While Episcopalians were on a May 18-22, 2025, pilgrimage to the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming, they visited the burial site of Sacajawea, the enslaved Lemi Shoshone woman who as a teenage wife and mother was an interpreter and guide during the Corps of Discovery expedition – led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in the early 19th century – from near St. Louis, Missouri, to the Pacific Ocean and back. Photo: Peggy Hotchkiss
[Episcopal News Service] The Episcopal Church in Wyoming hosted a three-day listening pilgrimage to the Wind River Indian Reservation, which is shared by the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes.
The pilgrimage, part of an ongoing partnership between the Ethete-based Northern Arapaho Tribe, was a continuation of the diocese’s efforts to recognize and reconcile its involvement in federal and church policies that have historically harmed the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes. The diocese operated at least three known Indigenous boarding schools in the 19th and early 20th centuries: Shoshone-Episcopal Mission for girls in Fort Washakie, St. Michael’s Mission in Ethete and the federally funded Wind River Industrial School.
During the May 18-20 pilgrimage, the 54 pilgrims – about 90% of whom were white Episcopalians from Wyoming – visited all three schools. Members of at least half of the diocese’s 46 congregations participated.
For the Rev. Roxanne Friday, Wyoming’s Indigenous Minister for Wind River Reservation, the pilgrimage “was all about truth-telling and what really happened.”
“We’re not hiding the truth at all. … It’s an important part of overcoming and healing from the past,” said Friday, who is Eastern Shoshone and the granddaughter of boarding school survivors. “It’s important for our children – to know who they are, where they came from and to be proud of who they are because of truth-telling.”
Friday serves the diocese’s two churches on Wind River: St. David’s Shoshone Mission on the Eastern Shoshone side, and St. Michael’s Mission, more commonly called Our Father’s House, on the Northern Arapaho side.
The pilgrimage began with an overview of the program and a reflection session led by Sarah Augustine, co-founder and executive director of the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery, and the Rev. Joe Hubbard, who leads the coalition’s Episcopal Indigenous Justice Roundtable. The coalition is a Mennonite Church-affiliated nonprofit committed to mobilizing Christian church communities to follow Indigenous leadership and seek reconciliation through nonviolence. The roundtable, which is made up of Episcopalians and Episcopal-affiliated groups, meets monthly to further the coalition’s work by learning and coordinating resources to address the needs of Indigenous land and water protectors nationwide.
“The leaders here in Wyoming have taken a conscious step towards joining Indigenous peoples and their efforts for self-determination and sovereignty,” said Augustine, who is Tewa and a member of The Episcopal Church’s fact-finding commission that focuses on researching and documenting the church’s historic involvement and complicity in Indigenous boarding schools. By design, the schools were meant to assimilate Native Americans into the dominant white culture and erase Indigenous languages and practices.
One step toward reconciliation occurred in October 2024, when the Episcopal Church in Wyoming returned a collection of about 200 tribal items that had been in the diocese’s possession since the 1940s. The repatriation of the cultural artifacts, which range from ceremonial headdresses and handcrafted women’s dresses to children’s toys and medicine bags, coincided with a broader nationwide movement to pressure museums and other institutions to return certain Indigenous items to the tribes where they originated.
On May 19, the pilgrims visited the site of the Shoshone-Episcopal Mission, which burned down in 2016. A gazebo now stands where the school used to be, and nearby structures established by the Rev. John Roberts, a Welsh Anglican priest and missionary, still exist, including St. John’s Chapel, the Church of the Redeemer and an active parish hall. Robin Rofkar, administrative assistant of the Eastern Shoshone Tribal Cultural Center, explained the sites’ historical significance to the pilgrims.
While in the area, the pilgrims visited Sacajawea Cemetery, which is a half mile from the chapel. The historic cemetery is the burial site of Sacajawea, the enslaved Lemi Shoshone woman who as a teenage wife and mother was an interpreter and guide during the Corps of Discovery expedition – led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in the early 19th century – from near St. Louis, Missouri, to the Pacific Ocean and back.
A historical marker at Chief Washakie Cemetery acknowledges the Episcopal Church in Wyoming’s “role in perpetuating the violence, ethnocide, and other systems of oppression through operation of Indigenous boarding schools on the Wind River Indian Reservation.” Photo: Bobbe Fitzhugh
They also visited the Fort Washakie School, formerly the Wind River Industrial School and the Chief Washakie Cemetery, where at least 25 known Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho children who died at the boarding school between 1884 and 1940 are buried. At the cemetery, the pilgrims joined tribal elders and community members for a ceremony and prayer service of lamentation and remembrance acknowledging Episcopal Church in Wyoming’s role in the children’s deaths.
During the service, a new historical marker was unveiled and dedicated, which reads:
“The Episcopal Church in Wyoming acknowledges our role in perpetuating the violence, ethnocide, and other systems of oppression through operation of Indigenous boarding schools on the Wind River Indian Reservation. We commit to truth-telling about these atrocities and the resulting intergenerational trauma. We repent of the brutal methods used to strip Indigenous peoples of language, cultural identity, and human dignity. Further, we seek healing with our Indigenous relatives.”
Friday, who is related to one of the 25 identified children buried at Chief Washakie Cemetery, said “many tears were shed” during the ceremony while Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho drummers performed. In their Native languages, they sang songs dedicated to the deceased children. The songs’ lyrics were about healing and of healing and souls moving on to their next journeys. A couple of members of the Episcopal Service Corps who are completing their year of service in Wyoming broke down crying as they knelt to sprinkle tobacco – one of the “four sacred medicines” along with cedar, sage and sweetgrass in Indigenous cultures that’s used for offerings and ceremonies – on each grave.
“In coming together collectively, we were able to set those children free,” the Rev. Joe Hubbard, who also is a member of The Episcopal Church’s Indigenous boarding schools fact-finding commission, told ENS.
Hubbard’s wife, Ashley Dobbs Hubbard, is Cherokee and serves as diocesan missioner for the Diocese of North Dakota.
During a ceremony and prayer service of lamentation and remembrance at Chief Washakie Cemetery on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming, members of the Episcopal Service Corps broke down crying as they sprinkled tobacco on the graves of at least 25 known Indigenous children who died while enrolled at Wind River Industrial School, a boarding school for Native American children. By design, Indigenous boarding schools were meant to assimilate Native Americans into the dominant white culture and erase Indigenous languages and practices. May 19, 2025. Photo: Bobbe Fitzhugh
After the service, the pilgrims toured the Eastern Shoshone buffalo enclosure, where the tribe, in collaboration with the Tribal Partnerships Program of the National Wildlife Federation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, successfully reintroduced buffalo to Wind River. Buffalo were mostly killed off in the 19th century because of overhunting, habitat destruction, the expansion of settlers and U.S. government policy aimed at eliminating Native Americans’ food supplies.
“Seeing what’s been accomplished up close was another holy moment for me on this pilgrimage,” Bobbe Fitzhugh, the Episcopal Church in Wyoming’s canon for mission, outreach and evangelism, told ENS.
The pilgrims then visited the site of St. Michael’s Mission and listened to elders and boarding school survivors discuss how the boarding school experience continues to harm Native American individuals and communities.
Local leaders also shared a redevelopment project of St Michael’s Mission property with the Episcopal Church in Wyoming. The property is a group of nine buildings arranged in a circle. One of the buildings, Our Father’s House, stands out as the only structure made of logs instead of rocks. A playground now stands where the boarding school used to be. A teepee-like concrete structure stands at the center of the circle. Redevelopment efforts include pavement repair and landscaping. A museum is also under construction. When finished, the cultural items the diocese returned to the Wind River tribes in 2024 will be kept on display in the museum.
After a full day of touring, the pilgrims gathered to reflect on the day’s stories and to answer why truth-telling is a crucial part of racial and cultural reconciliation. They also reflected on how to participate in truth-telling and continue reconciliation work in their communities. The day ended with a litany of hope and healing.
“As we were wrapping up, there was joy and celebration as we heard the vocalized commitment of many pilgrims to now engage fully in this process of restoration of relationship, land and community,” Augustine said.
The pilgrimage concluded on May 20 with talking circles with members of the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes, followed by final group reflections on identifying the next steps for relational reconciliation and prayer.
“I think this pilgrimage has opened up a lot of people’s eyes, and they didn’t know what part The Episcopal Church played in the way that things have turned out for Indigenous people,” Friday said. “But now we have a good group of people who are involved in trying to do the right thing to listen and learn what they can do to help with healing.”
-Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.