(gentle music) - Last spring, Tom and I attended the annual powwow held at the University of Minnesota Morris campus.

The grand entry is a site to behold, as people enter in their beautiful and colorful regalia.

There are drum groups and many dancers of all ages.

To me, it looks like the older people are teaching and passing down their knowledge to the children.

Today, we're going to meet Megan Bull Bear, who uses native plants from their traditional way at her Lakota Made business in Mankato.

- [Narrator] Funding for "Prairie Yard and Garden" is provided by Heartland Motor Company, providing service to Minnesota and the Dakotas for over 30 years.

In the heart of truck country, Heartland Motor Company, we have your best interest at heart.

Farmers Mutual Telephone Company and Federated Telephone Cooperative.

Proud to be powering Acira, pioneers in bringing state-of-the-art technology to our rural communities.

(bright music) Mark and Margaret Yeakel Jolene in honor of Shalom Hill Farm, a nonprofit rural education retreat center in a beautiful prairie setting near Windham, Minnesota.

And by friends of "Prairie Yard and Garden," a community of supporters like you who engage in the long-term growth of the series.

To become a friend of "Prairie Yard and Garden," visit pioneer.org/pyg.

(bright music) (bright music) - Powwows are a way to celebrate and honor the native and indigenous communities and culture.

An acquaintance, Jane Bartlett, told me about a business in Mankato named Lakota Made that uses plant materials to create products with knowledge of the native and traditional culture.

Well, you know me, I really wanted to find out more.

So I called the owner, Megan Bull Bear, and she said we could come to learn.

Thanks so much for letting us come to visit.

- Yeah, thanks for calling.

That was awesome, thank you.

- So tell me about your background.

- Well, I originally come from Milks Camp South Dakota, which is on the Rosebud Reservation, so South Central, South Dakota.

And everyone, you know, it's a really rural area.

And so I grew up, you know, my parents were going to school full time and working full time, and so I spent a lot of time with my grandparents and my uncles.

And if we didn't wanna get put to work, we were outside.

(laughs) So we chased horses and cows and we were outside.

Didn't matter the temperature or the weather, we were always outside.

And so in order for us to continue to stay outside, my uncle started teaching us about plants that we could snack on, plants for our bee stings and our bug bites and our poison ivy and things like that.

And so that's really where I got started on.

I was probably about four or five years old when that started.

My grandma, she also taught me about gardening and taking care of plants and things like that.

And then as I got older, I met my dad's side of the family who, they're very traditional in our Lakota culture.

And so my dad's grandma taught me the cultural uses of our plants.

- So do you have family members involved in your work now?

- Yeah, I do.

I have two of my brothers that work for me.

I'm the oldest and then my next oldest brother, he's here and he's our, I guess our general manager.

He takes care of all the problems (laughs) that arise with making and shipping and inventory and things like that.

And then my youngest brother, Michael, who's our shipping manager.

So yeah, they both work for me.

- [Mary] How did you end up in Mankato with your business?

- [Megan] Originally, my mom had double booked or triple booked herself and she asked if I would fill in for her at the Mahkato Wacipi as a educator for Education Day.

And so I was like, "Okay, I'll do that."

And so I came up here and I taught about women's regalia and I met Dave Braveheart who was, you know, the, the cultural liaison for the city and the powwow.

And so after I met him and he was like, "Well, you did great.

why don't you come back next year?"

And I was like, "Okay."

So a little bit later I got offered a job to help out with starting a recovery nonprofit program.

And so we got that up and going for a little while and then I became a stay-at-home mom for a little bit.

And while I was making salves and soaps like that for my family and my kids, my ex decided that I should start selling these things.

And I was like, "This is kinda weird 'cause everyone can make this stuff.

Everybody knows what this stuff is.

Everybody can do this.

It's really easy.

Why would I sell it when everyone can make it?"

He was like, "Nobody knows how to make this stuff.

Nobody knows what this stuff is.

Nobody knows what to go in their yard and look for."

And I was like, "Okay, well whatever."

So I ignored him for a while and then I made extra batch of salves and I put it on my personal Facebook page.

And that was the start of Lakota Made.

- So did you have to go through a lot of rules and regulations to start a business too?

- I had to do, you know, Minnesota law, I had to file the LLC and, you know, all that stuff of starting a business.

And then I did a lot of reaching out to other herbalists that I knew about, you know, what's the laws and regulations?

And they said, "Well actually, Minnesota has this law that as long as it's done within cultural uses and it's herbalists and you're not making any medical claims, you can go underneath this Minnesota law in practice."

And I said, "Oh, okay."

So that's what we do.

We also go along the lines with federal rules and regulations.

And so, which is just, we can't make any medical claims, we can't say anything cures, we can't say the C word, which is cancer.

We can't say so many things.

But the education piece about that is, is it doesn't matter what culture you come from or what country you come from, all these plants were all of our first medicines.

They were all of our first foods.

- Megan, what are some of the plants that you use?

- So we use a lot of what most people call common weeds.

And so we use a lot of broadleaf plantains, stinging nettle.

We use a lot of mullein and horsetail.

We use chamomile, we use arnica, we use a variety of different plants that people would call like common nuisances or common weeds that they usually just pull out of their gardens in their yards and spray.

And we also use dandelion.

So we use a lot of common plants that, you know, grow absolutely everywhere.

- [Mary] So when you have the plants, do you use the flowers or the leaves or what part?

- It depends upon what I'm making with it.

And so if it's a tea, it's commonly the leaves, the flower, the berries.

Sometimes, the root.

We also use some chaga mushroom.

And so it just depends upon what I'm making.

That completely depends upon the part of the plant that I'm using.

- So do you have to dry those plant parts before you use them?

- Sometimes.

If like we're in the warm season, then I can use fresh things, but we often get a lot of everything dried.

We usually dry it all out and then so we can save it and make things throughout the year.

- Would you be willing to actually show me or walk me through some of the steps of actually making a product?

- Yeah, absolutely.

(chuckles) (bright music) Yeah, so you caught us on a really good day.

So we have some plants that we need to process down and make some teas with.

And so this is kinda how things come in, is I harvested this out, actually by my parents' house and this is called leadplant.

And a lot of people have this in their gardens and things like that because when these flower, they have gorgeous dark flowers on them.

But this is also a sacred medicine for the Lakota and Dakota people.

And specifically Lakota 'cause we're considered buffalo people.

And when we are across the river, which we're now across the Missouri River, this is Dakota territory.

And so we're buffalo people and Dakota people are what we call berry pickers.

So they more harvest the berries and the plants and things like that.

But this is a sacred medicine for us.

It's used in a lot of our products.

It's used in salves.

It's a really good treatment for, you know, deep rashes, eczema, psoriasis, it's really good for tattoo salve.

Helps with tattoo drying and helping it heal correctly.

But as a sacred medicine, we use it a lot in our teas.

We use it in our smokables because a long time ago, a lot of these plants were best used smoked.

Smoking now has such a bad wrap because of tobacco and vaping and all those things.

But a long time ago, we used to use different plants and different combinations of plants for like headache relief, for anxiety, for stress, for coughs and colds and lung health.

And so this was a sacred medicine for us because we would use it in our pipe ceremonies to call the buffalo.

As buffalo people, everything that we had was from the land.

And so we would call the buffalo.

And when the buffalo would smell the burning of this plant, they would come and then they would select a buffalo that would be given to the people.

And then that buffalo would come out and then our hunters would shoot that animal and then we would let the other buffalo come around and mourn.

And then after they were done mourning, then our women would go down and they would harvest the buffalo.

And this is the plant that we would use in that buffalo ceremony.

- That is so interesting.

What are some of the other things you have?

- And so I have mullein and I harvested this out actually from our parking lot.

And so mullein, we take that down and we let it dry out fully and then we grind it down into this.

And so we hang this one upside down until it's fully dry and it's really brittle.

And then we take the leaves and then we crumple it down so that we can use it in our teas, our tonics, our smokable.

And then we run over to here to our elderflower that I harvested a few weeks ago.

And we just carefully take it off the plant and then we get it all off the plant and we take our shoe mac leaves and we crunch these down.

These we just hand crunch 'cause they're so brittle and they're so easy.

And so I go out and I harvest these leaves right before they flower.

And so that's where the strongest medicine part of it is.

Or the strongest potency that they have is right before they flower.

Because once they start to flower, then all the energy of the plant goes into that flower.

And so I want the strongest part of the medicine.

And so we take these all together and we grind them down, we process them, and then we put them in a bowl and we mix them for teas.

And so we have a base would be mullein 'cause we're gonna use this for lung health.

And then there would be an even amount of the lesser ones and that would make the recipe, so.

- So how did you figure out how much of everything to put together?

- Trial and error.

But then I also, I'm aware of how these plants work and how to use them.

And so when I make recipes, you know, whether it comes from a family or a customer request, think about it for a long time and like, what plants would be best for this person or for this purpose?

And then from there, I base my recipe off of that.

So if it's majority, just for like upper respiratory infections for lung health or something like that, then I'm gonna use the base of mullein, even though it's a really bitter plant.

But then I'm gonna add some elderflower in there for flavor to kinda help with that bitterness.

And so recipes are built for flavor and for purpose.

- [Mary] So how does a person like me use this if I buy it?

- [Megan] We blend it all together and then we sell it as a loose leaf.

So you would use a tea infuser and you would use it by cup.

And so you would take about a teaspoon or a tablespoon worth and then you would pour hot water over that.

You would let it steep for three to five minutes and then you would drink that.

- [Mary] What are these roots it looks like?

- So these are what we call bear roots or osha root.

And so this is a spiritual medicine that we use.

And this one comes from over in the mountain areas.

And this is a root that we use.

We don't use the flower, we don't use the plant, we just use just the root.

And if you can smell it, it has a very fragrant smell.

And so we use this one for sore throats as well.

So it's a spiritual medicine, but it's also something that we can use for sore throats, coughs, and colds.

- [Mary] How long do you store some of these until you can use them?

- [Megan] So as soon as they are dry and we process them down, they last in this stage, they last for about two to three years.

And then once you turn it into a product, then depending on the product that you make, whether it's a tea, a tincture, a salve, that has a different shelf life, once it's made into a product.

- [Mary] How many products do you make?

- [Megan] Almost 200.

- Wow.

- Yeah.

We don't have any magical machines or any magical processes.

We use everyday things like crockpots and roasters.

We use our hands, we use blenders, everyday kitchen items.

- [Mary] How often do you make a batch?

- About every other week.

I have trained in two makers.

I have had to take all of the recipes out of my head.

And I had a staff member, Emily, take them out of my head actually.

She followed me through these processes.

'Cause when she asked me to write down the recipes, I said, "I don't know."

(laughs) And so she had to learn how to make all my recipes.

And then she figured out the portions of them and how she wrote down the recipes 'cause that's not how my brain works.

I can't write it down 'cause I don't know but I can tell you I use that bowl and I use that cup and I use that crockpot and that's just how much it comes out.

And so she followed me for about a year and a half.

And then she wrote down the recipes as I made things.

- You sound like my mom when she was cooking.

Oh, this is about the right amount.

- Put it, right?

- Oh my gosh.

Okay.

When I was doing some research, I saw that you have what's called a buffer bar.

What is that?

- So the buffer bar, it has ground nutmeg in it and it's just really to help exfoliate the skin.

And so it's kinda like what we call, you know, a buffer.

So it helps take off the dead skin and it helps, you know, clear off the dead skin so that your skin is a little bit smoother now.

- [Mary] Megan, where do you source all of your plant materials?

- [Megan] A lot of it we have harvested around here or I have harvested around here.

And then once I am at my capacity for harvesting, then we have to reach out to other people that ethically source our plants.

Because ethically and sustainably sourced is really important because we don't want to over harvest our area because then that deeply impacts our ecosystem that we have.

And so when I feel like I've met my limit around here, then I reach out to other people, whether it's other farmers or other people that do this for a living.

And we make sure that they are sustainably and ethically sourcing our our products.

(jazz music) - I have a question.

I wanna help benefit pollinators in my yard.

What are some plant recommendations?

- That's a great question.

I'm really glad that there's been more of an emphasis on pollinators lately because that's really important for not just our gardens, but for nature in general.

There are a lot of fantastic pollinator plants that you can work with.

You don't have to go very deep.

Well, I always recommend native plants 'cause that's kinda my thing.

And Minnesota, being in the prairie, we have a lot of really great garden-friendly native plants that we can use.

Three really basic examples, blazing star.

I recommend that there's several blazing star species.

They can do well across a variety of gardens and they're fantastic for all kinds of pollinators, especially monarchs.

Monarchs love them.

And composites.

I'll talk about the aster family too.

It's kind of cheating because it's not just one plant.

There's a whole bunch of different aster family plants, including goldenrod.

People kind of poo poo goldenrod 'cause it's common all over the place, but it's a really good pollinator.

But all kinds of echinacea, all kinds of great composite aster plants.

And a really good thing about the asters too is in the winter, they'll often sit out with seed for birds.

So kind of a multi-season plant.

I also want to throw in a big plug for grasses.

Big bluestem is a really good bunch grass and bunch grasses are really important.

Pollinators don't use the flowers, so people kind of forget about the bunch grasses.

But pollinators need bunch grasses and a lot of other animals need bunch grasses and grasses in general for forage or for shelter.

There are places where they can set up their cocoons, set up their eggs, and have a place to hide from other larger critters that wanna eat them.

And they're grating gardens too.

They add a lot of interest, especially in the winter, but they're just add really nice structure to a garden.

- [Narrator] Ask the Arboretum Experts has been brought to you by the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chaska, dedicated to welcoming, informing, and inspiring all through outstanding displays, protected natural areas, horticultural research and education.

- Yeah, so we have close to 200 different products.

And so all of those are made and processed here.

They're shipped here.

So we kind of manufacture every single one of our products.

We started out with salves.

And so we have quite a few different salves.

This one right now, obviously it's our summer relief salve.

So basically anything summer bug bites, poison ivy, poison oak, bee stings, sunburn.

It's literally summer in a jar.

And so this, you can apply, just take a little bit, a little bit goes a long way, and apply to the area.

And it's a topical treatment.

So this is a salve.

So this is sunflower oil infused with different plants and organic beeswax.

And, you know, ethically sourced beeswax.

And so we have our salve line, we have our tonics.

And so our elderberry tonic is incredibly popular.

People love it for coughs, colds, immune system boosters.

Helps out with so many different things.

And it's elderberries and cinnamon and star anise and water and honey.

- [Mary] What is a tonic?

- And so a tonic is, it's a wellness drink.

And so it's also concentrated but not as much as a tincture.

And so this one you would just take like a shot glass worth or a tablespoon worth and you would just take it once or twice a day.

And so this one you can take for everyday wellness or you can take it when you've come and you know, you go out in public and all of a sudden, you hear someone coughing and you're like, "Ooh."

And you go home and you take a, you know.

You're like, "I don't want that."

And so you just take a couple tablespoons, you know, and that helps boost your immune system as needed or every day.

We also have our bath teas.

And so all across all cultures, bath teas were used because what's your biggest organ?

It's your skin.

And so your skin absorbs so much every day.

And we use bath teas for relaxation, for rejuvenation.

And it's an awesome self-care thing.

So you're taking the time out of your day to draw a bath and to make a bath with tea.

And so you use different herbs and you put it into a muslin bag and you put it in hot, hot water, you let it steep like you would a regular tea and then you jump in.

And so, it's an amazing relaxation.

It's a forced self-care.

It's something that people kinda, you know, forget about.

You know, everyone's so busy and all that other stuff.

And to really take the time to sit down and relax is amazing thing.

And so we have a lot of self-care products.

We also have different kinds of soaps and so we have shampoo bars, we use these, we put them in these little boxes.

And rose petal facial bar, it's one of our best selling products.

And it's just a facial bar you use once a day.

And it's really gentle and helps out with any type of skin, but it helps really balance the skin.

And then we have our infused oils.

So this is our hair oil.

And so, so many people ask, "What do you have to help with dry damaged hair or help with hair growth?"

And so hair oil, it just goes on the scalp or you can use it as like a hairspray or hair product replacement.

And you can help keep your hair in place.

You can also use it on your ends for dry damaged ends.

It's really multipurpose and it's really good for your hair.

There's no chemicals, there's no dyes, there's no added perfumes to it.

Everything that's in here has a purpose.

And, you know, we don't have any extra fillers or anything in like that in there.

We also have a wide range of infused honeys where we take different herbs or mushrooms or fungi and we infuse it into our honeys for different, you know, helps complement our herbal teas.

We have different blends of those.

We have some to help out with anxiousness or nervousness.

We have some that help out with sleep.

We help some that wake you up without caffeine.

And we have some for, you know, just general health and wellness.

So if you have a cough or a cold or you have a chronic illness, you mix it with our herbal teas.

And, you know, it complements, it helps with the flavor of it.

I'm a mother of five beautiful girls and they are turning into the teen era.

And so they're all about makeup and things like that.

And so I'm really scared about, you know, what their skin absorbs.

And so there's so many different makeup lines that are not made for the health of us.

It's just fast products, right?

And so I just started our makeup line, our natural plant makeup line, which is called War Paint.

And so, because you know, when I put my war paint on, you know, I'm going places.

And so, we've made a different blend of different eyeshadows that are plant-based or ethically sourced mica-based.

And so the mica powders are plant dyed and then we source those from a sustainable small business as well.

And then we use our plants to make different colors.

And so we have several different colors of eyeshadows.

This one is a bozi.

So we bring back our language.

We're using our Lakota language in a lot of our products.

And so kinda like language revitalization as well as teaching other people a little bit more about our Lakota history and culture in different ways that we use these plants.

And so this one has actually an alfalfa-based powder.

And so we use arrow root powder and that's literally, that's all that's in there.

And it goes on with either a lip oil, a face salve, for a binder, because we don't use any chemicals in our makeups.

And so we also have our lip oil that goes on as just a gentle gloss.

We have cinnamon, we have sage, we have bergamot.

We also have our Everything Face Salve because so many women come in here and they're looking for something for their skin, to, you know, help out with acne or blemishes or help out with dryness and things like that.

And so I just made an Everything Face Salve.

So instead of making 20 different products, I put 20 different products into one salve.

(laughs) - So how can people get your products?

- So we have close to 200,000 followers across our socials.

And so we use our social medias.

We have our website, we also have our store.

And so our store is located in Mankato, Minnesota and it's actually in Old Town.

And so if you know anything about Mankato, Mankato has a really dark history with indigenous people, with the Dakota 38 Hanging.

And actually my store, when I came up, the idea with having a physical store, I really wanted it to be in the area of where the Dakota 38 Hanging happened.

And so I'm just a couple blocks away.

And if you understand our with the dark history here of the Dakota 38, it's really, you know, when when I first told my grandpa I wanted to move here, he was like, "I don't want you to go there.

They don't like us there.

They don't like brown people there."

And so I was like, "No grandpa, I'm gonna go 'cause I met some really nice people.

I've been really welcomed."

And so I moved here.

And when I opened my store, my grandpa was like, "I'm gonna go there now."

(laughs) And so we have created a healing place.

And so a safe place for people to come and ask their questions 'cause, you know, our history and our culture isn't taught.

And so when people come in here, our language is everywhere.

We play powwow music, my kids wear our attire.

And we showcase and educate about our history and our culture here because Mankato doesn't have that.

And so besides the powwow that happens once a year, but we have created a permanent place where people from all over the United States, all over the world come to see our store.

And so we have people from Germany, from Italy that have signed our guest book that are like, "I heard about you.

I've heard about you online, I've been following you, and I wanted to come here."

And there's people that have planned their whole vacations to come to Mankato and see our store.

And so we have created a place for healing and for education and for cultural revitalization.

- That's gotta make you feel so good.

- It does, it does.

It's something that I didn't, you know, it's not something that I grew up saying I wanted to do.

But you know, when I moved here, I realized that there was a missing piece and that's our cultural education.

And so when I made Lakota Made, it was a dream to have a store.

And so, you know, our realtor, Dane Fisher, he worked really hard at finding our spot.

And actually, he had his business in here.

He had Bent River in here.

And when I didn't find the building that I really wanted that fit all of our needs, we sat down and had coffee here and he was like, "What about this building?"

And I said, "Yes, this would work.

And so, I gave him three months and he moved his entire business out of here for us, for us to have this store here.

And so he did an amazing thing and gave us this building.

- So do you go out and conduct classes and do outreach with all of your knowledge too?

- Yeah, and so when time allows, I do classes for MSU, I've done classes for Morris University and I've done classes all over southern Minnesota and I go as far as Omaha, Nebraska, back to South Dakota.

I do online classes when time allows or when people requested of me.

- This has been so wonderful.

Thank you so much for letting me come and learn and for letting us see all your beautiful products in your nice business.

- Yeah, thank you so much for coming.

It's really exciting having you here.

(bright music) - [Narrator] Funding for "Prairie Yard and Garden" is provided by Heartland Motor Company, providing service to Minnesota and the Dakotas for over 30 years.

In the heart of truck country, Heartland Motor Company, we have your best interest at heart.

Farmers Mutual Telephone Company and Federated Telephone Cooperative.

Proud to be powering Acira, pioneers in bringing state-of-the-art technology to our rural communities.

(bright music) Mark and Margaret Yeakel Jolene in honor of Shalom Hill Farm, a nonprofit rural education retreat center in a beautiful prairie setting near Windham, Minnesota.

And by friends of "Prairie Yard and Garden," a community of supporters like you who engage in the long-term growth of the series.

To become a friend of "Prairie Yard and Garden," visit pioneer.org/pyg.

(bright music)