Gary Besaw:
When we know that the land that we are on right now, that you're filming us on, anywhere in this whole Turtle Island, this whole North America — this came through an agreement, this has come through treaties, this has come through trust agreements that we know that the federal government has with us. And we want them to live up to their side of the agreement. It's disheartening to see that things might be treated different, and somebody or the government may need to be educated on this. But these treaties are the law of the land. People are here because we ceded this territory in exchange for what is in the treaties, and what we had received and should still be receiving. So, yeah, it's disheartening. I struggle with others who are not Native, who also were producers that we worked with. When the LFPA was gone for them, and they might have gone through other Wisconsin entities, they may not have had something to fall back on, you know? And we've had them calling us saying, "Do you need product?" We started under the premise that the 2025 LFPA was going to be awarded. Well, that meant I could buy a new packing wash, or I could buy new fencing, and they went ahead and made different types of purchases, and then found out that the award was gone. So now they have a tractor or they have other implements or equipment that they have leases on, or that they had purchased, and now they're struggling to pay for them. I mean, it's reality, and the best we can do is say, "Well, how do we make the best out of this?" You know, it is what it is, but we know we've been through terrible times as Native people. And this isn't even the worst, at least so far that I know — but it's bad — but we'll just keep going, we have no choice.