What is true: in the late 1700’s, an eleven-year-old Shoshoni girl was stolen from her tribe along with Sacajawea and taken a thousand miles from home to modern day North Dakota. Her name was Naya Nuki. Unlike Sacajawea who was sold into a nonconsensual marriage to Charbonneau, Naya Nuki escaped and made her way home, alone, to her people.

What is also true: On August 5, 1805, Naya Nuki reunited with Sacajawea and their story was told in The Lewis and Clark Expedition Notes.

NAYA NUKI: SHOSHONI GIRL WHO RAN is a fictionalized account of Naya Nuki’s solo journey through the wilderness home to her mom and people. Along the way, Naya Nuki faces stampeding buffalo, snow storms, a bear, illness, and enemy tribes. She learns to trust her intuition in a snowstorm, to heal herself from sickness in a natural hot spring, and to trust the Great Spirit and her own perseverance and tenacity to guide her through 1000 miles of wilderness to her home. 

NAYA NUKI was my favorite childhood book. As a child, I believed I was Naya. I carried a swiss army life, I noticed the weather, I dug roots, I ate apples off trees. I knew I would have done the same thing Naya had done, I would have escaped and traveled and persisted and survived. And that belief implanted in me as a young girl integrated into my DNA as tenacity, resilience, loyalty and grit.

While nothing about my quest to see Naya on screen is about me, I share my story to show what Naya’s spirit, embedded in a young girl, can do to a person: I am a two-time Olympic medalist in women’s ice hockey as a goalie for the ’98 gold medal and ’02 silver medal winning teams. I grew up the only girl on teams dominated by men and boys, including our state championship winning high school boys teams, graduated from Dartmouth College and Stanford Graduate School of Business (MBA).  I am also mom to six-year-old twins Kalvin and Grace who arrived after years of miscarriages, infertility and gestational surrogates, and who just weeks into their own young lives survived evil when they were grievously injured by a serial international infant abusing night nurse. And yet here we all are, happy, more than happy. We radiate joy and love and gratitude to be alive in this beautiful world. I know my resilience was born in Naya’s story that then became my own. And is now becoming my children’s.

I am not alone in living a life inspired by Naya Nuki. The book has sold five million copies in seven languages since its release in 1980. Naya Nuki is the flagship book in a series of ten called the Amazing Indian Children Series written by Kenneth Thomasma. In 2015, we signed an option purchase agreement to make Naya into a film. Wild, Revenant, Alpha, all tell similar heroes journey. None has an inspiring young female protagonist. 

I am inspired by the possibility of what Naya’s spirit could do, rooted and expressed in children in this new era of empowerment.

I’m inspired by the changing definitions of girls. Ambitious, athletic, self-confident, self-possessed. Embodied grit. Persistent. Determined. Tenacious. Competitive. Soft. Sensitive. Intuitive. Spiritual. Open. Funny. Loyal. Capable. Inspirational. Creative. This is not being a tomboy. This is feminine. This is being a girl in the world today.

I am inspired by the vision of sitting next to my daughter Grace and watching Naya Nuki take root in her DNA, so Grace grows always knowing of what she is capable. Actually, I want two things, because I also want to sit next to my son Kalvin, and watch Naya Nuki take root in HIM, so he grows up knowing, embracing, and being drawn to powerful girls and women instead of threatened or intimidated. I want them both to define themselves and navigate the world according to their own inner compass, strengths and passions.

I am merely a conduit to connect Naya’s spirit with someone who can tell her story. I am not a film maker, but I see the vision, I see the outcome in my own life, I know what it is for a girl to believe in and live according to her unique and innate strengths, regardless of what the world thinks about it.

Naya Nuki’s story has the power to plant seeds of resilience, determination, inspiration, persistence, self-efficacy, self-effulgence, and self-sufficiency in all young girls; seeds that grow into powerful forces of capability, inspiration, and confidence.

Contact: nayanukifilm@gmail.com