RRB’s Land Group collaborates with Indigenous peoples to broaden their access to lands in the Boulder Valley, ensure their input on city, county, and private land use and development decisions, and welcome their presence in their Boulder Valley homelands.
Criteria for Land Group
- Did you know that Boulder is called “the land where buffalo roam in the mountains”?
- Does this project support Indigenous peoples’ presence, access, ownership and/or influence on land in the Boulder Valley?
- Does this project support requests made by Indigenous peoples?
- Does this project provide means to build relationships between Indigenous peoples and Boulder Valley’s current population?
- Is this project within the capacity of the Land Group to carry out?
Land Group Specific Goals:
The Fort Chambers site in Boulder is developed and managed with the guidance and direction of the Arapaho and Cheyenne nations as a place of honest reckoning with Boulder’s history and a place to practice right relationship with Indigenous peoples today.
Our statement on Ft. Chambers decision by OSMP.
Cheyenne-Arapaho Cultural Enrichment Encampment 2024 Report
Cheyenne-Arapaho-Culture-Enrichment-Encampment 2025 Report
Work collaboratively with OSMP, NIST/NOAA/federal government, local residents, and the National Forest for Indigenous access (both tribal and local) to land for gathering of Native plants for food, medicine, and sacred ceremonies.
Work collaboratively with OSMP on opportunities for tribes with whom the City/County of Boulder have Memoranda of Understanding to provide the people of Boulder with information about their tribes culture, language, history, and other information through audio/visual information on OSMP trails.
Land Group Contact
Contact Laurie Rugenstein at lrugenstein@gmail.com
In this photo on Dec. 27, 2019, an entrance sign is shown at the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site in Eads, Colo. This quiet piece of land tucked away in rural southeastern Colorado seeks to honor the 230 peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho tribe members who were slaughtered by the U.S. Army in 1864. It was one of the worst mass murders in U.S. history. (AP Photo/Russell Contreras)
Chokecherries were a staple food of the Arapaho people in the Boulder Valley.
The site of Fort Chambers is 63rd Street between Valmont and Jay Roads, Boulder.
Projects currently in progress
Cheyenne-Arapaho Culture Enrichment Encampment
Request for Financial Support:
The RRB Land Group, at the request of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, plans to offer annual Culture Enrichment Encampments that will provide an experience for Arapaho and Cheyenne youth with elders to learn about setting up camp and living in their homeland in the Boulder area.
The experience will provide youth with ancestral knowledge about Things such as identifying and cutting down trees for teepee poles, setting up camp, eating traditional foods and native plants, observing the evening sky and identifying Arapaho/Cheyenne constellations, hearing their ancestral stories, learning plains Indian sign language, shooting with bow and arrow, making arrowheads, identifying chert and obsidian, learning names of geographical landmarks, learning about mammals, birds, reptiles, insects about their medical knowledge and sacred ceremonies.
Equipment for the camping experience, housing, food, travel expenses as well as honoraria for the elders will be needed. Additionally, we hope to record some stories, history, language, music, drumming, so that we can begin to put together an audio tour that will teach the people of Boulder and Colorado about the Arapaho/Cheyenne and other tribes who call Boulder and Colorado home.
We anticipate that the cost of this year’s program will be about $50,000 ($25,000 for the Arapaho Encampment and $25,000 for the Cheyenne).
We anticipate that any equipment we purchase can be used by both of the tribes, as well as the local Indigenous population.
Donate here, Indicate that your donation is for RRB Land Group Projects.
Fort Chambers Presentations
Contact: Paula Palmer – Chair
Gathering Group
- Partnership With Wildland Restoration Volunteers
- Wind River Reservation in Wyoming – Grow Your Own
- Chokecherry gathering
Sacred Sites
Valmont Buttes, Haystack Mountain, Oldman Mountain – Overlap with Gathering Group
Interest in Land Reparations
We do not have an active subgroup working on rent because People of the Sacred Land – all local Indigenous Group are taking the lead on issues related to Land Reparations, and we are responding to their requests for support. They have been pursuing a fee on real estate transactions. Rick Williams is is conversation with tribes and is working toward making this a reality.