River Museum to Screen "Return to Makade'Ike" Film, Host Panel on Indigenous Land Return
DUBUQUE, Iowa – The National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium will host a screening of the short film “Return to Makade’ike,” followed by a panel discussion on Indigenous land return, on Thursday, Dec. 10, in the museum’s 3D/4D Theater in the Diamond Jo National River Center building.
The event is free and open to the public, and no registration is required. Doors open at 6 p.m., and the screening and discussion begin at 6:30 p.m.
“Return to Makade’ike” is a 16-minute film that follows the return of a waterfront retreat center from the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration to the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians. As sisters and Tribal members gather for ceremony, they reflect on the significance of the historic moment — the first rematriation of Catholic-owned land to a Tribal Nation as an act of repair for colonization and running an Indian boarding school — and the journey of reckoning and relationship that brought them there. The film was completed in September of this year.
The property, the Marywood Franciscan Spirituality Center on Trout Lake in Arbor Vitae, Wisconsin, was transferred to the Lac du Flambeau Band on Oct. 31, 2025. Makade’ike is an Ojibwe name for the lake. The nonprofit Land Justice Futures helped facilitate the transfer.
The panel will feature Sister Kristin Peters, Rubina Martini and Sikowis Nobiss, with Eric Anglada as moderator.
Peters is a vowed member of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, the community featured in “Return to Makade’ike.” A member of her community’s Truth, Justice, and Healing team, Peters says the most significant part of her religious life has been learning the truth about the impact of colonization and boarding schools and standing alongside Indigenous people and communities. She lives in Chicago.
Martini lives in central Wisconsin along the Tomorrow River and owns and operates Process, a sustainable general store in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. She is an Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska tribal citizen committed to her Baxoje community and a member of the Bear Clan (Fee/Banks). She is also of Umoⁿhoⁿ (Barada) and ᏣᎳᎩ (Cherokee Nation) descent. Martini is a 2026-27 Rural Regenerator Fellowship: Care, Safety, and Solidarity recipient.
Nobiss is Plains Cree/Saulteaux of the George Gordon First Nation in Saskatchewan, Canada, and grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She is executive director of the Indigenous-led Great Plains Action Society. Based in Iowa City, Nobiss and GPAS liberated 1.2 acres there in October 2025 for a Resilience and Innovation Hub, a publicly accessible space centered on healing justice, traditional ecological knowledge, community empowerment and movement building, with a focus on BIPOC, 2SLGBTQ, women and disabled folks.
Anglada lives and farms in southwest Wisconsin. He organizes with Land Justice Futures, Honor Native Land Fund and the Decolonial Repair Network.
This event is sponsored by Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Honor Native Land Fund, Land Justice Futures, Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Sisters of St. Francis of Dubuque.