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The husband of U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola (Yup’ik/D-AK) died after a plane crash on Tuesday. He was 57.

As KNBA’s Rhonda McBride reports, Gene “Buzzy” Peltola is being remembered as both a supportive husband and a leader in his own right.

When Rep. Peltola ran for Congress, her husband “Buzzy” Peltola was often behind the scenes, beaming proudly.

As she took her oath of office to become the first Alaska Native woman to serve in Congress, he stood beside her, wearing a traditional Native kuspuk, holding the Bible.

For many Alaskans, the couple seemed to embody Peltola’s campaign slogan – fish, freedom, and family – an image that shattered when he was flying solo in a small plane that crashed into a mountain near St. Mary’s on the Yukon River, part of a vast region he knew well in more than three decades of work for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Bethel.

Eventually he became the first Alaska Native to manage the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge.

Later, he served as the Alaska regional director for the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Throughout his public service career, there was a common thread – Peltola’s passion for hunting, fishing, and giving Alaska Natives more say in how fish and wildlife are managed, a passion he shared with LaMont Albertson, one of the founders of the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.

“It’s just so hard to find the words to describe his intelligence and how intuitive the guy was. He was assertive and he knew how to say the right things at the right time.”

Albertson, who will soon turn 80, has known both Mary and Buzzy Peltola since they were kids, but says he’ll cherish a recent memory forever.

After suffering a stroke, they sent him a care package with subsistence foods to help him recover.

Courtesy Center for Native American Youth

It’s National Suicide Prevention Week, and new data shows that the suicide rate in the U.S. has increased dramatically over the past 20 years.

As the Mountain West News Bureau’s Kaleb Roedel reports, that’s especially true for Native Americans and Alaska Natives.

The analysis was done by Pew Charitable Trusts.

It found that from 2000 to 2020, the national suicide rate grew 30%.

For Native American and Alaska Native women, the rate spiked more than 130%. For men, it jumped over 90%.

Emily Edmunds Haroz is with the Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health.

She says a major factor is the historical trauma caused by colonization and the boarding school era.

“If a parent is traumatized because of these experiences and experiences those things and are not allowed to talk about it, and not allowed to cope with it, they then pass along that trauma to their children and sort of this cycle perpetuates itself.”

She says there’s also a lack of funding for mental healthcare services in tribal communities.

If you or someone you know needs help, call or text the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988. Or contact them via live chat.

Keith BraveHeart, right, and Marty Two Bulls Jr. (Courtesy Keith BraveHeart / Bard College)

Artists Keith BraveHeart and Marty Two Bulls Jr. have been named as the Oglala Sioux Tribe’s 2023-24 artist laureates.

C.J. Keene has more.

In the role, the pair will serve as cultural ambassadors for the tribe, support artistic endeavors on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, and enrich their communities through their works.

Two Bulls Jr. and BraveHeart both work as educators in addition to their art – serving as art professors at Oglala Lakota College.

The program runs under the OST Vice President’s Office.

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Hundreds of supporters of Leonard Peltier (Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa) rallied outside the White House on Tuesday calling on President Joe Biden to grant him clemency.

He’s been in prison for nearly 50 years.

Melinda Tuhus reports.

The day marked Peltier’s 79th birthday.

He’s said to be in poor health and has been imprisoned for the deaths of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota in 1975.

Indigenous leaders, allies, and his attorney are calling for Peltier’s freedom, saying there’s no evidence tying him to the crime and that exculpatory evidence was withheld at trial.

Fawn Sharp (Quinault Indian Nation) was among speakers at the rally.

She’s president of the National Congress of American Indians.

“We’re also here with purpose to call out the president of the United States, the only person on the face of this planet that has the sole decision – it is a choice he has to make to release Leonard, our relative. We call on the President of the United States to release our elder!”

The event included the lifting up of an enormous banner with their demand.

The rally was organized by NDN Collective and Amnesty International USA.

Sharp, Nick Tilsen (Oglala Lakota), president and CEO of NDN Collective, and Paul O’Brien, executive director of Amnesty International USA, were arrested outside the White House.

According to NDN Collective, the leaders were among 35 people arrested by U.S. Park Police after the U.S. Secret Service cleared people from the rally on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Peltier is incarcerated in a maximum-security prison in Florida.

Part of the former Waite Ranch outside of Florence, which will be developed into a wetlands and channel area more hospitable to wildlife, including salmon. (Brian Bull / KLCC)

Outside the coastal community of Florence, Ore., major renovation and construction work are underway.

The Siuslaw Estuary restoration project will convert nearly 200 acres of old dairy farm land into habitat that will benefit wildlife, especially salmon.

As KLCC’s Brian Bull (Nez Perce) reports, a Native American tribe is among the partners.

On a flat, muddy area of reddish claylike soil, an excavator digs away at what will eventually become a primary channel in what used to be marsh.

Jesse Beers, cultural stewardship manager for the Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians. (Photo: Brian Bull / KLCC)

Jesse Beers (sha’yuushtl’a uhl quuiich hiich) examines the site for anything ranging from pottery shards to human remains.

He’s the cultural stewardship manager for the Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians.

They’re partnering with the Siuslaw Watershed Council and the McKenzie River Trust on this restoration.

Beers says it’s an essential collaboration.

“During the treaty process when our treaty wasn’t ratified, our lands were never legally ceded. So that’s part of the reason we see ourselves as such big stewards of our lands and waters. Because we don’t really have the population or the capacity anymore to manage those lands as we used to, it’s very important for us to work with our partners such as Mackenzie River Trust and Siuslaw Watershed Council holistically to restore these lands and waters.”

The Siuslaw Estuary Restoration Project is slated to take two years at a cost of $10 million.

That’s on top of the purchase of the dairy farm, which was $750,000 funded by a grant from the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board.

Margaret Treadwell of the McKenzie River Trust at the site of the Siuslaw Estuary Restoration Project outside of Florence, Ore. (Courtesy Margaret Treadwell)

Margaret Treadwell is the McKenzie River Trust’s Central Coast Conservation Program Manager.

She says the partnership will make a noticeable difference.

“You will see the river return, particularly at the high tides, up into this area that we’re looking at right now. So the river will be coming back in here bringing saltwater, creating just a nice passage for fish to come up through here and spend their juvenile time.”

When finished, planners say six miles of habitat will provide feeding and rearing grounds for salmon, steelhead, and lamprey, as well as shorebirds.

There will also be a tribal naming ceremony for the area, and a canoe landing is also part of the design.

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A nonprofit is shedding more light on the history of Indian boarding schools in the U.S. and Canada.

The Mountain West News Bureau’s Will Walkey reports.

The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition’s new map documents 523 schools – more than 100 above the most recent list by the U.S. Interior Department.

They were run by federal governments or churches with the goal of assimilating Native Americans into white culture.

The students’ hair was cut and they were sometimes beaten for speaking their language.

Courtesy Samuel Torres / LinkedIn

Samuel Torres is with the coalition focused on boarding school healing that made the map.

“The impetus of boarding schools was always Indigenous erasure, was the removal of Native language, was the removal of the influence of the family, of the home, of the nation.”

More than 150 schools were in the Mountain West, with many in the Four Corners region.

Torres hopes to gather more testimony from survivors in the coming months.

“We’re going to need this moment of accountability in order to be able to chart a path ahead towards healing, towards justice.”

Torres says the map will be updated later this year to include more archival records.

Yéil Yádi Olson is Lingít Raven from the Kaa Shaayi Hit (Severed Head House) and is also of Nordic descent. He constructed this seclusion hut in collaboration with curator and healer Meda DeWitt. Olson wanted to use his skills as a carpenter to educate others about Indigenous cultures. (Photo: Rachel Cassandra / Alaska Public Media)

The knowledge work and art of Indigenous healers and medicine people in Alaska is being featured at the Anchorage Museum.

“Good Medicine” is a multidisciplinary exhibit.

Alaska Public Media’s Rachel Cassandra has more.

“Good Medicine” features paintings, illustrations, a women’s house, and a men’s house.

Those houses are traditionally used for healing, teaching, and meetings.

Meda DeWitt’s Lingít names are Khaat kłaat and Tśa Tsée Naakw.

She’s a healer and the curator.

DeWitt says the show is both about healing and is healing in itself.

She says it holds space for traditional healers to be seen and to speak.

That’s in contrast to colonization’s attempts at erasure of Alaska Native culture.

She says healers and spiritual leaders were targeted during colonization because of how they protected people.

“Many folks were sent to insane asylums, or penitentiaries. Or they were just taken out into the woods and, you know, just went missing, never came back or out into the ocean.”

For decades, Alaska Native people were forbidden from practicing traditional healing, so she says people are choosing ways to adapt practices.

“We have to first fully articulate who we were pre contact… to understand how to adapt it so that we are… 21st century Indigenous people on our own terms.”

Ultimately, DeWitt says that acknowledging the trauma of colonization is part of cultural healing.

“Let’s not… whitewash history, let’s… work as a community together to seek healing and repair… so that way, our future generations don’t have to carry on that burden any longer.”

The exhibit “Good Medicine” will be up through the spring.

Courtesy NDN Collective / Facebook

The Indigenous led organization NDN Collective, and the human rights group Amnesty International USA, are holding a rally at the White House Tuesday.

Indigenous people and their allies are asking President Joe Biden to free Leonard Peltier (Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa).

The event is being held on Peltier’s 79th birthday.

For nearly five decades, Peltier has been imprisoned in the U.S. for the deaths of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.

Peltier has maintained his innocence.

A march and action are taking place in Washington, D.C., as well as a group of speakers, including tribal leaders, advocates, a U.S. lawmaker, and a former federal judge who is counsel to Peltier.

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The Montana Arts Council recently announced the state’s new poet laureate.

Yellowstone Public Radio’s Orlinda Worthington introduces us to Chris Latray, who is the state’s eleventh poet laureate and a member of a Montana tribe.

“That is hello, all of my relatives, we are all related. And that is where my inspiration comes from. The relationship we have with everything around us, human and non-human, absolutely that is it.”

Chris La Tray is a member of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa.

He says his priority as poet laureate will be getting to small, rural communities that may be overlooked when it comes to writing and poetry.

“If I had to focus on one thing, it’s to get the word to these young people that you can choose a path like mine and be successful in ways different from maybe how people tell you need to proceed.”

He says, like many of us, he grew up with the idea that poetry is just a bunch of fancy words; a misconception he hopes to change.

“You know,  when I speak to kids I tell them that their story is 100% unique and there is nobody who is experiencing the world the way they are and the importance of them sharing that story through any kinds of words on the page or orally, that is important. And however you choose to frame that with words is poetry. Your life is poetry.”

You can hear a longer conversation with La Tray on Yellowstone Public Radio’s program “Resounds” .

The Barbie doll has been getting much attention with the release this summer of the Barbie movie.

In Alaska, mother Angela Gonzalez and daughter Ermelina of Anchorage, posted their doll titled “Fish Camp Barbie” on social media, which features an Athabascan Barbie doll dressed in traditional clothing.

It’s gained thousands of views.

KNOM’s Ava White reports.

The iconic slogan of Barbie, “you can be anything,” is brought to life in a culturally rich way.

In this scene, a Barbie doll proudly wears a vibrant hot pink kuspuk, complemented by a beaded necklace, stylish moosehide cuffs, and headband.

Positioned on a nearby table is a fish made from salmon skin, aligned with beadwork.

Barbie is holding an Ulu, ready to skillfully prepare the fish.

All clothing was handmade by Ermelina Gonzalez.

Angela Gonzalez’ family’s fish camp was located along the Koyukuk River, where her family frequented when she was a young girl.

She has played with Barbies since she was a little kid and says her grandmother used to make accessories for her dolls.

“All the dolls would have their little ulus, and we would have a little fish camp scene with fish racks and leaves. Leaves from willows would be our little fish.”

Angela Gonzalez explains the importance of sharing culture towards younger generations and why it’s important for Alaska Native children to feel equally represented.

“I think that it’s just good that they will be able to see themselves represented, even though it’s not for the mass market or anything like that. They can be inspired to create what they want to create, you know, if they have a different way of life, maybe they can make a fishnet or a dip net, you know, just something that that can inspire them to be able to feel like they have permission to customize something that will represent themselves.”

Barbie has a reputation for embracing numerous roles, ranging from a CEO to a gymnast, a construction worker, and now, a skilled fisherwoman at a subsistence camp.

Through the innovative creation of their own Barbie scenes, Angela and Ermelina Gonzalez have succeeded in fashioning a compelling narrative focused on culture.

Their efforts serve as an inspiring testament for young girls across various Alaska Native cultures, conveying the powerful message that they too can embody the spirit of Barbie in their unique ways.

Ermelina Gonzalez is an intern at KNBA, Koahnic’s flagship station in Anchorage.

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It was announced yesterday that the Interior Department will cancel its remaining oil leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

This will prevent drilling in 13 acres in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.

The Biden Administration declared the ANWR lease sale, which was held in 2021 during the final days of President Trump’s administration, violated federal law.

The Interior Department also added protections by putting a stop to offshore drilling in the federal waters of the Beaufort Sea earlier this year, almost a year before the administration approved ConocoPhillips’ $8 billion oil development project Willow in the reserve.

Guatemala’s much-criticized attorney general met with the head of the Organization of American States (OAS) this week about her justice department’s role in the country’s turbulent election process.

Meanwhile, Indigenous leaders carried out traditional ceremonies to censure the attorney general and others they accuse of corruption.

Maria Martin reports.

After her meeting with OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro, Guatemala’s Attorney General Maria Consuelo Porras said there’s a campaign to discredit her and her justice department for investigating valid legal complaints.

She rejected the accusation that her investigation of President-elect Bernardo Arévalo’s Semilla party is an attempt at a legal coup. 

Meanwhile, Indigenous groups are stepping up actions asking for Porras’ resignation.

On Tuesday, Maya ancestral authorities performed a traditional ceremony outside the presidential palace, asking for punishment for corrupt government officials.

Aaron Leggett, president of the Native Village of Eklutna, addresses the crowd at the Nuch’ishtunt signpost unveiling at Point Woronzof on Friday. (Photo: Adam Nicely / Alaska Public Media)

There’s a new marker along Anchorage’s Coastal Trail.

It says Nuch’ishtunt, which means “the place protected from the wind” in Dena’ina Athabascan.

The sign is part of the Indigenous Place Names Project and is a reminder that Dena’ina people were and continue to be part of Anchorage.

Jeremy Hsieh reports from Alaska Public Media in Anchorage.

At a ceremony celebrating the new signpost, Aaron Leggett shares an anecdote about meeting other young Alaska Natives when he was 19 working at the Alaska Native Heritage Center.

“And I told them that I was Dena’ina. They said, ‘Well, what’s that?’ Then they said, ‘Well, where’s your village?’ I said, ‘We’re from here.’ They said, ‘No, where’s your Native village?’ I said, ‘We’re from here.’ ‘What do you mean?’ I said, ‘Well, Eklutna is 26 miles from downtown Anchorage.’ And some of them who had grown up in Anchorage said, ‘Well, I didn’t know Native people lived here.”

He says he realized Dena’ina were largely invisible and he wanted to work on reclaiming who Dena’ina are as a people.

That was more than 20 years ago.

Now, Leggett is the president of the Native Village of Eklutna and a curator with the Anchorage Museum.

He’s been working on the Indigenous Place Names Project since its inception in 2018.

The “Nuch’ishtunt” sign is the effort’s fourth installment.

Dena’ina people used to set up seasonal salmon fishing camps near this point, up until federal officials banned commercial fishing here in the 1950s.

“Indigenous place making deepens the connection we have to place.”

Beth Nordlund is the executive director of the Anchorage Park Foundation, another organization working on the project.

“This is bigger than signs. It’s a movement.”

Project supporters eventually want to put up 32 of these sculpture signs in high visibility areas around Anchorage and Eklutna.

They each feature iron artwork representing a fire bag, a pouch used to carry materials for starting a fire.

It’s also a symbol of living outdoors and sharing.

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This is a critical week in Guatemala’s fragile democracy as that country’s outgoing president and its beleaguered president-elect meet to talk about the transition of power.

With the eyes of the world on the central American country of Guatemala, many of its millions of Indigenous citizens are getting ready to take action against what they call a coup attempt by a corrupt justice official, as Maria Martin reports from Guatemala.

 Outgoing President Alejandro Giammattei says he wants a transparent and efficient government transition,  but the reformist President-elect Bernardo Arévalo said in a televised interview right before the start of transition talks, that  there’s a contradiction between  protocol and President Giammattei’s failure to condemn his justice department’s attempts to disqualify Arévalo’s Semilla (Seed Party). 

 “I would hope the president would come out strongly against these spurious legal actions.”

Meanwhile, pro-democracy protests continue in Guatemala city and throughout the country, calling for an end to government interference with the election process and what protesters think is an attempt to block the country’s newly-elected president-elect from taking power despite the transition talks.

“This is just the start until the new president takes power on January 14.”

Virgilio Gerónimo Bernal Guzmán, the Indigenous mayor of Nebaj, Quiché, joined other ancestral authorities in Maya communities to call on the country’s attorney general and her “cronies” to resign, as he says they’re attempting a coup to thwart the constitutional order.

If they don’t stop these illegal actions, he says, Indigenous groups will  step up their protests.

Courtesy @EPAMichaelRegan / Instagram

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced $2.5 million in grants to three Alaska Native Corporations.

They’re part of a $20 million dollar appropriation from Congress to clean up contaminated lands that were conveyed to Native corporations under the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

The announcement came when EPA Administrator Michael Regan made the final stop of his Alaska tour last week in Fairbanks.

Administrator Regan says this first round of funding barely addresses the problem.

“Just the breadth of contaminated lands, contaminated conveyed lands is astounding. And so, in addition to this $20 million we had a lot of discussions with local leaders about how we could devise strategies to acquire resources from other programs.”

Courtesy @EPAMichaelRegan / Instagram

Administrator Regan also visited Utqiagvik last week, where the Ukpeaġvik Inupiat Corporation (UIC) is based.

It will receive $600,000 to remove asbestos and other contaminants from the old U.S. Navy Arctic Research Center, as well as clean-up an oil spill.   

Pearl Brower, president of UIC, says this site is just a small portion of lands in the region that need clean-up, but called it a good first step. 

She says she looks forward to a time when her children and grandchildren can subsist off of clean land and water.    

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who championed the legislation, is also working to find other sources of federal money to clean-up more Native Corporation lands, which she calls an “injustice perpetrated by the federal government”.

“It thwarts their ability to fulfill the promise of ANCSA, (which) was that they would be able to utilize their lands for the betterment of their people. But when your lands are contaminated and you can’t access them for development, much less berry picking. That’s not keeping our promise.” 

The Tyonek and Ounalashka Corporations will each receive $1 million in funding.  

Tyonek will use the money to inventory and clean-up contaminants on the Iniskin Peninsula. 

The Ounalashka Corporation will target pollution from World War II, removing soil contaminated with PCB’s as well as sampling soil and water at a warehouse in Dutch Harbor.

 

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Recovery efforts are continuing after the devastating Maui wildfires in August.

Although many communities are coming together to offer support, the Native Hawaiian community is having to deal with threats of a new wave of colonialism on their ancestral homelands, according to a grassroots Native Hawaiian advocate.

Community members have been displaced after their land, homes, and businesses have all been destroyed.

Many are still searching for their loved ones.

At a time when many people are afraid, injured, or displaced, Camille Kalama (Native Hawaiian) says they’re now having to fear that corporations and wealthy outsiders will try to take their land.

“And, so some of the residents who were affected by the fires were getting calls as early as the week of the fire offered to buy their land from real estate companies and it’s created and generated a lot of fear that there will be an exploitation of the disaster that happened, and a new wave of development and outsiders coming in and utilizing basically what’s in terms to us is capitalism. Trying to use and exploit the devastation for profit.”

Kalama is the executive director for Ko‘ihonua, a local non-profit organization, and a board member of NDN Collective, a Native-led organization advocating for Indigenous issues.

In August, officials released a list of a few hundred people who are still missing.

Kalama says people are still grieving.

“So, the community, while their active in relief efforts, and a lot of support and provides company and community is still grieving and still processing what’s going on here, and what happened.”

As recovery and rebuilding continues, Kalama says Native groups are urging for Indigenous-led rebuilding efforts.

She also says they’re encouraging those who want to help to verify their donations are going to vetted sources.

Courtesy Robert Martinez

Northern Arapaho artist Robert Martinez combines historic imagery and modern themes to create work that speaks to contemporary Indigenous issues.

His art is currently on display in Cheyenne.

Wyoming Public Radio’s Hannah Habermann reports.

Robert Martinez is a Northern Arapaho and Chicano artist born on the Wind River Reservation.

Some of his work draws on the Plains Indian ledger art tradition, blending past and present.

“After we were pushed onto reservations, and we couldn’t hunt buffalo as they were exterminating them, we would trade for or were given already filled-out ledger books, and we would paint and draw over the text in those.”

Ledger books were used to record accounting transactions.

Martinez’ art will be at the Laramie County Community College in Cheyenne until September 8.

NAVAJO T-ATS 6, first of a new class of towing, salvage, and rescue ships for the US Navy’s Military Sealift Command, was launched in Houma, La. (Courtesy Bollinger Shipyards)

During a recent ceremony, Navajo Nation lawmakers joined U.S, Navy officials and Navajo veterans to celebrate the historic christening of the USNS Navajo in Houma, La.

The ship is a new class of rescue, towing, and salvage ships, named in honor of the service of Navajo veterans and Navajo Nation Code Talkers.

Five ships have been named after the Navajo Nation including the first ship, the USS Navajo that came into service in 1908 and the USS Navajo III which served from 1917 to 1919.

In 2015, the Navy notified the Navajo Nation Council that they were considering naming a ship after the Navajo Nation.

Former Navajo Nation Council Speaker Lorenzo Bates, who attended the christening ceremony, says his staff worked with the Secretary of the Navy and late U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) to support the naming.

The christening ceremony was attended by representatives from the U.S. Navy and Bollinger Shipyard, United Houma Nation representatives, Assistant Secretary of Tribal Affairs of the U.S. Department of Transportation, and other guests.

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A first-of-its-kind report on missing persons in Alaska has been released.

The State Department of Public Safety and the Anchorage Police Department collaborated to collect this data.

Rhonda McBride from our flagship station KNBA has more.

Austin McDaniel, a spokesman for the Public Safety Department, says the report maps out hundreds of cases going back to 1960.

“We think this is a good first effort, and we’re definitely interested in adding additional data points.”

McDaniel says the work, which is an outgrowth of Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R-AK)’s People First Initiative, will be updated every quarter and can be found online.

In the last quarter, from April to June, 200 Alaska Native or American Indian people went missing in the state. Most of those have been found, except for 25.

The database has an important new feature.

It categorizes the circumstances surrounding the disappearances, identifying those which are suspicious.

As director of the Data for Indigenous Justice group, Charlene Apok welcomes the new report and says it’s what advocates for missing Indigenous people have been asking for – for years.

She worked on an earlier attempt to track their numbers.

“Sadly, I think what this really illustrates is a systemic issue of violence that’s being perpetrated in our community in the state of Alaska. And that should raise flags and alarms, and really start igniting justice.”

Apok hopes the database will continue to improve and provide more information about those missing, including their hometowns and Native cultural identities, so they become more than just points of data, but reminders of loved ones, lost to their families.

Members of the Indigenous Youth Voices youth group, tribal elders, and teachers pose with kayaks at String Lake in Grand Teton National Park. (Photo: Hannah Habermann / Wyoming Public Media)

A Native youth group spent one week in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks reconnecting with their roots.

Wyoming Public Radio’s Hannah Habermann reports.

13 Native youth from the Wind River Reservation and the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota explored the area alongside five traditional elders and teachers from the Lakota, Dakota, Northern Arapaho, Eastern Shoshone, and Blackfeet Nations.

Lynnette Grey Bull is the leader of the youth group, called Indigenous Youth Voices.

It’s the first time the group has hosted this kind of event. She says that sharing knowledge between generations is invaluable.

“Not only do we share our language and speak our language, but we also share things that they probably haven’t learned and won’t be able to learn in school. Some of our traditional and oral knowledge and historical knowledge, as many people know, is not told in the right way.”

The group spent the week kayaking, whitewater rafting, and traditional storytelling.

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Challenges are faced by schools everywhere – but each district is unique.

As the school year starts, South Dakota’s State-Tribal Relations Board got an update on the state’s reservation schools.

SDPB’s C.J. Keene has more.

The State-Tribal relations committee is tasked with continuously studying the relationship between South Dakota’s government and tribal entities.

Sherry Johnson is the education director of the Sisseton-Wahpheton Oyate.

She says tribal education efforts are forced to contend with deep, complicated history.

“We’ve had several religion-based and government boarding schools in operation over the years to formally educate the children of the Oyate since the relocation of our tribal members to the Lake Traverse Reservation.”

Now pair that with a challenge faced by just about every school district in the state – teacher shortages.

“Our schools all are advertising, they’re doing recruitment, retention, bonuses. Our tribal schools can not compete with salaries on an equal playing level – but they do the best they can. We too are experiencing that teacher shortage.”

A committee was proposed for tribal and state-run schools to help close the ever-widening teacher shortage.

No actions were taken on the proposal.

Along with that are the realities of education in rural settings.

Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Education Director Cherie Farlee says don’t forget about reservation infrastructure needs.

“Even though the pavement here looks like this – at least you have pavement. Where I’m from we have gravel roads, and our school busses have to travel those every day. Sometimes the roads are so bad we have to cancel. Not that our teachers aren’t there, but because we can’t get the kids to school with the conditions of the roads.”

Further, Farlee says additional dollars for operational maintenance is needed to make a difference for school buildings in tribal settings.

It’s known at the Alaska State Fair as “The Gathering Place”, created to showcase the talents of Alaska Native singers, dancers, and artists from across the state.

It’s also where Bessie Meyer demonstrates how to filet salmon.

As KNBA’s Rhonda McBride discovered, this Inupiaq elder has become something of a celebrity in her own right.

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