Ad offering to “clean” city of First Nations youth probed as a hate crime
Indian Country Today’s Gale Courey Toensing follows up here on this disturbing story about an online ad offering to cleanse the Canadian city of Winnipeg of Native youth. The ad ran with a picture of three Native boys and was headlined “Native Extraction Service.” It offered to relocate the “pesky little buggers” to their “habitat.” It’s now being investigated as a hate crime. As Valerie Talliman points out in her commentary, here, ignoring the ad is not an option: “Our silence is our consent.”

Ghost town haunted by wolves – Alaska village on high alert after teacher’s fatal mauling
A town hall meeting has been held in Chignik Lake, Alaska, to keep residents informed about wolves on the outskirts of town believed to have killed a teacher last week. Whiteout weather conditions hampered a hunt for the wolves. In the meantime, people are staying inside. This KTUU report calls Chignik Lake “a ghost town haunted by wolves.” Click on the link to watch a video report.

Native Hawaiians closer to establishing own government
This Associated Press report points out the fact that Native Hawaiians are the last remaining indigenous group in the United States that hasn’t been allowed to establish their own government. But a U.S. Senate vote this month – and President Barack Obama’s expected signature – could give federal recognition to 400,000 Native Hawaiians.

First Nations University funding denied; school could close within weeks
Canada’s aboriginal-run university could be forced to close by the end of this month, according to some reports, as a result of federal refusal to restore $7.2 million in funding that was cut after allegations of financial mismanagement. Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl tells the Toronto Globe & Mail, here, that “It is time to focus our attention on those aboriginal students themselves,” rather than the university.

Casino workers’ union contract brokered under tribal law
Among the very few tribal casinos whose workers have a union contract is huge Foxwoods Resort Casino complex, run by the Mashantucket Pequot tribe in Connecticut. What makes the contract unusual is that it was brokered under tribal law. NPR has the story here.

Gwen Florio

Quilting project honors Native children who died in boarding schools
Jamestown, N.D., resident Ellen Pfeiffer first learned about Indian boarding schools from her former husband, a member of the Rosebud Sioux tribe whose grandmother was taken from her family and sent to the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. She found the story heartbreaking, and began to study the era. Barbara Landis, Carlisle Indian School biographer, reports that nearly 10,000 Indian children went to Carlisle in its 40-year-history. Of those, nearly 200 children died, most of them of respiratory diseases such as pneumonia and tuberculosis.

Pfeiffer believes the schools, whose purpose was to assimilate Indian children, did a disservice to Native Americans. Now she’s making quilts to honor the children who died so far from their families. The project involves 186 quilts, according to this Jamestown Sun story distributed by the Associated Press.

Connecticut tribes blast state’s plan to add keno games
Connecticut is looking at adding keno games to help close a $1.3 billion budget shortfall. But tribal casinos – which already offer it – are crying foul, saying it could cut into their profits, Indian Country Today’s Gale Courey Toensing writes here. Jackson King, general counsel for the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, says that if the state launches keno, the tribes could stop making payments to the state based on their own earnings, because of a violation of the compact.

Navajo Nation plans five casinos within two years
Despite a drop in gaming revenues around the country, the Navajo Nation Gaming Enterprise says it has secured the funding for five news casinos, and plans to build them within the next two years, according to the Navajo Times. Investment Committee members say gaming looks like more secure route than the stock market these days.

Seneca Nation stops effort to ban mail-order smokes in New York
The New York Times has this story on how the Seneca Nation turned around a bill designed to halt the shipment of mail-order cigarettes. The bill was approved by the New York House of Representatives and a Senate committee, before the Seneca Nation, which sees more than $1 billion annually in gambling and cigarette revenues, launched a full-scale lobbying effort to stop it.

Nunavut to substantially cut polar bear harvest quota; hunters object
Over the next four years, the annual hunting quota for Baffin Bay polar bears will gradually be reduced from 105 to 65, according to the Nunatsiaq News. Biologists are worried the bears are being overhunted, and Greenland has already reduced its quotas. But some hunters are demanding compensation for their communities.

Salish Kootenai College honors lifelong Salish language teacher Sophie Mays
Last month, family and friends on the Flathead Indian Reservation gathered at Salish Kootenai College to dedicate Sophie’s Room. It honors Sophie “Supi” Quequesah Mays died last year at the age of 56, the Char-Koosta News reports. Mays, who grew up with parents who spoke only Salish, dedicated her life to preserving the Salish language. She was the first Salish teacher when the college was founded.

Gwen Florio

The pending default of Foxwoods Resort Casino, the nation’s largest, raises questions about whether creditors will be able to pursue claims, according to this story by the Financial Times of London.

Tribes’ status as sovereign nations could complicate matters in the case of Foxwoods, run by the Mashantucket Pequot tribe, or those by any other tribes.

Casinos around the country are feeling the same financial pinch as other businesses. Barclays Capital reports that tribal casinos hae sold more than $5 billion worth of junk bonds.

Foxwoods warned this week that it probably won’t make a full interest payment on $500 million, and could be in default by Dec. 16. It’s still negotiating with creditors to structure more than $1 billion in debt.

“The Mashantucket situation could set a precedent for how financial disputes between Native American gaming issuers and lenders are resolved,” Moody’s Investors Service said in a report. “With casinos such as Foxwoods located on sovereign tribal land potentially out of reach of US bankruptcy law, it remains unclear whether creditors could enforce their rights and exercise adequate remedies against Indian tribes that default on debt payments.”

Steven Smith of the law firm Dechert says bankruptcy law has never been tested as applied to the mesh of sovereignty and federal gaming laws. “An argument can be made that the tribe is a governmental unit, which could bar it from seeking relief under Chapter 11 altogether,” he tells the Times.

Gwen Florio

Fort Berthold questions refinery plan
An oil refinery proposed for the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota would be the first of its kind built in the country in more than four decades. The refinery, to be built on Three Affiliated Tribes trust land, would use pre-refined oil from Canadian tar sands, making it non-air polluting, according to this Bismarck (N.D.) Tribune story. Tribal elder Tony Mandan favors the refinery – but with some qualifications. He wants the reservation’s own oil, not Canadian oil, refined there, and he wants environmental guarantees. “Jobs are not most important. Health is most important,” he says.

Foxwoods: “The wonder and the fall”
That’s the headline on this Boston Globe examination of the recent financial problems at the Mashantucket Western Pequot Tribal Nation’s Foxwoods casino. Foxwoods led the way to casino wealth for some tribes; now, it stands as testimony to these ominous financial times. “The casino helped bring this tribe together,” says Debbie Frankovitch, 55, a Pequot who has lived on the reservation all her life. “Now, the casino is a big embarrassment. It’s just a lot of greed.”

Fossils, birds, critters and … Indians?
Oh, we think not! And neither do Native American professors, students and others who spoke to the University of Michigan’s Exhibit Museum of Natural History about its dioramas, according to this Indian Country Today story. “We are living, breathing, contemporary human beings,” Margaret Noori, a professor of Ojibwe language and literature, reminded museum officials – who agreed. The dioramas depicting Indian people in ancient and colonial times, will be removed.

Museum refurbishes Ojibwe portraits
Here’s the counterpart to the University of Michigan museum story – this one’s from Minnesota. The Duluth News-Tribune reports here (registration required) that several Ojibwe-themed turn-of-the-century Eastman Johnson works maintained by the St. Louis County Historical Society have been refurbished, to the tune of $40,000. Exhibit curator Linda Grover says the turn-of-the-century portraits are treasured by area Native people. “They were drawn in a time right after the reservations had been established. It was a time of change and adjustment. Times were difficult in many ways.

Ground broken on new First Nations reserve in Canada
Also from Indian Country Today, here, the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations people broke ground on a new reserve on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. Tla-o-qui-aht council member Elmer Frank calls it a “ground-breaking groundbreaking” as he explains that “it’s the first time the government of Canada has allowed lands to come out of a park, it’s the largest single funding Indian Affairs has ever done in the Pacific Region, and it returns a part of our homeland almost 100 years after it was taken from us.”

Gwen Florio

The chairman of the tribal council of the Mashantucket Western Pequot Tribal Nation, which owns the Foxwoods Resort Casino, has been placed on leave pending an internal review, the Norwich (Conn.) Bulletin reports here.

The council’s actions come after Thomas notified tribal members by e-mail that they would be paid before banks or bondholders in a financial restructuring, The Day newspaper in New London reported last week.

“As a matter of policy, the council does not discuss personnel matters and does not intend to comment further,” the tribe said in a written statement released by Foxwoods Resort Casino spokesman William Satti.

The tribe’s finances have been much in the news in the last couple of weeks, with Thomas warning tribal members of “dire” times ahead, according to the Associated Press, and saying the tribe is near default and is looking to restructure more than $1 billion in debt. Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s recently lowered the tribe’s ratings.

Gwen Florio

The country’s largest Native-owned casino is backing away from early reports suggesting lenders may go unpaid as it works to restructure at least $1.45 billion in debt, according to this Bloomberg report.

“Like any other restructuring, the tribe is looking at all its options and there’s no plan at this time,” a spokesman for the Mashantucket Western Pequot Tribal Nation in Connecticut tells Bloomberg. “Through the process, the tribe will be pursuing a mutually beneficial resolution with its banks and bondholders. We’ve always had a favorable relationship with our lenders and we look forward to working with them on a solution that works for all.”

Like casinos around the country, Foxwoods is seeing a drop in revenues because of the recession. The problems at Foxwoods – which, except for Atlantic City, once had northeastern gaming all to itself – are exacerbated by recent competition from other tribal casinos and slot casinos in nearby states.

Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s both cut their ratings for the tribe this week.

Foxwoods is the country’s largest casino by size, with three hotels and six casinos. Just before the recession, it opened a new MGM Grand hotel.

“They borrowed a fair amount of capital to build the MGM Grand and the MGM Grand didn’t come close to what they were hoping for in returns on investment,” Dennis Farrell, a Wells Fargo Securities debt analyst tells Bloomberg. “With the weakness in the overall market when they have amortizing debt coming due, they need to handle that and they’re obviously going to have a difficult time.”

Gwen Florio