenous women are often mired in bureaucracy, with prosecutors and law enforcement having to establish whether the authority rests with the federal government, the state or the tribe. The time it takes to determine the jurisdiction of a case can ultimately affect whether those women live or die, she said.

"This maze of jurisdiction that exists — that is, who does what investigations and who's responsible for what — is part of this system of inequity," Echo-Hawk said.

It's why so many cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women remain unsolved, says Annita Lucchesi, executive director of the research group Sovereign Bodies Institute and a descendant of the Cheyenne tribe. Jurisdictional issues can limit tribal authorities from successfully prosecuting non-Native people for crimes committed on tribal lands except in some cases, and the federal government -- who typically does have that authority -- has often declined to act.

Another piece of the problem, as some advocates see it, is that Indigenous women are often blamed for their own disappearances, resulting in a lack of empathy for victims from authorities and the general public.

"They are assumed to have been killed, murdered or disappeared. They're assumed to have run away, to have had substance abuse issues, to have done something that caused them to go missing or to be murdered," Echo-Hawk said.

Those attitudes only perpetuate the problem and make it easier for perpetrators to avoid accountability, Lucchesi said.

"That kind of narrative about Indigenous people just lends itself to more violence so that when this violence does happen, it's not a disruption of the social fabric the way it would be when it happens to somebody else," she said. "Because we're already perceived as not part of the social fabric, because we're either dead and disappeared. We're less than human. We're so far away on some remote reservation that we're not part of the rest of the community."

The full scale of the problem is unknown

Johnson is just one of countless missing or murdered Indigenous women and girls in the U.S. — a nationwide crisis for which there are no definitive statistics.

The numbers that do exist are likely an undercount, in part because Indigenous women and girls are sometimes misclassified as white, Hispanic or Asian. Adding to the data problem is a historic distrust of law enforcement by Indigenous communities, which can lead some cases to go unreported.

About 1,500 missing persons cases of American Indian and Alaska Native people have been recorded across the U.S. by the National Crime Information Center, while approximately 2,700 homicide cases have been reported to the federal government's Uniform Crime Reporting Program.

A database maintained by Lucchesi's Sovereign Bodies Institute puts the count higher, with more than 4,500 cases of missing Indigenous women and girls dating back to the 1900s, she said. There are nine such cases just in her own family, Lucchesi said.

"That shadow of death is always there," she added.

That's why advocates are pushing leaders and policymakers to do something about the issue.

The attorney general in Washington state, where Johnson was last seen and which has the second highest number of missing and murdered Indigenous women cases, announced a 21-member task force to examine the systemic inequities behind the problem of missing Indigenous women and girls. Echo-Hawk's organization recently completed a project in the state with the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office, reforming database systems and training staff to properly collect racial identity and tribal affiliation information for victims. And on the national level, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced a new unit earlier this year that would investigate the killings and disappearances of Indigenous people.

Advocates say such actions, however, are just a first step.

"There has to be money allocated. It can't just be a checkbox for some politicians [to say], 'We did this,'" Echo-Hawk said. "It has to be more than that."

The New Mexico Missing, Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives task force is still figuring out ways to solve missing cases. A big part of this is making sure a lot of these cases are known.

The MMIWR Task Force Project Coordinator, Jessica Gidagaakoons Smith said, “Family members who have share their stories of the issues that they have been facing or they have faced in the past and that is helping us to better formally ideas on legislation.”

In a 2017 report by the Urban Indian Health Institute, New Mexico is the state with the highest number of MMIW cases.

Smith said one thing to overcome is the attention that missing person cases get.

“It's crucial especially if somebody is missing today. Do you know if someone goes missing today I believe that it is very crucial to get any type of coverage of that missing person out,” Smith said.

Smith said the response for cases like Gabby Petito is far different from how MMIWR cases are investigated.

"It could really make a huge difference for our people. I meant she was found in like 8 days I think it was," Smith added. "We don't see that with many cases of our MMIWR."

Johnson's family hasn't given up hope

Johnson's sisters, Davis and Blouin, are trying to stay positive — though they're also mentally preparing for the worst.

They're heartened by all the people who have shared the poster with Johnson's picture on their social media accounts. They're asking everyone to keep their eyes out for a 5-foot-6, 115 pound woman with black hair and brown eyes, a sunburst tattoo on her upper right arm and a beauty mark on the back of her neck. And they want law enforcement to deploy every possible resource at their disposal -- because Native women deserve the same respect and compassion as anyone else.

"My sister is a wonderful person and we all love her dearly," Blouin said. "If you have any information, please just reach out to your local law enforcement, the Seattle FBI or the Tulalip PD. Bring her home. We miss her."

KOAT contributed to this report.

A Lake Tahoe area ski resort has changed its name, removing derogatory language from the 70-year-old resort's name.Formerly Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows, the resort has been renamed Palisades Tahoe, according to a social media post. The original name had a word with English roots that is considered a racial and sexual slur against Native American women."For more than a year, our community has been waiting, wondering and guessing what the new name for our mountains would be. Today marks the first day of the next chapter of our resort’s storied history. From our founding in 1949 and hosting the 1960 Winter Olympics, to the freeskiing pioneers and Olympians that put us on the map, the last seven decades have cemented our mountains’ place in the halls of ski history. While the name may be new, the legend and legacy of these valleys continue on, now as Palisades Tahoe," the resort's post goes on to say.Plans to change the resort's name had been in the works since August 2020. The move comes amid growing efforts nationwide to remove symbols of Indigenous oppression from public spaces.

CARLISLE, Pa. — The old photos show young faces; all of them are Native American children. They are the children of Carlisle.

“They would cut their hair immediately,” said Susan Rose, a sociology professor and author of a book about the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. “They weren't allowed to speak their own languages when they came here. They would take off their clothing and end up in military garb.”

Starting in 1879, over the course of four decades, nearly 8,000 Native American children ended up at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

It was the first off-reservation boarding school in the country and set the standard for hundreds of others that would follow.

Some of the students there were thousands of miles away from their homes.

“That's about as separated as you can be,” said Jim Gerencser, an archivist at nearby Dickinson College. “The purpose of the Carlisle Indian School was to turn Native American children and young adults into white, Victorian-era children of America.”

It was a philosophy pioneered by the school’s founder, former U.S. Army General Richard Henry Pratt. His image remains engraved on the site of the former school, which is now home to the U.S. Army Barracks in Carlisle. Back in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, though, the school was well-known.

“Carlisle is in the public eye because Pratt is operating his own kind of propaganda machine,” Gerencser said. “So, you see articles about Carlisle in the popular press all the time.”

Eight years ago, Gerencser and a team launched a massive undertaking: the Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center.

“The idea for the project was to digitize all of the known remaining records related to the Carlisle Indian School, and all the students who were sent there, and to make those documents easily discoverable and accessible online,” he said.

They found that the students came from more than 100 Native American tribes, from Florida to Alaska and nearly every state in between.

Some of the buildings of the former Carlisle Indian School now make up the U.S. Army barracks and are still in use today, like a gymnasium, which was built by the very Native American students who were forced to attend the school.

One of the school’s earliest students was Robbie Paul’s grandfather. He was 10 years old at the time.

“When he arrived at Carlisle, he had his Nez Perce name: Black Raven,” she said. “And while he was there, Pratt changed his name to Jesse Paul, and that's how we have the Paul family name.”

The experience for her grandfather and others wasn’t pleasant. Children were punished if they spoke their native language. Yet, Robbie Paul’s grandfather held on.

“Even though he's there eight years at Carlisle, where you're punished for speaking the language, somehow he hangs on to his language because he still speaks Nez Perce eight years later and comes back home to the reservation,” Paul said.

Not all the students came home. At least 235 children died at the Carlisle School.

“In some communities, those stories are really told, and in other communities, there's been a great silence,” said Susan Rose, co-author of Carlisle Indian Industrial School: Indigenous Histories, Memories, and Reclamations. “This isn't just Native American, American Indian history. It's part of our history.”

From the 1870s until the 1960s, there were more than 350 taxpayer-funded, and often times church-run, Native American boarding schools. The exact numbers of how many students attended those schools are hard to come by, but estimates range in the hundreds of thousands. Many experienced physical, sexual and emotional abuse, according to the National Native American Boarding School Coalition.

How many died within the entire Native American boarding school system across the country remains a big question. Now, there’s a formal effort to get to the bottom of it.

U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, whose department oversees the Bureau of Indian Affairs, is the first-ever Native American cabinet member.

Her grandfather also attended the Carlisle School and she recently ordered an investigation into the Native American boarding school system.

“It was a really complicated sort of philosophy and an experiment that now many would definitely consider as genocide,” Rose said.

The investigation’s goal is to get an accounting of what the children experienced, how many died at the schools and how many may still be buried in unmarked graves at the sites.

Recently, hundreds of unmarked graves of First Nations children were found at two schools in Canada, which had a similar boarding school system for Native children.

Just this month, the U.S. Army brought in a forensic team to disinter 10 Carlisle students buried in marked graves and returned them to their Native communities in Alaska and South Dakota. Those children had been previously buried in a cemetery elsewhere at the school, which was later moved to the current site in the 1920s.

“We looked at the cemetery and we looked at an area where the original cemetery was,” said Dr. Michael “Sonny” Trimble, an archaeologist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers archaeologist. “Most of the original cemetery is beneath buildings now. You know, time has moved on. We found no signatures.”

Time hasn’t moved on for everyone, though. Robbie Paul thinks about her grandfather often and says trauma like that can be felt through the generations.

“This is truth-telling,” she said. “It is acknowledging the harm, transforming history, to begin repatriation, before we can start to reconcile and reconciliation.”

It’s a reconciliation that faces a long road ahead in the search for answers.