Honored by the Crow Creek Tribe: CAN-DO's Eric Klein Takes Part in the Dakota 38 + 2 Ride

This year, Eric Klein was invited by the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe to take part in the Dakota 38 + 2 Memorial Ride — an honor that came after years of CAN-DO working alongside the tribe, supporting projects on the reservation, and building relationships rooted in trust, respect, and real action.

What Eric experienced on that ride — the land, the people, the ceremony, the grief, the strength — isn’t something you can easily put into words. But the video below helps capture it.

The Dakota 38 Ride is not a spectacle. It’s not a charity event.  It’s a pilgrimage — an annual journey of healing that stretches across hundreds of miles in the dead of winter, honoring ancestors whose stories were nearly erased.

What Is the Dakota 38 Ride?

The Dakota 38 + 2 Memorial Ride commemorates the largest mass execution in U.S. history.

On December 26, 1862, in Mankato, Minnesota, 38 Dakota men were hanged by order of President Abraham Lincoln following the Dakota War — a conflict fueled by broken treaties, withheld food rations, and systematic starvation of the Dakota people.

Two more Dakota warriors were later captured and executed, raising the number to 40, but the ride today honors the original 38 + 2.

For generations, this trauma lived in silence, carried only by the descendants who endured it. The memorial ride began as a way to confront that history, mourn those who were lost, and reclaim the narrative through ceremony and community.

Each December, riders travel on horseback from Lower Brule, South Dakota to Mankato, Minnesota — roughly 330 miles — in bitter winter conditions. The journey is about:

• Healing generational trauma

• Honoring ancestors

• Rebuilding cultural identity

• Praying for unity, sobriety, and renewal

• Teaching the youth the true history of their people
  

It is one of the most powerful acts of historical remembrance happening in America today — yet many outside Native communities still know nothing about it.