Native and First Nation tourism is booming across North America, and part of what's propelling this trend is the conversion of ancient trails into modern biking, hiking and rafting routes.

In May of 1877, Indigenous leader Chief Standing Bear and the Ponca Tribe, who resisted relocation to "Indian territory" in Oklahoma, were marched there at gunpoint by the US Calvary 500 miles from their home in Nebraska. By the time they arrived, it was too late in the year to plant crops and the tribe faced a harsh winter. As a result, one-third of the Ponca died (including Standing Bear's son and daughter) and nearly all the survivors were sick or disabled.

Standing Bear returned to Nebraska to honour his son's last wish and bury him there, but was soon arrested for leaving the Ponca's newly designated reservation. In his landmark 1879 trial, the chief poignantly convinced the judge that, despite the US government's argument that Standing Bear was neither a US citizen nor a person, Native Americans were entitled to the same rights as other Americans, and he was released.

Stopping in the small town of Beatrice in south-eastern Nebraska, I stood on the Chief Standing Bear Trail, a 22-mile limestone track that twists and turns with the Big Blue River. The trail traces ancient Native American hunting and trading paths and marks the beginning of the route the Ponca were later marched on when removed from their homeland. As I looked out on the trees and farmland, I tried to imagine the gravity of their journey.

The story of the Ponca underscores a stark but often-overlooked truth, that many of the trails we hike or bike in the US today were originally forged by Indigenous hunters and traders centuries earlier. When their lands were taken, federal and state governments turned some of these trails into roads and railways. (The Ponca's Trail of Tears route, for instance, later became a now-defunct part of the Union Pacific railway line.)

But in recent years, tribes, states and organisations like the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy have been converting these Indigenous tracks into modern bike and pedestrian routes, and breathing new life into them in the process. As Native groups are creating more slow tourism opportunities (such hiking, cycling and paddling) on their land or in areas strongly connected to Indigenous history, tribes are increasingly reclaiming their ancestral spaces.

"All these trails were trails that were here before, and most trails throughout American Indian country that people are using now for slow tourism, were our trails, wherever you go," said Judi gaiashkibos, the executive director for the Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs and a Ponca Tribe member. She explained that the deed to the Chief Standing Bear Trail now belongs to the Ponca, and educational kiosks and signs along the route help tell their history. Gaiashkibos hopes to attract travellers "to come hear new stories, to slow their lives down and to be connected to the land".

Indigenous tourism is growing across........

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