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This story is part of a partnership that includes Montana Public Radio, NPR and KHN.

 

The Blackfeet Nation’s Plight Underscores the Fentanyl Crisis on Reservations

BROWNING, Mont. — As the pandemic was setting in during summer 2020, Justin Lee Littledog called his mom to tell her he was moving from Texas back home to the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana with his girlfriend, stepson, and son.

They moved in with his mom, Marla Ollinger, on a 300-acre ranch on the rolling prairie outside Browning and had what Ollinger remembers as the best summer of her life. “That was the first time I’ve gotten to meet Arlin, my first grandson,” Ollinger said. Another grandson was soon born, and Littledog found maintenance work at the casino in Browning to support his growing family.

But things began to unravel over the next year and a half. Friends and relatives saw Littledog’s 6-year-old stepson walking around town alone. One day, Ollinger received a call from her youngest son as one of Littledog’s children cried in the background. He was briefly unable to wake Littledog’s girlfriend.

Ollinger asked Littledog whether he and his girlfriend were using drugs. Littledog denied it. He explained to his mom that people were using a drug she had never heard about: fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is up to 100 times as potent as morphine. He said he would never use something so dangerous.

Then, in early March, Ollinger woke up to screams. She left her grandchildren sleeping in her bed and went into the next room. “My son was laying on the floor,” she said. He wasn’t breathing.

She followed the ambulance into Browning, hoping that Littledog had just forgotten to take his heart medication and would recover. He was pronounced dead shortly after the ambulance arrived at the local hospital.

Littledog was among four people to die from fentanyl overdoses on the reservation that week in March, according to Blackfeet health officials. An additional 13 people who live on the reservation survived overdoses, making a startling total for an Indigenous population of about 10,000 people.

Fentanyl has taken root in Montana and in communities across the Mountain West during the pandemic, after formerly being prevalent mostly east of the Mississippi River, said Keith Humphreys of the Stanford-Lancet Commission on the North American Opioid Crisis.

Montana law enforcement officials have intercepted record numbers of pale-blue pills made to look like prescription opioids such as OxyContin. In the first three months of 2022, the Montana Highway Patrol seized over 12,000 fentanyl pills, more than three times the number from all of 2021.

Nationwide, at least 103,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2021, a 45% increase from 2019, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 7 of every 10 of those deaths were from synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl.

Overdose deaths are disproportionately affecting Native Americans. The overdose death rate among Indigenous people was the highest of all racial groups in the first year of the pandemic and was about 30% higher than the rate among white people, according to a study co-authored by UCLA graduate student and researcher Joe Friedman.

In Montana, the opioid overdose death rate for Indigenous people was twice that of white people from 2019 to 2021, according to the state Department of Public Health and Human Services.

The reason, in part, is that Native Americans have relatively less access to health care resources, Friedman said. “With the drug supply becoming so dangerous and so toxic, it requires resources and knowledge and skills and funds to stay safe,” he said. “It requires access to harm reduction. It requires access to health care, access to medications.”

The Indian Health Service, which is responsible for providing health care to many Indigenous people, has been chronically underfunded. According to a 2018 report from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, IHS per patient expenditures are significantly less than those of other federal health programs.

“I think what we’re seeing now is deep-seated disparities and social determinants of health are kind of bearing out,” Friedman said, referring to the disproportionate overdose deaths among Native Americans.

Blackfeet Tribal Business Council member Stacey Keller said she has experienced the lack of resources firsthand while trying to get a family member into treatment. She said just finding a facility for detoxing was difficult, let alone finding one for treatment.

“Our treatment facility here, they’re not equipped to deal with opioid addiction, so they’re usually referred out,” she said. “Some of the struggles we’ve seen throughout the state and even the western part of the United States is a lot of the treatment centers are at capacity.”

The local treatment center doesn’t have the medical expertise to supervise someone going through opioid withdrawal. Only two detox beds are available at the local IHS hospital, Keller said, and are often occupied by other patients. The health care system on the reservation also doesn’t offer medication-assisted treatment. The nearest locations to get buprenorphine or methadone — drugs used to treat opioid addictions — are 30 to 100 miles away. That can be a burden to patients who are required by federal rules to show up each day at the approved dispensaries to receive methadone or must make weekly treks for buprenorphine.

Keller said tribal leaders have requested assistance from IHS to build out treatment and other substance use resources in the community, with no results.

The IHS’ Alcohol and Substance Abuse Program consultant, JB Kinlacheeny, said the agency has largely shifted to appropriating funds directly to tribes to run their own programs.

The Rocky Mountain Tribal Leaders Council, a consortium of Montana and Wyoming tribes, is working with the Montana Healthcare Foundation on a feasibility study for a treatment center operated by tribes to build capacity specifically for tribal members. Tribes across both states, including the Blackfeet, have passed resolutions supporting the effort.

Blackfeet political leaders declared a state of emergency in March after the fentanyl overdoses. A short time later, some of the tribal council chairman’s children were arrested on suspicion of selling fentanyl out of his home. The council removed Chairman Timothy Davis from his position in early April.

The tribe has created a task force to identify both the short- and long-term needs to respond to the opioid crisis. Blackfeet tribal police investigator Misty LaPlant is helping lead that effort.

Driving around Browning, LaPlant said she plans to train more people on the reservation to administer naloxone, a medication that reverses opioid overdoses. She also wants the tribe to host needle exchanges to reduce infections and the spread of diseases like HIV. There’s also hope, she said, that a reorganization of the tribal health department will result in a one-stop shop for Blackfeet Nation residents to find drug addiction resources on and off the reservation.

However, she said resolving some of the underlying issues — such as poverty, housing, and food insecurity — that make communities like the Blackfeet Nation vulnerable to the ongoing fentanyl crisis is a massive undertaking that won’t be completed anytime soon.

“You could connect historical trauma, unresolved traumas in general, and grief into what makes our community vulnerable,” she said. “If you look at the impact of colonialism and Indigenous communities and people, there’s a correlation there.”

Marla Ollinger is happy to see momentum building to fight opioid and fentanyl addiction in the wake of her son’s death and other people’s. As a mother who struggled to find the resources to save her son, she hopes no one else has to live through that experience.

“It’s heartbreaking to watch your children die unnecessarily,” she said.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

Subscribe to KHN’s free Morning Briefing.

A new mural is underway that will show Oregon’s original Indigenous residents, the Kalapuya people, harvesting and using native plants. From KLCC in Eugene, Brian Bull reports.

The 64-foot long mural depicts Native people gathering camas and other plants. It was done in consultation with Kalapuya elder, Esther Stutzman. Susan Applegate is the designer and artist, who’s putting the mural on the east side of the Dr. Edwin Coleman Junior Community Center.

“The community should know that these are just not weeds or something, but they had special relationship with the people, special meaning. It also informs the general population about the people who lived here before white settlement.” 

The mural, titled “Willamette Wetlands of the Kalapuya”, will be done ahead of a July 9th honoring ceremony featuring songs, stories, and Eugene Mayor Lucy Vinis.

It’s part of a larger project sponsored by Beyond Toxics and the Friendly Area Neighbors Equity Action Team.

 

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Three South Dakota agencies have violated the National Voter Registration Act of 1993.  That’s the opinion released last week in response to a lawsuit filed by the Rosebud and Oglala Sioux Tribes.

A Federal District Judge has found that the Secretary of State, the Department of Social Services, and the Department of Public Safety all failed to uphold a federal law designed to make it simpler for people to register to vote, as Victoria Wicks reports.

When the Native American Rights Fund filed this lawsuit in September 2020, then-NARF attorney Natalie Landreth said the complaint focused on a complex law with a simple purpose.

“It’s supposed to be easy to register, and it’s supposed to be offered to you when you interact with the state at a number of different points.”

Landreth said in 2004, when the state followed federal law, 7,000 voter registration applications originated from public agencies. But 12 years later, that number dropped to 1,100, when the state no longer complied.

“As a result, you’re seeing a significant decline in voter registration in South Dakota.”

In his recent opinion, Federal District Judge Lawrence Piersol found that South Dakota’s Departments of Social Services and Public Safety both violated federal law in several ways.

One example is that agencies asked applicants to opt in for voter registration assistance, but they are required to offer those services routinely unless the client wants to opt out. 

Another example: If someone does not have a Social Security number, a state ID card, or a driver’s license, state agencies are required to assign a voter identification number. Instead, state employees were sending those clients to the county auditor, even in rural areas and in Indian Country where it might be a long trip to the county seat. Judge Piersol placed the blame for these and other problems mainly on the Secretary of State, in this case Steve Barnett.

The judge noted that Barnett chairs the State Board of Elections and is responsible for enforcing the federal act. He said Barnett had failed to provide proper training and oversight and had given out inaccurate information to state employees.

Judge Piersol did not grant summary judgment to the plaintiffs on certain factual matters where witnesses need to be called and evidence presented. Those issues can continue to be litigated.

The Biden administration has released a new tool for tribes to help them navigate investments in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Officials from the departments of Health and Human Services, Environmental Protection Agency, Interior Department, and the White House announced the Tribal Playbook Tuesday during a press call.

The playbook is intended to help tribal governments access benefits from the infrastructure law, which includes more than $13 billion for Indian Country. Bryan Newland, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, says the Bureau of Indian Affairs sought feedback from tribes.

Newland says tribal leaders expressed the need for more information for funding, capacity building, and technical assistance – and for speeding up the permitting process. Newland says along with the playbook, the BIA is expanding its work to help tribes. 

“We’re creating an Infrastructure Law Interagency Coordinator Position here within Indian Affairs so that we can help Indian Country navigate these resources. We’ve issued a national policy memo directing the Bureau of Indian Affairs to prioritize permitting for any infrastructure projects so that these critical dollars can reach Indian Country as quickly as possible.”

Infrastructure law investments for the Interior Department includes funding for water rights settlements, dam safety, climate change, and orphaned wells.  Funding for other agencies address transportation, sanitation, broadband, drinking water, and other areas.

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The owner of the Grand Gateway Hotel in Rapid City, SD was arrested last week after a confrontation with demonstrators from the Native community.

The Rapid City Journal reports Connie Uhre was arrested Friday on three counts of simple assault for allegedly spraying a cleaning product on demonstrators.

The group NDN Collective has been leading picket line boycott events at the hotel three times a week for the last six weeks. The boycott events follow comments Uhre made on social media earlier this spring to ban Native Americans from the hotel.

In a video from NDN Collective of Friday’s event, Uhre appears to approach demonstrators holding a can of Pledge and then sprays a demonstrator.

“You just sprayed me in the face…You sprayed all of us in the face…She’s spaying in the face.”

In the video, Uhre also appears to spray herself with the aerosol can before walking away from the demonstrators.

In a statement, NDN Collective President/CEO Nick Tilsen called Uhre’s behavior racist, violent, disgusting, and illegal. Tilsen says the incident will be added to the federal civil rights discrimination lawsuit filed by the group in March against owners of the hotel.

A federal court last week found that South Dakota failed to provide voter registration services required under federal law. As Aaron Bolton reports, tribes brought the lawsuit saying it disenfranchised Native American voters.

U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence Piersol found that South Dakota Secretary of State Steve Barnett’s office failed to provide proper training to state agencies, like DMVs, that are required to help residents register to vote under the National Voter Registration Act.

The Oglala Sioux Tribe and Rosebud Sioux Tribe, along with tribal members brought the suit, are arguing the noncompliance with the law specifically disenfranchised Indigenous voters, which make up 9% of the population.

The Native American Rights Fund said the ruling removes one more barrier to vote for American Indian people in the state.  

A new suspension bridge was dedicated recently near the coastal town of Yachats, OR. As KLCC’s Brian Bull reports, the event also recognized the displacement and genocide of Native Americans in the area.

The 142-foot long bridge replaces one destroyed by a landslide in 2015.  It spans a forested grotto which contains a statue of Amanda DeCuis, a Coos Indian forced to give up her daughter and march the craggy shores to the Alsea sub-agency in the 1860s.

Joanne Kittel owns the land with the statue and bridge. For her, this latest piece of the Amanda Trail is the culmination of years of activism and community support. Kittel says she often feels Amanda’s spirit in the grotto.

“Amanda’s around all the time. And many people feel the spiritual connection to her, it’s a very powerful area for a lot people. She is very much a part of everyone who’s worked there, even the construction crew from Redmond who built the bridge ended up feeling her presence.”

Kittel wants people to enjoy the bridge and scenery, but also to reflect on the death and sorrow Native Americans endured during colonization.

The Cowlitz Indian Tribe has announced David Barnett, general council chairman, died unexpectedly over the weekend of an apparent heart attack at his home in Shoreline, WA.

The chairman served as leader of the tribe since he was elected in June 2021.

Following the tribe’s succession plan, Barnett will be succeeded by the vice-chair. 

Services are being planned and will be shared with the public forthcoming. 

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The Saint Regis Mohawk Tribal Council is lending its support to bills in the New York legislature seeking to ban the use of Indian mascots, names, and logos in public schools.

The tribe gave feedback on amendments made to bill S1549C (A5443E). The tribal council stated for years that they’ve been helping raise awareness on the derogatory and harmful manner in which Native mascots are often used by public schools and entities across the state and country.

According to data from the National Congress of American Indians, there are more than 100 schools and 55 districts in New York state that use a Native American related mascot. Previous versions of the bill were introduced in 2021, but were not brought to the floor for a vote.

The council is hopeful the new legislation will pass and be signed into law. It calls for the removal of mascots and imagery by September 2024.

The top leader of the Navajo Nation is supporting President Biden’s nominee to lead the Indian Health Service.

President Jonathan Nez spoke before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs this week giving his approval of Roselyn Tso to serve as director of the IHS.

Tso is a citizen of the Navajo Nation and is currently the director of the Navajo Area IHS. Nez praised her decades long work in public health and helping the Navajo Nation respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It is because of her extensive experience working with federal and tribal governments that we are confident that she will continue to promote federal trust responsibilities and enhance our nation-to-nation relationship to improve the Indian Health Service delivery throughout Indian Country. We are pleased the Biden-Harris administration has honored the request of tribal leaders and nominated an IHS director who understands the challenges experienced by our Indigenous communities. We fully support President Biden’s nominee.”

At the hearing, Tso vowed to work to improve health care for Native people and address challenges at IHS if confirmed as director. The IHS provides care to more than two million American Indians and Alaska Natives.

Ahead of North Dakota’s June primary, an advocacy group is working on the Native vote hoping to expand access for Native voters now and in the future. Mike Moen reports.

A record number of Native American candidates are seeking various offices in North Dakota, including nine for legislative seats. Nicole Donaghy of North Dakota Native Vote says their latest work involves creating maps and compiling data that measures the cost of voting for those living in tribal areas with limited polling sites.

“We really want to draw that picture of how these decisions are made without the communities in mind. And so, what stands out is that there is a cost to voting when you have to drive 40 miles one direction in order to get to the polling place.”

This effort is still taking shape, but she says they eventually want to illustrate how the economic burden to cast a ballot affects turnout. Meanwhile, her group recently took part in a meeting of county auditors and has been in touch with state election leaders.

Donaghy says it helps in boosting awareness for things such as a voter ID event held this week on the Standing Rock Reservation. She says issues such as education, the lingering effects of the pandemic, and longstanding barriers in accessing quality health care are on the minds of Native voters.

In the end, Donaghy feels many in these marginalized communities are still just trying to get a sense of whether policymakers are actually listening to what they have to say.

“People want to be in the know. People want to know what’s happening. Why should we vote? Why should we vote for this candidate?”

Next week, North Dakota Native Vote is hosting an online candidate forum featuring Indigenous candidates for the state legislature.

 

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President Joe Biden’s nominee to serve as director of the Indian Health Service says, if confirmed, she’ll work to improve the physical, mental, social, and spiritual health and wellbeing of American Indians and Alaska Natives served by the IHS.

Roselyn Tso testified Wednesday before the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. (READ or WATCH her testimony)

A citizen of the Navajo Nation, she was nominated in March. She currently serves as Director of the Navajo Service Area IHS.

Tso says she has nearly four decades of working at and lived experience using the Indian Health Service. She says working with tribes and other partners is key to providing care, which was seen during the pandemic.

“Throughout my career at the Indian Health Service I have worked to improve the agency to better meet the needs of the people we serve. This was most evident throughout the pandemic where I saw and was part of a true partnership with the Navajo Nation, the San Juan Paiute Tribes, the local, state, federal and private partners to combat COVID-19.”

If confirmed, Tso says she’ll strengthen and streamline IHS business operations; develop systems to improve accountability, transparency and patient safety; and address workforce needs and challenges.

IHS delivers health care services to more than two million American Indians and Alaska Natives. Her nomination to serve as the Director of Indian Health Service is subject to confirmation by the full Senate.

Calls to hold federal agencies more accountable for the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people are growing, including in Washington, D.C.

Here’s Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) during a recent committee hearing: “Now, Miss Ella Mae Begay went missing from the Navajo Nation in June of 2021, but her and over 9500 missing Native people are not listed in either database.”

The combined number of cases listed in databases from the Department of Justice and Bureau of Indian Affairs amounts to roughly 60. An Indian Affairs official pointed to the lack of data due to a personnel change.

Grant money will help some areas improve internet service for the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate Tribe in South Dakota. The pandemic has highlighted the need for improved connectivity in Indian Country. Mike Moen has more.

The federal government says $77 million will be shared among tribal governments in 10 states, to be used for things like new equipment and creating affordable internet service programs. Sherry Johnson, education director for the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate Tribe, says many local students weren’t able to be fully connected with teachers when schools were shutdown.

“This really affected our children – with our academics, our test scores – and we definitely can see that in our data.”

She says reading and math scores saw declines. But with this funding, the roughly 700 homes on the Lake Traverse Reservation will get more reliable service, and schools will be equipped with devices like Chromebooks.

Johnson says that puts families in a better position for future distance-learning scenarios. She says some homes already have service, but the bandwidth is low. Adding to the dilemma is a large land ridge that runs through the reservation.

“And at times, it’s really a barrier for our cell boosters and stuff [that] are needed to really pick up and have a good signal there.”

She says they’ll be able to buy more equipment to counteract those signal disruptions. The community will see other connection gaps addressed, including telehealth.

The two other grantees in South Dakota are the Cheyenne River and the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribes.

The Census Bureau’s American Community Survey shows tribal areas trail the rest of the nation by 21% when it comes to homes with internet service.

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A First Nation is commemorating a painful anniversary. It’s been almost exactly a year since the remains of possibly more than 200 children were found at the site of a former residential school in British Columbia. As Dan Karpenchuk reports, Prime minister Justin Trudeau attended a memorial gathering in Kamloops, B.C.

Trudeau says the unmarked burial ground set off a reckoning for Canadians about the country’s history and relations with Indigenous people.

“I hear you.  This is about remembering those we lost.  This is about gathering and reflecting where we are, and mostly where we need to go altogether.”

It’s been a year since the unmarked graves of 215 children were found at the former school site.  Trudeau added that this was a difficult year for survivors and their families and there is a long road ahead for reconciliation. Governor general Mary Simon also attended the gathering.   She said what was known by most Indigenous people, the suffering and loss caused by the residential schools is now known by all.

“But you haven’t yet had time to grieve, to make peace in your hearts.  I hope today contributes to that process of healing.”

Simon says the remains found has been called a discovery, but for survivors of the Indian residential schools, it’s a confirmation.  Simon is the first Indigenous person in Canada to hold the office of Governor General. The chief of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation, Roseanne Casimir says she’s disappointed that the pope will not visit Kamloops when he comes to Canada next month. She’s still pleased that he will meet with other Indigenous people in Canada. Last month, Pope Francis apologized for the Catholic Church’s role in running the residential schools.

The Lower Brule Sioux Tribe has filed a lawsuit against Lyman County in South Dakota for delaying a redistricting plan that would ensure the election of Native candidates to the county commission. The lawsuit alleges the delay prevents Lower Brule from electing two commissioners in the upcoming election. Instead, the Tribe will have one Native preferred candidate in 2024 and another in 2026. Victoria Wicks has more.

Lyman County has had an at-large election process since 1992. That means candidates running for the five commissioner seats can live anywhere within the county. Lyman County contains part of the Lower Brule Reservation and has a Native population of 38 percent. With at-large elections, no Native candidate has ever succeeded in winning a seat on the county commission.

To avoid a lawsuit, Lyman County and Lower Brule agreed that the county must establish two commissioner positions chosen by Native voters. In October 2021, Lower Brule proposed five single-candidate districts, two of them Native-majority and three white-majority. According to plaintiffs, that scheme was legal under existing South Dakota law. But in February, the Lyman County Commission enacted an ordinance establishing just two voting districts, one white with three commissioners and one Native with two commissioners. And the commission voted to delay the changes until after the next election. Lyman County then went to the state legislature and asked for a change in state law to allow the two-district plan. When the Senate State Affairs committee took up the bill on March 2, Lower Brule Tribal Vice-Chairman Cody Russell testified against that change.

“Because county commissioner races are staggered, Native voters will not have the chance to elect the two representatives that we should have until 2026.”

Russell said Native voters would be denied full rights for four years. And he said that Lyman County’s plan defeats the intent of the Voting Rights Act.

“This plan divides the county into Native and white districts, segregating us and deepening existing tensions.”

Russell is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. They are asking the federal court to stop the delay and allow the election this year of two Native commissioners.

 

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Interior Secretary Deb Haaland recently celebrated the restoration of a bison range with tribes in northwest Montana. Montana Public Radio’s Freddy Monares has this report.

Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes Chairman Tom MacDonald introduced Sec. Haaland to a crowd of several hundred people inside the Salish Kootenai College’s basketball gym on Saturday.

“Please let us give a big round of applause for my hero, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland.”

Sec. Haaland says with the loss of tribal homelands and depletion of bison herds, tribes have lost traditional connections with bison.

“But in spite of that tragedy and loss, we are still here. You are still here. And that’s something to celebrate.”

Sec. Haaland says the restoration is a culmination of Native peoples’ resilience, conservation guided by Indigenous knowledge and the Biden Administration’s commitment to honor treaty obligations. She says it’s a return to something pure and sacred.

In late 2020, Congress passed, and former president Donald Trump signed, a bill returning management of the bison range to the tribes. The federal government unlawfully took the land in the 1900s.

Chairman McDonald says the bison range is more than a restoration of land for the tribes — it’s a restoration of a piece that has been missing and a gift to pass onto future generations.

“For us to share this story and began our healing journey here with the first American woman Secretary of the Interior elicits emotions in all of us that I cannot put into words.”

Despite the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people, only a small number of cases are listed in federal databases.  The Mountain West News Bureau’s Robyn Vincent reports, these omissions are getting noticed and drawing frustration.

During a recent committee hearing Senator Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM) pointed out there are nearly 10,000 cases of missing and murdered Indigenous people. Yet, the combined number of cases listed by the Department of Justice and Bureau of Indian Affairs is roughly 60. 

“The goal of all of us is to bring more attention here. Undermining this is going to show that, oh, don’t worry, we got it under control. No one needs to do anything, and that’s terribly wrong.” 

A representative with the Bureau of Indian Affairs told the senator one reason for the dearth of info was a personnel change. He said shortly after the launch of their website, an employee responsible for data entry left.

Senator Lujan said his office is monitoring the number of cases, or lack thereof, listed in the federal databases. He urged federal officials to prioritize an issue that advocates say is slipping through the cracks.

Nineteen U.S. Senators are requesting the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs hold a hearing on legislation to establish a truth and healing Commission on Indian boarding schools.

The commission would investigate, document, and acknowledge injustices of federal government policies, including attempts to terminate Native culture, assimilation and human rights violations. During a recent House subcommittee hearing on the House version of the bill, tribal leaders and advocates called for its passage. Shawnee Chief Ben Barnes testified.

“This commission’s purpose is not to point fingers, lay blame, or invoke guilt in people who are generations removed from these atrocities. It would simply help American Indian communities find information that would otherwise be unattainable and bring an opportunity for some assemblance of closure. We cannot go back and change the past, but we can and must hold ourselves accountable for doing the right thing today. The stories of human suffering at these institutions can no longer be hidden from view or ignored. It is time they take their place in public conscious.”

Last week, the Senators sent a letter to leadership of the Indian Affairs committee requesting a hearing.

 

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A killer whale totem pole has made its journey through the Pacific Northwest to raise awareness of calls to remove dams from the Snake River. Through May, it made stops in tribal communities and cities, as Eric Tegethoff reports.

The Spirit of the Waters Totem Pole Journey began at the beginning of May in Bellingham, near the Lummi Indian Reservation where it was carved. Since then, it’s traveled through Oregon, Idaho and back to Seattle. Jewell James with the Lummi Nation’s House of Tears Carvers is its head carver. He said the pole is 16 feet long, weighs three-thousand pounds and sits on two carved, eight-foot-long salmon.

“A killer whale that has a baby whale on its nose to reflect Tahlequah, the whale that lost her calf and carried it around Puget Sound for 17 days and over 1,000 miles trying to get the message to us, the human beings, that we are killing them off.”

James says the journey is supporting the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes’ call to remove four dams on the lower Snake River in southeast Washington, which are impeding salmon migration. The salmon’s population drop in the Columbia River Basin in recent decades also has starved Southern Resident orcas in Puget Sound. Dam supporters say they are integral for barging and irrigation in the region. But James says there’s growing disappointment among tribes and conservation groups with lawmakers’ inaction as salmon near extinction.

“They’re more prone to protect the interests of corporations than they are the general public, and we find that a little frustrating.”

The journey has brought together tribal members, conservation groups and the faith community to call for the restoration of the Snake River.

The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS) worked with the U.S. Department of the Interior for months in the development of the recently released federal Indian boarding school report to address the troubled legacy of boarding school policies.

The report found that from 1819 to 1969, the federal Indian boarding school system consisted of 408 federal schools across the country, and identified marked or unmarked burial sites at about 53 different schools.

The NABS is calling for more research and expanded work beyond the federal initiative. NABS board member Joannie Romero says it’s important to uncover documents and educate the public about Indian boarding schools.

“Have access to these records, to church records, to the National Archive, and to also really understand the intergenerational impacts of the trauma it’s had on communities and we’ve seen these ripple effects carried out through the federal Indian law and policy.”

Romero adds it’s also part of the healing process.

“Those who experience trauma while at school, and mourn the loss of their peers who never returned to their communities, and try to reintegrate themselves into Indigenous culture. In general, we see those effects today.”

The coalition is seeking the establishment of a commission to help locate records and gather information from former students and descendants.

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The first Native American U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland will be in western Montana Saturday to help celebrate the return of the Bison Range to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. MTPR’s Aaron Bolton has more.

The tribes earlier this year officially took over management of the Bison Range which was illegally taken by the U.S. federal government in the early 1900s. Sec. Haaland is scheduled to speak at the Salish Kootenai College Saturday afternoon.

Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services Director Martha Williams, and Lt. Gov. Kristen Juras (R-MT) will be on hand as well to celebrate the return of the land with CSKT leaders.

“For us at CSKT, this is a step forward in the right direction. It was really righting a wrong in our history. We’re really happy to be reunited with our bison herd and the land out there and the resources,” said CSKT spokesperson Shane Morigeau.

The celebration will take place on Saturday. A community lunch and powwow will be held at the Bison Range on Friday.

Members of the Narragansett Indian Tribe will have free access to the beach in Massachusetts that bears the tribe’s name.

The Providence Journal reports the Narragansett Town Council narrowly approved the measure after a contentious four hour public meeting this week. The popular beach typically requires a $12 access fee plus parking.

The measure was unpopular with many of the town’s residents who say the beach is already overcrowded. Resident Joe Cardello reflected many people’s opinion that the action is poorly thought-out.

“To give a blanket three thousand—I don’t care who it is. I don’t care if it’s the Indians or anybody else. But I will tell you this. If you’re going to be giving a free pass to anybody in this town, it should be the taxpayers, because we pay the taxes.”

Narragansett tribal member Bella Noka reminded those at the meeting that the word Narragansett is not a town or a beach, but the name of a thriving nation. She says access is not about recreation or sunbathing.

“That is where we go to grandfather ocean in ceremony. Your homes, your big, beautiful homes. You dug up our ancient burial grounds to build them.”

The original idea came up during a roundtable meeting in February with tribal members and others.

A trial is underway in Alberta where two white men are charged with the murder of two Metis hunters two years ago. Roger Bilodeau and his son Anthony Bilodeau shot and killed Jacob Sansom and his uncle Maurice Cardinal after an encounter along a country road.

The Bilodeaus forced the confrontation because they suspected the two Indigenous men were thieves. The two men did not call authorities following the shooting.

Attorneys say the defendants opened fire in self-defense.

In California, the state senate confirmed the first Native American to hold a district judgeship.

Courthouse News reports Sunshine Suzanne Sykes was confirmed by a vote of 51 to 45. She would also be the first Article III judge in the country who is a member of the Navajo Nation.

Article III judges have lifetime appointments on federal district and circuit courts, as well as the Supreme Court. Sykes was previously a judge on the Superior Court of Riverside County in California.

The University of California Berkeley School of Law announced it will cover all tuition for current and future students who are both California residents and members of federally recognized tribes.

Reuters reports administrators say they want to make Berkeley Law a destination for Native American students. They hope to expand the program to students from federally recognized tribes who are not California residents.

Native Americans made up just 1% of first year law students around the country this academic year.

 

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