BELCOURT - Turtle Mountain reservation families are featured in a new calendar that seeks to promote healthy living.

Dr. Angela Erdrich, a Belcourt pediatrician, produced the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Good Healthy Life calendar.

"A doctor can only do so much patient education in the office, one-on-one," she said. "My goal is to share positive health messages with a wider audience in a format that is catchy. As a bonus, I think the calendar helps promote community pride.

"A major message in the calendar is that we are our own best medicine," she said. "I hope this comes through on every page."

Erdrich, an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa and a native of Wahpeton, has been a pediatrician for Indian Health Service since 1997. She produced calendars twice on the Oneida Reservation in Wisconsin and twice on the Navajo Reservation in Chinle, Ariz.

"This is the fifth calendar I have worked on, and I think it is my best effort so far," Erdrich said.

The calendar includes articles focusing on aspects of healthy lifestyles, and photos of people who can be considered role models.

"I come across some wonderful families in my line of work, and when I spot someone who is a good role model, I sometimes ask if I can take their photo for use in a poster or the calendar," Erdrich said. "I wanted to illustrate to the public that there are plenty of local Turtle Mountain Chippewa people who are making everyday healthy choices."

Breast-feeding is one practice that Erdrich has sought to promote. Erdrich, who is still breast-feeding the youngest of her three children, designed the calendar cover to feature a young mother with her breast-fed baby.

Seeing the familiar faces of tribal people brings the issue of healthy living closer to home, said Marsha Azure, coordinator of the Honoring Our Health Diabetes Coalition, which backed the calendar project.

"It really instills a sense of pride," Azure said.

Along with providing information, calendars can, over the years, give tribal members a history of how healthy choices make a difference, she said.

"I see it as being very user friendly," she said. "Angie has just done a phenomenal job."

Nearly 10,000 calendars have been given away. Calendars went to students and staff of the Bureau of Indian Affairs schools on the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation and two other public schools in the county that have a high American Indian enrollment. Physicians at Quentin Burdick Memorial Health Care Facility in Belcourt have been giving the calendars to patients.

A large share of the calendar's funding came through the American Legacy Foundation, which provides money for tobacco control efforts.

"This is like a 12-month advertisement," said Logan Davis, the tribal tobacco control coordinator, who also contributed to the calendar. The Legacy Foundation and public health officials have praised the calendar, he said.

"All the way down the line, everybody is pleased. The feedback is so positive from the community," Davis said. "I like the comprehensive message and the fact that so many health organizations joined together in this project."

Erdrich's primary partner in the project was her husband, Dr. Sandeep Patel, also a pediatrician.

The calendar's title "The Good Healthy Life" comes from the Ojibwe phase Mino-bimaudiziwin. Ojibwe designs were scanned from Erdrich's sister's beadwork collection.

Erdrich said she would like to use more local beadwork, sculpture and quillwork images for next year's calendar, which already is being planned.

"We are all human and responsible for our own health," she said. "The traditional Native American viewpoint takes this one step further. There is a realization that people are also responsible to the community and to their relations - past, present and future. From this perspective, people might see their health as a precious community asset.

"We cannot afford to lose Native American visionaries and leaders to 'lifestyle' diseases," Erdrich said. "This is a preventable tragedy."