2009 Way Home Tour

Bringing the spirits homeThe 2009 Way Home Tour, consisting in part of two coast-to-coast youth bicycle relays, is intended to raise awareness of the intergenerational impacts of boarding schools on Native communities and to "promote the forgiveness of those responsible," he said.

Stopping along the tour at Indian boarding schools and at grave sites will be for "all the little spirits that are left there, to bring them back home" and to bring about acknowledgment from men to women and adults to children for shortcomings of the past, he said.

Letters about the tour will be sent to both presumptive presidential candidates, and the tour sponsors hope that June will be designated National Forgiveness Month.

The bicycle tour will begin May 16 at Chemawa Indian School in Salem, Ore., and, via northern and southern routes, is planned to stop at the following nine Indian schools: Stewart, Carson City, Nev.; Sherman, Riverside, Calif.; Phoenix, Phoenix, Ariz.; Albuquerque, Albuquerque, N.M.; Riverside, Anadarko, Okla.; Concho, El Reno, Okla.; Sequoyah, Tahlequah, Okla.; Haskell Indian Nations University, Lawrence, Kan.; and Wahpeton Indian School (now Circle of Nations School), Wahpeton, N.D.