National Native News

Current rules defining how the Colorado River is to be shared by 40 million residents in the West will soon expire. The seven Basin states had until Tuesday to negotiate those new guidelines. As KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, no deal was struck. States still cannot come to terms, leaving tribes lost in the shuffle. Daniel Cordalis (Navajo) runs the Native American Rights Fund’s Tribal Water Institute. He believes the Bureau of Reclamation’s deadline is arbitrary. “If it means anything, maybe the federal government is going to step in and start throwing some weight around.” When no Reclamation nominee has been tapped to replace President Donald Trump’s old pick, Ted Cooke. Beyond the bickering Upper and Lower Basin states, there are 30 federally recognized tribes stuck in the middle of a decades-old debate on how best to divvy up the water, while keeping the ever-dwindling river flowing. “They have to try to come up with ideas that are doable and that will benefit the entire system – not just tribes and I hope none of that is compromised by this deadline coming and going.” Alaska Federation of Natives President Ben Mallott and about 100 other tribal leaders were in Washington D.C. last week, and had a brief visit with Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday. KNBA’s Rhonda McBride has more. President Mallott said it was a good step forward to be invited and is looking forward to more engagement next year. Vice President Vance gave a brief presentation on the potential for economic development in Indian Country, including manufacturing. Principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, Chuck Hoskin, Jr., said it was good to hear the vice president focus on things that could be done in Indian Country. Months before a storm devastated parts of Western Alaska, a federal agency canceled a grant that would have helped protect one of the communities from flooding. The Alaska Desk’s Alena Naiden from our flagship station KNBA has more on what that money could have done for the village of Kipnuk – and what lies ahead for the community. Rayna Paul is the environmental director for the village of Kipnuk. Her house was one of many that was swept upriver during the historic storm last month. “We were so not ready. We were so not prepared.” Paul says the community now needs time to heal and rebuild. The remnants of Typhoon Halong devastated about a dozen villages in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. Months before the storm, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency canceled a $20 million dollar grant that would have helped Kipnuk protect infrastructure from flooding. Paul says Kipnuk has been losing more than 10 feet of riverbank each year. “We’re facing erosion. The sea level is rising. The permafrost is melting.” Paul spent months applying for funding through the EPA’s Community Change Grants program. But the Trump administration terminated the program in May, in a broader effort to roll back environmental justice funding. The decision is at the heart of the lawsuit that Kipnuk signed on to this summer. In August, the court denied a motion to block the program’s termination. The plaintiffs appealed that decision. Sheryl Musgrove is with the Alaska Institute for Justice. The organization helped Kipnuk secure the EPA grant funding. “This was a chance for the federal government to finally show that they cared and that they were willing to invest in this small community in remote Alaska, and they took it away.” EPA press secretary Brigit Hirsch said that the funding would not have prevented destruction in the community. “While partisans on the left would apparently prefer to have seen those precious tax dollars washed away, EPA now has the resources available to ensure the money is spent appropriately and wisely.” Musgrove says the first year of the grant was meant for planning and the construction of the revetment would not have begun by the time of the storm. She says that the first phase would have also included hazardous waste removal from the bank. “Now that’s in the river and the Bering Sea.” Musgrove says she hopes the devastation of the storm highlights the needs of villages like Kipnuk and helps them mobilize resources for finding long-term solutions.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling  

Photo: Janice Talas-Denny (Hopi), the tribal veteran support coordinator at Televeda, installs a Starlink at New Pascua on October 2, 2025. (Gabriel Pietrorazio / KJZZ) Without reliable internet, it’s tough for veterans to apply for and access financial and health benefits, including mental care. But as KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, a Phoenix-based telehealth company and the Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services are partnering to help better equip those living on remote tribal lands. So far, Janice Talas-Denny (Hopi) with Televada has so far delivered 16 military-grade kits containing Starlink satellite internet systems – at no-cost – to over a dozen tribes across Arizona beginning this year in Parker. “If I can do this, anyone can do this.” Her latest stop, New Pascua, is just on the outskirts of Tucson, Ariz. “It’s a hot day today. We don’t want to be out here too long.” Fortunately, it takes only ten minutes, she says, for the satellite hookup once they figure out which direction is north. Along with her is Dylan Dalzotto on behalf of the Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services. “Let’s start with 50, see where it goes and here we are rather quickly, excited to get the rest of them out there and a big roadblock for a lot of vets is the internet connectivity.” Even for the Pascua Yaqui Tribe. “And a lot of times, they’re not.” Carmen Rivera is the tribe’s veterans benefits counselor and often travels to the Mexico border, meeting with tribal members living off-grid. “And when you give them, you know, information, whether it be off this system, or you give it to them in paper, they like that.” U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin (Cherokee/R-OK). U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin (Cherokee/R-OK) is facing criticism for an exchange during a recent hearing on federal recognition for the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina. He’s accused of racial stereotyping based on looks. Correspondent Matt Laslo has the story from Washington. Sen. Mullin is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation, but that doesn’t give him a pass with tribal leaders. During a recent hearing over whether or not to recognize the Lumbee, Mullin offended many with his exchange with Principal Chief Michell Hicks of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, which referring to the Lumbee packing the hearing room. “You can’t look over there and say they’re not Native. I mean, turn around and look — and you’re telling me they’re not Native?” Chief Hicks: “I’ve seen the crowd” Mullin: “Okay. And you’re saying that that’s not Native faces?” Hicks: “That’s not for me to determine. That’s for the [Department of Interior’s Office of Federal Acknowledgment] (OFA) process…” Mullin: “No, but we are determining it.” U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) has garnered praise across Indian Country for calling Mullin out. “It’s just like my frustration with this administration giving authority to [the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] (ICE) to pull anybody over just because they have brown skin and claim that they’re undocumented somehow. It’s wrong, and I don’t want to be put in a position like that.” Mullin brushes the criticism aside. “I don’t care if I’m doing what is right. The Lumbees deserve to be recognized.” A 2022 Congressional Budget Office study estimated it would cost just over $90 million a year to recognize the Lumbee. Mullin says concerns raised by other tribes over the cost of enrolling the Lumbee coupled with debates over gaming are misguided. “I’m serious. It doesn’t make any sense. And if you’re going to start talking about gaming — which most of these arguments are about, is gaming — shame on you, because now you’re putting profit over Native people.” While North Carolina’s two Republican senators are pushing the Lumbee Fairness Act, which would recognize the tribe federally. Sen. Cortez Masto says that’s a decision best left up to nonpartisan officials within the Interior Department. “I am not equipped to make that determination, and that’s why that was set up that way. It’s evidence-based. I rely on it, and I think I was very clear about it.” President Donald Trump has promised the Lumbee federal recognition.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Tuesday, November 11, 2025 – Native American veterans create valuable avenues for connections with fellow Native vets

On Tuesday, Canadians will pause for Remembrance Day to honor those in the military who died serving their country, as well as those still serving. But as Dan Karpenchuk reports, special ceremonies were held over the weekend to honor Indigenous members of Canada’s military. It’s Indigenous Veterans Day and has been commemorated since 1994. Indigenous members of Canada’s military shared their stories at ceremonies across the country. In Ottawa, Defence Minister David McGuinty addressed one ceremony. “Throughout our history, First Nations, Inuit, and Métis members have served with exceptional bravery and distinction in the Canadian Armed Forces. They have fought, endured, and sacrificed in our name. From Vimy to Dieppe, from Korea to Afghanistan, Indigenous service members have demonstrated extraordinary skill, courage, and devotion to duty.” Indigenous Veterans Day came about because many of those veterans were not given the same benefits as their non-Indigenous peers. Ray Deer is the president of the Quebec’s only First Nations-operated Canadian Legion. He says people need to know about the contributions made by Indigenous members of the military. “I think by joining the military it gives us a voice. It gives us a voice that can be heard amongst the Canadians and the Americans because they know we served alongside them. Without doing that, without serving alongside them, you’re more than invisible, we are invisible as it is, but it would be worst off if we did not participate.” Other Indigenous veterans say the gained respect from military colleagues for their character and their ability as soldiers, but some say the camaraderie vanished when the fighting was over and there was a return to Canada. The federal government says more than 4,000 Indigenous people served in the military in the World War I and 3,000 served in the World War II. Recently, the government acknowledged the unfair treatment of Indigenous soldiers where many thought their rights and standing would improve when they returned home, but as efforts towards reconciliation gained momentum in recent years, there was more effort to recognize Indigenous veterans and their contributions. Menominee Tribal School hosted its Veterans breakfast event on November 7, 2025. (Courtesy Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin / Facebook) A tribal school district in northeast Wisconsin says the government shutdown has impacted federal funding it relies on for salaries, supplies, and student programming. Judith Ruiz-Branch has more. The Menominee Indian School District is one of about 20 school districts in Wisconsin receiving Impact Aid funding. The program provides support for public schools on federal lands. Marcus Denny, superintendent of the district, said they have limited access to local tax dollars due to a small taxable land base, so program funds cover about 40% of their budget. Payments have not gone out because of the government shutdown. “That’s impacted our budget big time. We’ve had to move around a lot of funds from our general fund. We had to seek a line of credit with our bank to help meet operational needs. It’s impacted us heavily.” The district serves about 1,000 students and Denny pointed out many of them come from high-poverty backgrounds. He noted food assistance cuts due to the government shutdown are also having broader community effects as many students do not have adequate access to food at home. Denny stressed community organizations and the tribal government are working together to support local families by stocking food pantries and soliciting donations to send home with students. He added school staff are also using personal resources to provide for students in need. “We’ve had classroom teachers at our elementary school put things together for kids to take home on the weekends if there was any inclination of any type of food shortage for them or anything.” Denny emphasized the Impact Aid office has been in frequent communication with districts throughout the government shutdown and has informed them payments will be processed once operations resume. Despite concerns about resources becoming increasingly scarce should the shutdown continue, Denny underscored he has confidence in his community. “The Menominee people and Indigenous people in general are very resilient and we’ve faced challenges for years with the government. This is just another bump in the road for us, and we just continue to do what’s best for our kids and our community.”   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Monday, November 10, 2025 – Vermont tribes defend their identity against scrutiny from across the Canadian border

Photo: Challistia Colelay, who went by “Tia,” was a 16-year-old Apache teen and went missing on October 16, 2025. (Courtesy Lula Mae Colelay / Instagram) The mother of an Apache 16-year-old who’s been missing since last month says her child’s remains were discovered by tribal and federal police earlier this week. As KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, it comes after the state recently named a new alert system in honor of another Apache teen, Emily Pike. Challistia Colelay, who went by “Tia”, disappeared in mid-October. No Turquoise Alert had been issued, but on Monday, authorities discovered human remains in Navajo County near the Knots Landing community in Whiteriver on the Fort Apache Reservation. Authorities asked for help in trying to identify the body by releasing physical and clothing descriptions. Soon after, Tia’s biological mother confirmed on social media that her daughter was found. The investigation is being handled by the White Mountain Apache Police Department and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Fort Apache Agency. The BIA Missing and Murdered Unit is also involved. Renee Ciugun Avugiaq teaches Yugtun in the early grades, where children learn numbers, the days of the week and month, and vocabulary for the weather, colors and basic words. Children take turns pointing at numbers on October 30, 2025. (Photo: Matt Faubion / Alaska Public Media) It’s not easy for a school to take in 70 students at once, but a school in Anchorage has done just that. It has opened its Yup’ik language immersion program to children, whose families were forced to move to the city after hurricane force winds and floods devastated coastal villages in Western Alaska last month. As KNBA’s Rhonda McBride tells us, the school feels warm and welcome to the students. The day at College Gate starts just as it did back home, with the Pledge of Allegiance, recited in the Yup’ik language, or Yugtun. When College Gate Elementary School began its Yup’ik immersion program eight years ago, it had just one kindergarten class and added a new grade every year. Now, it is a tight-knit family that just got bigger. The new students play hard at recess. The school’s daily routine seems to help them feel more grounded, something that’s hard to do when you’ve lost everything. “I just felt like my house moved to the ocean.” Ellyne Aliralalria says she feels safer since she moved to Anchorage. She and her family were inside their home when the flood carried it off. “The house spinned really fast. And we were like going down to the river. We stopped. We hit something really hard. Two times. And my living room window broke.” It’s a nightmare, that Ellyne says her new friends at the school are helping her to forget, friends like Lilly Lowen. “After something so big happening, they’re still so, like, cheerful and they’re so friendly. They’re just so fun to be around. I’m really glad they’re here.” Lilly says this experience has been an opportunity to learn about something larger than yourself. “It makes me feel like I could be doing more to help, even though I’m a kid.” But simply being a kid may be a bigger help than Lilly realizes – to share jokes and play games like Boop. In Boop, you tag people on the nose – and then, they’re it. Add some pig snorts and you get a real giggle fest going.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Friday, November 7, 2025 – Native Playlist: PIQSIQ, Blaine Bailey, and LOV

Some tribal leaders are supporting a proposed bill that could expand sports betting in Wisconsin, as Chuck Quirmbach reports. About three dozen states allow some form of sports betting, but in Wisconsin, the only legal way to place a wager on a sporting event is at some tribal casinos. Proposed legislation would allow Wisconsin tribes to operate computer servers and other technology, so that sports gamblers could be anywhere in the state and place a bet online. Attorney General Jeff Crawford of the Forest County Potawatomi testifies at a Wisconsin legislative hearing November 4, 2025. Jeff Crawford is Attorney General of the Forest County Potawatomi. He told a legislative hearing that allowing tribes to offer more sports betting would encourage gamblers to turn away from using illegal and unreliable, off-shore betting firms. “While online gaming is currently the Wild West in Wisconsin, with no regulations or protections for consumers, it does not have to be.” Kyle White Eagle is a tribal legislator for the Ho-Chunk Nation. He says his tribe provides a lot of services across a wide geographic area and needs additional gaming revenue to better tackle problems like poverty and opioid addiction. “Giving tribes in Wisconsin the right to conduct mobile sports betting isn’t going to solve these problems completely, but it will help significantly and it will be funding well spent.” But a coalition of national commercial sports gambling firms, including Draft Kings and FanDuel, opposes the Wisconsin bill. Attorney Damon Stewart of the Sports Betting Alliance says gamblers would lose out if, legally, they could only go through the tribes. “Unfortunately, this bill would not result in a competitive market for sports betting that provides consumers with choice.” If the mobile sports betting bill passes in Wisconsin, it would still take time for the state to renegotiate gaming compacts with the tribes, and for the U.S. Interior Department to approve the gaming expansion. An Arizona tribe is giving its members some financial relief, as the federal government shutdown continues impacting programs like food assistance. KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio has more. The Gila River Indian Community is calling them general welfare payments – one-time $1,000 disbursements for each 18-year-old tribal member regardless of whether they’re a SNAP recipient. That decision came on Saturday during a special council session called by Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis. “We want to make sure that, as a sovereign nation, we take care of our members during this unprecedented shutdown. I hope that this payment brings some peace of mind during this time of uncertainty at the federal level.” Lewis urges his tribe, south of Phoenix, to plan for the long haul. “So please, use or set aside for your food needs, to pay bills and to add some measure of economic security.” Lumbee Chairman John Lowery testifying before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs on November 5, 2025. The chairman of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina says he’s confident that this year, full services and benefits will be extended to his tribe. Chairman John Lowery made the remarks Wednesday during a legislative hearing on the Lumbee Fairness Act, which would grant the tribe federal recognition. Lowery says his tribe has long sought federal status. “I’m a descendant of Solomon Locklear, Sr. one of the 44 tribal leaders who in 1888 petitioned Congress to recognize the Lumbee Tribe … today, 137 years later, I stand before you once again to advocate for justice and equal treatment through full federal recognition.” Wednesday’s hearing in the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs also included opposition. Leaders from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians of North Carolina and the Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma testifying against the bill. While Lowery submitted a list of tribal support, and testified that nearly all of North Carolina’s Congressional delegation backs the bill. President Donald Trump, in a statement this week, issued his support of the Lumbee Tribe.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App to get breaking news alerts.   Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Thursday, November 6, 2025 – Australia provides a promising model treaty for Indigenous recognition and self-determination

Photo: Craters as a result of underground nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site. (Courtesy National Nuclear Security Administration) President Donald Trump wants the Department of Defense (DOD) to resume nuclear weapons testing immediately. He instructed DOD to “immediately begin” nuclear weapons testing last week. As KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, that directive has been sending shock waves around the West. Details are scarce, with the Pentagon pointing KJZZ to Truth Social – adding nothing more at this time – when asking for additional information about Trump’s post he made while overseas moments before meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Prior to a moratorium imposed by Congress in 1992, the U.S. conducted more than 1,000 nuclear tests – mostly done at the Nevada Test Site – even hundreds of above-ground detonations. Daryl Kimball is executive director of the Arms Control Association. “We can’t fully rule it out, that would be extremely provocative. No other country in the world has conducted a nuclear test explosion in this century – except for North Korea.” Along with the Soviet Union and Great Britain, the U.S. signed the Test Ban Treaty of 1963, prohibiting any atmospheric nuclear weapons tests as well as those in outer space and under water – excluding underground explosions. Craters as a result of underground nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site. National Nuclear Security Administration/Nevada Site Office Believing “there’s no technical or military need to resume testing,” Kimball fears Trump’s order could escalate a new arms race on the global stage against foreign foes, like Russia and China. “I don’t think people need to fear mushroom clouds on the desert floor outside of Las Vegas, but the very notion of resuming nuclear testing, in my view, is a disrespectful slap in the face to those who in the past have suffered from radiation poisoning from nuclear testing fallouts in the Mountain West.” Like Leslie Begay, a former Navajo uranium miner. He’s also a Vietnam veteran and cancer survivor, having a double lung transplant with 123 stitches in all – while relying on an oxygen tank since 2015. Two years ahead of what could be a final round of applications, allegations of predatory representation and solicitation are on the rise, and especially targeting tribal communities. “That was the hardest thing I ever encountered. These are some of the things that people are going to go through within a few more years. They gonna be facing the thing, there’s no cure for it.” Financial compensation for radiation exposure victims – uranium miners and downwinders – was revived this summer by Congress as part of Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.” Richmond Toolie looks for reindeer through his binoculars outside of Savoonga, Alaska on September 22, 2025. (Photo: Alena Naiden) Residents of St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea have traditionally subsisted on walrus, whales, and fish, but availability of marine resources has been changing, and reindeer have become a staple. Now, Savoonga is almost done building a meat processing facility that can turn it into a business. The Alaska Desk’s Alena Naiden from our flagship station KNBA has more. The Kookooligit Mountains, made of black volcanic rock, glistened behind Richmond Toolie as he rode his four-wheeler across the wet tundra outside of Savoonga. Ahead, the Bering Sea sparkled in the September sun. A third-generation chief reindeer herder, Toolie paused as he crested each hill to spot the animals through his binoculars. “All summer, there’s reindeer out here.” Marie Toolie pulls reindeer meat from her freezer in Savoonga, Alaska on September 23, 2025. (Photo: Alena Naiden) St. Lawrence Island sits a hundred miles west of mainland Alaska. It has two villages, Savoonga and Gambell. It’s also home to several thousand free-ranging reindeer. Reindeer were brought to the island after a devastating famine in the late 1800s. At least a thousand people died — some from recently introduced diseases, others from hunger as strange weather disrupted subsistence hunting. After the famine, a Presbyterian missionary brought reindeer to the island to serve as a reliable food source. Savoonga became a permanent settlement because of the proximity to the grazing grounds of the herd. Elder Larry Elaaq Kava remembers, “It was a long, long time ago. Sheldon Jackson brought in reindeer from Russia for survival. We might have another famine, and that helps.” Since then, reindeer herding and subsistence hunting together have kept people fed, But residents say hunting has been less reliable lately. Now, as the changing climate disrupts old patterns, residents are turning to a new, commercial reindeer processing plant to shore up the food supply and bring in cash. Toolie, like other Savoonga residents, hunts various animals for food. “Whaling, walrus, seal, reindeer, birds, fishing – all of it.” Riding across the tundra, he pointed out a whaling camp, fishing spo

Photo: Volunteer Tristan Pall packs food boxes in a truck bed at St. Mary’s Food Bank in Phoenix, Ariz. on October 30, 2025. (Shi Bradley / Cronkite News) The Navajo Nation is bracing for the gap in SNAP benefits. It’s yet another food insecurity problem for tribal members living on the sprawling reservation. KJZZ’S Gabriel Pietrorazio has more. With only a dozen or so stores in the Nation, buying groceries is already a daily struggle, but letting benefits lapse could make their dilemma much worse. A third of Navajo households depend on SNAP today. Thomas Cody is with the Navajo Division of Child and Family Services. “We’re 400,000 strong, and we can get through this together.” Meanwhile, the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma and Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. have declared a state of emergency. “Due to this federally imposed food crisis, we’re taking several actions.” Hoskin made almost $7 million available. As for the Navajo Nation, Cody says it’s unclear whether they’ll follow suit “We’re coordinating right now with our legislators and our executive branch, and I don’t know if it will be a declaration, but we’re exploring all avenues to assist our people.” On Monday, the Cherokee Nation announced the expansion of its emergency cash assistance program to all Cherokee Nation citizens on SNAP nationwide. The tribe says it will adjust payments as the federal government partially pays benefits in November. The deadline to apply is November 14. A totem pole representing the Sukteeneidí clan on October 14, 2025. (Photo: Clarise Larson / KTOO) In a recent ceremony, clan leaders and carvers dedicated the latest pole in Sealaska Heritage Institute’s Kootéeyaa Deiyí — Juneau’s totem pole trail. KTOO’s Yvonne Krumrey has more. Inside the clan house in the Walter Soboleff building, Sukteeneidí clan members stand in front of a large poster depicting a totem pole that represents their clan story. They offer thanks to other clans, carvers, and SHI leadership. The actual pole – called a kooteeyaa in Lingít – was raised near Juneau’s Overstreet Park, but organizers held the dedication inside due to weather. Edward Thomas is Sukteeneidí and he says he’s excited to see his clan join the handful of others already represented by the Kootéeyaa Deiyí. “As I look at the walk of the totem pole along the waterfront here, I’m proud to see that all of our clans are being represented,” Thomas went on to thank the carver, Lee Wallace, and his apprentices for the thought and work they put into the pole. Wallace is a Haida master carver and lives in Saxman. But he says this kootéeyaa is a part of his family’s legacy, too. “My great grandfather has a totem pole in the state building, Dwight Wallace. My grandfather, John Wallace, has a totem pole that was outside the city museum. So now, with this particular kootéeyaa pole, there’s three generations of Wallace totem poles standing here in Juneau.” Wallace was helped by apprentices, including his son Charles Peele. And Peele holds the youngest member of the carving team — his five-year-old daughter Jáadsangaa Elizabeth — as he describes the design of the pole. “And at the top, we have the current clan leaders. We want to acknowledge that this is representation of a living people. That this isn’t just something that’s from the past, this is something that’s tying history together. We often look at totem poles as things that are coming back from the past. And we wanted to add a piece that represents the present.” Below the current clan leaders, the pole features a spirit man, Raven, and a box that represents the abundance of knowledge and history held in the Sukteeneidí clan, whose homelands are near Kake. At the base is the clan crest — dog salmon swimming in tall grasses. The National Park Service funded this pole. SHI plans to raise a total of 30 poles along Juneau’s waterfront. So far, 13 poles have been installed.     Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.   Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Tuesday, November 4, 2025 – A new report finds tribes are most vulnerable during government shutdown    

Kodiak peer counselors, other staff, and volunteers with Kodiak KINDNESS are joined by new Northwest Arctic team members Nauyaq Baltazar and Frances Williams. (Courtesy Kodiak KINDNESS) In a historic moment, the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration have transferred land to the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. As Danielle Kaeding reports, it is the first known land transfer nationwide from a Catholic institution to a tribal nation in the name of reparations. The transfer aims to repair the painful legacy of federal Indian boarding schools. From the early 19th century until 1969, Native American children were removed from their homes and forced to assimilate. The Franciscan Sisters transferred its Marywood Franciscan Spirituality Center in Arbor Vitae to Lac du Flambeau. Araia Breedlove, the tribe’s spokesperson, says it is a significant moment. “Having this be the first time, as we know of at least, that any institution has given land back in regards to reparations, it’s rare that we see the acknowledgement of that hurt and the generational trauma.” Sue Ernster is president of the Franciscan Sisters. “We do see this as the beginning of deepening the relationship and really helping to heal our part of the trauma.” The Band purchased the property for $30,000. While the spirituality center was never a boarding school, the Franciscan Sisters ran St. Mary’s Catholic Indian Boarding School on the Bad River Tribe’s reservation in Wisconsin. Officials with the Lac du Flambeau tribe say they’re grateful for the Sisters’ kindness and willingness to acknowledge the hurt and trauma from boarding schools. The Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration have transferred its Marywood Franciscan Spirituality Center in Arbor Vitae to the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. It’s the first known land transfer from a Catholic order of sisters to a tribal nation. (Courtesy Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration) A Kodiak-based nonprofit dedicated to supporting families with newborns is expanding into the Northwest Arctic Borough. KMXT’s Davis Hovey has more on how Kodiak Kindness is helping families across Alaska raise babies. For years, “Nauyaq” Wanda Baltazar has been teaching infants in Kotzebue through a local program that serves children with disabilities or delayed development. It is the only such Infant Learning Program based out of a school district in the state. Baltazar says it is about helping kids from birth to three years old and their families around the Maniilaq service area, which covers 12 communities in Northwest Alaska from Kotzebue to Kobuk. “Working with birth to three, it’s always good about helping families, ensuring that they’re strong, supported. And any way we can support families and nursing moms to help their babies grow, I think is great.” Baltazar and Frances Williams, the local school secretary from Ambler, are bringing their experience working with children to Kodiak Kindness as they continue doing what they already do, but under the new title of peer counselors. Williams, who is known in her hometown as the “village mother,” says being part of the organization will give her more support and tools to do things she already does on a regular basis in the Northwest Arctic community. “Kodiak Kindness would be able to help because there’s a lot of things that I learned when we went to the trainings, yeah, things that we didn’t know. So all the training will be able to help, like I’ll be able to do my own mix with Kodiak Kindness and my Inupiaq traditions.” Williams says she uses native plants like stinkweed or spruce trees to make salves or other traditional medicines to help her friends, family and neighbors heal from the land. Aside from the traditional knowledge Williams has from her mom and aunties, she’ll also be able to help her community with assistance from a certified lactation consultant if she wants support virtually from the Kodiak Kindness team via telehealth. Kodiak Kindness’ two new peer counselors in the Northwest Arctic Borough come online this winter and hope to start enrolling families in the region early next year.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.   Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Monday, November 3, 2025 – The looming wildfire crisis in the Arctic

Photo: Wesley Dixon Jones and his daughter Mollyanne, in Mission, Oreg., Sunday, April 13, 2025. (Courtesy Mollyanne Jones) This weekend on the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon, volunteers will search for 71-year-old Wesley Dixon Jones, a tribal elder who’s been missing since October 5. As Buffalo’s Fire senior reporter Brian Bull explains, the search team is testing a device that the coordinator says could be a “game changer”. Kimberly Lining of MMIW Search & Hope Alliance out of Portland says AquaEye Pro bounces echoes off underwater objects then compares them to the “echoes” of a human body. “It scans one acre of water up to 180 feet about every 30 minutes. And that is what we are going to take down on the deep pockets of the Umatilla on our search. If Mr. Jones is in the water, this will find him.” Jone’s daughter, Mollyanne, is hopeful the device will deliver. “And also utilizing canines and divers to help locate my father. Right now, this is very, very important utilizing that resource.” Lining says her group is using the AquaEye on a trial basis. She hopes perhaps donors will cover the $29-thousand dollar cost of one they can use permanently. The government shutdown is delaying funding for a federal heating assistance program. In Alaska, thousands of low-income families use the program to offset their heating costs and to weatherize their homes for winter. Many of them are tribal citizens. The Alaska Desk’s Alena Naiden reports from our flagship station KNBA. The Alaska Department of Health said in a statement Thursday that the government shutdown has delayed the release of money for the federal Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program for the year of 2026. The program subsidizes energy bills for about 50,000 Alaskans, many of whom live in rural and tribal communities. Jennifer Hyde is a Federal Infrastructure Coordinator at the statewide nonprofit the Alaska Center. “It definitely benefits a lot of rural and tribal communities. Again, disproportionately, those communities are often low income or have different economic struggles.” For now, the state health officials say they are operating the program using the remaining money from the previous year. And that they expect that money to run out by mid-November. The department said it usually takes four to six weeks for the heating assistance funds to be released to states – after the shutdown is over. Alaska tribal organizations are raising the alarm. The Tanana Chiefs Conference administers heating assistance for over 1,200 households. Amber Vaska is the executive director of Tribal Government and Client Services at the organization. She said by email that the federal program is “a lifeline across the Interior.” Vaska said that the program, which also helps people weatherize their homes to cut on heating costs, is a way to ensure pipes don’t freeze when temperatures drop to minus 50 in the Interior. The government shutdown is also affecting other programs crucial for Alaska Native communities, like food assistance and tribal Head Start. Hyde, with the Alaska Center, says families who rely on heating assistance are the same vulnerable residents who will be affected by the loss of food benefits. “It’s going to just be a really tough winter, unless something can give.” In the meantime, the state Department of Health said its staff is prioritizing applications by focusing on households in a heating emergency or at immediate risk of losing heat. Tribes across the country are preparing for the halt of federal food benefits beginning November 1 due to the government shutdown. The Shawnee Tribe in Oklahoma declared an emergency this week, releasing emergency funds to help citizens who may lose their benefits. Chief Ben Barnes said in a statement the federal government may be closed, but the Shawnee Tribe’s government remains open, and no Shawnee family should go hungry “because of political dysfunction in Washington”.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.   Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Friday, October 31, 2025 – Documenting the meaningful Indigenous origins of Dia de los Muertos

The government shutdown is creating a lot of uncertainty and disruption for Native American and Alaska Native communities, and for tribal organizations that administer federal programs. Liz Ruskin reports. These include the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for food assistance and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), which subsidizes energy bills. Ben Mallott, president of the Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN), told the Senate Indian Affairs Committee Wednesday that the prospect that both of those programs would run out of money, just as winter begins, puts some Alaskans in a life-threatening bind. “Without LIHEAP, without SNAP, our communities, our tribal citizens will have to decide between fuel and food.” During the pandemic, the Federal Subsistence Board allowed emergency hunting to improve food security. Now, with the government shutdown, Mallott says the Subsistence Board can’t even meet. More than 500 Indian land school districts are feeling financial stress, too. Kerry Bird, president of the National Indian Education Association, says federal Impact Aid provides half the budget for some schools, and the shutdown is interrupting the flow. “In South Dakota, Montana, and New Mexico, school districts are burning through reserves just to meet payroll.” Bird says Head Start programs will run low on money if the shutdown extends into November. Witnesses said many agency experts tribes normally turn to have lost their jobs. Pete Upton testified about the Trump administration’s plan to abolish a fund at the Treasury Department called the Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund. Upton runs the Native CDFI Network. He says tribal communities are often in banking deserts. “Native CDFIs are typically the only financial institutions serving these communities, providing access to capital, credit and financial education where no alternative exists.” Early in the shutdown, the Treasury Department fired the entire staff of the CDFI Fund. With no one at the federal office to certify the CDFIs, Upton says it’s hard for the community finance organizations to attract private-sector investment. U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), chair of the Indian Affairs Committee, says tribes face enormous uncertainty as the stalemate in Congress nears the one-month mark. “We can’t figure out the path forward right now on our spending bills, although I am a little bit more optimistic on that today.” She didn’t elaborate, but said earlier this week that senators are engaged in productive talks. Former Acting Attorney General Colin Bradley of the Navajo Nation during his failed confirmation vote in Window Rock, Ariz. on October 22, 2025. (Courtesy Navajo Nation Council) The Navajo Nation has had four attorneys general in less than a year. And as KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, one of them returns to that office amid a politically tense time in Window Rock, Ariz. Colin Bradley was acting attorney general for less than three months, but the Navajo Nation Council wouldn’t confirm him, forcing President Buu Nygren to yet again tap his own chief of staff, Kris Beecher, who spoke about his goals for the role. “My hope is to bring that stability for the rest of the administration and allow the Department of Justice to have one last leader for the end of this term.” Bradley penned a pair of opinions tackling decades-old Diné legal disputes. One ruled that blood quantum – a controversial way to determine tribal membership – violates the Navajo Bill of Rights. He also deemed the Diné Marriage Act discriminatory and to immediately repeal it. That 2005 law bars recognition of same-sex marriage, but there is a debate whether his writings are null and void. As for Beecher… “There’s long-standing precedent that any of the opinions that you wish still stand.” Unless undone by the sitting Attorney General. Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.   Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Thursday, October 30, 2025 – Julian Brave Noisecat opens a door into himself and his people’s history

Thousands of Indigenous people across the Mountain West are among those who will lose Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) food benefits if the government shutdown continues. The Mountain West News Bureau’s Daniel Spaulding reports, that tribal officials are concerned about cuts to programs that were already stretched thin. SNAP will run out of money on November 1 if the shutdown continues and nearly one-in-four Indigenous households use SNAP benefits, double the national rate. Julie Keller leads food services at Nimiipuu Health on the Nez Perce Reservation in Idaho. “Feeding families is very expensive, and people are struggling to make ends meet, and these programs help people provide basic nutrition for their whole family.” Keller says more tribal members have been signing up to receive food benefits out of fear that they may soon be canceled. Five states in the Mountain West have issued warnings for SNAP recipients. Some states, like Colorado, are providing emergency funding for alternate food sources. Meanwhile, a group of Democratic leaders in several states are suing the federal government over the suspension of benefits. (Courtesy Cherokee Nation) The Cherokee Nation declared a food emergency Tuesday due to the federal government shutdown and the expected loss of SNAP benefits. The Oklahoma tribe is making more than $6 million in emergency relief funding available. Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin, Jr. explained the tribe’s response in a social media post saying they’ll protect those most at risk of hunger. “We will not turn our backs on people in need as the federal government remains gridlocked. Our response may not be perfect but we will not stand back and watch people suffer.” Other tribes across the country have also declared an emergency due to the federal government shutdown. Egan Convention Center in Anchorage, Alaska. (Photo: Craig Talbert / Wikimedia) The Western Alaska disaster relief effort has moved to its next phase. Earlier this month, hurricane-force winds and floods forced more than 1,000 people from their homes. Many families were sent to mass shelters in Anchorage. This week, the city has begun to transition them into temporary housing. KNBA’s Rhonda McBride visited the Egan Convention Center downtown, where families are preparing to move on. Tessie Chanerak is one of the counselors from Southcentral Foundation watching out for families at the Egan Center. “Little boys and girls are sad. They’re homesick.” (Photo: Rhonda McBride) She says counselors have been keeping kids occupied with games — and it’s helped that Halloween is around the corner. “You know Halloween is one of the fun seasons of the year, because there’s lots of candy, so we got some costumes and lots of hats and trick-or-treating bags. So, anything for the little kids too. They seem to be more at home than their parents.” Chanerak says at first, when the families moved into the shelter, the reality of what they had escaped had not yet sunk in. She saw families look at videos and photos, captured on their cell phones, over and over, as if to try to understand what they had experienced. “I can believe the typhoon kicked in. I can’t believe our homes floated away. That really happened. And yesterday, when I was checking in with folks they were, they’re crying. They’re frustrated. They’re tired.” Despite that, Chanerak says the families have held up remarkably well, but she’s glad they’ll soon be transferred to temporary housing, so can begin to recover. She says she’s grateful for the elders, because they have been a calming influence on everyone. “I really do admire that. That gives me a tool that I can use. Taking it one day at a time.” Chanerak wears a pair of angel wings that came from a Halloween costume, known to the kids as “Terrific Tessie.” She is originally from Toksook Bay, one of the communities also in the storm’s path. She says she feels honored to be of help, as both a counselor and a speaker of the Yup’ik language. Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.   Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Wednesday, October 29, 2025 – The Menu: SNAP runs out, Alaska traditional relief foods  

It has been 100 years, but the Vatican is now expected to return Indigenous artifacts to Canada. As Dan Karpenchuk reports, Indigenous communities are preparing for the return of the items. The museum in the Vatican City has held the artifacts since 1925. But in a few weeks, an announcement is expected that will see the return of dozens of artifacts that could be back in Canada by the end of the year. Indigenous communities have been calling on the Catholic Church for decades to return them. Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak (Pinaymootang First Nation), National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, has described the artifacts as living, sacred pieces of Indigenous cultures and ceremonies and must be treated as the invaluable objects they are. Cody Groat is an assistant professor of history and Indigenous studies at Western University in Ontario. “To us these aren’t just artifacts that we’re going put behind a glass case. These are ancestors in their own right. They have their own sentients, their own being. So when we repatriate these cultural items, we have to recognize that there’s ceremony associated with that. This can’t just be a transfer from one box to another to an institution. These are ancestors who need to be welcomed back with ceremony and cultural protocol.” Groat says it’s not exactly clear what artifacts are held by the Vatican, but an exhibit at the Vatican in 1925 also published a catalogue of specific artifacts, and that’s a starting point to find out what else might be in the collection. Groat also says the artifacts are expected to be transferred to the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops and that the Canadian Museum of History is expected to act as an intermediary. He also says it’s important that in all points of the process, First Nations need to be part of the discussions as, he’s sure, there will be challenges since the process is expected to be long and slow but also one that is long overdue. BlueJay (Kirby Brown) and Goldie (Marta Lu Clifford) on the KMAS Indigenous Radio set at Very Little Theater’s production of “BlueJay’s Canoe,” Tuesday, October 21, 2025. (Photo: Brian Bull / Buffalo’s Fire) A play about loss, resilience, and the power of Native stories opens November 7 in Eugene, Oreg. Brian Bull, senior reporter for Buffalo’s Fire, previews “BlueJay’s Canoe”. The story centers around BlueJay, a DJ at a fictional tribal radio station in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. “And good afternoon, and a good day it is indeed!” Kirby Brown plays BlueJay, who informs and entertains his listeners through the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 wildfires. But BlueJay also struggles. “One of BlueJay’s tragic flaws is that he just doesn’t ask for help. When the stuff starts hitting the fan, that’s when we got to hold each other tight.” The big mystery in the play surrounds an incomplete wooden canoe BlueJay has in storage. The reason why it’s been left undone unearths a past tragedy, which has given BlueJay survivor’s guilt. Marta Lu Clifford and Theresa May co-wrote “BlueJay’s Canoe”. Both have specific lessons they’d like the audience to leave with. Clifford said, “I want them to leave with the importance of stories, the importance of family, and how they are all connected.” And May said, “Indigenous stories are not artifacts, they’re not myths from some time past. They carry knowledge for the present.” The storyline also weaves in traditional teachings and legends, told through a spirit person named Heron, who’ll eventually be key to solving the show’s mystery. “Did you ever hear a story that saved your life?” “BlueJay’s Canoe” runs through November 23 at the Very Little Theatre in Eugene. U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, and vice chair, U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI), are hosting a hearing Wednesday on the impacts of the federal government shutdown and tribes. Witnesses are leaders from national Native organizations, including in areas of health and education. The hearing in Washington will also be streamed online.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.   Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Tuesday, October 28, 2025 – News briefs: tribal government disputes, land protection, government shutdown emergency

Photo: The Gila River Indian Community’s Sacaton Market was unveiled during its grand opening on October 23, 2025. (Gabriel Pietrorazio / KJZZ) The Gila River Indian Community in Arizona has long relied on convenience stores to feed its 13,000 residents, who otherwise may have to drive as far as half an hour away to neighboring cities with grocery stores. But as KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, a new market – a decade in the making – has opened much closer to home. Duncan Winston is with Gila River Development and says the tribe’s new 11,000 sq. ft. supermarket in the heart of Sacaton is much more than a store. “This isn’t a Bashas, it’s not a Safeway or a Walmart.” It’s a symbol of their sovereignty since few, if any, tribes outright own their own grocers. “We don’t want to leave that in the hands of a larger chain to determine who gets what – we want to be able to fight for ourselves and bring the necessary goods to our community when we need them.” From fresh produce and butchered meats to a deli serving local favorites, like the work’s burger. “One of the biggest demands from the community was, ‘You got to bring the works back.’ And so we’ve done that.” But that doesn’t come cheap, because of what some refer to as “rez-flation”. “We have experienced it here. I mean, it’s difficult finding reputable vendors who are willing to bring us goods and services at a fair price. Although we are rural, we are a lot closer to the metropolitan Phoenix area than a lot of the other tribes in Arizona.” S’eiltin Jamiann Hasselquist spreads some cheese kaháakw on crackers in SHI’s Traditional Foods and Medicine Kitchen on October 13, 2025. (Photo: Yvonne Krumrey / KTOO) Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) recently opened its new science education building. The space — and the educators inside — are working to combine traditional knowledge with new technology to expand access to science for young people in Juneau, Alaska. KTOO’s Yvonne Krumrey reports. At a ceremony, Lingít language professor X̱’unei Lance Twitchell said that bringing traditional ways of being into the present isn’t a contradiction. “It’s not a ‘living in two worlds’ situation. It’s living as an Indigenous person with multiple languages and multiple identities, and being just fine with it. You don’t have to be just one thing.” And the new SHI Indigenous Science Building around the corner carries that sentiment in all the services it offers. The building on Heritage Way hosts a digital media lab with a podcast booth and video production software, an Indigenous science research lab that studies cultural resources like seaweed and clams, and a makerspace with a digital woodcarving machine. That last one made nametags instructors are wearing as they lead tours of the new building. In the Traditional Foods and Medicine Kitchen, instructor S’eiltin Jamiann Hasselquist says she and others are bringing old ways to process and preserve food into the present. “Whatever people can dream up that they would like to do in this kitchen, I think that we could try to make their dreams happen.” With freeze dryers, pressure cookers, dehydrators, and space to build traditional drying racks, Hasselquist said they are making and preserving traditional foods that elders would make when she was a kid, like cheese kaháakw — a rich and smoky paste made of fermented salmon eggs. She scoops some out of a glass jar and spreads it on a cracker for anyone who wants to try it. “Someone tasted that cheese kaháakw, and they took one bite, and they said, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m getting emotional. I haven’t tasted this for 30 years.’ It’s been three decades, and they thought that they would never try it again.” Elders have been approaching Hasselquist with foods they remember from childhood, but don’t know how to make. “So if we could have workshops and share that knowledge, and we’re rebirthing, you know, this, this Indigenous way of living and being.” Next, she wants to find out how to make cold-pressed seal grease.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.   Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Monday, October 27, 2025 – A Canadian tribe’s historic legal victory worries non-Indigenous landowners

Photo: Wrangell City Hall on June 26, 2024. (Colette Czarnecki/KSTK) The City and Borough of Wrangell in Southeast Alaska is pausing work at a housing project after archaeologists confirmed artifacts at the site. KSTK’s Colette Czarnecki has more. While excavating a subdivision development site on Wrangell Island, construction crews uncovered a shell midden. Middens are ancient sites made up of shells and other remains. They help tell the story of who lived there and how they lived. The borough government owns the property and is pausing work near the midden until a state-approved mitigation plan is complete. Wrangell Borough Manager Mason Villarma says development will continue carefully. “This has been a 30-year pursuit in some cases. We’re into a $4 million investment. This is an opportunity for 20 housing lots, but being cognizant of any culturally significant artifacts is top of mind.” Currently, the Office of History and Archaeology and the State Historic Preservation Office are working on a treatment plan for recovery of the site. That will involve further investigation and excavation. The property has a complicated history. It was once the site of the Wrangell Institute, an Alaska Native boarding school known for punishing students for speaking their language and other abuses. Albert Rhinehart, the administrator for the local tribal government, Wrangell Cooperative Association, says the site carries deep meaning. “There’s a long history of colonization that includes the Wrangell Institute — what we prefer now to call the Alaska Native boarding school. A lot of families got separated in that time … even my own family. There was a lot of trauma.” In August, excavators found remnants of the old boarding school — a footbridge, concrete, and utility lines. Construction was paused until the state historic office determined last month that the infrastructure would not be on the National Register of Historic Places. The 134-acre Alder Top Village site will eventually include 20 home lots. The public land sale auction is continuing and closes on December 1. A new bull riding champ was recently crowned at the Indian National Finals Rodeo (INFR) in Las Vegas. And as KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, he now has an automatic chance to go pro with the Professional Bull Riders (PBR), unlike other tribal athletes before him. “Cole Brewer has it won by one point. He’s got a gold buckle to take home, but he is not here to take it by default.” The announcer’s proclamation of his victory qualified the Cheyenne River Sioux from South Dakota, to try out at the New York Mavericks training camp. It’s a change the PBR made last year, according to the team’s GM Chris Pantani. “Our relationship with the INFR is really opening up a lot of doors for these kids,” “It’s giving that extra shot, but those five days of competition are daunting. It’s grueling, five big bulls to the championship.” Past INFR champs have a presence in the PBR today. Window Rock’s Cody Jesus won it in 2016. “It’s a straight path to where you want to go.” And in 2023, fellow Arizona Navajo JaCauy Hale from Ganado grabbed gold. He’s happy Brewer is getting a shot in the PBR. “It’s a good opportunity, wish I had that when I won it.” The Mavericks are also looking to bring back last year’s champ, Teigan Gray, who is also Cheyenne River Sioux from South Dakota, adds Pantani. “If Teigan accepts, you’ll have the reigning champion coming down, you’re going to have the past champion coming down, fighting for a spot on the team.”   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Cole Brewer (@colebrewer_11) Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.   Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Friday, October 24, 2025 — Native Bookshelf: Spooky Books for the season

Photo: Spirit Lake Nation. (Courtesy Spirit Lake Nation-Mni Wakan Oyate / Facebook) The Spirit Lake Tribal Council in North Dakota has declared a state of emergency as the federal government shutdown continues. The council declared the emergency this week in response to potential impacts on essential federal programs, including food and heating assistance. If the shutdown continues past October 31, benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) may be paused starting November 1. According to a press release, the Spirit Lake Tribe’s food distribution program has already seen an increase in families seeking assistance since the start of the fiscal year. The tribe is also concerned about the uncertainty of other programs, including Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). The tribe is preparing and is encouraging residents to stay up-to-date on the latest information and contact local resources. Residents of Kipnuk, Alaska were evacuated in a C-17 military transport plane on October 16, 2025. The village was one of the worst hit by the remnants of the typhoon. (Photo: Eric Stone / Alaska Public Media) President Donald Trump Wednesday approved a request for a federal disaster declaration for the recent devastation caused by the remnants of a typhoon in Western Alaska. It wreaked havoc on some of Alaska’s most remote communities in the Yukon–Kuskokwim Delta. According to Alaska’s congressional delegation, President Trump also announced an initial $25 million in disaster relief funding to cover initial recovery expenses as the state conducts damage and cost assessments, which will result in further federal relief funds. The declaration enables agencies, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security, to deploy additional resources to support recovery and rebuilding efforts. An Arizona tribe is starting to poll its community members about a name change that could shorten or lengthen its name. KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio has more. The Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community is giving its 11,000 members at least seven options to choose from. “Write-in option, do you have a name you would like to see, that is not an option listed?” The tribe has posted audio recordings with explanations – both for and against – each proposed option on a new website, but no action is supposed to be taken by the tribal council until next year. The new names under consideration are meant to help preserve O’odham and Piipaash languages. One option is to leave the name as is. Other alternatives seek to replace the phrase “community” with “nation” to reflect the tribe’s sovereignty. “Option 3, Salt River O’odham Piipaash Nation.” While another variation adds “jeveḍ” – the O’odham word for land. “Onk Akimel O’odham c Xalychidom Piipaash Jeveḍ. “ One of its sister Four Southern Tribes, Tohono O’odham Nation, was once called the Papagos, a derogatory Spanish word linked to tepary beans. The tribe officially changed its name in 1986. (Courtesy Ho-Chunk, Inc.) Ho-Chunk, Inc. is addressing a labor shortage among young Winnebago tribal members in Nebraska, training them for jobs intended to help close a continuing housing shortage. Mark Moran has more. It is part of the Legacy Learning program, which passes on skills from one generation to the next. According to program officials, there is a lack of qualified young men in the Winnebago Tribe to take the jobs that are needed most. Ho-Chunk, Inc.’s Janelle Decora says the shortage is especially dire in the construction, carpentry, maintenance, and repair sectors, and adds that the students are learning more than hands on skills. “Our Legacy Learning instructors aren’t just teaching those entry-level workforce development skills, such as flooring, framing, those types of things, but also teaching life skills, as well.” Decora says the program has trained three cohorts of young men and 60% have found jobs in the construction sector.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.   Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Thursday, October 23, 2025 – Domestic violence prevention limps along without federal support

Photo: Debris sits in water in Kipnuk, Alaska following high winds and flooding brought by the remnants of Typhoon Halong. (Jacqui Lang / Alaska Public Media) Hundreds of people remain displaced a week after the remnants of a typhoon wreaked havoc on some of Alaska’s most remote and vulnerable communities. Reporter Emily Schwing has this update. One of the hardest hit communities is Kipnuk, a village that sits in the heart of Alaska’s Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. Last week, Tribal Administrator Tristan Carl made the tough decision to mass evacuate his friends and family. Now, he says they have several needs including housing, clothing, and transportation, as well as access to foods that aren’t found in conventional groceries stores. “I know we’re gonna be missing some of our subsistence food. Hopefully some locals around here will be able to drop, drop some off or even invite some families for some. And that’s how we lived off for many, many, many centuries.” James Amik is also from Kipnuk. He says he, his friends, and family are still reeling from the storm. “It’s gonna be in our minds for a while, you now. But the way I think we can get through that is if we talk like to our behavioral health and just get everything off of our mind, I think that would help us.” Alaska’s governor declared a state disaster and has requested a federal disaster declaration from the Trump administration. Alaska’s congressional delegation has also penned a letter to the president asking him to declare a federal disaster. Representatives from several Alaska Native organizations speak at the subsistence panel at the Alaska Federation of Natives convention at the Dena’ina Convention Center in Anchorage on October 18, 2025. Gayla Hoseth, left, incoming AFN Co-Chair; Clinton Cook Sr., President for the Craig Tribal Association; Natasha Hayden, co-chair of the Kodiak Island tribal coalition; Patty Schwalenberg, executive director of the Alaska Migratory Birds Co-Management Council; and Karen Linell, executive director of the Ahtna Intertribal Resource Commission. (Photo: Matt Faubion / Alaska Public Media) Meanwhile, when it comes to Native co-management of fish and wildlife in the state, engagement and unity are key. That was the message at a panel about subsistence at the recent Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) Convention. The Alaska Desk’s Alena Naiden from our flagship station KNBA has more. Representatives from several Alaska Native organizations called for a unified approach alongside government agencies to manage wildlife and fish when they met last week. Clinton Cook Sr. is the Craig Tribal Association president. He emphasized the importance of prioritizing Alaska Native voices when making decisions about wildlife. “Our people have always managed our lands. We know where the salmon run. We know where the deer are. We know when the clams are safe.” Cook says the first step is engagement. He encourages tribal residents to participate in advisory councils for both federal and state regulatory agencies. “So you have a voice in what happens in your region. That’s huge.” A push for resource development in several Alaska regions has been met with opposition from some tribal groups. Karen Linell is the executive director of the Ahtna Intertribal Resource Commission. She called for a composed and united response in the middle of a quickly-changing political environment. “With the current administration, we need to try to hold our ground and not lose.” Representatives talked about funding challenges, lack of guidelines, and the need to re-educate regional directors when they change with new administrations. Linell says that one strategy that has made the difference over the years is collaborating with neighbouring regions and figuring out how to continue practicing traditional ways of life, without harming resources other regions rely on. ”Wait a minute, you do duck calls, right? When you’re out duck hunting? You know, we call a moose in, so why is it different? And so when we started to support each other, we started to see change.” Promoting change also requires research, Linell says. She hopes that more tribal organizations will have capacity to monitor wildlife and fish and collect their own data that they can trust.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.   Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Wednesday, October 22, 2025 – Leonard Peltier calls for unity, vigilance

With fire season winding down across many parts of the US, it is not unusual to find people doing deliberate burns to eliminate slash or improve habitat. Outside Eugene, Oreg. recently, a group of Native youth and state and tribal agencies conducted a cultural burn. Brian Bull of Buffalo’s Fire reports. Five interns with the Long Tom Watershed Council’s Traditional Ecological Inquiry Program (TEIP) and a few dozen staff members, fire bosses, and agency employees gathered at the Chaa-lamali Reserve. (Photo: Brian Bull) The oak savannah here provided three acres for the interns to apply their knowledge of fire as a tool. “I’ve learned that a small spark can start a whole field of flames.” Kanim Cushman WhiteEyes. (Photo: Brian Bull) Kanim Cushman-White Eyes is with the Chinook Indian Nation and a middle schooler. He’s setting fire to a meadow with a flaming pitch stick, while water trucks, and crews with shovels stand by to help keep it within the designated area. “The best thing about using fire is that you can learn so much about it, and like a little amount of time, and that it can be very healthy for the land.” Nearby, TEIP program manager Rachel Cushman helps her other son, Isik, set a few fires and keep aware of his surroundings. Fire can reduce acorn weevils, or help coniferous trees re-seed the area. Cushman says this part of the Willamette Valley has always been a fire-formed landscape. “It’s been unhealthy because fire has been missing. And so we’re awakening the land. We’re building that relationship back up and healing it through this this practice of cultural fire.” A few yards away, TEIP curriculum director Joe Scott helps a few interns extend the fire closer to a camas meadow. Scott is a Siletz tribal member who did a training exchange with the Yurok Tribe. Now he’s applying all of his accumulated experience to teach the TEIP interns on “good fire.” “Youth have come up seeing fire as the enemy, as a destructive force. And this is a perfect example of fire being a constructive force.” Scott says with the fall rains, ash and nutrients will replenish the soil and help the camas prosper. Katherine Gottlieb, left, Joaqlin Estus, and Ada Blackjack Johnson, three 2025 inductees into the Alaska Women’s Hall of Fame. Ten women will be inducted into the Alaska Women’s Hall of Fame Tuesday including Joaqlin Estus, a pioneering Alaska Native journalist. Estus most recently was a national correspondent for Indian Country Today and also worked as news director at our flagship station KNBA. Estus is Lingít with ties to Wrangell, but she is not the only Alaska Native to be honored. “Another Alaska Native is my great grandmother, Tillie Paul Tamaree. She was a civil rights leader in the early 20th century.” Estus says it’s an honor to be inducted along with her great grandmother. Two other Alaska Natives are being inducted into the Hall of Fame: Katherine Gottlieb, a Supiaq leader in Native health care who served 30 years as president of Southcentral Foundation, and the late Ada Blackjack Johnson (Iñupiaq), the sole survivor of a doomed Arctic expedition in the 1920s. Chickasaw Nation Family Support Office in Ardmore, Okla. (Courtesy Chickasaw Nation) Tribes across the country are recognizing Domestic Violence Awareness Month and sharing resources, including the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma. The Chickasaw Nation Department of Family Services says it offers support, including domestic violence prevention and intervention with a focus on tribal cultural values. The Chickasaw Nation also operates a shelter. A candlelight vigil is planned Thursday for Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Chickasaw Nation Director of Violence Prevention Janie Loch says one of the most important things they want to communicate is that victims are not alone and services are available.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.   Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Tuesday, October 21, 2025 – Government shutdown threatens to close off tribal financing funds

Photos: Willard Bill Jr. and the Black River Canoe Family provide the opening protocol at Seattle’s No Kings protest. (Courtesy SEIU6 / Protectors of the Salish / Instagram) Millions of protesters – including many Native and Indigenous people – joined this weekend’s 2,600 “No Kings” events held across the U.S. Muckleshoot tribal member Willard Bill Jr. and the Black River Canoe Family provided a drum song as part of Saturday’s opening protocol for a “No Kings” event held at the Seattle Center. Bill expressed solidarity with the Palestinian People, saying Natives know “what U.S.-sponsored genocide looks like.” President Donald Trump’s allies – including House Speaker Mike Johnson – criticized the “No Kings” rallies as un-American. The Association of Village Council Presidents CEO Vivian Korthuis speaks at Alaska Federation of Natives convention on Saturday, October 18, 2025. (Photo: Matt Faubion / Alaska Public Media) Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) delegates on Saturday called for an immediate emergency declaration from President Trump – and more federal assistance for communities hit by the remnants of Typhoon Halong earlier this month. It was one of dozens of resolutions passed on the final day of the AFN convention in Anchorage. The storm killed at least one woman, wiped out homes and infrastructure, and displaced more than a thousand people in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. Hundreds of residents were sent to Bethel and then to emergency shelters in Anchorage over the last week. The resolution was put forward by the Association of Village Council Presidents, a tribal consortium that serves communities in the Yukon-Kuskokwim region. Vivian Korthuis is the group’s CEO. “For this resolution, we have a lot of support from across the state. On behalf of our region, Quyana to everyone.” The delegates amended the resolution to also include damage caused in the Northwest Arctic and Bering Strait regions, and called for a Western Alaska emergency response hub in Bethel. Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R-AK) requested that Trump declare a federal disaster for Western Alaska earlier this week, but that request has not been approved as of this weekend. Alaska’s congressional delegation has also urged Trump to approve the declaration. Other AFN resolutions touched on a wide array of topics, from health and safety to education and subsistence. Check out our complete AFN coverage: Alaska’s Native Voice | AFN News Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren and Vice President Richelle Montoya in Window Rock, Ariz. on July 22, 2025. (Courtesy Navajo Nation Office of the President and Vice President) It’s been an interesting few weeks since Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren suddenly fired the tribe’s controller. In the fallout, local leaders from across the biggest reservation in the U.S. are now signaling growing disapproval with his administration. KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio has details. So far, at least two of the five regional agencies – representing nearly half of the tribe’s population – have passed no-confidence votes in President Nygren and his estranged Vice President Richelle Montoya. “Take me out of the equation, Richelle Montoya, don’t worry about me.” She’s even willing to leave office. “And if this is how we are going to be able to protect our people, then this is how it has to be.” But some have called on Vice President Montoya to lead, urging the council to suspend Nygren and install her as the tribe’s first female president. “And I’m prepared to do that.” As for Nygren, he doesn’t plan on stepping down. Citing a previous recall effort, he says those same organizers are now campaigning for no confidence resolutions across the 110 tribal chapter houses. And on this day in 1803, the Louisiana Purchase was ratified, which more than doubled the size of the United States. Napoleon Bonaparte, then the First Consul of the French Republic, sold the territory for $15 million. The purchase is considered President Thomas Jefferson’s landmark deal. Soon settlers spread across the continent, in land still occupied by an estimated 700,000 Native Americans.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.   Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Monday, October 20, 2025 – Alaska Native residents assess their future after record-breaking storm damage

Photo: Debris sits in piles in Kwigillingok after the remnants of Typhoon Halong brought widespread devastation to the region. (Brea Paul) Searches are ongoing for two people missing from a western Alaska village after remnants of Typhoon Halong left one dead and much of the region devastated by high winds and flooding, but large-scale search and rescue efforts are largely on hold pending new information. The U.S. Coast Guard, Alaska State Troopers, and Alaska National Guard say they were unable to locate a floating house and its occupants before they suspended their active search Monday night. Coast Guard Captain Christopher Culpepper says the search covered dozens of square miles around the village of Kwigillingok using helicopters, planes, drones, and more. “Suspending an active search is always a tough decision to make, and it is especially difficult in this situation where the Kwigillingok community is already suffering so much,” Alaska State Troopers identified the missing people as 71-year-old Vernon Pavil and 41-year-old Chester Kashatok and said they had found the body of 67-year-old Ella Mae Kashatok. All three lived in the hard-hit village of Kwigillingok and members of the same family. Brea Paul knew them well. She says she saw their house floating off its foundation as floodwaters rose on Sunday. “They were the most kindest people I’ve ever met. They didn’t have much, but they always, always had a positive mindset and they always greeted anyone — they welcomed everyone to their home. They deserve to be searched (for). Their names deserve to be heard.” A mass evacuation is underway for the communities of Kipnuk and Kwigillingok, where a thousand people were sheltering in schools after Sunday’s storm. On Wednesday and Thursday, hundreds of evacuees boarded planes bound for Anchorage at the Alaska Army National Guard hangar in Bethel. The city of Anchorage is preparing to welcome up to 2,000 people displaced by the catastrophic storm. Handmade chokecherry patties dry on parchment paper during a workshop at the Wind River Tribal Conservation Summit. (Photo: Hannah Habermann / Wyoming Public Media) Community members in Wyoming spent Indigenous Peoples Day to learn and build community at the Wind River Tribal Conservation Summit, as Wyoming Public Radio’s Hannah Habermann reports. The event was put on by the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative and the Wyoming Outdoor Council Tribal Conservation Team – and included a full schedule of sessions focused on Indigenous conservation, traditional ecological knowledge, and reciprocal relationship. One of the workshops invited attendees to roll up their sleeves and try their hand at making chokecherry patties. Before the group got to work, Northern Arapaho two-spirit tribal member Big Wind Carpenter passed around a bag full of the maroon-colored fruit to sample. “ For the Arapaho people, this is like the best berry of all. It has cultural properties, it has spiritual properties. We use the chokecherry in our ceremonies and it provided sustenance for our people for a long time.” A person wearing a colorful neck-scarf and a black vest holds a bag of chokecherries and talks. Behind them is a blue sky with feathered clouds and the tops of a few trees. Carpenter works as a tribal engagement coordinator at the Wyoming Outdoor Council and shared that it’s becoming harder and harder to find chokecherries and other traditional medicines on the reservation. On top of that, they said making chokecherry patties in particular is becoming more infrequent. “ It’s important that we continue this tradition because it’s becoming lost as we’ve had freezers and whatnot. A lot of people are just freezing the chokecherries and then discarding the seeds, but the seed is crucial to carrying on that tradition.” With mortar and pestle in hand, attendees tossed in a handful of chokecherries and got to grinding to make what Carpenter called the “original energy bar.” The goal: to make the pits as small as possible, and pummel until the mixture started smelling nutty and turned purple. Two hands hold a mortal and pestle just above the straw covered ground, with ground-up chokecherries inside. “Inside the pit there’s a nut, and inside the nut are the fatty acids, right? On the exterior of that is this precursor to cyanide, essentially,” they said. “Macerating it is what creates that smell. You get hints of vanilla and all these things, the more you just keep going.” A young woman in a sweater stands outside in front of a table with chokecherry patties on drying racks. Behind her is a tepee, with another tepee and tables in the background. Tribal Buffalo Initiative this summer and is majoring in Outdoor Education and Indigenous Studies at Central Wyoming College. After grinding, the next step was to transfer and spread the paste onto a brown piece of paper to dry into a hardened, flat circle. Central Wyoming College student and event volunteer Summeri Bass hel

Photo: Personal hygiene products are laid out for storm evacuees at the Bethel Search and Rescue building in Bethel, Alaska on October 14, 2025. (Corinne Smith / KYUK) Donations are pouring into Bethel Search and Rescue in the wake of the catastrophic storm that hit the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta over the weekend. As KYUK’s Evan Erickson reports, the building has been buzzing with volunteers and recent evacuees, some of whom have lost everything. At the Bethel Search and Rescue building, families from villages hit hardest by Sunday’s storm grab items from long tables overflowing with clothes and essential goods. Volunteer Kaitlin Andrew says her father and other family members are still sheltering in the coastal community of Kwigillingok. “There was one I just had spoken with, he had mentioned that he can finally change his clothes.” The storm, remnants of Typhoon Halong, nearly completely destroyed the village and roughly 400 people sheltered at the school awaiting evacuation on Tuesday evening. “They’re messaging us and letting us know what they need over there right now.” Andrew says that within an hour of opening the donation center on Monday, totes and bags from community members quickly filled up the corner of the one-story building. “That pile over there was literally almost to the ceiling, until we started organizing things.” The donations include winter boots, baby formula, and basic hygiene products such as shampoo, toilet paper, and tampons. Most of the items are going directly to people already evacuated to Bethel. Some are being boxed up and sent to those still sheltered in coastal villages. Volunteer Angie Walter stacks three boxes filled with clothes for a family in the Nelson Island community of Nightmute. “The bottom box is mostly boots, boots, and there’s hats and gloves, pants and tops for a boy and a girl, and I guess maybe the dad and the mom.” Volunteers say that with winter just weeks away, more cold weather gear is needed. While some communities will be able to rebuild what was lost, others face a bleak future, or total uncertainty of whether their community will ever recover. Andrew, who still has family members stuck in the most affected area, says that all she and other volunteers can do is offer their support for people grappling with the concept of leaving behind their traditional homes. “Some of them don’t want to, because that’s where they grew up, and that’s their home. And so I think it’s just just to be there for them and to make sure that they know that they have a place.” Meanwhile, outside of the building, volunteers scramble to make space for roughly 10 pallets of goods that have just arrived from Anchorage. The donations are coming in from all over — and volunteers say they’re critical, with 100 people already evacuated to Bethel, and hundreds more on the way. (Courtesy International Indian Treaty Council / Facebook) This past Monday, many cultural observances were held in honor of Indigenous Peoples or Native American Day, including an annual event at Alcatraz Island in northern California’s Bay Area. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that this sunrise gathering features prayer, dancing, and songs despite the many closed National Parks, and in protest of President Trump’s plans to reopen Alcatraz as a prison. Historically, a large gathering of Native people occupied the island prison from 1969 to 1971. With the exception of 2013 during another government shutdown, the annual gathering has taken place with another one held on Thanksgiving Day. The International Indian Treaty Council hosted the event. Sarah Winnemucca. And during this week in 1891, people mourned the passing of Sarah Winnemucca, the first Native woman who published a copyrighted work in the U.S. Her book, “Life Among the Paiutes: Their Wrongs and Claims”, was an autobiographical work published in 1883. Her birth name was Thocmetony (Shellflower).       Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.   Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Thursday, October 16, 2025 – The fight to recognize Taffy Abel’s historic NHL achievement

Photo: Waves from ex-Typhoon Halong cover the Kuskokwim River waterfront in Bethel, Alaska on October 12, 2025. (MaryCait Dolan / KYUK) The remnants of Typhoon Halong over the weekend have left at least one woman dead and more than 1,000 people displaced in Western Alaska. The disaster happened right before the start of the Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) Convention and the Elders & Youth Conference (EYC). The Alaska Desk’s Alena Naiden with assistance of Rhonda McBride from our flagship station KNBA reports, the storm is already shaping the tone of this year’s events. AFN always focuses on issues most pertinent to local Indigenous communities – and this year, a catastrophic storm that battered predominantly Alaska Native villages is already the center of the conversations. U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) spoke at the beginning of EYC, the traditional prologue to the main AFN event. “As we gather for this sharing and this collective convening, let us keep in mind those that are in harm’s way and those who are out there to be with them and to help them.” Communities and rescue groups are still looking for missing people and assessing the damage from the storm. Meanwhile, AFN and other local Indigenous organizations are looking for ways to help. AFN is one of twelve mostly Indigenous organizations that formed the Western Alaska Disaster Relief Fund to provide assistance to villages. On Thursday, AFN plans to hold a blanket dance fundraiser for the disaster. Roy Agloinga is the president of the First Alaskans Institute that hosts EYC. On Sunday, he spoke about the destruction from the storm. “It’s easy to feel distant, but I ask you to lean in, because while the storm may be hundreds of miles away, the people affected are our neighbors, our friends, and our family.” Marilyn Attla is a healer from the Interior who participated in EYC. She encouraged people to pray and acknowledge the stress of the situation. She also invited attendees, especially young people, to talk about what they feel and consider visiting a healing station. “You have to make up your own mind to be resilient. Any type of loss that you’re going to go through in your life, any type of happening problem, you have to make up your own mind to overcome it.” EYC is running at the Dena’ina Center in Anchorage through Wednesday. AFN is scheduled there from Thursday to Saturday. An aluminum boat rests on debris in Kipnuk, Alaska amid destruction left by the remnants of Typhoon Halong. (Photo: Jaqui Lang) Meanwhile, community groups and businesses across the state are coordinating storm relief efforts for the devastated communities. Alaska Public Media’s Eric Stone has more. The Alaska Community Foundation (ACF) has partnered with local and regional organizations to create the Western Alaska Disaster Relief Fund. ACF’s Ashley Ellingson says they’re distributing the funds to communities hit hardest. “It’s geared towards immediate support and then long term resilience. The thing that’s unique about this fund is that we have partnered with local and regional organizations to make sure that the money goes to the areas that it’s needed most.” The fund is a partnership with the AFN, the Association of Village Council Presidents, the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, and a number of other groups serving Alaskans in the region. As of Tuesday afternoon, the fund had raised more than $300,000 from donors. Jenni Ragland, chair of Alaska Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster, says cash donations are a better option than goods, since storing and transporting items can present challenges of their own. “While it may seem impersonal, cash really is the best opportunity to help meet those immediate needs that are coming our way. It provides flexibility for us to purchase exactly what’s needed, to procure those items quickly and to get them into the hands of disaster survivors.” More information about the effort is online at alaskacf.org.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.   Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Wednesday, October 15, 2025 – The road project that could open up a great expanse of pristine Alaska

Photo: An overturned home in Kotlik. The National Weather Service reported a maximum wind gust of 78 mph in Kotlik Sunday morning. (Adaline Pete) One person has died, two are still missing, and 51 have been rescued following a record-breaking storm that slammed into the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in southwest Alaska over the weekend. Alaska Public Media’s Eric Stone and Liz Ruskin report. Officials say search and rescue efforts are ongoing. Christopher Culpepper, Coast Guard commander for Western Alaska, compares the devastation to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. “Several of these villages have been completely devastated, absolutely flooded, several feet deep. This took homes off of foundations. This took people into peril, where folks were swimming, floating, trying to find debris to hold on to in the cover of darkness.” Floodwaters in Chefornak, Alaska, October 12, 2025. (Photo: Clara Mathew) He spoke alongside numerous officials at a news conference Monday, the day after the remnants of Typhoon Halong barreled into remote, coastal communities in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, hitting the villages of Kipnuk and Kwigillingok especially hard. The storm brought winds of over 100 miles per hour and record flood waters. Helicopters, planes, drones, ships, and para-rescuers from the Coast Guard, National Guard, and other agencies worked through the night and are still searching for two missing people. Officials said Monday that one woman, previously unaccounted for, was found dead in the village. Fourteen-hundred survivors are in community shelters. Alaska National Guard head Torrance Sax says he has activated every member of the state’s National Guard and Alaska State Defense Force living in Western Alaska. And more are set to join. “This may end up being the largest off-the-road-system response for the National Guard in about 45 years.” State officials say dozens of nonprofit organizations, businesses, and faith-based groups are also coordinating recovery efforts. Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R-AK) and numerous state and federal officials held a news conference on Monday, Oct. 13, 2025, in Anchorage, Alaska to discuss the devastating impacts of the weekend storm. (Photo: Matt Faubion / Alaska Public Media) Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R-AK) has declared a disaster for the region, easing access to additional resources. “We know you need help. We’re going to continue to get the help to you. We’re going to do everything we can to get everything up and running as quickly as possible, and we will continue to help — not just today (and) tomorrow, but weeks and months on and until we get things back to what used to be at least considered semi-normal.” Gov. Dunleavy and members of Alaska’s congressional delegation say they plan to visit the region. The Elders & Youth Conference at the Denaʼina Civic and Convention Center in Anchorage, Alaska. (Photo: Matt Faubion) The storm’s devastation is on the minds of many people who traveled in to Anchorage this week from across the state to gather for two conferences being held in the city – the First Alaskans Institute’s Elders and Youth Conference and the Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) Convention. AFN is the state’s largest gathering, which gets underway Thursday. As KNBA’s Rhonda McBride reports, AFN is a time to address the challenges that face Alaska Native people and stand together. Next year, AFN will turn 60 years old. It was formed to fight for land claims, culminating in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), created Native corporations to manage land and wealth. It was far from perfect, but each year AFN works to improve upon the outcomes. “…A way of life that AFN’s Co-Chair Joe Nelson says has been threatened by federal cutbacks and new policies that affect Native lands.” AFN delegates had hoped to talk directly with Trump administration cabinet members who, along with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, were scheduled to speak at the gathering, but the federal shutdown has prevented them from traveling to Alaska. Their speeches will now be virtual, not the same as having facetime, but Nelson says the work will go on, regardless. This year, AFN delegates have almost a hundred resolutions to consider. Many of them address protecting the hunting and gathering of wild foods, or subsistence.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.   Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Tuesday, October 14, 2025 – Shifting the balance in historical scholarship

Photo: Mike Duncan, founder and CEO of the Native Dads Network, is one of the featured speakers at November’s opioid summit in New Mexico. (Courtesy Mike Duncan) Indigenous health workers are stepping up their battle against opioid addictions. As the Mountain West News Bureau’s Jenny Kinsey reports, tribal communities are looking for solutions to the ongoing crisis. Indigenous people have been especially hard-hit by the national opioid epidemic. Their use is highest among all U.S. populations. And use has been increasing dramatically in recent years. Chris Lovato is a Community Health Representative on the Santa Domingo Pueblo in New Mexico. Lovato says the problem is widespread – and has even tracked opioid addictions in children as young as nine and 13. “We did experience the 13 year old hallucinating, just kind of not coherent. And, of course, nine, one was called, and, getting him to the emergency room after, you know, a couple of days, we got the information that he was high on that and a couple of other drugs.” Funds to fight the crisis come from the federal government’s Tribal Opioid Response Program and settlements from lawsuits against opioid manufacturers and distributors. Five tribal nations in New Mexico and more from out-of-state are expected to attend a summit on the Santa Ana Pueblo to look for solutions in November. From language and culture to tribal courts and health, the applications are seemingly endless. Jenner & Block special counsel Krystalyn Kinsel, left; Cora Tso, senior research fellow at ASU’s Kyl Center for Water Policy; and Chris Deschene, executive director of National Inter-Tribal Energy Council, discuss AI’s impacts on natural resources during “Wiring the Rez.” (Photo: Gabriel Pietrorazio / KJZZ) The Phoenix, Ariz. area is increasingly becoming a hub for data centers powering artificial intelligence. And as KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, even tribes are beginning to tackle the tradeoffs. “There’s not been a conference on AI and Indian Country at all, to my knowledge, and so this is really the first time bringing people together.” Traci Morris (Chickasaw), executive director of Arizona State University’s American Indian Policy Institute, says she and her team will draft a whitepaper on takeaways from the daylong “Wiring the Rez” gathering in downtown Phoenix. Among them was critical dialogue about natural resources, a topic initially missing from the agenda but later added. “After we saw stuff on our social media saying, ‘Well, what about what it’s doing to the environment?’ Okay, let’s add a panel. We got space.” Chris Deschene (Navajo), executive director of the National Inter-Tribal Energy Council, says few tribes are in the position to consider building data centers on their lands. “Most of Indian Country is not impacted by this, but it does impact, for example, if you have utility rates.” Arizona utilities APS and Tucson Electric Power are now proposing a 14% hike for ratepayers, largely driven by rising energy demands from data centers. Events to celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day were held over the weekend and continue through Monday across the country. In Berkeley, Calif. Saturday, the annual Indigenous Peoples Day Powwow and Indian Market was held. It included intertribal dancing, contest dancing, Native foods, arts, and crafts. Organizers say this year’s powwow marks 33 years of the holiday honoring ancestors, people of today, and future generations. In Nevada earlier this year, state lawmakers passed a bill to officially recognize Indigenous Peoples Day on the second Monday in October, but the governor vetoed the measure (pdf). According to Native Voters Alliance Nevada, the Native community is still celebrating, and invited elected officials, allies, and the greater Las Vegas community to kick off Indigenous Peoples Day at the “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign to honor the holiday. The event includes a ceremonial lighting, speakers, and a preview of future legislative plans.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.   Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Monday, October 13, 2025 – Language teachers celebrate success on Indigenous Peoples Day  

The federal government shutdown is in its second week. Tribal leaders across the country are continuing to raise concerns saying Indian Country will bear the burden. Matt Laslo has more from Washington. No one knows the full extent of how this federal government shutdown will hit Indian Country, but policymakers are braced for pain to come. Democrats continue banding together, demanding Congress intervene to keep Affordable Care Act, as known as Obamacare, insurance premiums from doubling in the coming months. U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) says those rate hikes promise more pain than today’s temporary furloughs. “Well, it just depends. Like, some government workers obviously will feel it when they don’t get their next paycheck, because they already got their first paycheck. But when people are really going to feel it is around November first when they start getting open enrollment and 24 million of them are going to have their insurance rates doubled.” Take Indian Health Service (IHS). While Medicare and Medicaid are first payers, IHS is a payor of last resort, which means the IHS budget is insulated for now, U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin (Cherokee/R-OK) told National Native News underneath the Capitol Dome. “Right now nobody’s affected yet. They’re dealing off reimbursements and all their reimbursements come off Medicaid and Medicare, and, of course, that’s not affected by this.” Even though Sen. Mullin isn’t worried about IHS cuts, he says that doesn’t mean Congress can shrug off the unseen impacts of a federal government shutdown. “There is no pressure taken off of us. We’re in a shutdown. The thing is, is like when are level heads going to prevail in the Democrat Party? That’s what we’re waiting on.” Indian Country was already reeling from federal cuts before the shutdown. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may have rescinded IHS staffing cuts earlier this year, but U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM) says cuts to other parts of the federal health care budget have been felt across Indian Country. “There’s a hospital in the state of New Mexico — an IHS facility — that no longer offers support for moms delivering kids or having babies. And that’s all because of the Trump administration and a direct result of the poor leadership coming from (Sec.) Robert Kennedy.” (Courtesy Thurston County [WA] Board of Health)A new law clarifies the role of Washington state’s tribes on local boards of health, granting each tribe a seat on their county’s board, appointing their own representative. Isobel Charle reports. The change clarifies a 2020 state law that requires local boards of health to include members who are not elected officials, including tribal representatives. Vicki Lowe is with the Jamestown S’Klallam and Bella Coola First Nation, and is the executive director of the American Indian Health Commission, a nonprofit that works with the state to promote wellness in Washington’s Native communities. She said the previous language was not clear about who was responsible for appointing tribal representatives to health boards, or how many seats were available. “I’m hoping going forward, we can get more tribes on these local boards of health and that local relationship and working together to keep all of our community healthy and safe will happen.” Every county in the state has a local board of health that is tasked with enforcing health laws, controlling infectious diseases, and setting local policies. Of Washington’s 29 federally recognized tribes, Lowe said so far about 15 have appointed someone to their local board. Ashley Bell is the Tribal Liaison for the Washington State Board of Health. She said the new law respects and affirms tribal sovereignty and makes sure that tribes are a part of public health conversations. “They are a part of the community and really have a direct impact on how community health happens.” The Washington Board of Health is in the first stages of the rulemaking process for the new law which includes getting public feedback and consulting with the state’s tribes and urban Indian health organizations. Bell said they are hoping to be done next July.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.   Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Friday, October 10, 2025 – Tara Moses’ ‘Haunted’ is more than just a satirical ghost story

President Donald Trump’s Navajo pick for Assistant Secretary of the Interior was officially confirmed Tuesday during Day 7 of the federal government shutdown. KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio has more. Senate Republicans confirmed William Kirkland (Navajo) among more than 100 Trump nominees along party lines – while Democrats, including U.S. Sens. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), voted against it. Kirkland pledged to work with lawmakers to address potential budget cuts facing Indian Country during his July confirmation hearing. “First of all, it is unfortunate, but tribal nations have always been asked to do more with less. Whatever dollars are allocated towards the Office of Indian Affairs by Congress, we’re going to work to make sure that we get the best investment.” Kirkland enters his new Interior role at a time when more than half of all staff agency wide are furloughed. Now, those nearly 31,000 federal workers and many more may not be guaranteed back pay, according to a White House memo. Several ice cellars in Savoonga on Sept. 25, 2025. (Photo: Alena Naiden) Indigenous peoples in the Arctic have been using underground food storage for thousands of years, but the practice is changing as the environment warms. Researchers have been looking at how villages in Alaska – and Arctic communities in other countries – are reimagining the future of ice cellars. Alaska Desk reporter Alena Naiden from our flagship station KNBA has more. Several wooden boxes poke up above ground along the coast in Savoonga, on St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea. They are a few feet deep and are now empty, but traditionally they are filled with walrus, reindeer, and whale meat. Ice cellars – or siqlugaq in Yup’ik – are common throughout Alaska Native communities, but the Arctic has been warming almost four times faster than other parts of the world. Researchers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) have been studying how food preservation practices have been changing. Yoko Kugo is originally from Japan and is one of the researchers who is leading the project. “We’ve heard that some communities – not all of them but some – are having hard time relying on storing food underground.” Kugo and other UAF researchers have been visiting the communities on St. Lawrence Island, as well as on the North Slope. They learned how food preservation practices vary depending on local landscape and diets. And they heard from residents that permafrost thaw and erosion have been causing some of their ice cellars to collapse or flood. Despite the challenges, many continue using ice cellars and hope to preserve the practice. Another UAF researcher Michael Koskey has been working on the project as well. He says that while the climate is expected to get hotter throughout this century, underground, the temperatures should fluctuate less. “If they’re willing to go a little deeper and a little further inland, there’s more of a chance of … making a new cellar and maintaining those traditions.” During the most recent meeting in Savoonga, residents asked researchers about climate predictions – and stressed the resilience of Indigenous people in face of environmental change. Kugo says that overall, residents in four Alaska communities asked them about practical takeaways from their research. “This project might be a bridge between the communities … They are looking for what they can do and do together.” While researchers are nearing the end of the social science part of the project, climate evaluations are continuing. Collaborations with other countries will go on as well. Cherokee Nation leaders in Oklahoma signed an order Wednesday officially establishing Cherokee Nation Flag Day to be celebrated annually on October 8. The day commemorates October 8, 1977, when the Cherokee council started the process of developing a new flag design. Leaders say the flag represents Cherokee Nation history, culture, and sovereignty.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.   Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Thursday, October 9, 2025 — Walrus management in a changing Arctic

Photo: The Gila River Governance Center located in the tribal capital of Sacaton. (Gabriel Pietrorazio / KJZZ) Arizona’s 22 tribes rely on federal dollars to fund programs and even to pay some employees. But as KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, two Valley-based tribal communities say the ongoing government shutdown should have limited effect. Governor Stephen Roe Lewis of the Gila River Indian Community shared in a video message that his administration has been crafting a contingency plan to fund essential services for up to 90 days. The longest shutdown was during President Donald Trump’s first term and lasted 35 days. “So our plan should more than cover a shutdown, but we will also have plans in place should a longer, unprecedented shutdown occur. And I also want to assure you that we don’t anticipate any interruption in any of our community programs at this time.” That optimism was echoed in prepared remarks by Martin Harvier, president of the neighboring Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community. “While this may cause some disruption, I want to reassure you that our tribal departments remain fully operational and staff are committed to delivering the services you count on every day.” Nearly 31,000 employees have been furloughed by the Interior Department, including more than a third of all Bureau of Indian Affairs staff. The National Congress of American Indians has even created a survey, urging tribes across Indian Country to share their experiences on how the current shutdown is impacting them. The Odawa Casino will host the IndigiPitch competition in December. (Courtesy Clark) A new pitch competition is looking for Indigenous entrepreneurs in Michigan who have ideas for startups. IPR’s Claire Keenan-Kurgan has more. Indigipitch will give Native Americans in Michigan a chance to compete for cash prizes to get a startup off the ground. Shiloh Slomsky is the financial officer and Tribal liaison for 20Fathoms, a Traverse City-based group that’s organizing the competition. She says Michigan’s Indigenous communities are full of creative business ideas. “We’re taught to not waste anything and to utilize everything that we take. And in order to utilize everything we take, it really takes an innovative mindset to be able to do that.” Slomsky is looking for applications from Native Americans in Michigan who have startup ideas, and from Native small business owners who want to have a vendor booth at the event. The pitch competition is on December 5 at the Odawa Casino in Petoskey. Applications are open until October 13. Chickasaw Nation Governor Bill Anoatubby speaks during the Cultural Night at the Anoliˈ Theater in the Chickasaw Cultural Center. (Courtesy Chickasaw Nation / Facebook) Chickasaw Nation Governor Bill Anoatubby says the Chickasaw Nation is strong, as he delivered the State of the Nation address. “My fellow Chickasaws, I am honored to report to you today, that the state of the Chickasaw Nation is remarkably strong, and the best is yet to come.” He gave the speech during the Oklahoma tribe’s recent annual meeting and festival. Anoatubby highlighted a number of tribal issues including its diverse business portfolio, which he says continues to expand. He also touched on expanding education, health care and other programs. Gov. Anoatubby talked about the importance of collaboration, including for public safety and infrastructure projects. “By continuing government to government relations with local, tribal, state, and federal partners and cultivating partnerships with agencies, institutions and many other organizations, we assure mutual growth and vitality for the Chickasaw Nation and the communities throughout Oklahoma.” He emphasized the tribe’s commitment to language and cultural preservation. The address was followed by a parade and activities, which are part of the weeklong festival.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.   Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Wednesday, October 8, 2025 – Risks and unintended consequences of terminating USAID

Photo: The Old San Carlos Memorial is located in Peridot on the San Carlos Apache Reservation. (Gabriel Pietrorazio / KJZZ) The U.S. Supreme Court will not reconsider the nonprofit Apache Stronghold’s effort to preserve sacred lands from a massive copper mining project east of Phoenix, Ariz. Monday, the justices declined to revisit an earlier decision to throw out the case for a second and final time. KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio has more. Court records show conservative Neil Gorsuch stands alone in supporting the nonprofit’s plea. Justice Clarence Thomas previously joined him in co-authoring a May dissent. Recusing himself once more was Samuel Alito, who has disclosed stock holdings in BHP, the Australian-based minority partner behind Resolution Copper. In a statement, Resolution Copper told KJZZ it’s pleased the court upheld a split Ninth Circuit ruling that Oak Flat is not subject to religious freedom protections, while on social media, Apache Stronghold says it’s “deeply disappointing” that Mother Earth’s voice goes unheard yet again. Kloshe Illahee Haws Housing development in Salem, Oreg. (Photo: Brian Bull) The Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians (CTSI) had a grand opening last week for its latest off-reservation housing development in Salem, Oreg. The site is a mixed-income living facility with 39 units. Brian Bull of Buffalo’s Fire reports. An honor song and ribbon cutting officially opened the Kloshe Illahee Haws complex. About sixty people attended the ceremony, including tribal member Vera Vasquez. The working mother of three explored the two and four bedroom units, excited for the next day when she’d move in with her family from their much smaller home. “This is changing my life. We’ve been literally bursting at the seams in our two-bedrooms, so this is just going to be really nice to have space. And what I’m really looking forward to though, is having the community and the garden and the tribal activities. Our kids can play and grow up together, and like we can really connect as people.” Tribal officials say Native people in Oregon experience homelessness four times more than other demographics. And Salem has the second highest population of Siletz citizens next to the tribal headquarters and reservation area. Many left for cities and coastal industries after Congress terminated the tribe’s federal status in 1954. Even after being reinstated in 1977, many Siletz people stayed in those areas. CTSI Tribal Chair Delores Pigsley speaks before cutting a ribbon as part of the grand opening ceremony for the Kloshe Illahee Haws Housing development. (Photo: Brian Bull) Tribal chair Dee Pigsley says they’re also looking at the city of Eugene. “They’ve all been really tough areas to provide housing because we don’t own land there. We have to buy the land, and it’s land that comes at a premium. And then we have to find money to build the homes.” The Kloshe Illahee Haws complex cost $17 million. Half of that was covered by an Indian Housing Block Grant, while the tribe covered the rest. The Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes in Oklahoma, in partnership with the US Army, have begun the process of returning 16 children home from the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania. In a press release Monday, the tribes said it’s a solemn and historic undertaking more than two years in the making. The disinterment began in September at the Carlisle cemetery. The tribes say the month-long project represents a moment of healing and remembrance, carried out with descendants, ceremonial leaders, tribal officials, forensic experts, and Army representatives. The children will be reinterred on Tribal land in Concho, Okla. Eleven Cheyenne and five Arapaho children who passed away while attending the school are returning home, 13 of the children were under the age of 18. The federal school opened in 1879. Native children were forced to assimilate, and were trained in various trades. According to the tribes, the repatriation marks an important step toward justice and healing for the families and Tribal Nations impacted by the boarding school era.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.   Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Tuesday, October 7, 2025 — Protecting sacred sites in urban areas

Photo: USCGC Neah Bay on frozen Lake Superior in 2021. (Jim Sorbie / Wikimedia) A resource guide to help small and medium-sized governments in the Great Lakes region adapt to climate change has been published. Chuck Quirmbach reports that some tribal communities in the area are already trying to reduce problems caused by higher temperatures and additional flooding. The guide is from the International Joint Commission (IJC), which helps implement the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 between the U.S. and Canada. Liz Kirkwood of the IJC’s Water Quality Board says climate change has brought more severe storms, loss of ice cover, and extreme temperatures to much of North America, including the Great Lakes region. “In 2024, extreme weather disasters cost the eight Great Lakes more than $13 billion combined. Some of the costliest disasters happened in the last five years.” While debate continues over how to reduce air pollution that contributes to climate change, the IJC has published a guide aimed at helping small and medium sized governments adapt to the new temperatures and heavier rainfalls. Charlie Rasmussen of the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission says his organization welcomes the sharing of best practices, funding ideas, and other strategies. He says the Commission’s eleven Ojibwe member tribes in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota are already taking steps, sometimes in collaboration with local, state, or federal agencies. One project, being, ishkode. That’s using prescribed, or controlled, fires on land next to water. “They help maintain and re-establish native species, species that do the best job at holding the soil and better able to resist some of these severe precipitation events.” Rasmussen says other tribes are putting in larger roadside culverts to reduce highway damage from flooding, and to help wildlife move. He says tribes also share traditional ecological knowledge (TEK). “It encourages building relationships with plants, animals, and water as living beings, rather than just a natural resource that you manage.” IJC says it recognizes its Climate Adaptation Guide has some gaps, including needing more content from First Nations and island communities. (Courtesy Oneida Nation / Facebook) Family, friends, and colleagues from across Indian Country gathered Friday and Saturday on the Oneida Nation in Wisconsin, for funeral services to honor Ernie Stevens, Jr., chairman of the Indian Gaming Association. Stevens is being remembered as a longtime advocate for Indian Country and for making strides in Indian gaming. During visitation on Friday, which was steamed online, his son Brandon Stevens said his was an amazing tribal leader who fought for Native voices, sovereignty and for future generations. And above everything else, said his father was a family man. “But to us, to his family, he was more than a leader. He was a man who loved us without hesitation, who protected us, and who always reminded us that family is everything. No matter what we did in our lives, good, bad, or ugly, he looked straight through us and said, ‘You are my children, and I love you no matter what.’” Stevens died suddenly at age 66 on September 26. Sen. Lisa Murkowski in a studio at Juneau, Alaska radio station KTOO in 2019. (Photo: Rashah McChesney / KTOO) U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) says temporary federal funding for 14 tribal broadcasting stations in Alaska from the Bureau of Indian Affairs will help keep the lights on, but says the job is not done. In a recent statement, Sen. Murkowski said the funding will help some of the state’s most rural radio stations make ends meet for now. But it’s one-time funding. Ten million dollars in BIA existing funding will support Native serving stations in the US. This follows the rescission by Congress of $1.1 billion for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. October first marked the first day public media operated without federal funding.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.   Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Monday, October 6, 2025 – Tribal housing advocates work against a tide of obstacles

Photo courtesy Iñupiat Community of the Arctic Slope / Facebook A tribe on Alaska’s North Slope hosted an emergency management course in Utqiagvik last week. Organizers say it’s the first for a tribe in Alaska and part of an effort to bolster coordination between communities in the Arctic during disasters. Alaska Desk reporter Alena Naiden from our flagship station KNBA has more. Iñupiat Community of the Arctic Slope is a regional tribe representing seven North Slope villages. The tribe worked with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to host a course to prepare villages to respond to disasters. Stephanie Nelson is the director of emergency management for the tribe. She says the training was important in light of increasing emergencies in the region and given the isolated geography of many North Slope communities. “The outcome is enhancing the communication from all attendees and becoming better at being prepared to respond to different levels of incidences, emergencies that we face within the Arctic.” The four-day Integrated Emergency Management Course brought together over 50 people every day. Nelson says that two major discussions focused on scenarios similar to actual emergencies from 2022 – like Typhoon Merbok in Point Hope and a gas leak at Alpine oil field near Nuiqsut. Participants used those examples to discuss how cities, North Slope Borough and tribal governments can work together in an emergency situation. The course is a result of the tribe’s efforts to implement an official emergency management program. John Pennington is a professor of Homeland Security and Emergency Management at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. “It’s using the strength of the Alaska Native communities that are the North Slope to improve emergency management through the lens of Alaska Natives, first and foremost.” Pennington says that communities in the Arctic have been seeing intensifying storms and erosion. The state of Alaska is responsible for a vast area where several communities can experience disasters at the same time. But Pennington says that the tribe’s new emergency program will also help North Slope communities to seek disaster declarations directly from the federal government when needed – which can speed up the delivery of assistance. Indian Health Service is headquartered in Rockville, Md. (Photo: Antony-22 / Wikimedia) The Indian Health Service (IHS) is operating as business-as-usual during the federal government shutdown, which started Wednesday. The IHS says it has received advance appropriations. Tribal leaders from across the country have been raising concerns about the shutdown. This week, President Thora Walsh-Padilla of the Mescalero Apache Tribe in New Mexico updated her community in a social media post saying health services are operating normally. She says she’s concerned about other federal programs including Medicaid, food stamps, and Social Security, but assures the community the tribe continues its work. “Tribal leadership has conveyed our concerns to our federal representatives and we are continually reaching out for updates as the federal budget is being developed. But please be assured we will get through this together. Our tribe will still stand strong.” The National Congress of American Indians is also raising concerns about the government shutdown, and has posted a resources page online for tribes. (Photo courtesy Gila River Indian Community / Facebook) Governor Stephen Roe Lewis of the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona sent his condolences on behalf of the tribe to the family, colleagues and friends of Dr. Jane Goodall. The well-known primatologist passed away this week at age 91. She spent time on the Gila River Indian reservation on Earth Day. Lewis says she reached out to young people. “To encourage them to be leaders, to be protectors of our water, of our land, of our wildlife, and of our planet.” Lewis says the tribe looks forward to carrying on her legacy of conservation.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.   Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Friday, October 3, 2025 – Native Playlist: Ken Pomaroy and Samantha Crain

The president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe has denounced Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s decision not to revoke medals awarded for one of history’s most infamous massacres. Brian Bull of Buffalo’s Fire reports. In late December 1890, members of the 7th Cavalry attempted to disarm a large group of Chief Spotted Elk’s followers they had encircled at Wounded Knee Creek, S.D. A shot went off and the soldiers mowed down the group of largely Native women, children, and elders with rifles and powerful Hotchkiss guns. Twenty-five soldiers were killed by friendly fire as well. Later investigations showed fleeing survivors were chased down and killed where they stood. The following year, 20 U.S. soldiers received the Medal of Honor for gallantry at Wounded Knee, but top brass, including Major General Nelson A. Miles, condemned the incident as “the most abominable military blunder and a horrible massacre of women and children.” Efforts to revoke the medals gained momentum starting in 1990, the centennial of the incident, but in a video posted to his X account last week, Secretary Hegseth said the 20 soldiers who fired upon the Lakota Natives will not have their medals revoked. “We’re making it clear that they deserve those medals decision is now final and they’re placed in our nation’s history is no longer up for debate.” Oglala Sioux Tribal president Frank Star Comes Out is a descendant of Spotted Elk – and a Marine veteran of the Gulf War and Mogadishu. “We’ll continue to fight to get these medals rescinded.” He says he’s not surprised by Hegseth’s decision, but it still speaks to the indifference of those who don’t know their history. “It’s despicable, untruthful, and insulting to our people.” In a press release, the Oglala Sioux Tribe says descendants of those scarred by Wounded Knee have served honorably in every U.S. conflict from World War I to Afghanistan. And every year, an annual memorial ride is held to honor those killed at Wounded Knee. “This is history, this is something our people are traumatized with, and we have to live with that. And I keep saying this every time I go to Washington to advocate not only for the Oglala Sioux Tribe and tribes nationwide: ‘Y’know, we were never dealt a fair hand.’” Meanwhile, the National Congress of American Indians has also denounced Hegseth’s decision, and are calling on the U.S. Congress to pass what’s called the “Remove the Stain Act” so that “the nation’s highest honor fulfills its namesake by reflecting courage, not cowardice and cruelty.” Belfast City Hall in Ireland. (Photo: Giorgio Galeotti / Wikimedia) The Belfast City Council in Ireland approved a historic policy for the island’s Indigenous language. Seo McPolin has more from Eire. Belfast city councillors approved the new Irish language policy this week. It comes after years of advocacy and consultations with the Indigenous language community. The city plans to redesign its logo to now include the original Irish spelling of Béal Feirste, which means “mouth of the sand-bank ford”. The policy also pledges to ensure all city signs contain both languages. Far-right councillors tried to block the new policy, but were unsuccessful. The council previously earmarked the equivalent of $2.5 million to fund the changes as well as new initiatives that remove barriers for the use of Irish in public life. The Irish language has been experiencing a renaissance of late, particularly among young speakers, in part thanks to the worldwide success of the Belfast band Kneecap. (Photo: Cherokee Nation) The Cherokee Nation partnered with DreamWorks Animation and NBCUniversal to dub the animated film “How to Train Your Dragon” into the Cherokee language. The Oklahoma tribe held a private screening of the film this week, which is streaming on Peacock. It’s part of the tribe’s Cherokee language preservation efforts.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.   Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Thursday, October 2, 2025 – Bracing for the federal government shutdown grind

Across Canada, Indigenous and non-Indigenous people marked the fifth National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, also known as Orange Shirt Day. Prime minister Mark Carney reflected on the tragic legacy of the residential school system and talked about how his government is moving toward reconciliation. But as Dan Karpenchuk reports, the country’s governor general says more work remains. There were rallies, ceremonies, and speeches with in many communities a sea of orange shirts. And there were celebrations of Indigenous music, language, art, and culture, and most importantly there was time to reflect on the past abuses of the residential schools. In Ottawa, at one of the events PM Carney addressed the crowd. “Truth is the foundation of justice. And the truth is for more than century this country ran residential schools. Over 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Métis children were taken from their families and their communities, torn from their languages, their cultures and their identities. On this national day for truth and reconciliation, we honor survivors and the children. The children who never returned home. We reflect on the devastating legacy of the residential school system. And we as a government and as a people, we match remembrance with responsibility.” It’s been nearly ten years since the recommendations from the National Truth and Reconciliation Commission. There were 94 directives after the commission heard from thousands of residential school survivors who told their personal stories of pain and tragedy. Carney says his government remains committed to advancing the work of that commission. Governor General Mary Simon (Inuk) says some progress has taken place, but much work remains. “Inequities persist and we share a life long responsibility to address them. I have seen Indigenous people striving to heal while still struggling to meet basic needs. Too often they lack access to adequate trauma informed mental health support that honors their traditional healing practices. So today, I call on every Canadian to renew their commitment to reconciliation.” Simon says she sees a world where young Indigenous people can embrace being Canadian without compromising their identity. Haskell students Abigail Lowe and Denise Flores Frazier. (Photo: Rhonda LeValdo) In the U.S., events also took place across the country for Orange Shirt Day, including at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kan. The university was originally established as an Indian boarding school. Current Haskell senior Denise Flores Frazier gave out orange ribbon pins in remembrance of children who attended Haskell Institute and never returned home. (Photo: Rhonda LeValdo) “We created pins with the names of children that were discovered at Haskell Indian Nations University. We put out their tribes and a website link so that people can find if they have a relative here or if they want to know more information about some of the children here like the ages they passed or time here at Haskell. We’re also leaving notes in case people have anything they want to say to the children.” Frazier is an alumni of Gamma Delta Pi. The sorority chapter hosted the event. Other events on campus included a remembrance walk, and an open mic and panel night to provide people the opportunity to share stories. The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) has a list of resources available for tribes and hosted a webinar this week, ahead of the federal government shutdown, to discuss tribal funding, Indian Affairs, and critical services. Webinar speakers discussed contingency plans saying most tribal program will be impacted, which could include disruptions of appropriations. The government shutdown at midnight on Wednesday.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.   Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Wednesday, October 1, 2025 – Rewriting the historical context for Native Americans

It’s National Truth and Reconciliation Day, also known as Orange Shirt Day. The annual event is dedicated to honoring the survivors and children lost in Canada’s residential school system, and to recognize the abuses and effects of that system. As Dan Karpenchuk reports, on the eve of Orange Shirt Day, a multi-million-dollar settlement and an apology were announced for survivors at one northern school. The agreement in principle is aimed at compensating the former students of the Île-à-la-Crosse Boarding School, just under 300 miles north of Saskatoon. “Simply put these schools were a mistake and they shouldn’t have existed.” The premier of Saskatchewan Moe Scott went to the community on Monday. “Today, we acknowledge the role of the province of Saskatchewan and previous Saskatchewan governments in the operation of the Île-à-la-Crosse school until 1970. And today on behalf of the province of Saskatchewan, I apologize to you. And as part of this agreement the province as agreed to pay $40.2 million to address the four major pillars of compensation under the class action that was filed.” The compensation, Moe says, is an effort to promote reconciliation, healing, wellness, education, language, culture, and commemoration in the community of Île-à-la-Crosse. The school was established by the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a congregation of the Roman Catholic Church. The residential schools operated across most of Canada from the mid-1800’s to the late 1900’s in an attempt to assimilate First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children into white society. It’s believed about 150,000 children were forced to attend the schools. Thousands were physically, emotionally, and sexually abused. Many died. The Saskatchewan government expects the proposed settlement will be approved by the courts by early next year. Eklutna Casino security guard. The U.S. Interior Department has reversed a Biden administration decision to give Alaska tribes legal jurisdiction over Native allotments. As KNBA’s Rhonda McBride tells us, the order could return millions of acres of land to state control and shut down the Eklutna Tribe’s new casino near Anchorage. This latest federal opinion attempts to restore a 1993 Interior Solicitor’s opinion issued during President George W. Bush’s administration. It gave the state jurisdiction over Alaska Native allotments. Last year, the Interior Solicitor in the Biden administration, Bob Anderson, issued a new interpretation of that decision. It gave jurisdiction over Native allotments to the tribes, which cleared the way for the Eklutna Tribe to operate a small casino on a Native allotment. Last week, the Trump administration’s Deputy Secretary of the Interior overrode Anderson’s opinion and instructed all department bureaus, including the National Indian Gaming Commission, to follow the 1993 opinion. Anderson now lives in Anchorage and is a visiting professor at Harvard. He says reversal of his decision is wrong – that Native allotments in Alaska should be regulated by the tribe, just as they are in the Lower 48. “It’s been the law in the Lower 48 forever, and Alaska is part of the United States, and the same federal laws apply here, as they do everywhere else. So, I’m fairly confident that we’ll continue to prevail on these questions.” Anderson says the National Indian Gaming Commission would have to reverse his opinion. He says that, although the commission operates under the Interior Department, it’s an Independent regulatory agency and the Interior Secretary doesn’t have the power to make it revoke its approval of the Eklutna Tribe’s gaming hall. In April, the State of Alaska sought an injunction from a federal court in Washington D.C. to shut it down. So what happens now that the Interior Department has revoked tribal jurisdiction over Native allotments in Alaska? The state has not said what it’s next step will be. Patty Sullivan, communications director for the State Department of Law, said the new opinion calls for the Interior Department to reevaluate actions taken by the National Indian Gaming Commission. Alaska attorney general Stephen Cox applauded the decision and said it restores jurisdictional balance that Congress intended. Despite last week’s opinion, the Native Village of Eklutna said the Chin’an Gaming Hall remains open. The tribe’s president, Aaron Leggett, said it will also review the opinion to clarify questions of legal jurisdiction.   Watch the latest episode from our Native Justice Series   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.   Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Tuesday, September 30, 2025 – Native in the Spotlight: Tina Kuckkahn

(Photo: Gabriel Pietrorazio / KJZZ) The father of Emily Pike has filed a civil lawsuit against the Mesa group home that had the San Carlos Apache teen in its custody before she went missing and was murdered in Arizona. KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio has details. The seven-page complaint alleges Sacred Journey Inc. group home staff were negligent in failing to keep Emily in their care – blaming them for her “wrongful death.” “If they had kept her safe, would this have happened? We don’t know.” Olivia Lemorrocco is with the Phillips Law Group. The Department of Child Safety found, back in April, a few deficiencies but once the facility corrected them, no further action was taken. “Their investigation came too late, unfortunately for Emily. I know they’ve made small changes, but it doesn’t change the facts of what happened.” The personal injury law firm in Phoenix is representing Emily’s biological dad, Jensen Pike, who has been behind bars since before she disappeared in late January. He’s seeking unspecified damages for forever being deprived of his child. “You know, I can’t speak for any other family member or Emily’s mom. The answer is, I don’t know if she’s pursuing anything.” A mural honoring slain Native American teen Emily Pike on the San Carlos Apache Reservation. (Photo: Gabriel Pietrorazio / KJZZ) Sacred Journey Inc. did not respond for comment, but has 20 days to reply to the complaint that also looks to recoup funeral and burial costs. The San Carlos Apache Tribe provided at least $5,000 for Emily’s funeral, but that didn’t cover everything. “I cannot confirm where the funds came from directly, but what I can tell you is that the funeral expenses far exceeded $5,000 as many family members had to travel in. As you know, that adds up very quickly.” Emily’s remains were found, back in February, in garbage bags along an Arizona highway – over 100 miles away from where she was last seen at the group home. Nicci Wagy with Warrior Women for Justice speaks to those gathered at the vigil Friday. (Photo: Kayla Desroches / Yellowstone Public Radio) Billings, Mont. hosted its second annual Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples vigil and community meal to honor loved ones and rally around justice and healing. Yellowstone Public Radio’s Kayla Desroches has more. Advocacy group Warrior Women for Justice convene the vigil Friday morning with a smudging ceremony on the Yellowstone County Courthouse lawn. Nicci Wagy with Warrior Women for Justice is Apsáalooke and Omaha and says this gathering is an opportunity for community members to honor their loved ones in solidarity. “To not only remember the stolen, but bring awareness, seek advocacy, seek justice and accountability and to speak for those who have been silence.” According to a 2020 report from the Montana Department of Justice, Indigenous people make up less than a tenth of the state’s population, but roughly 25% of all missing persons. “Today it does not matter if you call upon the Lord to hear your prayers or if you turn to all four directions while burning sacred herbs to lift your pleas. What matters today is standing together as one to roll away the stone that’s blocking the government and media and our own families and communities from acting. We stand together to give life to hope.” After speeches and reading a list of the missing and murdered, attendees share a meal, stories, and healing crafts like painting and weaving. Wagy says Warrior Women for Justice will roll out a series of recordings from the event to highlight some of those stories. Ernie Stevens, Jr. is being remembered for his contributions to Indian Country, serving as chairman of the Indian Gaming Association for more than two decades. Stevens, a citizen of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, passed away suddenly on Friday at age 66. The Indian Gaming Association says Stevens was a strong advocate for Native rights, and his legacy includes a record of policy victories and economic achievements in Indian gaming. Stevens was a guest on Native America Calling last month. Listen to the full episode. Tuesday, August 12, 2025 – The outlook for tribal gaming     Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.   Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Monday, September 29, 2025 – How will Native Americans fare in state-by-state redistricting push?

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced over 70 public health officers will be deployed to Indian Health Services (IHS) facilities across the country. IHS has faced staffing shortages serving 2.7 million Native Americans and Alaska Natives across the country. Reporter Carolann Duro (Maara’yam & Kumeyaay descendant) has more. In a request for comment, IHS Chief Medical Officer Dr. Loretta Christensen shared that nurses, providers, pharmacists, social workers, lab medical technologists, and engineers would be filling shortages at their facilities. When asked about their preparedness, Dr. Christensen responded that all officers would be receiving orientation upon arrival. Abigail Echo-Hawk, director of the Urban Indian Health Institute, provides insight on their training. “There has been a consistent gap at IHS in providing culturally based on boarding and education for individuals who are new to Indian country.” However, Echo-Hawk shares that there is progress being made after IHS visited her organization, Seattle Indian Health Board, to observe their cultural onboarding system. HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. says this is part of his initiative to Make America Healthy Again, which Echo-Hawk says has been lacking. “Because up until this point, Indian country has been just responding to the immediate changes that have been made across HHS. From the cancellation of individual grants to no knowledge of what’s going to happen with different programs.” Deployments of the public officers will be assigned equally across Northern and Southern IHS facilities. Master weaver Lily Hope holds up a Labubu decked out in Ravenstail weaving on Sept. 12, 2025. (Photo: Yvonne Krumrey / KTOO) A Lingít master weaver is using the viral monster dolls called Labubus to bring attention to Chilkat and Ravenstail weaving. KTOO’s Yvonne Krumrey saw the regalia-clad dolls herself and has more. In Lily Hope’s shop in downtown Juneau, she holds up a tiny doll with an evil grin. “Some people are like, ‘Why? Oh, please no. Why? What an ugly monster.’ And other people are like, ‘Oh, please let me have one.’” Her shop is filled with pieces of weaving: earrings, formline robes, and pictures of models in more weaving. On her desk lies a green doll wearing a Ravenstail headdress, woven in pink, white, and blue yarn. “This one is Trans Pride requested from an art collector in New York City.” Hope is a master weaver. She has dedicated her life to reviving Chilkat and Ravenstail weaving, and through apprenticeships and classes, she’s helped hundreds of Alaska Native people form their own weaving practice. She’s also a mom of five — and those two worlds collided when her kids started asking for Labubus. “My three small children introduced me to the dolls and said, ‘Please, Mommy, please, mommy, buy these for us.’” You may have heard of them. Labubus in Ravenstail weaving on display at master weaver Lily Hope’s studio on Sept. 12, 2025. (Photo: Yvonne Krumrey / KTOO) The dolls are all over the internet, with their fuzzy bodies, big colorful eyes, and pointy teeth. They are based on storybook characters. Hope says they come in “blind boxes” — generic packaging that leaves the contents a mystery — so part of the fun is finding which Labubu is in the box. “Oh, yes, this is the whole rage, right? It’s like, oh, I got lychee Berry. Oh, I got, I got the green grape. Oh, now we need to get soy milk, Mama, let’s get soy milk..” But in the craze, she saw an opportunity to continue to push Northwest Coast weaving into the spotlight. “When somebody sees an Indigenized Labubu in a Ravenstail regalia, they can be like, ‘Oh, where does that come from? Oh, what are those? Oh, what is Ravenstail weaving? It’s related to Chilkat? Let’s go.’” Hope’s doll-sized regalia sets go for more than $600 and fine arts collectors all over the country are ordering them, but for those who don’t want to shell out that much, Hope also sells kits for people who want to weave their own outfits for a doll. “It’s a way to get the work further into the world. And kind of, you know, capture some people who wouldn’t necessarily come to Ravenstail weaving otherwise, but are like, ‘Oh, this is a way that I can dress my Labubu in traditional regalia, and I made it myself.’ That’s huge.” It’s a way of weaving your own story into the trend. And the little monsters look pretty cool, too.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.   Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Friday, September 26, 2025 – The Native American history censorship threat at National Parks and other federal institutions

A resource guide to help small and medium-sized governments in the Great Lakes region adapt to climate change has been published. Chuck Quirmbach reports that some tribal communities in the area are already trying to reduce problems caused by higher temperatures and additional flooding. The guide is from the International Joint Commission (IJC), which helps implement the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 between the U.S. and Canada. Liz Kirkwood of the IJC’s Water Quality Board says climate change has brought more severe storms, loss of ice cover, and extreme temperatures to much of North America, including the Great Lakes region. “In 2024, extreme weather disasters cost the eight Great Lakes more than $13 billion combined. Some of the costliest disasters happened in the last five years.” While debate continues over how to reduce air pollution that contributes to climate change, the IJC has published a guide aimed at helping small and medium sized governments adapt to the new temperatures and heavier rainfalls. Charlie Rasmussen of the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission says his organization welcomes the sharing of best practices, funding ideas, and other strategies. He says the Commission’s eleven Ojibwe member tribes in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota are already taking steps, sometimes in collaboration with local, state, or federal agencies. One project, being, ishkode. That’s using prescribed, or controlled, fires on land next to water. “They help maintain and re-establish native species, species that do the best job at holding the soil and better able to resist some of these severe precipitation events.” Rasmussen says other tribes are putting in larger roadside culverts to reduce highway damage from flooding, and to help wildlife move. He says tribes also share traditional ecological knowledge (TEK). “It encourages building relationships with plants, animals, and water as living beings, rather than just a natural resource that you manage.” IJC says it recognizes its Climate Adaptation Guide has some gaps, including needing more content from First Nations and island communities. This academic year in North Dakota, eighth graders are getting new textbooks that’ll educate them about the five tribes that are found within the state. As Brian Bull of Buffalo’s Fire reports, this is a series that’s being revised for the first time in 30 years. Originally, four texts and a journal were printed between 1995 and 2002. Much of the content came from interviews with tribal elders in the 1970s. This new series will still feature books on the Spirit Lake Oyate, Standing Rock Oyate, Turtle Mountain Ojibwe, and the three affiliated tribes Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation (MHA), but a new edition on the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate has been added. And each tribe had exclusive editorial control over their respective book, which included more recent historical information. “It’s so important that Indigenous peoples are represented in a contemporary sense.” Sashay Schettler is an MHA citizen and the assistant director of North Dakota’s Office of Indigenous and Multicultural Education. She recalls classmates growing up who thought Native people were extinct. “Then you have people getting elected into positions and if you have somebody thinking that Indigenous peoples don’t exist, they’re going to make policies that aren’t bettering our communities for everyone.” Five percent of North Dakota’s population is Native American. Nick Asbury is a former employee of the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction who has remained active in promoting the books. “It’s important that we have the platform for the nations to tell their own story, because kids are smart. They know when something is authentic and when it’s not.” An original overview entitled “Journey to Understanding: An Introduction to North Dakota Tribes” is still part of the set. Besides eighth graders, people can download the set for free, or order a published copy online.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.   CHECK OUT THE LATEST EPISODE OF NATIVE AMERICA CALLING Thursday, September 25, 2025 – Robin Wall Kimmerer challenges us to re-examine what we know about the natural world

Photo: A billboard along U.S. Highway 89 encourages those living in the Western Agency of the Navajo Nation to get screened for uranium exposure by the Tuba City Regional Health Care Corporation. (Gabriel Pietrorazio / KJZZ) People in tribal communities say they’re getting approached by predatory representation and solicitation in the wake of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) being revived by Congress this summer. It provides compensation for uranium miners and people exposed to Cold War-era nuclear testing, as KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports in the second and final part of this story. Listen to Part One https://media.blubrry.com/nationalnativenews/ins.blubrry.com/nationalnativenews/nnn092325.mp3 With the tribal fair season in full swing, solicitors are even targeting elders there – like 64-year-old Maggie Billiman – in rural, western New Mexico. “It’s overwhelming. Who do you trust, who do you go to?” At her home in northeastern Arizona, she says many Navajos like herself struggle with all sorts of cancers. Billiman lives with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and chronic kidney disease. The daughter of a late uranium miner and Navajo Code Talker, Billiman recalls being asked to sign up with a national home health care company at the Eastern Navajo Fair in Crownpoint, N.M., but that happened in July – a month before the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) reopened the free process. “And she looked at me real surprised and she goes, ‘We can get your record for you if you’d like. Fill it out.’ And I said, ‘Oh, my god.’ I got up out of the chair.” Miner Alfred Francis is operating a mucking machine, while tran operator Bill Shorty stands in the foreground inside the Rico mine in Colorado in 1953. (Courtesy Navajo Uranium Miner Oral History and Photography Project / Center for Southwest Research at UNM Libraries) That fair booth was run by United Energy Workers Healthcare (UEW), which paid $9 million in 2023 to settle allegations of submitting false claims to the U.S. Department of Labor. Several requests from KJZZ to UEW went unanswered. They’ve been named among companies and attorneys in the West on a growing watch list curated by a working-group led by the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists. Their advocacy has led New Mexico’s attorney general to warn consumers to watch out for fraud. Cancer survivor Tina Cordova is sounding the alarm, too. “It’s pervasive, the scale is unprecedented.” As co-founder of the nonprofit Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, she and others cite as an example downwinders.com, a web domain trademarked by the Florida-incorporated National Cancer Benefits Center, which also owns another company called Atomic Veterans. “They’ve made people believe that they’re working with us.” National Cancer Benefits Center CEO Kirk Gladwin denies the allegations, stressing his company is part of the solution. “We do not solicit – we do not knock on doors – we do not call anybody ever and we never have, unless those people ask us for information. Don’t let anybody tell you that because that’s bull-[bleep] and I hate to say that, but that – that – that – that. I’ll draw the line. That makes me angry, because that’s not us.” Those affected can still find free assistance from a handful of federally funded health clinics through the Radiation Exposure Screening and Education Program (RESEP). Candice Lewis (Diné) is the RESEP patient navigator at North Country HealthCare in Flagstaff, Ariz. “The scams were new to me.” It’s one of only two such clinics in Arizona and she’s getting calls from all over. “I actually got off the phone earlier today with someone who was from New Mexico, and he shared a little bit of what he was going through. It was a hard call, they didn’t even state their name.” That’s supposed to be her job, so it upsets her. “Lawyers have more power and pull than me and it has been a little overwhelming at times, but I’m just like, ‘Bear with me, just be patient with us.’” Because if someone lawyers up, Lewis says her clinic can no longer help them with filing a RECA claim before the end of 2027. (Courtesy Gov. Tony Evers / Facebook) The Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and the state of Wisconsin recently celebrated new dual-language road signs. The signs identify the tribe’s boundaries and two river crossings in Ojibewmowin and English. The Bad River Band is the eighth of 12 tribes in the state to collaborate on dual-language road signs to be placed on state highways.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.  

The U.S. Department of Education announced last week a nearly half-billion dollar investment that will, in part, help to fund tribal colleges and universities (TCUs). As KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, it comes months after the White House proposed cuts that could’ve caused some schools to close. Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren met with Education Secretary Linda McMahon, for the first time, in Washington, D.C. to explain why tribal education is not Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and how these institutions are tied to preserving language and culture. “And I had to remind her about the Navajo Code Talkers and the things that we’ve done for this country and at the same time, making sure that we fund our education properly, including our higher education as well, so she was very receptive.” But coming away from that recent conversation President Nygren calls a “big win,” he admittedly did not expect what would follow just days later. “And then to get the good news after was even better – to know that over $100 million was going to be given to tribal colleges.” Like New Mexico’s Navajo Technical University and the nation’s oldest, Diné College in Tsaile, Ariz., both chartered by the Navajo Nation. Three dozen or so TCUs initially faced a roughly 90% funding deficit. Now they’ll get a one-time 109% increase and Nygren suggests it’s a sign that the Trump administration is listening. “The meeting that I had with her the week before was honored by really upholding her treaty trust responsibility.” The first feature film ever made in Idaho was shot more than a century ago – and it included more than a hundred members of the Nez Perce Tribe. Although only a third of the film was recovered, it’s been digitized and edited into a short film. Northwest Public Broadcasting’s Lauren Paterson has more. “Told in the Hills” is considered the first feature film shot in Idaho. It was filmed in Kamiah on the Nez Perce (PURSE) Indian Reservation. “ It was made in 1919 and it was an unusual film, even for early cinematic standards because of the unique and unprecedented collaboration with the Nez Perce tribe.” That’s Colin Mannex, executive director of the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre. The silent film’s story follows Jack Stuart, played by Robert Warwick, a man from a wealthy family who tries to escape some family drama by heading West. But he gets himself into trouble. More than a hundred members of the Nez Perce Tribe were invited to participate in the filming. “ They presented a lot of authentic cultural regalia, as a part of the production.” The Nez Perce tribal members portray the Kootenai tribe in the film, because the story takes place in rural Montana, despite being filmed in Idaho. After a young Kootenai chieftain is accidentally killed when he tries to bring a message of goodwill to the U.S. cavalry, Stuart is unjustly imprisoned. And the story follows how he escapes. Like many silent films, there will be music throughout the entire picture. The score for the new version of this long-lost western romance was created by Diné composer Connor Chee. “ What I ended up doing was writing, I think it’s about 17 different pieces, 17 cues that had a variety of emotions that could match what I’d seen on the screen in this rough cut.” The music score will be performed live at the movie showing. Being a member of the Navajo Nation, Chee says he doesn’t have to explicitly try to give his work an Indigenous feel, because it’s always woven into his work, but he says he did approach the music with a historical lens. “ I mean, I wanted like the melodrama and to, to match sort of the time period in that sense of what you’re seeing on screen.” The new version of the restored film will premiere at the Kenworthy Theatre in downtown Moscow, Idaho on the last Friday and Saturday of September as part of the theater’s Silent Film Festival.     Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.    

Photo: This sign marks one of more than a hundred abandoned uranium mines in Cameron on the Navajo Nation. (Gabriel Pietrorazio / KJZZ) The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) was recently renewed. It provides compensation for uranium miners and people exposed to Cold War-era nuclear testing. In what could be a final round of applications, allegations of predatory representation and solicitation are on the rise, targeting tribal communities, as KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports. President Donald Trump signed the RECA renewal on July 4 as part of his sweeping One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Immediately, Loretta Anderson noticed a problem. “By the (July) 5, I started getting these calls.” She’s a tribal member from the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico and says some attorneys and companies see RECA as an opportunity to cash in. “They’re not only going door-to-door, but they’re also having meetings almost every week.” Navajo miners, part of the Utco Uranium Corporation, pose near Cameron, Ariz. in 1956. (Courtesy Fronske Studio / Cline Library at Northern Arizona University) This year marks eight decades since the U.S. detonated its first atomic bomb at the Trinity Test Site in the New Mexico desert. Yet until now, no one in the Land of Enchantment could have ever filed a downwinder claim. “They mined them, made billions of dollars off the uranium, and when it was all said and done – they just left – left our people sick, suffering, and dying.” More than $2.6 billion have been already paid out for 42,000 claims since 1990. Members from 24 tribes account for at least 5,300 of those claims, most of which are linked to the Navajo Nation. Depending on their occupation or condition, claimants are eligible for up to $100,000. And that leads Anderson to worry about those very victims also falling prey to opportunistic third parties. “They’re all coming out of the woodworks again, this angers me.” Renewable energy provides a sizable share of power in some rural Alaska communities, but these are tough times to seek federal funding for wind and solar, as Alaska Public Media’s Liz Ruskin reports. Denali Commission programs director Jocelyn Fenton recently testified to a U.S. Senate Committee about the energy needs in rural Alaska. She emphasized fossil fuel. “Life in these villages depends on a fragile but vital infrastructure system: small diesel powerhouses, bulk fuel tank farms, and water treatment systems.” President Trump has paused or defunded renewable energy projects across the country. His 2026 budget would reduce funding for the Office of Indian Energy while disallowing any of it for wind, solar, or battery projects. The hearing in the Senate Indian Affairs Committee was entitled “Unleashing Indian Energy.” That’s a twist on Trump’s executive orders that call for unleashing American and Alaska’s energy, but for participants in the hearing, the nuanced message is that renewables should be unleashed, too. U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who chairs the committee, says government programs should not favor one energy source over another. “The projects that we can get online quickest and, quite honestly, cheapest right now are wind and solar, and we do have several of these that are in that pause category, along with some battery storage.“ The top Democrat on the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI), said his information is that the Office of Indian Energy is sitting on about $30 million — nearly half of the funds Congress appropriated for this fiscal year. The year ends in a few weeks, though some funds can be held over from one budget cycle to the next. The acting head of the office, David Conrad, said he’s not discriminating against renewables with that money, just waiting for word from higher-ups in the administration that he has approval to spend it.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.  

This year’s New York Fashion Week made history by featuring the first Native American designer. The show coincided with the first of its kind Indigenous New York Fashion Week. Reporter Carolann Duro (Maara’yam [Serrano] and Kumeyaay descendant) has more. Jamie Okuma (Shoshone Bannock, Wailaki, and member of the La Jolla Band of Indians) is known for her intricate beadwork and clothing designs. At New York Fashion Week, Okuma showcased pieces adorned with graphics of dentalium shells, flowers, elk teeth, and butterflies. The models walked in dresses made of silk, bamboo, and cotton. Okuma is the very first Native American designer to be included in New York Fashion Week. Nearby, the inaugural Indigenous New York Fashion Week was hosted by Relative Arts, an Indigenous fashion community space. The show featured 25 Indigenous artists from all over the world. Kinsale Drake (Diné) is the founder of NDN Girls Book Club, modeled for the runway. “The energy was just something that was so exciting and buzzy. It felt like you can’t erase us. We’re here and now we’re also in New York on Lenape land.” Drake points out how fashion week has long included tribal designs. “We saw recently a rise of Americana or western fashion, which derives from the southwest aesthetics which are Indigenous.” Details about the next Indigenous New York fashion week are still to come. (Courtesy Jud Turner) A sculpture honoring the last Chief of the Wenatchi tribe has been delivered and erected at a developing art installation in Wenatchee, Wash. The piece depicts P’Squosa Chief John Harmelt, also known as Crow Song, and is made of repurposed metal parts. Sculptor Jud Turner of Eugene, Oreg. was asked to do it for the Tribal Council of Wenatchee, which shows Chief Harmelt on horseback. Turner says it’s the most meaningful public piece he’s ever done, but he didn’t take the invitation lightly when he first talked to city officials about the sculpture. “I said, ‘You know I’m a white guy, right? Like you’re asking me to do a tribal subject for a tribe, and I want to make sure that you know that I’m non-Native, and that is okay with the tribe, and that you’re aware of that.’ And he said ‘Oh yeah, we understand that.’ And I said, ‘I can only do this with tribal oversight and guidance. I’m handling somebody else’s cultural traditions, and I want do that as carefully and respectfully as I can.’” (Courtesy Jud Turner) One special item on the Harmelt sculpture is a symbol on the back of his vest, which is a representation of his traditional name, Crow Song. It’s a black metal crow with swirls protruding from its beak. Turner says musical notes would have been a Western treatment and he wanted something more Native. (Courtesy Jud Turner) More pieces will be installed at Wenatchee’s Memorial Park to create “P’squosa Plaza.” These remaining works will be done by Swede Albert of the Colville Confederated Tribes. Coyote by Swede Albert. His pieces will be interpretive signs featuring animals and landmarks relevant to Wenatchee legends. “One of the stories is it is about two different bears, so I already made a grizzly bear and then there’s a little black bear that I’m making that’s going along with it. And then the coyote and the salmon, they go together in one story. There’s also a two owls sister story and I have two owls made for that. One more fabricated story that I’m making, and it’s for the Wenatchee peoples, they asked me to do like a representation of a basket, like a berry basket. They were really prominent in basket-making, weaving, and that’s a lot of the artifacts that are still left.” As a Wenatchee descendant, Albert says it’s deeply meaningful for him to work on this project. The P’Squosa Plaza’s dedication ceremony will be held October 13. (Courtesy Métis Government) And on this day in 2003, the Canadian Supreme Court handed down a landmark ruling which said the Métis People of current-day Ontario are a distinct Indigenous people with their own customs, identity, and traditions well before Canada became a country and Ontario became a province. The ten-year legal battled started with a Métis father and son, Steve and Roddy Powley, who refused to pled guilty to hunting moose without a license because of their tribal identities. The ruling empowered Métis people across Canada and September 19 is called Powley Day.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.    

Photo: Salmon being pulled from a gillnet in June 2025. (Terese Vicente / KRITFC) The State of Alaska wants the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether rural residents – which includes many Alaska Native people – should maintain subsistence fishing preference in the waterways of federal lands. KYUK’s Sage Smiley reports that, last month, a panel of federal appeals court judges sided with the federal government in its lawsuit against the state over salmon management on the Kuskokwim River. The feds sued the state after clashes over fish management on the lower river in 2021 and 2022. Indigenous groups including the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission and the Alaska Federation of Natives signed onto the case in support of the federal government, which is advocating for a rural Alaska preference. But on Monday, the state asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case, arguing that federal law shows that the state has the authority over its own waterways, even on federal land. On Tuesday, the New Mexico congressional delegation and Pueblo Leaders held a press conference outside the Capitol in Washington D.C. They urged Congress and the Trump administration to continue upholding protections for Chaco Canyon against oil and gas drilling. KUNM’s Jeanette DeDios (Jicarilla Apache and Diné) has more. In 2023, former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) created a 10-mile buffer zone for Chaco Canyon National Historical Park that prevents any oil and gas drilling for 20 years. But with a new presidential administration, the buffer zone is being reconsidered. Among the Pueblo Leaders that spoke, Governor of Santa Ana Myron Armijo urged acting Interior Secretary Doug Burgman to visit Chaco Canyon. “It’s a very sacred place. I’ve witnessed it, our ancestors are there. When we pray, you can feel it. You can feel it in your body, that they’re talking to you. They’re talking to us.” U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-NM) reaffirmed that Burgman had committed to a meeting with tribal leaders. “You told me you would, live up to your word, live up to the commitment you made in committee when I asked you.” U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) discussed a past visit by former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt to Chaco Canyon. “He realized, as a result of meaningfully consulting with tribal leadership in that place, that Chaco Canyon is not a museum. It is a living cultural landscape with direct relationships with the Pueblos today, and that’s the difference.” While Pueblo Leaders are committed to preserving the cultural site, the Navajo Nation sued the Interior Department in January in an attempt to reverse the buffer zone to 5 miles instead of 10, noting that it harmed tribal members who depend on oil and gas drilling in the area.   Kodiak Island WildSource processing plant. (Photo: Chris Sannito) To offset declining crab and salmon fisheries, communities along Alaska’s coast have turned to kelp, or seaweed. The Sun’aq Tribe of Kodiak won a milestone $2.3 million dollar grant to process locally grown kelp. The tribe owns and operates Kodiak Island WildSource, the only seafood plant in town that processes kelp. Its main products are frozen and smoked salmon, cod, and halibut. Wildsource president Chris Sannito says since adapting its facility to dry and preserve kelp, it’s hard to keep up with demand. “Some years, it’s really a bumper crop. I mean when the lighting was right and the seed stock was good, it really grows well in Kodiak.” Sannito says the new processing plant should boost the tribe’s earnings, and diversify the local economy. “It’s the tribe that has the vision, enough resources and enough, kinda creativity, to put something like this together. Hopefully, it’ll be a great success.” Sheets of dried kelp. (Photo: Chris Sannito) Sannito says when kelp is added to soil, it absorbs water and helps plants withstand drought. It also encourages root growth and is a sought-after ingredient in the emerging, “biostimulant” industry. Alaska Mariculture Cluster awarded the grant. It received its funding through the U.S. Economic Development Administration’s Build Back Better program.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.    

Photo: Robert Redford advocating against the demolition of Santa Monica Pier while filming “The Sting” on the pier. (Ken Dare / Los Angeles Times / UCLA) Hollywood legend Robert Redford has died at the age of 89. The longtime actor, producer, and activist passed away Tuesday in his Utah home. Among the many things Redford was known for over his career, he was a champion of the environment and Indigenous rights. Vincent Schilling, a journalist and CEO of Schilling Media, says the late actor launched many Native careers. “It’s no question that Mr. Robert Redford did a lot to help Native people, look at the Sundance Institute. Native filmmakers, Native actors, constantly have posted about the things through Sundance. And he just continued to fight the right fight.” Redford narrated the 1992 documentary “Incident at Oglala”, which investigated the 1975 murders of two FBI agents in South Dakota, and he was also an executive producer of the AMC mystery series, “Dark Winds”. In the third season premiere, he made a cameo appearance as a jailbird playing chess with another prisoner, played by George R.R. Martin. Lt. Joe Leaphorn, played by Zahn McClarnon, watches on. Again, Vincent Schilling. “There’s no mistaking what a hit ‘Dark Winds’ is, my gosh. Robert Redford really did quite a bit to enhance the legacy of not just himself as an actor, producer, and filmmaker, but also the legacy of Native filmmakers and independent artists all over the world. He leaves behind a wonderful legacy.” Native artists including Zahn McClarnon, Sterlin Harjo, and Kiowa Gordon have all paid tribute to Redford on social media.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Zahn McClarnon (@zahnmcclarnon)   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Sterlin Harjo (@sterlinharjo)   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Kiowa Gordon (@kiowajgordon) Graduates of Red Cloud Renewables third Pre-ARP cohort of 2025. (Courtesy Red Cloud Renewables / Facebook) South Dakota is a prime candidate for renewable energy developments like solar. However, one group wants to make sure that power – and career potential – reaches every corner of the state. SDPB’s C.J. Keene has more. Pine Ridge-based Red Cloud Renewables has just welcomed its fourth wholly Indigenous cohort into its pre-Apprenticeship Readiness Program (ARP) for the year. After the program, participants are “rooftop ready” to install solar panels as a career. Alicia Hayden is the group’s communications manager. She explains how the program works. “They learn basically everything there is to know about being a solar installer. They stay here on campus, so we give them gas money to get here or buy them a plane ticket to get here. We give them meals, we provide lodging, everything is free to the individual. When they leave here, they’re ready to enter the workforce.” There’s more to it than just helping people find career paths though. “Separately from our pre-ARP, we run a weatherization program which allows us to have this cache of community members we know are struggling with their energy bills. So, we select an applicant out of there and then nearing the end of this we take the class there, to their home, and get the class on the roof and install solar panels for them, and its free for the homeowners as well.” Hayden says the projects actively lower the cost of energy bills for families in need. “Especially on this reservation, there’s so much energy hardship and there’s so much sunshine and so much open space. When you drive through the reservation, you hardly see any trees and hardly anything that blocks out the sun. When we install these panels, we see a huge decrease in energy bills on our side of things. There’s no better place for a program like this.” This program is funded through grant dollars and public funds. In total, the group plans for seven pre-ARP programs by the end of the year for 100 total trainees.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.

Photo: Bad River Reservation in northern Wisconsin. (Courtesy Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa Indians) Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) offices in Wisconsin and Minnesota remain open after the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) targeted them for termination. As Danielle Kaeding reports, the initiative formerly led by billionaire Elon Musk had proposed canceling leases for several offices earlier this year. The cancellations affected offices in Ashland and Shawano in Wisconsin and Bemidji in Minnesota. Wisconsin tribes say the BIA office in Ashland is a critical regional hub that processes land trust applications and provides education assistance and law enforcement support. Robert Blanchard is chair of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. He says closing the office would’ve been a hardship for the tribe. “We would have probably had to go to Minneapolis or some other place further away from us to get services.” Bill Broydrick represents the owner of the Ashland office. He says Wisconsin tribes adopted a resolution in opposition to its closure. “On that basis, the decision was made by BIA to keep the office open.” BIA says all three offices remain open. The agency says it is working to ensure adequate space continues to be available to support delivery of services to tribes. While summer is winding down, powwow season is now a year-long observation thanks to venues held indoors or in warmer climes like the southwest, but you can still get a chilly reception if you don’t mind your manners. Buffalo’s Fire recently talked to several Native attendees of the 55th United Tribes Technical College (UTTC) powwow and asked them for their number one rule for good etiquette. Dion Crazy Bull (Ft. Peck Sioux/Standing Rock Sioux): “One of the main things I’d say not to do at a powwow is put your chairs down where the drums are supposed to be. Gotta think about all the singers, and the singers have wives, and they got kids and what-not. A lot of folks try to fight for space and yet they don’t even sit there the whole weekend.” Gabby Rave (Ho-Chunk): “My rule is to pick up after yourself, wherever you’re sitting. Make sure the trash gets in the garbage can.” Easton Wolf (Mandan, Hidatsa & Arikara): “People should know not to take pictures of you without your permission, always ask where you’re from, your name. What tribe you’re from, where you’re from, if it’s okay to take pictures of them.” Richard Gillette (Mandan, Hidatsa & Arikara): “Don’t block the elders, let them through if they’re getting to their chairs. Don’t stand inf front of them when they’re trying to watch the powwow.” Leroy Henry (Navajo Nation): “No picture taking unless you’re buying. ‘Cuz they usually send it back overseas and they copy our work, and then they send it back over here, they sell it for cheap. They may say it’s ‘Native made’ but they’re not Native made.” Gia McArthur (Ho-Chunk): “My rule is to be good and help look out for the vendors. A lot of the times they sit here, and have they spend a good part of the day…they don’t get a chance to get up to go get drinks, to get food. be good kind and smiling, if you have the opportunity offer a hand and help them out, you know, do so. Help them, see if they have water, see if they got something to eat, and stuff like that. Just be good to them.” And on this day in 1893, following a pistol shot, more than 100,000 settlers raced onto the Cherokee Strip of Oklahoma, land once inhabited by Native Americans. It was the largest land-run in history, for territory once considered too arid for farmers, and relegated to displaced Native people. But settlers pressured President Benjamin Harrison to open up the area to non-Natives, who hurried to stake their claim. September 16 is also Trail of Tears Commemoration Day for the thousands of Cherokees forced to leave their homes during President Andrew Jackson’s term.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.    

While dozens of tribal colleges and universities (TCUs) are facing funding cuts that could shut them down, a new report highlights some of the economic impacts generated from tens of thousands of alumni. It’s meant to show the “positive return on investment for students, taxpayers and society.” KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio has details. The study was commissioned by the nonprofit American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC). It found that over 40,000 former students added nearly $4 billion to the U.S. economy between 2022 and 2023. That data was gathered from the 35 higher education institutions, three from Arizona including the oldest, Diné College. “TCUs are a direct expression of sovereignty over our education systems – that drive job creation in our local economies, that are land and community based and that are also grounded in Native culture and traditions.” Ahniwake Rose (Cherokee) is the nonprofit’s president and CEO. “But they’re also economic powerhouses, and that’s part of what this study shows, is that not only the students who get educated there but also the colleges themselves, generate tens of millions of dollars for the state of New Mexico.” U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM), whose state is home to three TCUs, is hopeful for stable Biden-era funding. “As we’re headed into the last two weeks before the end of the fiscal year, the White House and Republicans have yet to produce a viable budget. So we anticipate that the cuts that were proposed in (President Donald) Trump’s budget are not going to go through because of the continuing resolution.” Tyonek Garden in 2024. Some Alaska Native leaders said the USDA reorganization could harm tribal agriculture. (Courtesy Tyonek Tribal Conservation District) The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced this summer that it plans to reorganize the agency. One of the largest Alaska Native advocacy organizations says the change could harm tribal food security programs. The Alaska Desk’s Alena Naiden from our flagship station KNBA reports. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced a plan to reorganize the department in July, citing the need to decrease spending and bureaucracy. That plan is not final, but the current proposal includes consolidation of tribal relations programs and personnel, according to the memorandum of the decision. But leaders of the First Alaskans Institute say that could diminish tribal voices and harm regional agriculture and food security. Last month, the nonprofit submitted a comment to USDA about the plan, asking the agency to consult with tribes. Apagruk Roy Agloinga is the president and CEO of the First Alaskans Institute. “Food security for Native communities, it’s not just a policy issue. It’s really a matter of survival, cultural continuity and self determination.” The USDA Office of Tribal Relations was created in 2010, after tribal farmers argued in court that the department discriminated against them. Tikaan Galbreath is the chief operating officer of First Alaskans Institute. He says that the USDA’s reorganization plan might move the Office of Tribal Relations from the higher-up secretarial level of the department. He says the change could diminish tribal access to USDA programs. Galbreath says that access to USDA programs is especially important in light of the changing environment. “The change in the migratory patterns and the decline for many of the species has raised the question for a lot of our communities of how do we continue to provide protein security for our tribal members? ” USDA did not respond to the comment the First Alaskans Institute submitted last month. However, the department did respond to a request for comment from KNBA, calling the proposed plan a first step to “right-size USDA’s footprint”. It added that the agency’s critical functions would not be affected. Meanwhile, USDA extended the public comment period on reorganization to the end of September.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.    

In our ongoing Native American Justice Series, we recently talked to clients of the Northern Arapaho Reentry program, which is helping people return home from out of state federal prisons and state incarceration to the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. The reservation is home to the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone Tribes. Many clients in the program say they’re more confident now to stay out of incarceration with the program’s assistance. Today, we’ll hear from some of the partners of the reentry program. Terri Smith, the program’s administrator, is a former Northern Arapaho Tribal attorney and judge who says she connects with her clients on a deeper level after she went through a public downfall a few years ago due to drugs. This day, she’s picking up clients and driving them to appointments. She helps people arrange transportation, find jobs, and receive benefits. “I feel like this is just perfect for me. I’ve been in their position, right … I just want them to know what they did, who they were before, doesn’t have to be now. Our goal is for them to be self-sufficient so, they can live a healthy life for themselves and their kids.” The reentry program works with other organizations like Eagles Hope, located in the town of Riverton, Wyo. offering two-year sober transitional living. Eagles Hope. The facility is a former motel with 18 rooms and plans to expand. Devin Anderson is executive director of Eagles Hope. “A lot of landlords don’t want to deal with felons … we have been working closely with Terri on housing her people. We have one guy here that is just, he’s a really fine example of what, what someone can do for themselves. He came here, he has a lot of medical issues. Terri helped him with his rental fees. A lot of driving him around to appointments anywhere he needs to get, but he’s since then he’s got his surgery done. He’s healing now. We’re all really confident that he will be able to work again and have a normal life.” Shannon McCorley is Eagles Hope administration assistant. “I would say about 70% of the people we serve are enrolled either in Northern Arapaho or Eastern Shoshone. And I think it’s because of lack of resources out there. So a lot of them want to come to town where there’s more employment and more stuff to do basically … it’s awesome to see a lot of people that have gotten their kids back and have been able to find permanent housing, employment, vehicles and seeing him out in the community. So at any time I would say we have a waiting list of about 75 people.” Tremayne Thunder. Tremayne Thunder is a Northern Arapaho Reentry client and was able to stay at Eagles Hope. “Things happened in my body. I got in a bad car accident. It broke me, really. Literally, it broke me.” Thunder says the assistance he’s received, especially from Terri Smith, has been a lifeline due to his bad heart and his medical condition it was challenging finding services. “She’s a blessing for our people. And I’m glad reentry is here, you know, because whoever else is coming out of prison, know, if they’re like me and really ain’t got nowhere to go.” Doya Natsu. The Northern Arapaho Reentry program also works with the Doya Natsu Healing Center. Kellie Webb is the executive director of the health center, which is the culturally based substance use and behavioral health program for the Eastern Shoshone Tribe. “Everything we do here is culturally based. So even when we’re talking about brain science or other Western kinds of models, we put it back into the Shoshone Medicine Wheel and talk about it holistically. So we do a lot of holistic health services. We also have an office in Riverton, an outreach office down there that does services in as well. And that’s how we have collaboration with Terri.” Here again is North Arapaho Reentry program administrator Terri Smith. “I just, I want my clients to be, to get there, to get a healthy life back. If they didn’t have it before, to get it now, you know, to know that as long as they have hope and they work hard and they’re accountable for what they’ve done, like they can have a beautiful life.” This story’s a collaboration with First Nations Experience Television with support from the Public Welfare Foundation.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.

(Photo: Brian Bull) During World War II, at least 100,000 Japanese Americans were forced into so-called internment, or concentration, camps across the U.S. Seen by the government as a potential threat within America’s borders, memories of the mass incarceration still burns hot for former prisoners and their families. Senior reporter Brian Bull of Buffalo’s Fire reports on a Native American college that held a special dedication that preserves that history. About 200 people gathered at the Snow Country Prison Japanese American Memorial last Friday at the United Tribes Technical College (UTTC) in Bismarck, N.D. Taiko and Native drummers performed together as dignitaries honored the 1,800 and 50 Japanese men who were confined here back when the site was known as Fort Lincoln. (Photo: Brian Bull) Satsuki Ina was born in a California camp in 1944, and her father, Itaru, was kept at Fort Lincoln in 1945 through 1946. Her book, “The Poet and the Silk Girl”, is a memoir based on her parents’ letters, diaries, and her father’s haiku. The memorial is the culmination of 25 years that Ina and the UTTC worked together to preserve this history. (Photo: Brian Bull) “There were trees that the Japanese American prisoners had planted. And there’s this story that there were ghosts that wandered around, and that when the wind blew on these trees, it sounded like somebody was crying. And so there was actually a healer that would come every once in a while and bless those trees. And so when I heard stories like that, I felt like the memory of their presence was really being protected and honored by the people here.” Ina says there are efforts by the current administration to erase or dismiss past atrocities against communities of color. So she sees the UTTC’s support – including giving some of its property to the memorial – as key to keeping history accurate and the government accountable. “This is, in many ways, an act of solidarity with the Native people and the Japanese Americans. And the lesson is, it’s in our collaboration, our solidarity with each other, that we strengthen our truths. And stand in opposition to efforts to erase our history, to alter it, to rewrite our narratives in way that, in ways that don’t talk about the truth.” At the end of the dedication ceremony, a Japanese and Native flute player performed together, as visitors placed paper cranes on the names of those incarcerated at Fort Lincoln. Those were inscribed on slate tiles that once lined the barracks. Tylar Larsen, center, has been a counselor at the Oscar Howe Summer Art Institute for five years after being a student for two. (Photo courtesy University of South Dakota Department of Art) Over the summer, at the University of South Dakota, 20 high school students attended the annual Oscar Howe Summer Art Institute, learning from each other and renowned Native American artists. Mike Moen reports. The camp’s inspired by artist Oscar Howe, who paved the way for Native artists to challenge stereotypes, teaching at the university for more than two decades. Instructor Keith BraveHeart helps students learn about Howe’s approach to art, recounting his first experience with the trailblazer’s legacy. “It felt like the work was alive, like it was physically breathing; like it was pulsating. And I know that it could have been an optical illusion because of the way that he designs his work, but I also later would truly believe that it was imbued with a Dakota spirit.” BraveHeart studied in one of the institute’s many iterations as a student. “I see this potential that what was my path, my journey, what that could be like, might be similar to a next generation of an artist, a younger artist.” A citizen of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, BraveHeart says he thinks creating those future pathways is what Oscar Howe envisioned. This story was produced with original reporting from Amy Felegy for Arts Midwest.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.

Photo courtesy Cheree Urscheler / Facebook A big legal win and validation for a First Nation in Ontario. The Supreme Court of Canada has dismissed a request from the town of South Bruce Peninsula to appeal a lower court decision that granted a valuable section of beach to the Saugeen First Nation. As Dan Karpenchuk reports, the chief of the band calls the ruling “like a breath of fresh air.” In April of 2023, the Ontario Appeal Court granted the First Nation ownership of just over a mile of sandy beach in the town of Sauble Beach. It’s been a long fight. The case was brought before the courts 35 years ago, but that came nearly 100 years since Indigenous leaders claimed that a treaty in 1854 gave them ownership of the disputed shoreline to them. Conrad Ritchie is the chief of the Saugeen First Nation. “You’re holding your breath for such a long time, and it’s like once you get the news, it’s just like a breath of fresh air, and less restriction.” With the ruling to appeal now denied by the Supreme Court, the town of South Bruce Peninsula and several landowners appear to have exhausted all legal avenues to retain ownership. On Canada Day, the name of the beach was officially changed from Sauble Beach to Saugeen Beach by the First Nation, notes Chief Ritchie. “It kind of grooms society, it kind of grooms community, when you have a colonial name that’s supposed to be the Indigenous people of that land and beach. That’s how resilient and patient our people have been to feel finally heard and seen and validated.” Now that legal wrangling over ownership of the land has been decided, the next step is to discuss compensation with the federal government for breaking that 1854 treaty. Meanwhile, Ritchie says Saugeen Beach will continue to be open to the public as a tourist destination. (Photo: Brian Bull) This past weekend, roughly 10,000 people converged on Bismarck, N.D. to drum, dance, and celebrate one of the region’s oldest powwows. Senior reporter Brian Bull of Buffalo’s Fire has the story. The 55th United Tribes Technical College (UTTC) International Powwow started modestly in 1970. A small group of students held it on a tennis court, but in the years since, it’s exploded in scale and magnitude, drawing participants and visitors from all over, including Europe. UTTC President Leander McDonald says it’s not only a cultural event, but a huge economic boost to the Bismarck area when combined with several other events like their sports tournaments. “A previous study indicated $4.2 million for that week. Did another analysis, but it was … we felt it was off a little bit, because they told us a million. And so now we’re working with the Bismarck Mandan Chamber here, and they have some folks that do analysis on just events on their own.” Historically, the UTTC powwow was also once the “last call before winter” before indoor powwows and those in warmer climes took off. This year’s event was covered live by Buffalo’s Fire and Prairie Public, a statewide public media broadcast organization. (Courtesy Asm. James Ramos / Facebook) A bill in California that seeks to deter suicide attempts on bridges and overpasses was sent to the governor’s desk on Tuesday. It requires the California Department of Transportation and Department of Public Health to work together to address countermeasures. Assemblymember James Ramos (Serrano/Cahuilla/D-CA) introduced the bill as part of broader work to address mental health care in the state. Asm. Ramos says “California must do more to confront the great tragedy of suicide”, adding the new measure is intended to help prevent future sorrow.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.

When former foster youth Matthew Vandenberg took the stand on the first day of the federal trial, he told the judge about a foster placement he and other foster youth called the “ramen house.” He recounted his testimony in an interview. “The people there were to give you two ramen packs a day, and if you ate them, say, in the morning, because you were hungry, you would have to wait until you’d have to wait until the next day to eat again. I lost over 30 pounds being at that foster home.” He says he was shoved so hard that it broke a wall in the same home. He testified that he moved foster placements about thirteen times over four years. OCS is supposed to visit kids in their care monthly, partly to make sure kids aren’t mistreated. But Marcia Lowry says those monthly visits in Alaska just aren’t happening, putting kids like Vandenberg at risk. She’s an attorney and director of the national nonprofit A Better Childhood, which brings lawsuits against states to push for foster care reforms. “How else can you know whether a child is safe when you put a child in a foster home? How can you know when it’s time to move a child to get freed for adoption? The visits with both children and with parents are very, very low.” Lowry says that, on many federal measures, Alaska’s foster care system ranks among the worst in the country. Data shows that Alaska has fewer caseworkers visiting children, longer child protection response times, shorter average placements, and more children maltreated while in OCS custody. And Lowry says the state has not taken the necessary steps to correct problems in the system. “Alaska is one of the few places that I know of that has workers that hires workers who don’t have college degrees … nice, well-intentioned people can’t just do this job. They need an education.” Lowry says lawsuits like this can be an effective way to force system reforms. She says her organization has sued eleven other states in the last decade to improve foster care systems. They’ve won four and eight are ongoing. She says when they sued New Jersey in 1999 their system was one of the worst in the country. Now it’s one of the best. Alaska’s foster care system has long been plagued with serious problems. Caseloads for caseworkers are often several times the expert-recommended maximum. The state consistently reports high turnover, which experts say creates worse outcomes for kids. In 2018, a law required reforms meant to reduce caseloads and staff turnover, with mandatory audits to check on the progress. The final audit released this year showed that, by most measures, OCS hasn’t made meaningful progress, but those involved in bringing this class action lawsuit to trial hope that if they win, it could actually force meaningful change. OCS declined an interview for this story while the trial is taking place, but in her testimony, OCS director Kim Guay consistently pointed out that her office is just one piece of Alaska’s child welfare system. She acknowledges case loads can be high, but says the state can’t implement caseload caps because OCS can’t turn away kids or families who need help. The federal trial is slated to wrap up September 11. There’s no timeline for when the judge will issue her decision. Katherine Strongwind at three years old. (Handout) Johnathan Hooker recently returned to Manitoba from New Zealand and met his biological mother and other family members. He had been searching for them for years. He had been taken from them when he was only a few months old. Katherine Strongwind had a similar story, only a year old when she was removed from her family in Winnipeg in 1973. She lived with a non-Indigenous family in Winnipeg. After years of searching, she eventually found her biological siblings and extended family. Strongwind and Hooker are among the estimated 20,000 Indigenous children who were taken from their families between the 1950’s and 1980’s. Many of those children were placed in non-Indigenous homes across Canada and around the globe. It was a plan of forced assimilation of Native children into white culture. University of Winnipeg history professor Karen Froman says most of the children didn’t know about their Indigenous roots. “A lot of these adoptees are learning about their true heritage later in life. And a lot of them were lied to. You know they were told they were either French or Italian right, to explain why they were a little bit brown.” Froman says the Sixties Scoop was part government policy and part misunderstanding. She says, rather than address social problems, it was easier for governments to remove the children. Advocates say as many as 3,000 Indigenous children were sent out of Canada and around the world. They say there must be more support so every one of those children can return home and meet with their families and communities. One way, they say, is a permanent federal repatriation program.   Get Na

In rural Alaska, there are a growing number of cases involving young teens in small, remote Indigenous communities, who are sexually exploited online. As KNBA’s Rhonda McBride tells us, FBI investigators want to be sure Robert Segevan from the North Slope didn’t have any other alleged victims, after they indicted and arrested him in Wainwright, Alaska this July for child exploitation. In charging documents, they showed evidence of how 31-year-old Segevan used social media chats to badger teenage girls into sending him sexually explicit pictures of themselves. The alleged victims were as young as 12, 13, and 15. Chloe Martin, a spokesperson for the FBI’s Alaska field office, says, although this case takes place in one of the most isolated places in the nation, it is not beyond the FBI’s reach. “No matter where a child lives, they deserve safety, support, and justice.” Martin says sexual exploitation occurs in large cities and small communities alike, and it helps to end the abuse, when victims come forward. “Victims may be eligible for certain services, potentially restitution and rights under federal or state law – and of course, all identities of these victims will be kept confidential.” The FBI says Robert Segevan allegely used a number of names online including Ethan Allen, tukak, robertsegavan20, and robertsegevan24. He is also believed to have ties to Utqiaġvik and Kaktovik. The FBI’s Anchorage field office and the North Slope Borough Police Department worked together on this case, which came to light last October, after a North Slope Borough police officer took a complaint from a 15-year-old girl. She told the officer Segevan had asked for images of her breasts and private parts. In the course of the investigation, he learned that two 12-year-olds had also allegedly received similar messages and that a 13-year-old said they sent Segevan nude photos. The Anchorage Police Department is also investigating the case through the FBI’s Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force. The FBI is asking anyone who has information about Segevan’s alleged crimes to contact the Anchorage FBI field office at 907-276-4441 or tips.fbi.gov. (Courtesy Assembly of First Nations / Facebook) Hundreds of First Nations chiefs recently gathered in Winnipeg for their annual meeting. And as Dan Karpenchuk reports, most of the talk was about the impact on their communities of new laws allowing the fast tracking of major infrastructure projects. The concerns brought to the Winnipeg meeting focussed on how First Nations rights were being challenged by the push by Ottawa to have major projects moved forward. Many chiefs are angry that the new law Bill C-5 was pushed through with only seven days to review and comment on it. Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak is the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations. “The way the act was introduced has caused concern for many chiefs. This assembly is an opportunity for chiefs to deliberate and to provide direction moving forward.” But two days into the gathering the chief voted down a pitch to include First Nations infrastructure ventures in the government’s national plan to fast track major projects like pipelines and mining of precious metal. The resolutions didn’t get the needed 60% support. Some said passing the resolution would have been supporting the federal legislation and could have put their rights in jeopardy. The vice chief of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations said major project discussions must include Indigenous people because these decisions affect treaty rights by impacting their ability to exercise rights to hunt, fish trap, and pass on their way of life. And it’s important for Indigenous leaders to have a say on future projects. More than 600 chiefs from across the country attended the meeting. Other issues on the table included talks on child welfare reform, Native policing, health care, the drug crisis, and the lack of proper housing on reserves.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.

Photo: The Ashland, Wisc. BIA office was targeted by DOGE for closure. (Courtesy Google) Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) offices in Wisconsin and Minnesota remain open after the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) targeted them for termination. As Danielle Kaeding reports, the initiative formerly led by billionaire Elon Musk had proposed canceling leases for several offices earlier this year. The cancellations affected offices in Ashland and Shawano in Wisconsin and Bemidji in Minnesota. Wisconsin tribes say the BIA office in Ashland is a critical regional hub that processes land trust applications and provides education assistance and law enforcement support. Robert Blanchard is chair of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. He says closing the office would’ve been a hardship for the tribe. “We would have probably had to go to Minneapolis or some other place further away from us to get services.” Bill Broydrick represents the owner of the Ashland office. He says Wisconsin tribes adopted a resolution in opposition to its closure. “On that basis, the decision was made by BIA to keep the office open.” BIA says all three offices remain open. The agency says it is working to ensure adequate space continues to be available to support delivery of services to tribes. Construction is underway at a Native allotment on Douglas Island on August 6, 2025. (Photo: Clarise Larson / KTOO) A site on Douglas Island could be the future home of a casino-like gambling hall after a proposal from the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska was approved by the National Indian Gaming Commission. Tlingit and Haida says the facility’s approval represents a step toward economic self-sufficiency and sovereignty for the tribe. KTOO’s Clarise Larson has more. The land is on Fish Creek Road, not far from Eaglecrest Ski Area on Douglas Island. It’s just a small piece of a Native allotment owned by tribal members who lease it to Tlingit and Haida. Tlingit and Haida spokesperson Dixie Hutchinson confirmed that the tribe is developing a gaming facility. The tribe intends to offer Class II gaming, which covers things like pull tabs, bingo, and slot-style electronic machines. The National Indian Gaming Commission’s acting chair approved the tribe for site-specific gaming at the location in January. The decision came just days before President Donald Trump began his second term in office. For decades, federal officials — and state officials in Alaska — have said that Native allotments owned by tribal members in Alaska were NOT considered “Indian country.” Therefore they are not under the jurisdiction of tribes and cannot be home to casinos or casino-like gambling halls under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. But Michelle Jaagal Aat Demmert, a professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ tribal governance department, says the legal interpretation of Native allotments shifted when former President Joe Biden came into office. “During the Biden administration, there was a solicitor’s opinion that evaluated the laws and made the determination that the laws supported that Indian tribes in Alaska have jurisdiction over allotments and other land that’s classified as Indian country.” She says gaming serves as an important governmental function for many tribes in the U.S. “People look at it that it’s just this big money-making operation, but it’s so much more than that. It’s an opportunity to make money and an opportunity to put that right back into your governmental system, to provide essential services to your citizens.” Hutchinson says the project is still in the early phases of development. She says the tribe intends to reinvest the gaming hall’s revenue into essential tribal programs and services.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.

Photo: Attorneys for the Bad River tribe present their case as part of a challenge to key permits for Enbridge’s Line 5 relocation project at a hearing in Ashland, Wisc. on August 12, 2025. (Danielle Kaeding / WPR) A case is ongoing in Wisconsin over a legal challenge to key permits for a project to reroute an oil and gas pipeline around a Lake Superior tribe’s reservation. As Danielle Kaeding reports, Canadian energy firm Enbridge wants to build a new stretch of its Line 5 pipeline. Enbridge proposed the reroute after the Bad River tribe sued to shut down the pipeline on tribal lands. Now, the tribe and environmental groups are challenging the state’s decision to issue a wetland and waterway permit among other approvals for the project. They say the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources lacked baseline data about the project’s effects on wetlands. At the first hearing last month, Bad River Tribal Chair Robert Blanchard says a potential spill could spell disaster for the tribe’s homeland. “It’s going to affect our way of life, and that’s why we are fighting this so hard.” Enbridge spokesperson Jennifer Smith said they designed the route to minimize harm. “We believe that Wisconsin DNRs permits are accurate. They’re correct. We can build this pipeline with minimal environmental impact.” The reroute would cross nearly 200 waterways and disturb around 100 acres of wetlands. Supporters say it would create 700 jobs, but opponents question the company’s environmental track record. A DNR attorney says it properly permitted the project under the law. (Courtesy Santa Ana Historic Preservation Department) Efforts in New Mexico have been relaunched to find about 150 artifacts stolen in 1984. Jenny Kinsey at KANW has more. Earlier this year, a bowl stolen from the Santa Ana Pueblo’s ceremonial village was returned. Monica Murrell, director of the Santa Ana Historic Preservation Department, says that led investigators to look for more leads on other items. “We have around a dozen objects that we have very close connections.” Items that are at least a century old are considered antiquities and protected under the Archeological Resources Protection Act. And, in 2022, Congress passed legislation prohibiting the export of items held sacred by tribes. Graham Greene in one of his final roles as Maximus on “Reservation Dogs”. (Courtesy Hulu) Tributes are pouring in for Canadian Indigenous actor Graham Greene (Oneida). He died on Monday of natural causes. He was 73. As Dan Karpenchuk reports, for many critics Greene had a ground breaking career. Greene was from the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario. Among those who paid tribute to his work was actor Kevin Costner, who described him as a master at work and a wonderful human being. It was with Costner that Greene was nominated for an Academy award for the film “Dances with Wolves”. Costner posted one of his favorite scenes from the movie when Greene played the part of Kicking Bird, a Sioux medicine man. “Dances with Wolves” was his big break, and Greene wasn’t going to look back.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Kevin Costner (@kevincostner) And that followed with several roles in movies and television. The Stratford Festival in Ontario also paid tribute to Greene, who played Shylock in the 2007 production of Merchant of Venice and Lennie in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. Greene was also honored with the Governor Generals’ Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement. Governor General May Simon said he brought dignity to every character he portrayed. She said he broke barriers for indigenous actors and opened doors for future generations and we honor his extraordinary contributions to Canadian culture and celebrate a legacy that will resonate across Canada and beyond. SPECIAL REPORT by Antonia Gonzales Alaska Native designers featured at 2025 Far North Fashion Show   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.