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More than 20 tribal organizations are urging the Trump administration to respect tribal sovereignty – and uphold treaty and trust responsibilities.

The coalition sent a letter on Sunday to President Donald Trump, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, and members of Congress.

This follows actions by the administration in Trump’s first two weeks in office, including a recent rescinded memo, which sought to freeze federal loans and grants.

The letter states that recent orders are raising concerns among tribes and tribal organizations, including urban Indian organizations across the country, which provide healthcare, education, economic development, and other services to tribal communities.

The organizations say questions remain about how federal agencies will interpret and implement the administration’s executive orders and policies moving forward.

The National Indian Health Board, the National Congress of American Indians, and the American Indian Higher Education Consortium are among tribal groups, which signed the letter, emphasizing tribes as sovereign nations with unique political status and not special interest groups.

Tribal leaders across the country are seeking to build a relationship with Secretary Burgum.

He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate last week.

The former governor of North Dakota received support from the five tribes in his state.

According to U.S. Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND), Burgum received support from more than 185 tribes.

During his confirmation hearing in January, tribes were mentioned several times. He was questioned about tribal sovereignty and tribal consultation.

Here’s how Burgum described working with tribes.

“Tribal consultation to me as governor of North Dakota has meant actually spending time going to the tribes, listening, sometimes listening for hours to really understand what the issues are and then getting people ahead of time and then working on things that are important.”

Burgum highlighted one area of concern in his state to improve public safety saying he helped achieved agreements with tribes on law enforcement.

Much of his hearing focused on energy development, but conservation and protection of sacred sites were touched on.

Tribal leaders are hopeful Burgum brings his work on government-to-government relationships, and his knowledge of Indian Country to his position as Interior Secretary, as he now oversee the agency that includes Indian affairs and the management of public lands.

Housing shortages and overcrowding affect most of Alaska, and the North Slope is no exception.

Alaska Desk reporter for our flagship station KNBA Alena Naiden has more.

In particular, the remote region faces additional logistical challenges, but also unique economic opportunities.

That was the takeaway from a recent North Slope Borough housing summit held in Anchorage.

The event highlighted affordable ways for residents to buy or build homes in the Arctic.

Jack Frantz is the director of the borough Housing Department.

He says that homes in the region are falling apart faster than new ones are being built.

“You also hear about it when you have, you know, a young adult that wants to stay on the North Slope, but has to move down to one of the lower cities just because of a lack of housing on the North Slope as well.”

Frantz says that the country’s most northern region – which is predominantly Alaska Native – is in a unique situation.

The remote geography makes shipping and construction challenging and expensive.

But he says residents of the oil-rich region also have interest and resources to purchase houses. He says that more than half of the North Slope homes are owned by residents.

The housing summit aimed to connect potential home buyers to existing financing opportunities, available contractors, and affordable ways to ship supplies.

For example, Frantz says summit panelists discussed how residents and entities could form a co-op and order supplies together to cut shipping costs.

“When you talk about economies of scale, generally, just more you order, the bigger discount you get.”

The borough plans to put together a guide listing banks and contractors who are looking to work with buyers in the region.

They also plan to present a report on the summit during Kivgiq, which is a celebratory mid-winter festival in mid February in Utqiaġvik.

They will also discuss it during future village visits.

 

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The issue of missing and murdered Indigenous people continues to be of national concern among tribes.

Now, tribes are hoping new measures will get bi-partisan support in Congress to help tribal law enforcement solve these cases.

These bills also coincide with the first-ever “Missing in Nevada Day” this weekend.  

The Mountain West News Bureau’s Yvette Fernandez has the details.

One bill is called Bridging Agency Data Gaps & Ensuring Safety (BADGES).

The other is called Invest to Protect.

Both would fund tribal law enforcement to combat violence and in particular address the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People crisis.

Tribal Chairman of the Las Vegas Paiute Tribe, Benny Tso says these funds would give them access to forensic resources and enhance data-sharing among tribal and non-tribal law enforcement.

He says it will impact their ability to solve these crimes. 

“A lot of our brothers and sisters go missing to no avail, with no help and no resources. It seems like a lot of those cases get swept under the rug. And, it’s troubling to hear all these cases that go unheard or unanswered.” 

According to the National Crime Information Center, murder is the third leading cause of death for Indigenous women and is ten times higher than all other ethnicities.

Both measures passed the U.S. Senate last year, but will have to be reintroduced with the current Congress.  

A nearly thousand-year-old cache linked to the Dene people was found near Cook Inlet this summer.

Researchers say it’s the oldest such find in the Anchorage Bowl.

Alaska Desk reporter Alena Naiden for our flagship station KNBA has more.

Archeologists discovered a cellar lined with birch bark in June at a known Dene site at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson.

They estimate that the cache was about three and a half feet across and was likely used for storing food.

Aaron Leggett is the president of the Native Village of Eklutna, located roughly 20 miles north of the discovery.

He says it’s another testament that the Dene people have been the stewards of the lands in Southcentral Alaska for at least a millennia.

“It’s further confirmation of Denaʼina oral tradition. It also shows that there’s still a lot more work to be done on Denaʼina archeology, and especially in Upper Cook Inlet.”

JBER archeologist Liz Ortiz was among those who first encountered the cache.

Ortiz says that she and her colleague expected it to be a couple hundred years old.

Instead, tests showed something extraordinary for Southcentral – a relatively densely populated region where ground conditions are less stable compared to other parts of the state.

“When we got the results back that said it was 960 years, plus or minus 30, we were shocked. I mean, Margan and I were jumping up and down in our cube in tears. It was very, very exciting”

Another JBER archeologist Margan Grove says that discoveries like this are important to discuss.

They highlight the long-standing Indigenous history of the urban landscape of Anchorage.

“Anchorage is a new town – you know, 1914 is when it’s first established, but there are people who were here much longer than that.”

Researchers collaborated with elders and knowledge holders from Denaʼina and Ahtna tribes to get more context about the place.

Today, half of Alaska’s population lives within the Dene homelands, and Leggett says careful analysis of the remaining sites – in consultation with the tribes – is crucial.

“We’ve always said that we know we can’t stop development, but can we use these opportunities to kind of fill in the picture?”

Archaeologists plan to further evaluate the soil samples in and around the cache.

Together with tribal leaders, they hope to go back to the site later this year.

 

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Tribes across the country are continuing to monitor actions being taken by the Trump administration after the White House rescinded a memo Wednesday on a temporary halt on federal loans and grants.

A memo issued this week on the funding freeze caused confusion and concern across Indian Country prompting tribes to analyze possible impacts.

In a statement, Southern Indian Ute Tribe chairman Melvin Baker said they recognize the importance of programs and services that rely on these funds and that the federal government has a solemn obligation to honor its trust responsibility and financial commitments.

The U.S. Interior Department has begun to take steps to designate Denali as Mt. McKinley.

This comes after President Donald Trump’s executive order to return the mountain to a name change made in 1917.

As Rhonda McBride from our flagship station KNBA tells us, the fight to preserve the name Denali is an old battle.

If she were alive, Poldine Carlo would probably sing her Denali song to protest President Trump’s executive order.

Carlo was in her late 90’s when she performed her Denali song at a Denakkanaaga elders and youth conference.

She had greeted President Barack Obama with the same song, when he visited Alaska in 2015, the summer his administration changed the name back from McKinley to Denali.

“It just felt so good and it was healing.”

Angela Gonzalez remembers when Poldine sang the song for Obama.

In her Athabascan Woman Blog, she wrote about it and the joy she felt over the return of the ancient name.

“Just a feeling of a great land and untold stories from our ancestors.”

Gonzalez’s maiden name is Yatlin, which means “runner”, and refers to her family’s long history of trading goods.

“We definitely traveled a long ways.” where the mountain was part of a long network of trails that went all the way from Siberia to California – and Denali, which means tall one in her Koyukon Athabascan language, was an important landmark.

“We were people who traded everywhere. We have artifacts from other locations.”

Gonzalez says no matter what the president does, Denali will always be Denali.

New research suggests that coyotes are more abundant in areas where hunting them is allowed.

Caroline Long for the Mountain West News Bureau has more.

Coyotes are native to the southwestern United States, but they have expanded their range rapidly in the last century.

“Now they’re found basically throughout all of North America … and so, our main goal was to figure out what are the environmental and human-led factors driving this expansion?”

Austin Green is an associate instructor at the University of Utah.

Along with other researchers, he analyzed data from Snapshot USA, a network of cameras across the United States.

Research found that in Utah, Wyoming, Montana, and Nevada, where hunting and trapping coyotes is barely regulated, coyotes are more abundant.

“There was no evidence across our model or across other investigations that unregulated coyote hunting is a legitimate population control measure.”

More work needs to be done, but the implications are that state wildlife managers could play an important role in controlling growing coyote populations.

 

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Tribes across the country are assessing what a pause on federal loans, grants, and other financial assistance programs means for their communities.

This comes after the Trump administration issued a memorandum this week, on the funding freeze from the Office of Management and Budget.

The pause was to become effective on Tuesday at 5 p.m., but a federal judge blocked it until a hearing on Monday.

Tribes in Alaska, Idaho, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Michigan, North Dakota, Nebraska, and more states assured their communities in letters and statements that their leaders are aware of the memo and are working with their internal departments and federal partners to understand the impacts.

Tribal leaders say they are committed to protecting tribal sovereignty, and to holding the federal government accountable for treaty and trust responsibilities.

The Fort Hall Business Council in Idaho said in a statement it will continue to aggressively monitor the new administration’s actions and inform the community on issues of concern.

In a statement, the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska said the funding freeze sent shock waves throughout their community and Indian Country creating mass confusion. The tribe says its council is engaging with allies in Congress to push back against any potential disruptions to tribal programs.

Tribal allies in Congress include New Mexico’s delegation.

The all-Democratic delegation held a press conference Tuesday to address the funding freeze and says concerns were raised from tribes across the state.

U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-NM) says Taos Pueblo was having issues using federal portals to conduct tribal business.

U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-NM) says he was at a morning meeting on Zuni Pueblo with the Zuni Youth Enrichment Project, which receives federal dollars to serve thousands of children in Zuni.

He says funds essentially vanished overnight due to the freeze and the program could not access its system to pay invoices or pay employees.

“We’re not talking about entitlement projects to Americans that don’t deserve to be funded. We’re talking about the health and welfare of children in the state and the things that will help them grow up to lead healthy lives.”

The delegation says it also heard from the Mescalero Apache Tribe and concerns about impacts to public safety.

Rep. Vasquez says this action was a misfire by the president.

“And I think the American people truly see that this administration is not organized to its approach to changing policy that there needs to be public dialog with folks in our districts, our communities, what is best for our district, this state, this nation.”

U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury and U.S. Sens. Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) also addressed concerns.

The New Mexico congressional delegation says it will fight against the funding freeze and work to protect vital services.

The White House defended the action during a press conference Tuesday saying the funding pause will not impact individuals and it’s temporary.

The Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Pontotoc County District Attorney Erik Johnson.

Chickasaw Nation Governor Bill Anoatubby says the agreement is a proactive step to protect the safety and security of the community.

He adds the memorandum establishes an important partnership to enhance communication among county, tribal, and federal law enforcement.

He says it’s another step in the Chickasaw Nation’s commitment to working together to provide public safety in their communities.

Johnson says communication between his office and the tribe’s prosecutors has always been good, but the MOU will help to facilitate better communication and coordination.

Johnson’s office has a partnership at the federal level with the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, which is responsible for prosecution of felony and misdemeanor crimes.

The MOU seeks better communication among these prosecuting offices where jurisdiction may sometimes overlap.

The Chickasaw Nation and the DA’s office have hosted DA trainings together.

According to the tribe, it currently has more than 80 cross deputation agreements with other criminal justice agencies.

 

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Photo: Kotzebue wind turbines, July 13, 2024. (Courtesy Chad Nordlum)

More than $130 million in grants for clean energy projects in rural Alaska are now frozen.

That’s after President Donald Trump signed dozens of executive orders during his first day in office, including one freezing funding from the federal Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Alena Naiden, Alaska Desk reporter for our flagship station KNBA, has more.

The projects were meant to lower energy costs in rural communities and bring them additional revenue sources to support crucial infrastructure.

That includes hydroelectric dams, wind turbines, and solar energy systems that were funded in more than a dozen rural Alaska villages with federal grants throughout last year.

Now those projects are in limbo. One example is two large wind turbines in Kotzebue.

Chad Nordlum is the energy project manager for the village.

He says that with the funding freeze, residents are now concerned about the shipping schedule for the turbines and getting the project off the ground.

“Right now, there doesn’t seem to be much we can do on our end. We’re just waiting for clarity.”

The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium has partnered with tribes across the state, including in Kotzebue, to receive the federal grants.

In total, they’ve been awarded contracts for about $132 million, says Katya Karankevich, a project manager at the consortium. But they have not received the money from the government yet.

Karankevich says that the energy from those projects is cheaper than transported diesel, and would help residents lower their bills.

The tribes also would be able to sell that power to local utility companies and get additional revenue to invest in local water and sewer infrastructure.

“We’re trying to get all off the road system communities on board with the idea to do renewable energy in a completely different way in the state, and that is to set up the communities themselves, to sell power to themselves, and to use the earnings for public benefit, like taking care of sanitation infrastructure.”

Karankevich says that the projects in question are at different states of progress but all of them have completed feasibility studies proving their cost-efficiency.

She says that while the funding freeze is a hurdle, the consortium still plans to continue moving those projects forward.

The funding freeze also includes Indian Country plans to improve roads, provide clean drinking water, clean up oil and gas wells, and other projects for tribal communities across the country.

The nation’s highest court has declined to hear a case about Montana voting laws that tribes and Native vote advocates say would have disproportionately affected Native people.

Kathleen Shannon has more.

Last year, Montana’s Supreme Court decided two laws passed in 2021 to ban same-day voter registration and paid absentee ballot collection were unconstitutional.

Alex Rate, deputy director and legal director of the ACLU of Montana, said people who face too many costs to voting often do not.

For those who already face barriers like long distances to elections offices or no residential mail delivery, the laws could have tipped the scales. Rate argued it was the intention of the bill’s backers.

“That’s what we saw with these laws, was a very deliberate attempt to make it so difficult for people to vote that they would stay home,” Rate asserted.

Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen brought the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which last week opted not to hear it.

Rate noted the high court does not have jurisdiction to pick up a case on state voting laws.

According to the Brennan Center for Justice, states passed almost 80 restrictive voting laws between 2021 and 2024, nearly three times the number passed in the previous few years.

So far in Montana’s 2025 legislative session, a half-dozen voting-related bills have been introduced by lawmakers, all Republicans.

More than a dozen Indigenous communities welcomed back more than 500 bison last year to their ancestral grazing lands across the country.

The Indigenous-led effort, which includes the InterTribal Buffalo Council, says bison play a role in spiritual and cultural revitalization, and food sovereignty for Indigenous people.

 

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Photo: Blackfeet Community Hospital benefits from Montana’s Medicaid expansion. (courtesy Blackfeet Community Hospital)

Montana tribal leaders say the health of their people hinges on whether lawmakers renew the state’s Medicaid expansion program.

Montana Public Radio’s Aaron Bolton reports.

If state lawmakers don’t act, nearly 14,000 Indigenous Montanans could lose health coverage under Medicaid expansion.

When legislators renewed the program in 2019, they implemented a sunset for mid-2025.

There are two bills in the Legislature that would make the program permanent. Another bill would end expansion.

Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribal Council member Jennifer Finley told lawmakers Medicaid expansion is a vital lifeline in tribal communities.

“It provides economic growth on every reservation in Montana with the creation of jobs. This had meant tribal members that follow their dreams to become doctors, pharmacists can return home to provide much needed services to our people, which builds confidence and trust in our health care system.”

Finley and others also say expansion in crucial because the Indian Health Service is woefully underfunded.

Medicaid is often the only way tribal members can pay for care.

After centuries of overhunting by fur traders, sea otters have largely disappeared from the Oregon and Northern California coasts.

But as KLCC’s Brian Bull reports, the Siletz Tribe is trying to bring them back with the help of a $1.5 million grant.

The three-year grant comes from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation – and will bolster efforts made by the Siletz and other regional tribes.

Siletz Tribal member Robert Kentta says sea otters have a revered role in his culture.

“They figure prominently in our stories as a relative and a near neighbor, I guess. They bring wealth and good times, and abundance.”

Sea otters also serve an important role in the environment, by eating invasive crustaceans like green crabs, and by restoring and maintaining kelp forests.

“There’s also oxygenation and coastal erosion buffering when we have kelp forest habitat in the near-shore ecosystem. So there’s lots of benefits, and we just see a degrading habitat with sea otter absence.”

Kentta says the tribe and its partners will likely relocate sea otters from locations on the Pacific coast where the population is healthier.

Last week, U.S. Sens. Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) joined three other Senators to reintroduce the Radiation Exposure Compensation Reauthorization Act (RECA).

The program compensates Americans exposed to radiation by government nuclear programs.

The Senate passed the bill last Congress, but the House of Representatives failed to pass reauthorization before its expiration deadline.

Indigenous people in the Southwest are among those who’ve been impacted, including the Navajo Nation, where uranium mining was critical in the making of the atomic bomb.

Indigenous people have been advocating for RECA’s reauthorization.

Last fall, members of several tribes including the Navajo Nation, Laguna Pueblo, and Zuni Pueblo raised funds to travel by bus from New Mexico to Washington D.C. to urge lawmakers to revive the program.

Senss Heinrich and Luján say it’s long overdue for Congress to pass RECA, and say they remain committed to getting it extended and expanded.

 

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Photo: Security guard stands at entrance of the new Chin’nan Gaming Hall, which opened on Monday in Birchwood, Alaska. (Rhonda McBride)

The Anchorage, Alaska area has its first small-scale casino.

The Eklutna Tribe began operations on Monday night in a building in Birchwood.

As Rhonda McBride from our flagship station KNBA reports, it was constructed in less than a week.

The whirlwind effort to get the tribe’s gaming hall up and running is in sharp contrast to the decades it has spent fighting for the legal right to operate it.

So why the hurry?

Did the timing have anything to do with a new president?

While President Donald Trump celebrated his inauguration, you could hear the steady roar of machinery at the tribe’s casino.

Construction equipment raced around a five-piece modular building, bolted together and propped up on wooden blocks.

Even so, the Chin’nan Gaming Hall opened early that evening – and Dan Amadon was the very first to feed money into a gaming machine.

“You put a little in, you get a little out. That’s the fun of it.”

Amadon operates a shop next door and is a supporter, and although this patch of land outside Anchorage still seems more like a construction zone, Aaron Leggett, president of the Native Village Eklutna, called the first day of operations a “historic milestone” for the tribe.

The building sits on a Native allotment that a year ago did not have the necessary Indian Country status for gambling.

But last year, the tribe got final approval from Bryan Newland, the outgoing assistant secretary of Interior just five days before the Trump administration takeover.

Don Mitchell, the lawyer for property owners who have sued the tribe, believes the scramble to open was to head-off the Governor of Alaska’s request to President Trump to block the casino.

“They somehow think that by opening a symbolic casino – that that will improve their legal position in both the lawsuit and in their future dealings with the Trump administration.”

The tribe says it wasn’t so much fear of Trump but fear of more delays caused by turnover in administrations.

It says once in full operation, its small-scale casino will be an economic lifeline for its tribal members.

Tribal leaders in the Southwest are addressing concerns from their tribal members as the Trump administration rolls out immigration orders, which include deportation plans.

The Navajo Nation, located in the Four Corners region, and the Mescalero Apache Tribe in New Mexico say they’ve received concerns this week about circulating stories of tribal members being approached by U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) Agents in urban areas.

The Navajo Nation Council on Thursday urged Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren to take immediate actions on what it said are “raids in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah.”

The council says it’s sparking fear.

President Nygren says, as of Thursday night, there were “no confirmed cases of detentions” of Navajo citizens, but he’s asking Navajo people to stayed informed, remain calm, and to carry a state-issued identification card.

In a letter Thursday, to Mescalero Apache tribal members, the tribe stated it verified one incident where an ICE agent questioned a tribal member in the village of Ruidoso.

Mescalero Apache President Thora Walsh-Padilla addressed concerns in a social media video message to tribal members asking them to report any encounters.

“We are very, very worried about out tribal members at this time that such things could happen at this day and age. We are doing everything we can and remember that we are the Indigenous people of this area and we are also a sovereign nation and we do have rights. So, please let us know as soon as possible if you have some sort of encounter with ICE agents.”

President Walsh-Padilla says the tribe is working with New Mexico’s congressional delegation and has posted information on its website for tribal members about how to respond if confronted by ICE agents.

 

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A protest against the Northern Gateway Project in Vancouver, B.C. in 2012. Photo: Chris Yakimov / Flickr

At least one First Nations leader in Canada says he’s rethinking his concerns about a proposed pipeline to the north coast of British Columbia.

And as Dan Karpenchuk reports, Grand Chief Stewart Phillip of the Union of British Columbia Chiefs says it might be necessary to support the pipeline project due to President Donald Trump’s proposals.

President Trump’s threats of tariffs and a possible trade war with the

US have again highlighted a project thought to be dead.

The Northern Gateway pipeline would send Alberta bitumen to the coast of British Columbia for export overseas.

The proposal died when the Trudeau government announced a moratorium on crude oil tanker traffic to protect the coastal environment in 2016.

A federal court had found that Indigenous people along the pipeline route had not been adequately consulted.

Now, Chief Phillip says that was a different time.

“We are staring into the abyss of uncertainty right now with climate change, the climate crisis and the American threat. So I would suggest that if we don’t build that kind of infrastructure, Trump will. And there will not be any consideration for the environment or the rule of law.”

Alberta’s premier Danielle Smith has already argued that Canada needs to start building pipelines in response to the threat of tariffs.

She also says the threats from Trump make it crucial for projects such as Northern Gateway to be back on the agenda.

It’s official: the Arctic grayling is being reintroduced to three rivers in northern Michigan.

Interlochen Public Radio environment reporter Ellie Katz has more.

Arctic grayling once swam in rivers and streams across the state, but logging and habitat loss wiped them out in Michigan.

The last time the fish was seen was in the lower peninsula was in the early 1900s.

Now, more than a hundred years later, scientists from multiple organizations are trying to reintroduce the silvery-blue trout species into the Boardman, Manistee, and Maple Rivers.

Dan Mays is a biologist with the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, one of the partners on the project.

“This is one of those fish that were here when the tribe’s ancestors were here and interacting with those fish, and it’s important to reconnect that interaction with the people and the fish and the environment.”

The Grand Traverse Band is one of three northern Michigan tribes that will receive the fish eggs from a state hatchery in May.

The plan is to raise those fish in river water until they’re eventually released later in the summer and fall.

The Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians has announced that the tribe has been awarded a three-year $1.56 million grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

It will support tribal efforts to return sea otters to the Oregon and Northern California coasts.

The federal grant is through the America the Beautiful Challenge.

The tribe says the funding will enable them to build capacity and expertise to lead or participate in sea otter reintroduction and management and to elevate the role of coastal Indian Tribes in marine stewardship.

The grant will support additional planning and technical capacity with other regional and tribal partners and collaborators.

According to the tribe, sea otters have been absent from Oregon for more than a century due to the maritime fur trade.

Among things, sea otters protect eelgrass habitat by keeping populations of small crabs under control.

The North American Indigenous Athletics Hall of Fame has announced its 2025 class of inductees.

It includes 42 athletes and four teams to receive honors for athletic achievements and contributions in sports.

The new class as well as the 2024 and 2023 honorees will be recognized during a banquet this summer in Green Bay, Wisc.

 

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Tribal leaders are assessing what the next Trump administration means for their communities nationwide.

South Dakota Public Broadcasting’s C.J. Keene reports.

State Sen. Tamara Grove (R-SD) is from Lower Brule.

She says there is reason to be hopeful in the next administration, namely the representation of states with high tribal populations with the incoming government.

“I’m hopeful this four years will include the Native American community. When you have people like (Senate Majority Leader) U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-SD) in office who says ‘South Dakota’ – we have nine tribes here. I just really believe that will open up some doors.”

On the other hand, Pine Ridge State Rep. Peri Pourier (Oglala Lakota citizen/D-SD) says she’s cautiously optimistic about some cabinet picks, particularly former Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND) for Secretary of Interior.

“It seems like he has a good grasp on trust responsibilities with Native American tribes and the treaty obligations. I hope he holds the BIA accountable in all aspects. I hope he initiates policy reform, and really weights out their performance when it comes to public safety efforts.”

Gov. Burgum previously prioritized tribal relation during his time as governor.

In Alaska, Bethel’s tribal government recently repatriated the remains of four Yup’ik ancestors taken from the area more than a century ago.

KYUK’s Evan Erickson has more.

At the Bethel Memorial Cemetery at the edge of the tundra, a large wooden cross protruding from a single gravesite bears only the words “Four Yupiit Ancestors”.

In November, the partial remains of four Yup’ik inhabitants of the Bethel area were finally laid to rest by Bethel’s tribe, the Orutsararmiut Traditional Native Council (ONC).

They had been stored at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, better known as the Penn Museum, for more than a century.

The repatriation is the product of a years-long process under the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).

The law has facilitated the transfer of the remains of tens of thousands of Native Americans stored in museum collections and laboratories back to federally recognized tribes since its passage in 1990.

Nevertheless, hundreds of thousands of remains and sacred objects still remain in the possession of museums, universities, and federal agencies across the United States.

At the request of ONC in November, the City of Bethel agreed to dig a gravesite for the remains at the Bethel Memorial Cemetery.

In a meeting of the Bethel City Council shortly after the burial, acting city clerk Kevin Morgan shared an email sent to the city by the tribe describing the remains.

“It was an adult male, the cranium and mandible, mandible of a female, mandible and part of the skull of a female, and the cranium and cranial bones of … a 15-year-old female.”

Notice of the ancestral remains as required under NAGRA was first made by the National Park Service in late 2022, though it is unclear when Bethel’s tribe received the remains.

ONC did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Little is known about the four recently buried Yupiit ancestors, but according to the federal register, the remains were removed from a site near Bethel in September 1907 as part of a Western Alaska expedition led by Penn Museum’s general curator of American archaeology George Byron Gordon.

That same year, Gordon collected and removed hundreds of cultural items from the region as part of a canoe expedition of the Kuskokwim River that brought the anthropologist to Bethel.

According to The Repatriation Database, a project by nonprofit investigative journalism organization ProPublica, the remains of at least one person of interest to Bethel’s tribe are still being held by the Alaska State Medical Examiner Office, but have not been made available for repatriation.

The Penn Museum did not respond to multiple requests for comment about the history of the remains while in the museum’s possession.

 

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After nearly 50 years in federal prison, Leonard Peltier is free to go home.

Outgoing President Joe Biden commuted the sentence of the Native American activist for his role in a 1975 shootout with FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

Two agents – Jack Coler and Ron Williams – were shot dead, as well as AIM activist Joe Stuntz (Coeur d’Alene).

SDPB’s Lee Strubinger has more.

Peltier will serve the remainder of his sentence in home confinement.

The pardon was seen as the last chance to free Peltier from prison, who is 80 and is in poor health.

“It was the right thing to do.”

That’s Rapid City-based lawyer Bruce Ellison, who represented Peltier in the original case 50 years ago.

Ellison, who was 25 at the time, said there was conflicting evidence against Peltier.

“It took way too long for a president to realize that clemency was at least an appropriate remedy.”

The move drew applause from groups like Amnesty International — and condemnation from the Senate Majority Leader, U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-SD).

Ed Woods is a retired FBI agent who runs the No Parole Peltier Association.

“Whether he goes back to the reservation — he’s in poor health — Jack (Coler) and Ron (Williams) are still dead. Peltier has to live with the aging process just like the rest of us.”

Jean Roach (Mnicoujou Lakota) is a longtime Free Leonard Peltier activist who was there during the shootout in 1975. She was 14.

She’s excited for Peltier to come home, but …

“Our work is not done until all of our people are treated with the basic human rights that we all deserve.”

NDN Collective, an Indigenous rights organization, has purchased a home for Peltier on the Turtle Mountain Reservation, where he is enrolled.

Biden’s commutation takes effect on February 18.

The Navajo Nation hosted an Inauguration watch party on Monday at the tribe’s Washington D.C. office, as Antonia Gonzales reports.

Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren had planned to attend President Donald Trump’s swearing-in ceremony … in person outdoors … but was among the thousands of people who had to change plans after the event was moved inside for what organizers said was the weather.

Temperatures were in the 20s Monday morning as President Nygren and others watched the event on TV.

Nygren says some things that resonated with him in President Trump’s speech were economic development and public safety.

“And some of the things like public safety really resonated with me as far as how do we make our communities safter, how do we make sure us as Americans feel safe in the communities that we live in. As president of a tribal nation, as a tribal leader, definitely trying to make sure that that promise is kept in Indian Country, because we all deserve it.”

Nygren says the Navajo Nation is putting together a list of priorities to work on with the Trump Administration.

As to outgoing President Joe Biden granting Leonard Peltier’s freedom, Nygren says he was glad it happened.

He recently signed a letter of support for Peltier’s release.

“It’s a Native elder that is up in age. It’d be good for him to see his homelands again, to really enjoy where he comes from and really enjoy what he’s fought for when he was a young man as well, and for him to be back with the animals, the land, and the waters that really, what brought him joy and happiness to really see him enjoy that is gonna be wonderful for not only Indian country but for himself as well too. So very, very, very proud and happy that President Biden took him up on that because I know that was needed for a very, very long time.”

Peltier himself often wondered if he’d see the world outside prison walls.

In this 2000 interview with Brian Bull while he was at the Federal Correctional Institution in Leavenworth, Kan., Peltier shared this statement should he die before gaining freedom:

“Being an Indian, I’m very proud of my people. Especially those that have made good lives for themselves and made big advantages to help our people survive, and thrive as a government. And if possible, I’ll see’em in the ceremonies.”

 

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