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A Navajo-class Navy ship, a towing, salvage and rescue ship, will be named the USNS Billy Frank Jr.; named for the former leader of the Nisqually Tribe.
Frank, who died in 2014 at the age of 83, long fought for tribal fishing rights, was a veteran of the Marine Corps and was also a former chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.
These styles of Navy ships are given names of prominent tribal leaders or tribes.
More can be read of the ship here.
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Paddles break through the water in sync, propelling each canoe through the water, guided by song and storytelling from the families aboard. These are the sounds in the invitation song the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe released, calling to canoe families across the Pacific Northwest.
For over three decades, tribal canoe families from the Salish sea and beyond have gathered together each summer for Canoe Journey. After a three year hiatus due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the journey and following week of potlatch ceremony will resume this year, hosted by Muckleshoot for the first time since 2006.
One hundred twenty canoe families from tribes across British Columbia, Oregon and Washington began the journey this week, landing at Alki Beach in Seattle on July 30.
One by one, each canoe will ask permission from Muckleshoot tribal citizens to land, starting with the families that traveled the furthest. READ MORE — Nika Bartoo-Smith, Underscore News + ICT
OKLAHOMA CITY — The Republican-controlled Oklahoma Senate met in a special session Monday and overrode GOP Gov. Kevin Stitt’s vetoes of two bills to extend existing agreements with Native American tribes for another year.
The overrides were the latest development in an ongoing dispute between Stitt and several Oklahoma-based tribes. Stitt, himself a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, wants to renegotiate tribal compacts on the sale of tobacco products and the issuance of motor vehicle tags by tribes.
Several of the state’s most powerful tribal leaders were in the gallery during Monday’s debate and praised the Senate for overriding the governor’s vetoes.
Stitt has raised concerns that the existing compact language needs to be rewritten in light of a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2020 that led to the reservation boundaries of several Oklahoma-based tribes being upheld. READ MORE — Associated Press
Christen Falcon, a Blackfeet hunter and entrepreneur, crouched on a snow- and sage-covered hillside in southwest Montana, slicing rubbery orange fat from bright red hunks of buffalo meat. Her fingers nicked from knifework, she stashed cuts from the ungulate’s neck, back and ribs in Ziploc baggies for safekeeping. The animal was one of at least 1,223 Yellowstone bison that hunters in Montana killed last winter, more than in any year since the 1800s. The vast majority were harvested by tribal citizens exercising long-dormant treaty rights in Beattie Gulch, a narrow strip of federal land just outside Yellowstone National Park.
The bison’s massive front- and hindquarters rested on a blue tarp to protect them from dirt and other contaminants. Gut piles left by other hunters, frosted with March snow, dotted the hillsides around Falcon. As she field-dressed the animal, tourists headed to the park passed by less than half a mile away. “We’re using our space that we have always used,” Falcon said. “We’re just using it again now with an audience.”
Falcon’s harvest is a revitalization of Indigenous knowledge and culture. But the hunt is also a public lightning rod — part of an ongoing controversy over managing an iconic species that tribal nations, the federal government and the state of Montana all have deep and different interests in. READ MORE— High Country News
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ICT’s Joaqlin Estus recently spoke with Travis Trueblood, a veteran, who is mentoring the next generation of Native lawyers.
In Washington there are several initiatives under way that could make changes for Native communities. ICT’s Stewart Huntington recently spoke with Spokane Tribe of Indians historian Warren Seyler on these initiatives.
For the first time since the 1960s both writers and actors are on strike. ICT’s Paris Wise headed to the picket lines to learn more about what Indigenous creatives are doing in the strike.
WATCH:
Greetings, relatives:
Plenty of news in July for what is a hot summer for many.
We start with an exclusive interview with Vice President Kamala Harris. ICT Anchor Aliyah Chavez got access to Harris during a July 6 stop in the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona.
Another big story came from across the medicine line in Canada. ICT’s Miles Morrisseau reported on an investigation that found a “predatory culture” in the Assembly of First Nations.
The Navajo Nation Council celebrated its centennial. ICT’s Pauly Denetclaw explains the past and present Diné government.
SEE ALL OF THE JULY HEADLINES HERE
- No children found in dig near former boarding school: The Genoa Indian Industrial School was part of a national system of more than 400 boarding schools that attempted to assimilate Indigenous people into White culture by separating children from their families
- Amazon Indigenous are leaving rainforest: Their exodus is leaving villages to wither and raising concern that the world’s largest tropical rainforest will be left without its most effective guardians.
- Indigenous men acquitted of murder after 50 years: It’s the first double acquittal for Innocence Canada, a national organization that work to overturn wrongful convictions
- Alaska accuses souvenir store of selling fake Native art and products from ‘Yakutat alpacas’
- Whistleblower tells Congress the US is concealing program that captures UFOs
- IRS is ending unannounced visits to taxpayers
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