Here’s the initial story from the Associated Press:

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Montana tribal leaders, fed up with growing gang violence, have invited the Guardian Angels to open its first chapter on an American Indian reservation.

Curtis Sliwa founded the citizens’ crime watch group, whose members are known by their red berets. He arrives at the Fort Peck Indian Reservation this weekend to help kick off the chapter.

Sliwa calls it a breakthrough that traditionally insular leaders from the Assiniboine and Sioux tribes invited the Guardian Angels to the reservation.

Chauncy Whitewright III, vice chairman of the Wolf Point Community, helped organize the chapter. He says teens on reservations across Montana are at risk and vulnerable to gang recruitment, and the Guardian Angels should help give them an alternative.

Read the expanded version, here.

In it, Whitewright tells Matt Volz of the AP that “there are all kinds of gangs roaming around up here. Our kids are in danger, they’re being influenced, they’re being targeted. It’s going on every day of the week … and they’re busy recruiting.”

And, he adds, “”It’s not just an Indian problem, it’s all our problem, and we’ve got to deal with it before it gets out of control.”

Tags: Assiniboine, buffalo post, Chauncy Whitewright III, Curtis Sliwa, Fort Peck Indian Reservation, Guardian Angels, Gwen Florio, Native American news, Sioux, Wolf Point Community

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.

Tags: Assiniboine, buffalo post, Cherokee, Chippewa, Cree, Flathead Indian Reservation, Hopi, Montana Historical Society, Native American news, Native veterans, Navajo, Sioux, Smithsonian, Veteran Warrior Society

The January issue of Smithsonian magazine features this story on what it calls a “breathtaking” collection of 88 quilts stitched by members of Northern Plains tribes.

The National Museum of the American Indian is home to one of the largest such collections, and the article focuses on those acquired from a collector named Florence Pulford.

Pulford, a San Francisco Bay area homemaker, first got interested in quilts of the Plains tribes in the 1960s. According to NMAI curator Ann McMullen, these quilts—many bearing a central octagonal star—functioned as both ritual and practical replacements for Plains Indians buffalo robes. Bison hides had grown scarce as herds were hunted nearly to extinction in a campaign to subdue the Plains tribes during the late 1800s. Missionary wives taught quilting techniques to Indian women, who soon made the medium their own. Many of the patterns and motifs, McMullen says, “have a look very similar to [designs painted on] buffalo robes.”

The collection began with an invitation to the Pulford family from Frank Arrow, a Gros Ventre man who worked for them, to visit him on the Fort Belknap Reservation in Montana. There, according to the story by Owen Edwards, Pulford was given a quilt as a gift. She was so struck by the work – and the way the quilts were made from scraps – that she began supplying quilting materials to women on the reservation.
Pulford would then sell the quilts, and return profits to the women.

More than a quarter of the quilts in the collection are by Almira Buffalo Bone Jackson, a member of the Red Bottom band of Assiniboine on the Fort Peck Reservation in Montana. Jackson died in 2004 at age 87.

Gwen Florio

Tags: Almira Buffalo Bone Jackson, Assiniboine, buffalo post, Florence Pulford, Fort Belknap Reservation, Fort Peck Reservation, Gros Ventre, National Museum of the American Indian, Native American news, Smithsonian

Chaske Spencer may be best known now for role as Sam Uley, the alpha wolf in “New Moon,” the second movie in the insanely popular “Twilight” series.

But in Montana, folks remember him for his roots on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation. Spencer lived on the reservation town of Poplar from from 1987 to 1991, Elizabeth Harrison of the Great Falls Tribune reports here.

There, his mom Jan Spencer tells Harrison, he sang in a Christmas play with his school and went to a theater arts program in Helena during the summer of 1987.

“He wanted to audition and had a real interest in acting, movies, arts, music — down that line,” she says.

A significant part of the “Twilight” series centers on the Quileute Nation on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula and the movies feature many Native actors.

Spencer is an enrolled member of the Assiniboine Sioux tribe on his mother’s side and the Nez Perce tribe on his father’s side – yet says “I’ve lost roles because I wasn’t Indian enough. I can’t figure it out, and I don’t want to waste time trying to figure it out.”

After a stint at Lewis-Clark State College in Idaho, Spender took off for New York with $100 in his pocket and a one-way ticket, Harrison reports.

He looks back on the move as “Pure stupidity. I don’t think I actually thought about it. So, would I do it again? I probably would. I always liked taking risks like that. I don’t recommend it to everybody.”

Clearly, the risk was worth it!

Gwen Florio

Tags: "New Moon", "Twilight", Assiniboine, buffalo post, Chaske Spencer, Fort Peck Reservation, Native American news, Nez Perce, Quileute Nation, Sam Uley

The Gros Ventre and Assiniboine tribes who live on Montana’s Fort Belknap Reservation, and the Northern Arapaho and Shoshone tribes on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming have long sought the several dozen bison corralled in holding pens for nearly four years now after straying beyond the borders of Yellowstone National Park.

Ranchers fear the park’s bison carry brucellosis, a disease that causes stillborn calves. For years now, when bison go outside in the park in search of winter forage, they’ve been slaughtered to prevent the spread of the disease.

But some bison, after being declared disease-free, were spared. They’re the ones in the holding pens, and the idea is to use them to repopulate public and tribal lands across the West with free-roaming bison, writes the AP’s Matthew Brown, here.

However, those animals apparently will be relocated to a Montana ranch owned by billionaire Ted Turner, under a recommendation made by state and federal officials.

Turner already owns about 50,000 bison, and his restaurant chain Ted’s Montana Grill serves buffalo burgers. But Turner Enterprises general manager Russell Miller says the Yellowstone bison won’t be served up on a bun, and that the genetically pure Yellowstone bison will be kept separate from the others on his ranch.

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks administrator Ken McDonald tells Brown that giving up bison to Turner’s ranch was not his preferred choice, and that his agency already is getting “a lot of backlash over the whole privatization thing.”

The tribes’ applications were judged insufficient, but officials say they’ll be given first choice the next time bison are available.

Gwen Florio

Tags: Assiniboine, bison, brucellosis, Fort Belknap Indian Reservation, Gros Ventre, Northern Arapaho, Shoshone, Ted Turner, Wind River Indian Reservation, Yellowstone National Park

The 30 swift foxes released a month ago on northeastern Montana’s Fort Peck Indian Reservation appear to be thriving, according to this Billings Gazette story.

The reservation’s Assiniboine and Sioux tribes have collaborated with state agencies in re-establishing the foxes, who play a role in the tribes’ creation stories. The idea is that releasing the foxes on the reservation will eventually create continuity between populations of the animals in Canada, Montana, South Dakota and Wyoming, according to the Gazette’s Brett French.

Leonard Bighorn, a wildlife technician for the reservation who has been tracking the collared animals since their release, says biologists will be keeping a close eye on the animals, which wear radio collars.

So far, predators have killed two of the foxes and a vehicle struck and killed a third.

“The biggest challenge with them is survival,” says Kyran Kunkel, a biologist with the World Wildlife Fund. “Coyotes are their main predator. Keeping their survival above 50 percent is difficult.”

The foxes join 10 that were transplanted to the reservation three years ago.

Gwen Florio

Tags: Assiniboine, buffalo post, Fort Peck Indian Reservation, Native American news, Sioux, Swift Fox

Here’s one of those cases where everything just seems to dovetail. Swift foxes – so named because they can run as fast as 25 mph – are a “species of concern,” inhabiting no more than 40 percent of their former Great Plains territory.

The Fort Peck Indian Reservation has both premium swift fox habitat and federal funding to restore native species.

According to this Billings Gazette story, putting more swift foxes on the Assiniboine and Sioux tribes’ reservation at Fort Peck in northeastern Montana will help the foxes expand their range south from Canada and connect with other swift foxes in South Dakota and Wyoming.

“Our goal is to be that little, small link between Canada, South Dakota and Wyoming,” said Leonard Bighorn, a wildlife technician for the Assiniboine and Sioux tribes. “The Crow and Northern Cheyenne tribes are talking about trying to do this work also, which would be awesome to establish this corridor and fill in this loop that used to go from Canada to Texas.”

So next month, about 30 swift foxes will be moved from north-central Montana over to the reservation.

“It’s thanks to these tribes that we have the swift fox population growing in this state,” said Jonathan Procter of Defenders of Wildlife. “The tribes have really been the leaders in the restoration of swift foxes across the Northern Plains.”

Gwen Florio

Tags: Assiniboine, buffalo post, Defenders of Wildlife, Fort Peck Reservation, Native American news, Sioux, Swift foxes

Yesterday, we wrote about the stimulus money being directed to water projects on Indian reservations. Today, a news release from the offices of U.S. Senators Max Baucus and Jon Tester, details how it will play out on five Montana reservations:

* The Crow Tribe on the Crow Reservation in southeastern Montana will receive $1,033,610 to improve their sewer and water lagoon infrastructure.

* The Chippewa Cree Tribe on the Rocky Boy’s Reservation in north central Montana will receive $542,710 to repair the wastewater lagoon.

* The Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes on the Fort Peck Reservation in north east Montana will receive $589,680 to improve their wastewater infrastructure by stabilizing the walls of the water lagoon.

* The Gros Ventre and Assiniboine Tribes on the Fort Belknap Reservation in north central Montana will receive $572,700 to make upgrades to the water treatment plant.

* The Blackfeet Tribe on the Blackfeet Reservation in north west Montana will receive $29,900 to improve drinking water infrastructure by fixing a water main.

“This money will make such a difference for the folks in Indian Country,” Baucus said. “These are critical upgrades to water infrastructure that will help the entire community’s health, safety and economic development.”

“Access to clean water is essential for healthy communities, and this money will go a long ways toward making that a reality for Montana’s Indian Country,” said Tester, a member of the influential Senate Appropriations Committee and the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.

Gwen Florio

Tags: Add new tag, American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan, Assiniboine, Blackfeet, buffalo post, Chippewa Cree, Crow Tribe, Gros Ventre, Native American news, Sioux