Credit: Where residents usually fish with nets to catch fish in quantities, a couple uses rods and reels to harvest non-salmon species at the mouth of the Melozi River, a tributary on the Yukon river. (Photo by Serena Fitka, Yukon River Drainage Fisheries Association).

x̌ast sn̓yak̓ʷqín, relatives.

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STEVENS VILLAGE, Alaska — In a normal year, the smokehouses and drying racks that Alaska Natives use to prepare salmon to tide them through the winter would be heavy with fish meat, the fruits of a summer spent fishing on the Yukon River like generations before them.

This year, there are no fish. For the first time in memory, both king and chum salmon have dwindled to almost nothing and the state has banned salmon fishing on the Yukon, even the subsistence harvests that Alaska Natives rely on to fill their freezers and pantries for winter. The remote communities that dot the river and live off its bounty — far from road systems and easy, affordable shopping — are desperate and doubling down on moose and caribou hunts in the waning days of fall.

“Nobody has fish in their freezer right now. Nobody,” said Giovanna Stevens, 38, a citizen of the Stevens Village tribe who grew up harvesting salmon at her family’s fish camp. “We have to fill that void quickly before winter gets here.”

Credit: Giovanna Stevens, left, and Kori Williams clean moose intestines at Stevens' family hunting camp on Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021, near Stevens Village, Alaska. For the first time in memory, both king and chum salmon have dwindled to almost nothing and the state has banned salmon fishing on the Yukon. The remote communities that dot the river and live off its bounty are desperate and doubling down on moose and caribou hunts in the waning days of fall. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)

Opinions on what led to the catastrophe vary, but those studying it generally agree human-caused climate change is playing a role as the river and the Bering Sea warm, altering the food chain in ways that aren’t yet fully understood… READ more. — The Associated Press

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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The Albuquerque City Council has adopted a resolution that acknowledges ongoing generational trauma caused by U.S. boarding school policies, that Indigenous children were forced to attend, and formalizes a commitment to work with Indigenous communities toward reconciliation and healing.

Councilors voted in favor of the measure during a meeting on Monday. Mayor Tim Keller is expected to sign the resolution on Indigenous People’s Day.

The city has been researching the history of a public park where students of the former Albuquerque Indian School were believed to have been buried more than a century ago.

Dawn Begay, the city’s tribal affairs coordinator, said during Monday’s meeting that research into the site so far has determined that Navajo, Apache and pueblo students plus students from tribes in Arizona were probably buried at the site… READ more. — The Associated Press

RENO, Nev. — Tribal lawyers are asking a U.S. judge in Nevada to reconsider her earlier refusal to block digging at a proposed lithium mine near the Oregon line where they say newly uncovered evidence proves it was the sacred site of a massacre of dozens of Native Americans in 1865.

Credit: In this Sept. 13, 2018, file photo, exploration drilling continues for Permitting Lithium Nevada Corp.'s Thacker Pass Project on the site between Orovada and Kings Valley, in Humboldt county, Nev., shown beyond a driller's shovels in the distance. A federal judge in Nevada has denied tribal leaders’ bid to temporarily block digging for an archaeological study required before construction can begin for a lithium mine. U.S. District Judge Miranda Du refused their request late Friday, Sept. Sept. 3, 2021, for a preliminary injunction blocking the trenching at the site of the largest known lithium deposit in the U.S. (Suzanne Featherston/The Daily Free Press via AP, File)

The new motion filed in federal court in Reno includes an 1865 newspaper report and two eyewitness accounts of how at least 31 Paiute men, women and children were “murdered by federal soldiers” at Thacker Pass.

The accounts were in an autobiography first published in 1929 by a well-known American labor organizer, Bill Haywood. One was from a cavalry volunteer who participated in the slaughter and the other by a tribal member who survived it… READ more. — The Associated Press

It’s World Space Week! A Diné woman tells ICT’s newscast about her 18 years at NASA. Plus, a rally brought attention to the epidemic of missing Indigenous relatives over the weekend in Albuquerque.

Watch: 

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PARIS — Decrying the “predation” of his homeland, a Brazilian Indigenous leader is appealing to France’s president to use his global sway to fight the deforestation of the Amazon.

Credit: Ninawa Inu Huni kui stands in front of the Elysee Palace after he delivered a letter to the office of French President Emmanuel Macron, in Paris, Saturday, Oct. 2, 2021. A Brazilian Indigenous leader is appealing to France's president to use his sway to fight deforestation of the Amazon. (AP Photo/Nicolas Garriga)

Ninawa, a leader of the Huni Kui people who uses just one name, delivered a letter on Saturday to the office of French President Emmanuel Macron. He urged the French leader to lean on the whole 27-nation European Union to limit trade linked to deforestation. His appeal also called for pressure on Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to halt logging, farming and development projects that are destroying the Amazon rainforest.

In the letter, seen by The Associated Press, Ninawa says: “The current (Brazilian) administration is working to authorize or amnesty the extraction and export of timber, as forest fires devastate flora and fauna, to create fields for monocultures of soybeans and for raising cattle… READ more. — The Associated Press

Kilauea began erupting on Hawaii’s Big Island last week. The eruption is not in an area with homes and is entirely contained within Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

Here is a photo before and after of volcanic smog, or vog.

Credit: Hawaiian vista, Sept. 23, 2021 (Photo from video by Joaqlin Estus).
Credit: Vog in Hawaii, Oct. 1, 2021 (Photo from video by Joaqlin Estus). Last week, on Friday, Oct. 1, conditions (shown here overlooking Kailua-Kona)  were “moderate.”

The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs will host a hearing on Wednesday that deals with water rights.

Testimony will be heard Wednesday on S.648, Technical Correction to the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes of the Duck Valley Reservation Water Rights Settlement Act of 2021, and S.1911, Gros Ventre and Assiniboine Tribes of the Fort Belknap Indian Community Water Rights Settlement Act of 2021.

Bryan Newland, assistant secretary for Indian Affairs is among those scheduled to testify. The hearing starts at 2:30 p.m. ET.

Watch the livestream here.

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Bobby Wilson, Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota, is known for his roles on “Reservation Dogs” and “Rutherford Falls.”

Wilson will join Heard Museum Fine Arts Curator Erin Joyce in conversation that is available to watch at no charge virtually.

The event is Oct. 20 at 3 pm ET. Registration is required.

FLAGSTAFF – Manuelito Wheeler did not join millions of sci-fi fans who packed into movie theaters in May 1977 to see the original “Star Wars.” He was only 7, and living with his family in remote Window Rock on Navajo Nation land, hundreds of miles from the nearest movie theater and with little knowledge of any galaxy far, far away.

Eighteen years later, Wheeler is the father of a 4-year-old son, sitting in the dim light of their living room one night watching the trilogy box set on VHS.

Credit: A stormtrooper appears in a detail on the BB-8 droid – revealed in later movies in the “Star Wars” franchise – designed by Rod Velarde, a Jicarilla Apache. (Photo by Kelly Richmond/Cronkite News)

After, an idea lingered: What if “Star Wars: A New Hope,” as the original now was called, was dubbed into Diné Bazaad, the 700-year-old language of the Navajo? There were so many parallels – of duality, of colonization, of landscape in the Indigenous land and a force that drives people to connect through shared experiences… READ more. — Kiera Riley, Cronkite News

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