Winona LaDuke has made it her goal to be the voice of her people and speak out against the destruction of Native American lands. She is a champion for Native Americans rights and various environmental causes, such as substituting fossil fuel burning with renewable energy sources, decommissioning uranium mines, and promoting overall ecological sustainability. Having traveled all over the US, she has gained a nation-wide audience and furthered the progress of her Native American contemporaries.
But we didn’t know all of that when we first started Seevak. In fact, we didn’t even know Winona LaDuke. As a team, we argued about the merits of various possible candidates, none of which were Ms. LaDuke for our website. We ended up dropping all those candidates because they just didn’t quite fit the vision we had in mind. However, when we discovered Winona LaDuke, we found all the qualities of a truly inspirational leader in her. Over time, we learned more about her and our interest grew. Who is this woman really? Why does she work so hard and go so far to accomplish these goals? What motivates Winona LaDuke? By reading about LaDuke and gathering data on her life, we got a faint idea of what drives her. Then, as luck would have it, we got a bonus perk. Winona LaDuke would be giving a lecture at Dartmouth, Massachusetts and we jumped at the chance of meeting this woman and talking with her. She proved to be a much more than an activist, a leader, and a voice for Native American interests.
Winona LaDuke is a brilliant and charismatic woman who speaks passionately about her beliefs and has deep convictions about what’s right and what’s wrong. Surprisingly, she’s more down-to-earth than black and white text would describe her to be. Meeting LaDuke was the final and strongest impetus that pushed this website to its completion. We hope to honor LaDuke and the incredible work she has done. She has reached out and touched the lives of so many, ourselves included, that we wish for her voice to reach one more: you.