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Six Cherokee Nation women will participate in the 2022 Remember the Removal Bike Ride this June, retracing an estimated 950 miles along the northern route of the Trail of Tears by bicycle.
This marks the first year for the team to be all Cherokee women.
The ride spans from Georgia to Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma over nearly three weeks. The cyclists will average around 60 miles a day. The cyclists will be joined by seven cyclists from the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians. The ride begins in New Echota, Georgia, a former capital of the Cherokee Nation, on May 30.
“For generations, we’ve always honored our ancestors and the devastation that they endured during the Trail of Tears,” Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. said in a statement. “The Remember the Removal Bike Ride is such a tremendous opportunity for our Cherokee youth to learn the history and honor the legacy of their ancestors who endured some of the worst tragedy in the history of the Cherokee Nation. It helps the cyclists learn more about the history of the Cherokee Nation, but also helps them pay tribute to those that suffered on the trail to Indian territory.” READ MORE– Indian Country Today
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The Blackfeet Tribal Council in Montana voted to remove its chairman from his leadership role after nine people were arrested on drug-related charges following a search at a residence the chairman owns.
Chairman Timothy Davis, who said his children were among those arrested, voted for his own removal. He apologized for the actions of his children.
About 50 people attended the tribal council meeting and many cheered the unanimous decision. Davis will remain a member of the tribal council. His term runs until 2024.
The nine people who were arrested face misdemeanor charges in tribal court.
Four people are charged with criminal sale of dangerous drugs — two related to fentanyl and two related to methamphetamine, said Josh Lamson, special assistant U.S. attorney for the Blackfeet Nation.
On March 21, the Blackfeet Reservation declared a state of emergency after reporting 17 fentanyl overdoses and four deaths on the reservation in the previous week.
With Davis’ removal, former Vice Chairman Illiff “Scott” Kipp Sr. is now acting chairman and former Secretary Lauren Monroe Jr. is acting vice chair. Five council seats are up for election in June. Council members serve four-year terms. — Associated Press
Cindy Blackstock believes she was born for this fight and who could disagree.
She has led the legal fight against the Canadian government to end critical underfunding of First Nations children for more than 15 years and she has won a great victory. Yet she knows the fight is not yet over even as she has a new enemy in her sights.
Blackstock is a citizen of the Gitxsan Nation and grew up in northern British Columbia just east of the Rocky Mountains northern range, in Canada’s most western province. At the end of 2021, the Canadian government finally offered a $31.6 billion agreement to compensate children and family members who were denied equitable services and care and to transform the child welfare system. READ MORE– Miles Morrisseau, Special to Indian Country Today
For many years, Tsegi Canyon on the Navajo Nation struggled: Its dry walls and streambanks were eroding, exposing crumbling red soil to the desert sky. Its springs were drying up; native plants were few and far between on the canyon floor, often replaced by invasive weeds.
This land, beautiful and remote, was tired, said Nicholas Chischilly, a wildlife technician with the Navajo Nation Climate Change Program, which operates under the tribe’s Department of Fish and Wildlife.
There’s a lot of history there, he said, and secluded Tsegi Canyon, – 13 miles from Kayenta near the Navajo National Monument – is one of the few places on the reservation where water flows year round. READ MORE – Cronkite News
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Coming up on the ICT Newscast’s weekend edition, we’re highlighting Indigenous leaders striving for a better tomorrow. Plus, a deadly threat to bison herds in the Great Plains. And legendary performer Gary Farmer discusses his latest projects.
WATCH:
Federal officials say it may be necessary to reduce water deliveries to users on the Colorado River to prevent the shutdown of a huge dam that supplies hydropower to some 5 million customers across the U.S. West.
Officials had hoped snowmelt would buoy Lake Powell on the Arizona-Utah border to ensure its dam could continue to supply power. But snow is already melting, and hotter-than-normal temperatures and prolonged drought are further shrinking the lake.
The Interior Department has proposed holding back water in the lake to maintain Glen Canyon Dam’s ability to generate electricity amid what it said were the driest conditions in the region in more than 1,200 years.
“The best available science indicates that the effects of climate change will continue to adversely impact the basin,” Tanya Trujillo, the Interior’s assistant secretary for water and science wrote to seven states in the basin Friday. READ MORE– Associated Press
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- Boosting equity in the federal government: The White House is centering race in a historic way with the newly announced equity action plans, fulfilling an executive order Joe Biden signed on his first day in office.
- Park renamed to honor Native village: ‘I just think it’s appropriate to, in light of the history of Kit Carson, to honor our Native people and to honor them with a park’.
- Disenrolled Nooksack citizens continue fight to stay in homes: A lawsuit filed in state court comes after an appeal from the United Nations failed to convince the U.S. to intervene in planned evictions.
- Elders remember their childhoods at Indian Boarding Schools
- Indigenous winnersof 2022 Canadian Screen Awards reflect on victories and a changing industry
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