BELCOURT, N.D. — After living in a windowless, concrete box for nearly 50 years, Leonard Peltier is discovering the little joys that come with being in a two-bedroom house of his own.

He can see the sun. He has a refrigerator, and a TV with more channels than he can count. He has his now-cherished recliner, the fancy kind that lays you all the way back and, with some navigating on a remote control, pushes you up and right out of the seat. It’s where Peltier, who just turned 81, is content to spend most of his days, nestled in with a fleece blanket as a home health aide brings him rounds of coffee.

“Trying to look for another word, but I can’t find any, so I’ll go with the same one: awesome,” said Peltier, a term he used repeatedly to describe his life over the past seven months.