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Around the Region: Montana movie delves into life on the reservation

Nicolas Hudak films in 2009 during the production of 'Where God Likes to Be.' / Photo by Nicolas Hudak — Nicolas Hudak films in 2009 during the production of ‘Where God Likes to Be.’ / Photo by Nicolas Hudak

Feb. 24, 2014

Written by David Murray GreatFalls Tribune Staff Writer

“Where God Likes to Be” is a film that captures both the hope and the hardship of life on the reservation.

Filmed over the course of a single summer, “Where God Likes to Be” is a documentary filmed and produced by Nicolas and Anna Hudak. The movie premiered at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in Missoula this past week, but its genesis stretches back 10 years ago to when the Hudaks found themselves stranded in Browning by a late winter snowstorm.

Growing up in Kalispell, Nicolas had heard all the stereotypes about Browning: The reservation was dangerous and the last place a white person would want to spend the night. But what he and his wife experienced was altogether different. They were greeted with generosity and hospitality.

“That changed my perspective on all those ideas that I had growing up,” Nicolas Hudak said of his stay in Browning. “Yes, there’s definitely a lot of hardships going on — as there has been for the last 100 years or more. It’s a pretty tough spot to make a living. But there are a lot of good people doing good stuff and just trying to get by.”

In 2009, the Hudaks returned to Browning to document the lives of three young people: Andi Running Wolf, graduating from Heart Butte High School and preparing to go to college at the University of Montana; Doug Fitzgerald, a Blackfeet cowboy from Babb working to support his young family; and Edward Tailfeathers, a young man from Browning debating whether to stay on the reservation or leave in search of greater opportunity elsewhere.

The stories of these three people could easily be transposed to nearly any community in the United States. Running Wolf struggles with homesickness and fitting in at college. Fitzgerald comments that becoming a husband and father came sooner than he was expecting. Tailfeathers worries about finding a job and passes the time singing in a band with his friends.

“Where God Likes to Be” emphasizes the similarities its three characters share with young people throughout the United States, viewed through the lens of life in a community where hope and opportunity are frequently in short supply.

WHERE GOD LIKES TO BE Teaser from counter production on Vimeo.

“What’s important here in our film is the deep connection that people have,” Hudak said. “We didn’t set out to make a film about ‘the Indians.’ We were going to make a film about these young people growing up here and what’s important to them.”

However, each of the three characters is deeply aware that the choices they make have the potential to lead them away from the reservation. Each voices concerns about the risks of leaving, and possibly weakening their sense of identity as Blackfeet.

“Everyone I know is here. Everything I have had is here,” Tailfeathers says as he contemplates moving away from Browning. “It’s part of the connection of who you are.”

“Here we are at this cusp of change, and there are two ways this could go,” Hudak said of the decisions his characters face. “One is that everybody just becomes culturally homogenized and there’s really no difference between Blackfeet and anybody else. Or, they can try to hold on to what’s left. This is basically the last generation that has any kind of chance of saving those things that make the culture unique.”

“Then again, they are just American kids growing up in America,” he adds.

Within the first few scenes of “Where God Likes to Be” the viewer is introduced to the film’s fourth main character: the landscape of Blackfeet Indian Reservation. Hudak’s cinematography intersperses sweeping vistas of the Rocky Mountain Front with intimate glimpses of life in Browning and Heart Butte.

“Andi, Doug and Eddie are the heroes of the story, but certainly the landscape is the overseer of everything,” he said. “Part of the reason we wanted to make this film about the Blackfeet in particular is because that area is just so spectacular. There is just something so dramatic and so poetic about the way Browning looks in contrast with Glacier Park. I feel that beauty lies not just in fabulous sunsets, but also in those heavier human elements.”

“If we didn’t teach or learn all these old ways — religion, culture, language — then what are we?” Fitzgerald asks toward the end of the film. “Just a name. This will be a story in a book someone will pick up here and there. I always want to be. Be here. I want to be here where it started and never die, so that my kids will have a good place and be proud of where they’re from.”

Fitzgerald’s words could have just as easily been spoken by any of the young people featured in the film.

As a small budget film, “Where God Likes to Be” is not likely to show at a local multiplex cinema any time soon. To keep track of where the movie is playing, log on to the movie’s website at http://www.wheregodlikestobe.com.

Native Americans vow a last stand to block Keystone XL pipeline

By Rob Hotakainen

McClatchy Washington Bureau February 17, 2014

Faith Spotted Eagle sits in her home in Lake Andes, South Dakota on Monday, Feb. 10, 2014. Spotted Eagle is fighting against the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. TRAVIS HEYING — MCT

WASHINGTON — Faith Spotted Eagle figures that building a crude oil pipeline from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast would bring little to Indian Country besides more crime and dirty water, but she doubts that Native Americans will ever get the U.S. government to block the $7 billion project.

“There is no way for Native people to say no – there never has been,” said Spotted Eagle, 65, a Yankton Sioux tribal elder from Lake Andes, S.D. “Our history has caused us not to be optimistic. . . . When you have capitalism, you have to have an underclass – and we’re the underclass.”

Opponents may be down after a State Department study found that the proposed Keystone XL pipeline would not contribute to global warming. But they haven’t abandoned their goal of killing what some call “the black snake.”

In South Dakota, home to some of the nation’s poorest American Indians, tribes are busy preparing for nonviolent battle with “resistance training” aimed at TransCanada, the company that wants to develop the 1,700-mile pipeline.

While organizers said they want to keep their strategy a secret, they’re considering everything from vigils to civil disobedience to blockades to thwart the moving of construction equipment and the delivery of materials.

“We’re going to do everything we possibly can,” said Greg Grey Cloud of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, who attended a two-day conference and training session in Rapid City last week sponsored by the Oglala Sioux Tribe called “Help Save Mother Earth from the Keystone Pipeline.” He said tribes are considering setting up encampments to follow the construction, but he stressed that any actions would be peaceful. “We’re not going to damage anything or riot or anything like that,” he said.

Like much of the country, however, tribal members are divided over the pipeline. In South Dakota, the battle pits those who fear irreversible effects on the environment and public safety against those who trumpet the economic payoff and a chance to cash in on a kind of big development project that rarely comes along.

In Winner, S.D., where the population numbers fewer than 3,000, Mayor Jess Keesis is eager to welcome construction workers from a 600-member “man camp” that would open just 10 miles from town if President Barack Obama approves the pipeline.

“Out here on the prairie, you know, we’re a tough people,” said Keesis, who’s also a member of the Prairie Band of Potawatomi Nation in Kansas. “We deal with drought and eight-foot blizzards and all kinds of stuff all the time, so anytime we can get something like this to give us a shot, it’s a good thing.”

Opponents say the risks are too great.

Two weeks ago, an alliance of Native American groups approved a statement saying emphatically that no pipeline would be allowed in South Dakota and that tribes stand ready to protect their “sacred water” and other natural resources.

That includes Native women, who opponents of the pipeline say would become easy prey for thousands of temporary construction workers housed in work camps. According to the federal government, one of every three Indian women are either raped or sexually assaulted during their lifetimes, with the majority of attacks done by non-Native men.

“If you like to drink water, if you like your children not being harmed, if you don’t want your women being harmed, then say no to the pipeline,” Grey Cloud said. “Because once it comes, it’s going to destruct everything.”

Opponents said they don’t want to have to follow through on their plans. They hope that they have the ultimate trump card with a president who just happens to be an adopted Indian. That would be Barack Black Eagle, who was formally adopted by Hartford and Mary Black Eagle of Montana’s Crow Indian Tribe in 2008, when he visited the tribal reservation during his first presidential run.

“They didn’t do that by accident – they saw something in him, and I hope he recognizes that within himself,” Spotted Eagle said.

Grey Cloud said Obama would be “going against his word” if he approves the pipeline: “His main promise was to not allow pollution in our area.”

Keesis said the project carries risks but ultimately would be a winner for the region. He said the city of Winner and surrounding Tripp County would get a windfall of roughly $900,000 a year from construction workers patronizing the town’s restaurants, bars and its recently upgraded digital theater. Even the city would make money, hauling liquid waste from the nearby construction camp to its municipal facilities.

After spending 20 years working in oilfields and boomtowns, he’s convinced that much has changed, with construction workers “under the gun to behave.”

“I’ve been in boomtowns all my life: Wyoming, Texas, California, Colorado, Alaska, everywhere,” he said. “I don’t think it’s going to be near as bad as what people have in their minds. The oilfield, as with any other occupation like this, has really mellowed over the last 20 years. It’s not the Wild West like it used to be. . . . But you’ve got to take a little bad with the good.”

Obama, who has not said when he’ll make a final decision, is under heavy pressure to approve the project. Just last week, all 45 Republican senators sent a letter to the president, saying thousands of jobs are at stake and reminding him that he had promised them to make a decision by the end of 2013.

Nationally, project backers appear to be riding the momentum, armed with a State Department report on Jan. 31 that minimized the climate change impact of building the pipeline. Republican House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio said the report shows Americans that there is “no reason, scientific or otherwise, to block this project any longer.”

While Obama has kept mum, his administration has been offering hope to tribal officials.

“If we’re developing an area that runs through Indian Country, it’s very important that we reach an agreement that makes sense to tribes,” Interior Secretary Sally Jewell told tribal officials during a visit to Oklahoma in November, according to a story published in the Native American Times. “If not, that might mean the pipeline or transmission line goes somewhere else.”

In South Dakota, the proposed line would not go through any of the state’s nine reservations, but opponents say its close proximity would still pose a hazard.

TransCanada officials say they’ve worked closely with the tribes, even halting work in northeast Texas last year as a team of archaeological contractors dug for Indian artifacts at a sacred site.

With the southern section of the pipeline already open, company spokesman Terry Cunha said TransCanada is now working with 17 tribes in South Dakota, Montana and Nebraska, where the company needs Obama’s approval to build. He said the company hopes to begin work in those states in 2015.

Cunha said the company expects the pipeline to have a “limited impact” on the environment and that its work camps will be provided with around-the-clock security.

“We see it as a positive benefit,” he said.

Besides the short-term construction work, Keesis said his city would gain another 30 to 40 permanent residents who would work on pipeline-related jobs. He said Winner needs a lift, noting that since the city shut down its strip clubs a few years back, fewer pheasant hunters are visiting, opting to stay in big hunting lodges nearby.

“When I moved here, during the first three weeks of pheasant season, you couldn’t find a parking space,” he said. “Now you can park anywhere.”

But the economic argument is a hard sell for many tribal members in South Dakota, where history is still raw. It’s the scene of the some of the bloodiest battles between Indians and the federal government, including the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee Creek by the U.S. 7th Cavalry that killed nearly 300 Sioux.

Spotted Eagle said she feels obligated to try to stop the pipeline, both to provide toxic-free land and water for her grandchildren and to protect women from attacks.

“This is a form of militarism, bringing in these man camps,” said Spotted Eagle. “For those of us who have the history, it smacks of repetitive economics, when they put us in forts and they wanted our land. . . . All we’re willing to do here is sell our soul, just for the economy. That’s the dark side.”

Email: rhotakainen@mcclatchydc.com; Twitter: @HotakainenRob

U.S. Attorney will speak about efforts to fight crime on tribal lands

Feb 24, 2014 Rapid City Journal

Thomas Shortbull (right), president of Oglala Lakota College, and Brendan V. Johnson, United States Attorney for the District of South Dakota, lead the procession during OLC’s 2013 commencement.

United States Attorney Brendan Johnson will discuss the Justice Department’s recent efforts to fight crime on American Indian tribal lands during a presentation in the University Center-Rapid City lecture hall Thursday, Feb. 27 at 5:15 p.m. Johnson, son of longtime U.S. Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD), will also speak about human trafficking and crime trends in South Dakota.

The event is free and open to the public.

Johnson has served as the U.S. Attorney for South Dakota since October 2009. He was chair of the Justice Department’s Native American Issues Subcommittee for four years during which time the Justice Department worked with tribal officials to empower tribal courts, increase law enforcement cooperation, and improve public safety in reservation areas. Johnson has invested a significant amount of time and energy attempting to establish relationships with people living on the reservation and attempting to gain a better understanding of Native American culture.

Prior to becoming the U.S. Attorney for South Dakota, Johnson was a federal law clerk in Rapid City for Chief Judge Karen Schreier and later worked as a deputy state’s attorney in Minnehaha County where he presented cases ranging from attempted murder to narcotics and domestic violence. In addition to his public service, Johnson practiced criminal and civil law as a partner in the law firm now known as Johnson, Heidepriem and Abdallah LLP. He is a fifth-generation South Dakota native and a graduate of the University of South Dakota and the University of Virginia School of Law.

For more information contact Maria Hartung, coordinator of admissions and marketing, at 605-718-4194 or Maria.Hartung@BHSU.edu

Wind Project on Tribal Land Dies Quietly

campo-wind-turbines-2-24-14-thumb-600x480-69313 — Wind turbines near Campo | Photo: Joel Price/Flickr/Creative Commons License

by Chris Clarke

on February 24, 2014 kcet.org

It’s official: a wind power project that would have generated up to 250 megawatts of power with as many as 85 turbines in the San Diego County backcountry is off the table.

The Shu’luuk Wind Project, proposed by the firm Invenergy for up to 4,000 acres of the Campo Indian Reservation, suffered a mortal blow last June when the tribe’s General Council voted 44-34 to oppose the project. Opposition stemmed from concerns over quality of life, the risk of fire, and perceived health impacts of the project.

Though the project’s proponents had suggested last June that they might seek another vote on the project, the tribe subsequently canceled its lease with the project’s proponent Invenergy. On Thursday, the Bureau of Indian Affairs announced that it was cancelling the project’s final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), thus sticking the proverbial fork in Shu’luuk Wind.

Shu’luuk Wind’s Draft EIS, released in January 2013, was widely criticized for containing insufficient detail about the project’s design, including the type and output of the turbines to be built. Nonetheless, tribe members and other locals expressed strong concerns over fire danger from the project in the traditionally highly flammable San Diego backcountry, as well as increased dust problems from more than 25 miles of new dirt roads, along with concerns over noise and visual disturbance.

The cancellation of the final EIS doesn’t mean there won’t be turbines on the Campo reservation: the tribe already hosts an existing wind installation, the Kumeyaay Wind Farm, with 25 large turbines. An explosion and fire in one of that project’s turbines December 16 didn’t exactly alleviate locals’ concerns about fire danger from local wind development. That facility was offline for nearly a month after the mishap.

Also in December, the BIA approved a deal by which the nearby Ewiiaapaayp Band of Kumeyaay
Indians would lease reservation lands for a westward expansion of the large Tule Wind project, which would be mainly sited on BLM lands to the east of that band’s Cuyapaipe Reservation, and just north of the Campo Reservation.

Opinion on the Shu’luuk project was mixed within the Campo Reservation’s residents as well, so the cancellation of that project doesn’t necessarily mean the end of new wind projects on Native lands in the backcountry. But as more turbines appear in the area, opposition could intensify.

Wind turbines near Campo | Photo: Joel Price/Flickr/Creative Commons License

Support in Indian Country Growing for ‘Anti-Bullying Pink Shirt Day’ on February 26

Vincent Schilling, ICTMN, 2/24/14

On Wednesday, February 26, students, teachers and notable figures all over the world will promote the anti-bullying campaign “Pink Shirt Day.” The day is commemorated by anti-bullying advocates who will wear pink shirts to promote awareness about bullying in school and the effects of bullying on children in today’s society.

The campaign, which was started in 2007 by two students in Nova Scotia who sought to protect a fellow classmate, is now garnering support from Indian country, particularly by Fashion Designer Jill Setah and the design company Native Northwest.

In Setah’s online blog First Nation’s Fashions, she encourages her fans to don pink t-shirts Wednesday in honor of Pink Shirt Day, a cause she backs for personal reasons. “As a First Nations Woman I was bullied in elementary school for being First Nations. I would cry every day in class as the teacher would do nothing,” she wrote to Indian Country Today Media Network via email.

“As a First Nations designer, my kids and I are making our own pink shirts for Pink Shirt Day,” she added.

On February 14, 2014, Native Northwest a three-decades-old company that creates art by First Nations and Native American artists, debuted their version of a ‘Pink Shirt Day’ t-shirt.

Two teachers sport pink Native Northwest t-shirts. (Native Northwest)

Haida artist Andrew Williams designed the t-shirts emblazoned with a Haida design and the word RESPECT. Money raised will go to aboriginal women’s shelters for abused women and for family events at Friendship Centres, Native Northwest’s website states. The shirts are available online and retail for copy5 + shipping, or you can buy them in person at 1644 West 75th in Vancouver.

Presently, the largest bastion of support comes from Canada’s CKNW 980 AM News radio station which mans the www.PinkShirtDay.ca website and promotes the Pink Shirt Day campaign. According to the site, “Last year over 160,000 people committed on Facebook to wear pink and help stop bullying.”

“Boys and Girls Clubs proudly participate in Pink Shirt Day because it promotes awareness, understanding and openness about the problem and a shared commitment to a solution. BGCGV relies heavily on community support to deliver our daily Club programs. Supporting Pink Shirt Day supports everyone who has experienced bullying as well as Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Vancouver’s anti-bullying programs.”

Setah expressed the message she and her children hope to share:

“I want my kids to learn to stand up for those who are not strong enough to speak for themselves. I want my kids to have enough confidence to not care what others think of them, I also want them to always LOVE, Always have RESPECT for themselves and others, Always have COURAGE, Always have HONESTY, Always have WISDOM, Always have HUMILITY and most of all ALWAYS TELL THE TRUTH!”

Adoption, From a Native American Perspective

By: Shannon Logan

Feb 07, 2014 Adoption.net

Leland Morrill was estranged from his Navajo lineage for twenty years. Today, as an author, advocate, and speaker, Morrill shares the unique perspective of how adoption is viewed by Native American family and culture, through the eyes of an adult adoptee.

Leland Morrill was born in 1966, on sovereign land, in the Navajo Nation, within the state of Arizona. He was not issued a birth certificate, and does not know the exact date of his birth. His young, unwed mother was his sole caretaker for the first few years of his life, and according to Leland, this wasn’t unusual in Native American culture.

“Marriage is a Christian concept, not Native,” said Morrill. “Many people from my parent’s generation weren’t married. It’s a very matriarchal society. When you’re born, you take on your mother’s last name, you go to your mother’s family, and the women decide whether the men stay around after the children are born. That’s the way it was. ”

When Leland was two years old, his mother suffered a fatal head injury after flipping her car on a bridge in Albuquerque New Mexico. It was September 1968; Leland was two years old.

“My brother and I went to St. Anthony’s orphanage, where they figured out that we were Navajo, and took us back to the reservation to stay with my grandmother. In our culture, once your mother dies, your next caretakers are your aunts and grandmothers. They are considered your mothers,” said Morrill.

Less than a year after being placed in the care of his grandmother, Leland was taken to the Indian Health Services Hospital for a minor burn on his foot. After Leland was treated, he was taken to another hospital in Gallup, New Mexico, where the Bureau of Indian Affairs decided to investigate.

“They saw poor people, Indians. My grandmother was a sheepherder, living on an Indian reservation without electricity,” Morrill said. “My relatives couldn’t speak English, so they said— ‘we don’t know if these people are your relatives or not, so we are going to take you.’”

Leland was immediately removed from his home and placed with an adoptive couple looking for Native American children to foster and adopt. The day after he was adopted, the family moved to Ontario, Canada, severing all ties Leland had to his biological, Native American family.

Not uncommon for the times, before 1978, when Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act, a very high number of Indian children were removed from their homes by public and private agencies and placed in non-Indian foster and adoptive homes or institutions. Leland, who was part of the Amicus Group that went to DC to attend the argument on behalf of Dusten Brown and the Cherokee Nation in the “Baby Veronica” adoption case, explained that there are new laws and bills being passed currently to help further protect biological families. One bill in particular, the Oklahoma Truth In Adoption Act (HB 1118), urges judges to consider the biological family members first before allowing a child to be placed with non-related adoptive parents by an adoption agency.

“From a human trafficking point of view, I was trafficked,” said Morrill. “Every time they adopted a child, they went to another country. They adopted seven more children when we got to Canada, and then we moved right after that. They separated us from our cultures.”

“They trained us within the Mormon ideology; they thought they were saving us. They thought they were doing the right thing, and from that perspective they were good people. But from a Native American perspective—they were not.”

Leland Morrill returned to his mother’s clan, the Many Goats Clan, for the first time in 1989, to be greeted with open arms by his grandmother and his cousins. “I was a little freaked out, like—wow! this is what I would have been raised like.”

“I tell Native American adoptees like myself—yes, this is what happened to you. You were trafficked. But you have to get past that. Consider yourselves different, because you were forced to assimilate into a different culture. But use that assimilation in your favor—whatever education or opportunities were presented to you that others on the reservation didn’t have, you can come back and use them to help your people.”

For more about Leland’s story, read: Two Worlds: Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects

‘Snapshots in time’: Yurok Tribe receives grant for sea level rise research

Will Houston/The Times-Standard

Feb 22, 2014

To aid in the Yurok Tribe’s climate change research on Klamath River wetlands, the Environmental Protection Agency awarded the tribe part of a $1.5 million grant this week.

Environmental protection specialist Suzanne Marr — who previously ran the agency’s wetlands program — said the Yurok Tribe’s application came complete with successful research.

”It’s a very competitive program, and not easy to get funded,” Marr said. “The Yurok Tribe has a strong program, and has competed very well over the years.”

Wetlands specialist Bill Patterson of the tribe’s environmental program said the $135,000 award is the fourth two-year grant the tribe has received from the EPA program. Each grant, Patterson said, has funded a variety of wetlands research projects spanning nearly eight years and different regions of the Klamath River.

”What we’re trying to do is expand on the previous data that we’ve had that includes an inventory baseline of wetlands species and water quality parameters,” Patterson said. “This cycle we’re looking at specific species that may be threatened in the face of climate change impacts, in particular sea level rise.”

The research project will collect baseline data on the wildlife and conditions of coastal estuaries near the lower Klamath River, which Patterson said can be useful for future research.

”The inventories are very useful in that they’re snapshots in time,” Patterson said. “For something like sea level rise, if the estuary is going to be 6 feet underwater in 25 years, you can look back at how it was impacting them in 2014.”

Patterson said that while past research with the tribe’s fisheries program and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services has focused on mapping, water quality and restoration efforts in both upper and lower regions of the Klamath, efforts to analyze sea level rise are critical due to its substantial effects on coastal estuaries.

”If you want to talk about the future of climate change, what you’re potentially going to see with sea level rise is increased salinity,” Patterson said. “The saltwater levels rise, and that can significantly change the plant community and the species that rely on that community.”

With wetlands disappearing at an alarming rate, Patterson emphasized the importance of assessing the local wildlife that rely heavily upon the fragile ecosystem.

”It’s a really rare habitat, because it’s in a coastal climate, and is significant to a lot of species,” Patterson said. “People often overlook these areas.”

The Environmental Protection Agency’s current wetlands program coordinator Leana Rosetti said it is important to help tribes and local governments protect and improve their wetland programs. The application period for next year’s grants are still open, she said.

”We encourage folks to develop plans to compete for grants to fund their own wetlands program,” Rosetti said. “The more applicants, the better.”

On the Web: For information on the EPA grant, visit water.epa.gov/grants_funding/wetlands/grantguidelines/index.cfm

Will Houston can be reached at 707-441-0504 or whouston@times-standard.com. Follow him on Twitter.com/Will_S_Houston.

Duluth School Board to vote on Ojibwe language immersion

A kindergarten Ojibwe immersion class, where students spend most of their day learning in the language native to the region, could be an option for a Duluth elementary school next year.

By: Jana Hollingsworth, Duluth News Tribune Feb 24, 2014

A kindergarten Ojibwe immersion class, where students spend most of their day learning in the language native to the region, could be an option for a Duluth elementary school next year.

The Duluth School Board will vote on adding such a program Tuesday.

“It’s a big move,” said Edye Howes, coordinator of the American Indian education program for the Duluth school district. “Historically, the Duluth American Indian community hasn’t had much trust in Duluth public schools. This would be a statement: Look what we’re willing to do to start strengthening and building a relationship.”

Shannon O’Nabigon beats a rhythm on the drum as she and other children sing “Weya Heya,” an Ojibwe counting song, in the Ojibwe Language Nest at the University of Minnesota Duluth in 2009. Teacher Gordon Jourdain is at right. From left are George Petersen, Eleanor Ness and Grace Russell. The Duluth school district will vote Tuesday on whether to add a kindergarten Ojibwe immersion class at one of the district’s elementary schools. (File / News Tribune)

Immersion programs, such as those for Spanish, have grown in popularity nationwide for their ability to develop cognitive skills, especially at a young age. Such programs also help to broaden a student’s worldview and the ability to think from another perspective, Howes said.

For a few years, the Duluth district has partnered with the University of Minnesota Duluth and its Enweyang Ojibwe Language Nest for young children, currently teaching those up to pre-K. Gordon Jourdain teaches that class, which also serves as a lab for students at UMD who plan to teach Ojibwe.

Immersion programs do more in helping with the achievement gap than anything else, Jourdain said.

“They are very successful in the Duluth public school system as a result of being exposed to multiple languages,” he said, noting that he hears from former parents on how past students are doing. “It’s the opportune time for brain development and language acquisition.”

At a recent School Board meeting, Superintendent Bill Gronseth said the program would be a good way to begin improving the American Indian graduation rate.

“Knowing that it’s one of the lowest of the subgroups,” he said, “it would go a long way to improving our future.”

Jourdain, from Ontario, spoke Ojibwe before he spoke English. He also has an Ojibwe-fluent classroom assistant so students can hear regular conversation.

He teaches through a different lens, he said, taking the kids outside to demonstrate words.

“It’s a good way for language development,” he said. “If you’re talking about snow and it’s falling on their nose, they will live what it is; they are living the language. I am not teaching about it.”

While Duluth has not yet proposed a school for the class, plans are for between 15 and 20 students. The district would hire either a licensed teacher who speaks Ojibwe fluently or one who speaks it as a first language. The plan would include an assistant who speaks the language and comes in regularly. The proposed program eventually would consist of one class for each grade, adding one grade per year. For the first year, the cost would be roughly $153,000, with most of the money paying for the cost of the teacher — which already is allocated to the school — and the assistant. The rest would come out of state integration funds.

Aside from time with specialists such as a physical education teacher, the class would be taught entirely in Ojibwe.

Because the Ojibwe language doesn’t include numerals, numbers would be spelled out with words for the subject of math, for example.

Lydia Shinkle sends her daughter to the UMD language nest. She said she’d drive her wherever they place a class if it’s approved, and she knows of other parents who would.

“She is part Native American, and it is important to me that she has that link to her culture,” Shinkle said of her daughter, Natalia. “It’s something you can’t find anywhere else … We’re losing the language every day, and it’s important to preserve it for the next generation so she can teach others around her.”

Finding one teacher won’t be difficult, said William Howes, coordinator of the Duluth school district’s Office of Education Equity. Between UMD and the College of St. Scholastica, and beyond the Twin Ports, many programs are committed to producing licensed Ojibwe teachers, he said. Finding six might not be as easy, but with a staggered approach there would be time, he said.

“Much has been done and has happened to indigenous languages, but they are still alive and viable,” William Howes said.

Places such as federal boarding schools forced generations of American Indians to assimilate to white culture and prevented them from speaking their native languages.

“Everything within Ojibwe culture and tradition is within our language, just like any culture,” William Howes said. “As we begin immersion, we want to begin with the language spoken here first.”

Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe brings in more efficient incubator system

Feb 21, 2014 NWIFC.com

With the influx of chum salmon last fall, the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe was able to take twice as many eggs as usual, up to 1.2 million.

In anticipation of the large run, natural resources director Paul McCollum brought in an idea from his time in fisheries in Alaska – a NOPAD incubator, a tower of six 4′ x 4′ x 15” aluminum trays that can accommodate up to 1.5 million eggs.

Little Boston Hatchery technician Jeff Fulton works with a tray of eggs in the new NOPAD incubator system. More photos can be found by clicking on this photo.

“The small tray incubation system, or Heath tray system, we have been using for decades can only hold up to 600,000 eggs in total,” McCollum said. “The NOPAD has only been around since the 1970s and is commonly used in Alaska. One of the NOPAD trays can hold 45 small Heath trays worth of eggs.”

The tribe is maxed out with the old system, McCollum said, so the NOPAD trays will help increase its chum production while using minimal additional water or floor space.

“Most of our chum will go into our raceways, as we’ve always done, but now we’ll have more to put in the net pens, which, in the end, will result in bigger fish at release.

“The survival rate is a little more beneficial with the NOPAD,” he added. “But our main focus is on increasing production for better returns.”

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For more information, contact Paul McCollum, Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe natural resources director, at (360) 297-6237 or paulm@pgst.nsn.us; or Tiffany Royal, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission public information officer, at (360) 297-6546 or troyal@nwifc.org.

Chairman Melvin R. Sheldon: NMAI’s Meet Native America Series

Melvin R. Sheldon, Chairman, Board of Directors of the Tulalip Tribes, during the first White House Tribal Nations Conference, November 2009. Washington, D.C.

Dennis Zotigh, ICTMN, 2/22/14

In the interview series Meet Native America, the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian invites tribal leaders, cultural figures, and other interesting and accomplished Native individuals to introduce themselves and say a little about their lives and work. Together, their responses illustrate the diversity of the indigenous communities of the Western Hemisphere, as well as their shared concerns, and offer insights beyond what’s in the news to the ideas and experiences of Native peoples today.

Please introduce yourself with your name and title.

Melvin R. Sheldon, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Tulalip Tribes.

Where is your nation located?

Tulalip, Washington, is about 35 minutes north of Seattle, next to Interstate 5. The closest city outside the reservation is Marysville, Washington.

Where are your people originally from?

We are the successor of interest to Snohomish, Snoqualmie, Skykomish, and other allied tribes and bands signatory to the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott. We lived from the mountains down to the salt waters of the Coast Salish Sea.

What is a significant point in history from the Tulalip Tribes that you would like to share?

Recently Northwest tribes remembered the Judge Boldt decision of 1974. This decision recognizing treaty fishing rights redefined and reconnected a way of life for Tulalip people. Our tribal men and women are proud to be salmon fishing people.

How is your national government set up?

We have a constitution and bylaws adopted in 1936. Our governing body is composed of a seven-member Board of Directors. The board is a legislative body that creates laws that govern our reservation.

Is there a functional, traditional entity of leadership in addition to your modern government system?

As in many tribes, our elders have a strong voice in tribal affairs. Their history and traditional values keep us grounded as we move forward and face the challenges of a growing tribe with outside competing values.

How are elected leaders chosen?

Each year board members are elected by popular vote. We have three-year terms on a staggered schedule. Each year at General Council, executive offices are chosen by those present; the chairman, vice chair, secretary, and treasurer are elected on that day for the next year.

How often does the Board of Directors meet?

The Tulalip board meets once a month to conduct official business as mandated by our constitution. We have committee meetings throughout the week as we oversee our business and service needs.

What responsibilities do you have as a leader?

As chairman I preside over monthly meetings and the General Council. Further duties include representing our tribe at meetings of all levels and being principal spokesperson.

How did your life experience prepare you to lead your tribe?

Learning to listen became a major foundation as I entered leadership. People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care!

Who inspired you as a mentor?

Tulalip has been gifted with great leadership through the years. There are many of our past leaders who left behind a legacy, and they have become mentor examples. I thank them and raise my hands to our past leaders.

Approximately how many members are in the Tulalip Tribes?

Today we have just over 4,300 tribal members.

What are the criteria to become a member of Tulalip?

We have a residency requirement for membership.

Is your language still spoken on your homelands? If so, what percentage of your people would you estimate are fluent speakers?

Our language, Lushootseed, was almost lost, but through several key elders and tribal support we were able to revive our language. Today we teach our young ones Lushootseed.

What economic enterprises do the Tulalip Tribes own?

Tulalip Tribes were only the second Indian nation to establish a federally recognized city, Quil Ceda Village. Our business park and municipality form a bustling, growing commercial center. At the center is the Tulalip Resort Casino (TRC), with a hotel and conference center. Further tribal businesses include two gas stations, two liquor/cigarette stores, and Tulalip Data Service/Cablevision operation. Tulalip—which includes the tribal government, Quil Ceda Village, and the TRC—directly employs 4,500 team members.

To read the full interview, visit the NMAI series here.