First Nations vow to block Nanaimo terminal
The Snuneymuxw First Nation says it will turn to the courts in its flight to block construction of a $22-million cruise ship terminal at Nanaimo, near Vancouver. Chief Doug White tells the Vancouver Sun he will go to mediation because the Nanaimo Port Authority is not taking seriously his people’s concerns over the protection of the Nanaimo River Estuary.

Navajo Supreme Court suspends college president
Dine College president Ferlin Clark has been ordered to suspend work until Sept. 21, under a Navajo Supreme Court ruling last week. The Navajo Times reports that the court also released a has released the 172-page investigate report on Clark’s conduct that confirms allegations of “pervasive harassment” and favoritism.

Program helps Native American engineers
North and South Dakota are taking part in a five-year program that aims to recruit American Indian students to become engineers are hoping some of them will return home to help their communities, according to the Rapid City Journal in South Dakota. A $4.8 million National Science Foundation grant funds the program to link four-year engineering schools with community colleges.

Play based on Louise Erdrich novel debuts
Minneapolis’ Guthrie Theater last night debuted “The Master Butchers Singing Club,” a play based on the novel of the same name by heralded Anishinaabe author Louise Erdrich. As the Associated Press writes, “the stage adaptation of Erdrich’s novel is by Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright Marsha Norman. It follows the lives of numerous residents of a small North Dakota town between the first and second World Wars.” Read more at Playbill.com.

Not making this up – Whale rescue film touted as romantic comedy
From the Anchorage Daily News’ rural blog, The Village, comes a delicious tidbit about how Universal Pictures is promoting its whale-rescue movie that will feature several Alaska Natives Seems like the movie will more true to Hollywood than true to life.

Gwen Florio

Members of Canada’s First Nations put questions about Shell Oil’s involvement in the Alberta oil sands to company executives at Shell’s annual meeting, according to Rebecca Sommer’s report, here, in the Huntington News.

The Indigenous Environmental Network and Friends of the Earth Europe sponsored representatives from the Lubicon Cree First Nation, Mikisew Cree First Nation, Duncan Lake First Nation and the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation at the meeting.

“Local communities are continually bearing the brunt of the detrimental effects of Shell’s tar sands projects whether it be from toxic emissions and water contamination to the complete fragmenting and decimation of the boreal forest,” said Melina Laboucan-Massimo, a member of the Lubicon Cree First Nation and a Greenpeace Climate and Energy Campaigner. “Tar sands development is completely altering our homelands and destroying the very foundation of who we are as Indigenous peoples.”

George Poitras, former Chief of the Mikisew Cree Nation, talked of concerns about the effect of the tar sands development on the Mikisew Nation 250 km downstream.

“Our people have inhabited Canada’s Athabasca region for thousands of years. In a short 40 years we have seen unfathomable environmental degradation coinciding with the onset of tar sands development,” he said. “We have seen the waters of the Athabasca River polluted by heavy trace metals with cancer-causing carcinogens which according to prominent scientists are up to five times worse than what is being reported.”

And, he went on to say, “Our waters and our lands are all intrinsically linked to our ability to survive, are all intrinsically linked to our ability to pass on our cultural and traditional ways of our lives. When you remove the land and pollute our waterways you are in effect causing the extinction of my people’s way of life, you are in effect causing cultural genocide of my people.”

Some First Nations have filed suit seeking to delay or stop Shell’s development in the area.

Gwen Florio

Here‘s the entire story from the Associated Press:

HELENA (AP) – The Montana Historical Society is scheduling the Smithsonian Institution’s “Native Words, Native Warriors” exhibit to tour the state’s American Indian reservations.

“This is a rare opportunity to honor Montana’s Indian veterans, and all veterans, as well as to honor the important work of retaining native languages,” said Society Director Richard Sims.

The Smithsonian created the exhibit to tell the story of Indian Marines and soldiers who used their coded native languages as a weapon against U.S. enemies.

The Navajo code talkers during World War II have received the most recognition, but the exhibit shows that Native Americans were first enlisted to relay messages in their own languages during World War I.

Marines and soldiers from 16 tribal nations served as code talkers, including the Assiniboine, Sioux, Navajo, Hopi, Cherokee, Chippewa and Cree.

The exhibit also addresses the irony the Indians faced as they transitioned from Indian boarding schools, where they were punished for speaking their native languages, to being honored for using that language as a vital secret weapon in combat.

Montana has the opportunity to bring the exhibit to the state because the historical society is an affiliate of the Smithsonian.

Montana Historical Society Board of Trustees member George Horse Capture of Great Falls initiated the exhibit when he was a Smithsonian curator, and will serve as guest curator of the Montana exhibit.

The historical society plans to launch the exhibit in Helena in April and then take it to the state’s reservations. The society is also working with tribal veterans’ representatives and tribal councils who want to contribute in their own way in honoring and celebrating their warriors during each four-day event.

The society is seeking sponsors to help cover the $35,000 to $40,000 cost for creating and presenting the traveling exhibit.

Navajo Nation in “turmoil” as president placed on leave
Good investigative reporting by the Navajo Times results in publication of this information showing “substantial evidence” that Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. violated the tribe’s ethics laws. Tensions are so high that a significant, armed police presence was deemed necessary during last week’s special tribal council meeting in Window Rock. The video above gives an idea of the atmosphere that day.

Canada’s First Nations reserves see “explosion” of tuberculosis
The Winnipeg Free Press reports here that “Manitoba now has one of the highest rates of TB in Canada because the disease has been allowed to spread rampant in the First Nations population. On some reserves, the TB rate is more than 100 times the national average.”

Ho-Chunk buy land where Chippewa had planned casino
There’s been considerable buzz about this story, mainly because the Bad River and St.Croix Chippewa bands had options to buy a parcel of land near Beloit, Wisc., for an off-reservation casino. On Thursday, the Ho-Chunk Nation announced it had purchased that same parcel. The two Chippewa bands wanted to build a casino there, but the Ho-Chunk say they stand a better chance of getting approval to build a casino off their reservation.

Turkey sponsors Native American education exchange
The Web site TurkishNY.com makes its first appearance in Buffalo Post with this story about a lecture tour in Turkey this month by Native American educators. The Turkish Coaltion of America is sponsoring the trip in conjunction with the American Indian Higher Educational Consortium. The story says the idea is to foster collaboration between tribal colleges and Turkish universities.

Powwow celebrates couple’s 63rd wedding anniversary
Here’s the sort of story we love to see: Victor Matt met Delma Gebeau at the Arlee powwow on Flathead Indian Reservation shortly after he came back to Montana after World War II. The Salish couple have been married 63 years, and celebrated their union the way it began – with a powwow, according to the Char-Koosta News.

Gwen Florio

The DSGW Architects firm in Duluth, Minn., already does a lot of business with Indian clients. Now it’s looking to do even more with the launch of its First American Design Studio, a special division within the company focused on meeting the needs of American Indian clients, according to this story in the Pine (Minn.) Journal.

In fact, DSGW partner Randy Wagner credits the firm’s two-decade tradition of working with Native clients with softening the blow of the recent recession.

“We’ve maintained much of our tribal activity, and that’s certainly helped us weather these tough economic times,” he says.

He says the fact that the firm has hired Mike Laverdure, of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa in North Dakota, will help it develop even stronger ties with American Indian clients. The story reports that Laverdure has worked in the industry for a decade and is in the final stages of being certified as an architect. Laverdure, who says there are only about 50 American Indian architects in the country, believes he will become the first member of his tribe ever to achieve that distinction.

Meanwhile, Sonny Peacock, a director for the Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College in Cloquet, says DSGW’s work there shows that the firm is responsive to tribal members’ vision.

“What we wanted to do was to let people know this was a tribal college when they walked in the door. You can see that in our building’s design, the color scheme, the four directions, the circle theme and the artwork we’ve chosen,” he said. “It all celebrates the tribal community.”

You can check out DSGW’s work on its Web site, here.

Gwen Florio

Twenty-five years too late, Peruvian tribe buries massacre victims
The inhabitants of the indigenous village of Putis, in Peru, finally buried their dead yesterday, a quarter-century after their relatives were slaughtered by the Peruvian military during its fight with the Maoist Shining Path. A “truth commission” determined the military killed the people – after tricking several into digging their own mass graves – because it suspected them of collaborating with the group, according to this Associated Press report on National Public Radio. Family members walked 30 miles carrying 92 coffins. Mayor Gerardo Fernandez, who lost 15 relatives in the massacre, tells the AP that “we have two feelings. On the one hand, we are in pain for the dead. But on the other, we’re happy that we can finally bury them.” No one has been charged in the killings at Putis, a village in Ayacucho state. Ayacucho means “the Corner of the Dead” in the Quechua language.

Troubling report from Colombia on killings of indigenous Awa people
The week brought this Amnesty International report on the third mass killing – this time involving 12 people, four of them children – of the Awa Inigenous Peoples in less than a year. “How many more have to die before the government acts to protect these communities?” asks Susan Lee, Amnesty’s Americas Programme Director.

A British take on Indian Country
A reporter from the Guardian in London is taking Route 66 across the United States and calls this particular installment on Indian Country, which has a good video, “The Grapes of Wrath Revisted.” Rita Watson Claude, who is Navajo, tells reporter Chris McGreal that “the culture’s not there no more … they’re going towards the white people way.” She talks at length about how her children don’t speak Navajo, and then blames herself for not teaching it to her children – underscoring to the importance of language as a way of maintaining culture.

In the United States, empty apology by Senate subcommittee
Albert Bender, a Cherokee activist, opines in this Nashville Tennessean piece that “more than symbolism is needed as the American Indian nations largely still languish in the hideous misery created by this government.” He particularly mentions the long-running Indian trust fund case that involve government mismanagement of billions of dollars meant for Indian people.

Tribe shares mobile clinic with uninsured neighbors
Last year, the Shakopee Mdewakanton Dakota Community sent its mobile medical clinic into the Red Lake Band of Chippewa reservation to provide badly needed medical care. This year, according to this Shakopee Valley (Minn.) News story, the tribe is sending the van out again, not just to other reservations but to the community at large. Tribal Wellness Administrator Joanna Bryant says that it’s the Dakota people’s culture to help others, and the Scott County effort fits that mission.

From Scotland via the Susquehannocks to the Flathead Reservation – stick with us here
The Char-Koosta News on Montana’s Flathead Indian Reservation has this delightful story about a gift to Dr. Joe McDonald, the longtime and soon-to-retire president of Salish Kootenai College. It involves Chief Dancing Thunder, grand sachem of Florida’s Susquehannock tribe, and his trip to Scotland, where he heard about the Scottish McDonalds’ ties to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes … well, you’d better just read the story. And, enjoy.

Gwen Florio