Women move king salmon around the drying racks at a fish camp on the lower Yukon River in Alaska, in this undated photo provided by Kwik'pak Fisheries LLC. (AP)
King salmon fishing ban hurts Native fishermen
Until recently, fishing provided meaningful income, fed families throughout the year, and kept alive long-held traditions of Yup’ik people and Athabascan Indians. But this year, a total ban on commercial fishing for king salmon on the river in Alaska has strained poor communities and stripped the prized Yukon fish off menus in the lower 48 states, according to this New York Times story. Unprecedented restrictions on subsistence fishing have left freezers and smokehouses half-full and hastened a shift away from a tradition of spending summers at fish camps along the river.
Criticisms of Dine College president spur meeting
The Navajo Times reports here that the Diné College Board of Regents will meet Wednesday to discuss the college’s president, Ferlin Clark. A former program administrator says Clark has created an atmosphere where staff and faculty are afraid of losing their jobs. Former Distance Education Director Mia Kalish – whose position was eliminated this past summer – says 13 people (of a total of 64) resigned or were forced out at the end of the last school year due to Clark’s policies and efforts by him and others to get rid of those who criticized his administration.
Sherman Alexie (AP)
The writer, who is Spokane/Coeur d’Alene, tells the Portland Oregonian, here, that “if you’re not offending a pretty high percentage of people who read your books, you’re not doing it well enough. … I’d just feel terrible if I didn’t displease somebody. At my public performances, if somebody doesn’t walk out at some point I feel like I haven’t done my job.” (Don’t get him started on Amazon’s Kindle device.) He’s about to start a tour for his new book “War Dances,” and is writing the sequel to “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” which won the 2007 National Book Award for young people’s literature.
Henry Real Bird (Billings Gazette)
Montana’s new poet laureate, who is Crow, was in Billings, Mont., last week to read his poetry and talk about it at a High Plains BookFest program at the Western Heritage Center. “I knew I wanted to be a teacher since I was 10 years old,” he said. “And ride horses.” Now he’ll have a great platform from which to spread his ideas. As poet laureate, his role is to encourage appreciation of poetry and literary life in Montana by giving readings and presentations. It will be a change of pace from his work raising horses on the O-W Ranch in Bighorn County, outside Garryowen. Read more about Real Bird here.
Head of National Indian Gaming Commission resigns
National Indian Gaming Commission chairman Phil Hogen, an Oglala Sioux Tribe member, the Rapid City (S.D.) Journal reports here. Hogen, 64, was appointed chairman by former President George W. Bush in 2002, the longest tenure for any chairman of the agency, which provides federal oversight of the $27 billion Native American gambling industry.
Gwen Florio
Tags: Apsaalooke, Athabascan, buffalo post, Crow Tribe, Dine College, Ferlin Clark, Henry Real Bird, National Indian Gaming Commission, Native American news, Navajo, Phil Hogen, Sherman Alexie, Spokane/Coeur d'Alene, Yupik