NEAH BAY — Israel Keyes was described as a model citizen while he lived in Neah Bay between 2001-2007, fathering a girl, working for the Makah tribe and being a productive part of this tribal community.
So learning that he was a self-confessed serial killer was a shock last year to residents of this sea-swept village of 865, tribal Judge Emma Dulik recalled.
“He never seemed to cause any problems,” she said.
FBI investigators in Anchorage, Alaska, believe Keyes killed 11 people between 2001 and 2012, and five of the murders happened while he was living in Neah Bay.
He claimed he dumped at least one body into Lake Crescent, but Olympic National Park spokeswoman Barb Maynes said park officials have no plans to search the lake without more exact information about the location of a body.
Maynes said the park had no missing-person reports that correlated with the period of time Keyes lived in Neah Bay.
He was issued “a few overnight backcountry permits” during that time, Maynes said.
The FBI said Keyes sought many of his victims while hiking and camping.
“We have been talking with the FBI and are making sure we are sharing information completely with them,” Maynes said.
To the best of their knowledge, none of Keyes’ victims lived in Clallam or Jefferson counties, Clallam County Sheriff Bill Benedict and Jefferson County Sheriff Tony Hernandez said Tuesday.
They said there no links between Keyes and missing-person reports or ongoing cold-case investigations in the two counties.
Both sheriffs had been contacted by the FBI.
Keyes’ former partner and daughter still live on the Makah reservation, tribal members said.
“He did work for the tribe, doing landscaping all over the village,” Dulik said.
“At the entryway, he cut the grass, put a sign up, and went through the village putting out plants and flowers and things.”
Keyes also was known as a good father, Dulik added.
Keyes often shopped at Washburn General Store in Neah Bay, owner Greg Lovik said.
“All my help liked the guy,” Lovik said.
“He seemed to be a level-headed, good worker. He could fix about anything, is what I am told.
“There was nothing that stood out that he was a troublemaker or anything.”
“When it hit the papers, [about Keyes confessing in Anchorage to being serial killer], everybody was going like, ‘Wow, I can’t believe it,'” Lovik said.
“Most people I talked to couldn’t believe it because he was such a good worker and a personable guy.”
Janine Ledford, executive director of the Makah Cultural and Research Center, said many tribal members knew Keyes but now are reluctant to talk about him.
“Most of us aren’t interested in feeding the public curiosity about how we feel about a murderer being in our midst,” Ledford said.
Meredith Parker, general manager of the Makah tribe, issued this statement Tuesday afternoon:
“Out of the respect for the family of Mr. Israel Keyes, the Makah tribe will not be making any formal comment to the media related to Mr. Keyes’ time spent in Neah Bay.
“In addition, it is standard policy that the Makah tribe does not comment on any individuals employed or formerly employed by the tribal organization or its enterprises.”
WASHINGTON – Fighting back against last week’s attempt to shutter legal online lending enterprises operated by tribal nations, the Native American Financial Services Association (NAFSA) directed New York Superintendent of Financial Services Benjamin Lawsky to cease and desist his attacks on American Indians.
In a letter sent to Mr. Lawsky on Monday, Barry Brandon, Executive Director of NAFSA, made clear that tribal nations and the legal businesses they operate would not be bullied or intimidated out of operation. In recent years, online lending enterprises have been a boon to American Indian economic development, which has traditionally experienced setbacks due to tribes’ isolated location and sparse populations.
Below is the full text of Mr. Brandon’s letter to Benjamin M. Lawsky Superintendent of Financial Services New York State Department of Financial Services:
We are directing you to cease and desist your activities against Native American tribes. Your request that Native American tribes stop engaging in legal and licensed online lending in the State of New York is discriminatory to Indian country and an attack on our sovereignty. We are also directing you to cease and desist your intimidation of financial services institutions that process payments for a number of businesses owned and operated by sovereign Native American tribal nations. As a representative of numerous Native American tribes which own and operate online lending enterprises, we strongly disagree with your characterization of these payments as illegal. To the contrary, our businesses are legal and licensed and owned and operated by American Indian tribal governments across the United States.
Tribal nations, with the support and encouragement of the federal government, have engaged in significant economic development efforts, including operating online lending entities which have been targeted by you personally through the New York Department of Financial Services (DFS). We want you to be aware that we view these actions as a direct threat to tribal sovereignty and our efforts to develop economic self-sufficiency. We are putting you on notice that tribal nations are considering the next legal steps to take regarding DFS’s actions. The targeting of tribally owned and operated businesses without any discussion or consultation is an insult to tribal nations and ignores over two centuries of federal Indian law.
Again, online lending, when offered by federally-recognized tribal governments, is legal. Tribal governments export tribal law over the Internet and consumers seeking our online lending services agree to abide by it. Your organization is attempting an end-run against our legal business by threatening banks and the third-party providers who partner with our tribally-owned enterprises. Internet commerce has been a critical lifeline for geographically-isolated tribes across the United States. Tribal governments that offer online lending suffer from staggering unemployment rates, limited opportunities and geographic isolation. Your organization’s attack on our legal and licensed businesses would exact a heavy cost on our people since the revenues generated by our online lending business account, in some instances, for more than 25 percent of our tribal budgets.
As Executive Director of the Native American Financial Services Association (NAFSA) and a citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, our elected tribal leaders are united against any actions hostile to our tribal government economic development efforts and urge you to cease and desist your discriminatory actions. Native American tribes have had a longstanding government-to-government relationship with the United States, established by Congress and reaffirmed by the United States Supreme Court. Your intimidation of banks and third party payment processors within the ACH network is a direct attempt to circumvent these sovereignty principles and abruptly stop the economic development our tribes have finally seen in recent years.
We will not be bullied, and therefore we direct you to cease and desist these efforts.
A note from Ray Cook, ICTMN Opinions Editor: The political and legal ramifications of the Baby Veronica case has, in broad strokes, done two things. First, it tipped the hands of the various Catholic Charity Organizations to “evangelicalize”(recruit, if you will) new souls for their church pews. Their strategy, now exposed, includes the dismantling of the Indian Child Welfare Act.
Second, this event must be won on behalf of our sovereign nations because the alternative will mean that the legal, diplomatic and political foundations of our current relationships with other nations will begin to crumble under heavy bombardment from those who believe us to “be in the way” of the expansion plans of American religion and economic expansion and energy resource extraction—right or wrong.
Unfortunately, the love of child and the pursuit of a healthy family will be disrespected, trampled and eventually lost in this mess. It is the hidden agenda that will win— count on it. Through this challenge to our rights to raising our own natural-born citizens, we must learn—and learn the lessons fast—so it will not again be repeated.
Here, Dina Gilio-Whitaker offers us a glimps into the background and possible future of not only the affected individuals, but those not yet born.
The Baby Veronica adoption case hits very close to home for me on several levels ranging from personal to political, as a person of American Indian heritage and as an indigenous studies scholar, but also as a former adoption professional. I’ve worked as an assistant adoption facilitator and lived in a residential program for birth mothers where I served as their advocate and advisor. I have siblings I’ve never met because of their adoption placements before I was born, pre-Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) and in the era of closed adoptions. One of them I believe was taken forcibly. This means they were Indian kids who more than likely were raised without any knowledge of their culture and possibly without even knowing they were Indian. I’ve tried unsuccessfully to find them, in large part because of the sealing of their adoption records. I am no stranger to the agony adoption exacts on the families involved, even decades into the future. My family’s experience is in a very real way a perfect example of why the ICWA was passed in 1978.
I know from my experience as an adoption professional that no one enters into adoption lightly. No decision a woman can make in her life is more excruciating than to give a baby up for adoption, no matter the reason. If there is a birthfather in the picture, the specter of adoption can be profoundly confusing and equally painful. Adoptive couples like the Capobiancos usually struggle for years with infertility, leading them finally to adoption agencies in their desperation to have a child. They are typically people far more economically privileged than birthparents since they can afford to spend the tens of thousands of dollars it costs to adopt while birthparents typically do adoption placements because they are ill-equipped to raise a child, financially and otherwise.
For single many birthmothers adoption is a way out of a difficult situation. Many, like Christy Maldonado, already have other children they aren’t raising and have either sent away to relatives to raise, or have placed for adoption. In today’s atmosphere of open adoptions birthmothers interview and choose adoptive couples while all work together cooperatively, establishing adoption plans, even going to doctor’s visits together. It is common practice for the adoptive couples to pay for living expenses and sometimes even healthcare during the pregnancy, although many, like Maldonado, opt for state-assisted (i.e. taxpayer-funded) healthcare.
In other words, for an adoptive couple like the Capobiancos, the adoption process is an investment of time, intense emotional energy and large amounts of money. As ICTMN reported, the Caopbiancos as of two years ago were into their adoption of Baby Veronica (or Ronnie, as her family calls her) for $30,000 to $40,000 based on court records. People who are desperate for a child, where adoption is (very problematically) market-driven, with demand far exceeding availability– with that kind of energy and financial investment, aren’t going to give up easily. The Capobiancos undoubtedly are emotionally attached to Ronnie, but this fight seems to be more of an ideological war for them and their faith-based supporters than it is about what is in the best interest of the little girl.
On a socio-cultural (and inevitably political) level, the so-called Baby Veronica case is a stark reminder of how narratives of Native American identity have been constructed in the US. Much of the non-Native media reporting has invoked Dusten Brown and his daughter’s blood quantum in a way that minimizes their Cherokee identities. Emphasizing low blood quantum is an attempt, whether intentional or not, to diminish the role of culture and kinship as criteria for belonging in a tribal society. It relies on the tired and old but very destructive stereotype that “real Indians” are those with an acceptable fraction of Indian “blood,” arbitrarily imagined by society at large.
But worse still, invoking blood quantum complicates the understanding of Indian identity in the public’s eye by “racializing” it—a tactic favored by anti-Indian activists such as the Coalition for the Protection of Indian Children and Families who are working for the dismantling of the ICWA. Because ICWA is “race-based,” so the argument goes, it is unconstitutional.
In Indian country we’ve said it a million times and we’ll keep on saying it until everyone gets it—Indian identity is not based on racial categorizations, it’s based on political distinctions. That is, Native nations composed of individual Indians (which they themselves are free to determine—even if based on racialized ideas of blood quantum) are nations not because they consist of people of a particular racial make-up, but because of their pre-constitutional existence and their political relationship with the US. Thus, the efforts of anti-ICWA activists is really an ideology bent on the continued suppression of the political rights of Native nations.
Dina Gilio-Whitaker (Colville) is a research associate at the Center for World Indigenous Studies and freelance writer.
TULALIP – Think of the Puget Sound as one massive estuary, fresh water from the creeks, streams and rivers of the uplands flow into the sound and mix during every tide with seawater from the Pacific Ocean. It’s the perfect recipe for salmon rearing habitat. Then add industry, boat traffic, shoreline development, acid rain and a cocktail of other chemicals. Suddenly, the perfect salmon nursery has become a precarious, dangerous and sometimes deadly environment.
Today, in the Puget Sound, about half of historic estuary land remains. Urban areas such as Seattle and Tacoma have lost nearly all of their estuaries, but cities are not the only places losing this vital habitat; according to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, only about a quarter of the Skagit Bay Estuary remains. Our own home, the Snohomish River watershed, which produces between 25-50% of the Coho salmon in Puget Sound, retains only 17% of its historical estuarial land. With the loss of estuaries and pollution on the rise it’s not a mystery why salmon runs and coastal wildlife are diminishing with every passing year.
An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water, (a mix of seawater and fresh water), with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it that also has a connection to the open sea. The Puget Sound is essentially a huge estuary. It’s the second largest in the U.S., Chesapeake Bay, located on the east coast, is the largest. Brackish waters are where young salmon go to feed, grow and make the transition to the salt water; they’re also an ideal place to hide from both freshwater and saltwater predators. Without suitable estuaries, many young salmon don’t survive long enough to make the journey to the ocean.
Enter Qwuloolt, an estuary located within the Snohomish watershed just south of Marysville. The name, Qwuloolt, is a Lushootseed word meaning “salt marsh.” Because of its rich delta soil, early settlers diked, drained and began using the land for cattle and farming. The levees they established along Ebey Slough, as well as the drainage channels and tide gates, significantly degraded the estuary by preventing the salt water from Puget Sound from mixing with the fresh water from Jones and Allen Creeks.
Luckily, levees can be breached and streams rechanneled. In 1994 Tulalip and a number of national and local partners teamed up to begin the second largest estuary restoration in the Puget Sound. In 2000, Tulalip, along with a group of trustees (NOAA, USFW, NRCS and the Washington State Department of Ecology) began purchasing 400 acres of historic estuary between Ebey Slough and Sunnyside Blvd.
In the years that followed, fish and wetlands biologists, hydrologists and experts in salmon recovery have helped reshape the once vibrant estuary turned farmland. Using historic information about the area, they’ve re-contoured the land to create more natural stream flows and removed invasive species. The final step in rehabilitating the habitat is to break through the earthen dikes and levees and allow the tides to once again mix fresh and salt water, to resurrect an estuary that provides shelter and sustenance for fish, wildlife and people.
Qwuloolt will not only help salmon and wildlife habitat, the restoration protects every resident of the Puget Sound. Estuaries store flood waters and protect inland areas. The plants, microorganisms and soils of the estuary filter water and remove pollutants as well as capture and store carbons for long periods of time.
Qwuloolt is:
Physical stream restoration is a complex part of the project, which actually reroutes 1.5 miles of Jones and Allen creek channels. Scientists used historical and field analyses and aerial photographs to move the creek beds near their historic locations.
Native plants and vegetation that once inhabited the area such as; various grasses, sedges, bulrush, cattails, willow, rose, Sitka spruce, pine, fir, crab apple and alder are replacing non-native invasive species.
Building in stormwater protection consists of creating a 6 ½ acre water runoff storage basin that will be used to manage stormwater runoff from the nearby suburban developments to prevent erosion and filter out pollutants so they don’t flow out of the estuary.
Construction of a setback levee has nearly finished and spans 4,000 feet on the western edge on Qwuloolt. The levee was constructed to protect the adjacent private and commercial property from water overflow once the levee is breached.
Breaching of the existing levee that is located in the south edge of the estuary will begin after the setback reaches construction. The breaching of the levee will allow the saline and fresh water to mix within the 400-acre marsh.
Other estuary restoration projects within the Snohomish River Watershed include; Ebey Slough at 14 acres, 400 acres of Union Slough/Smith Island and 60 acres of Spencer Island. The Qwuloolt Estuary Restoration Project has been a large collaboration between The Tulalip Tribes, local, county, state and federal agencies, private individuals and organizations.
PORT ANGELES — FBI agents have linked 11 killings to admitted serial killer Israel Keyes, including five murders from 2001 to 2006 while he lived in Neah Bay.
Keyes told agents he weighed down at least one body with anchors and dumped it from a boat into 100 feet of water in Lake Crescent, 18 miles west of Port Angeles.
The FBI on Monday released a timeline of travels and crimes by Keyes, a handyman and owner of an Alaska construction company who committed suicide in his Anchorage, Alaska, jail cell in December 2012 while awaiting trial for the kidnapping and murder of an 18-year-old barista.
Before his death, police said he admitted to at least seven other slayings, from Vermont to Washington state, hunting down victims in remote locations such as parks, campgrounds or hiking trails.
In a statement issued Monday afternoon, the FBI office in Anchorage said agents now have added three more to that grim tally, based on his statements, and said the timeline sheds some new light on a mysterious case that left a trail of unsolved killings around the country.
FBI spokesman Eric Gonzalez said the goal of releasing the information is to seek input from the public, to identify victims who remain unknown and to provide some closure to their families.
“We’ve exhausted all our investigative leads,” Gonzalez said.
Anyone who might have information about Keyes or possible victims is asked to call the FBI at 800-CALL-FBI (800-225-5324).
The FBI said Keyes lived in Neah Bay in 2001 after he was discharged from the Army.
While he was living there, Keyes committed his first homicide, according to the timeline.
The victim’s identity is not known, and neither is the location of the murder. Without giving any specifics, Gonzalez said the FBI did not know whether this murder occurred in Washington state.
The FBI documents said Keyes frequented prostitutes during his travels and killed an unidentified couple in Washington state sometime between July 2001 and 2005.
Keyes also told investigators he committed two separate murders between 2005 and 2006, disposing of at least one of the bodies from a boat in 12-mile-long Lake Crescent.
“Keyes stated at least one of the bodies was disposed of in Crescent Lake in Washington, and he used anchors to submerge the body,” the FBI said.
“Keyes reported the body was submerged in more than 100 feet of water.”
Keyes reportedly lived and worked in Neah Bay from 2001 to 2007, employed by the Makah tribe there for repair work and construction, before moving to Alaska.
When he killed himself in jail, the 34-year-old Keyes was awaiting a federal trial in the rape and strangulation murder of 18-year-old Samantha Koenig, who was abducted February 2012 from the Anchorage coffee stand where she worked.
Keyes confessed to killing Koenig and at least seven others around the country, including Bill and Lorraine Currier of Essex, Vt., in 2011.
Keyes also told investigators in Alaska that he killed four people in Washington, but names and details were lacking, according to an FBI news release.
He said he killed two people in separate incidents sometime in 2005 or 2006, and then “murdered a couple” in the state between 2001 and 2005.
The FBI said Monday that Keyes is believed to actually have killed 11 people, all strangers.
Keyes told investigators his victims were male and female, and that the murders occurred in fewer than 10 states, but he did not reveal all locations.
Koenig and the Curriers were the only victims named by Keyes because he knew authorities had tied him to their deaths.
Keyes told investigators only one other victim’s body besides Koenig’s was ever recovered, but that victim’s death was ruled as accidental.
The bodies of the Curriers were never found.
The FBI said Keyes admitted frequenting prostitutes, but it’s unknown whether Keyes met any of his victims this way.
Keyes said he robbed several banks to fund his travels along with money he made as a general contractor, and investigators have corroborated his role in two holdups, according to the FBI.
Keyes also told authorities he broke into as many as 30 homes throughout the country, and he talked about covering up a homicide through arson.
The timeline begins in summer of 1997 or 1998, when Keyes abducted a teenage girl while she and friends were tubing on the Deschutes River, he told investigators.
The FBI said Keyes was living in Maupin, Ore., at the time, and the abduction is believed to have occurred near that area.
Keyes moved to Anchorage in 2007 but continued to travel extensively outside the state.
After killing Koenig, Keyes flew to New Orleans, where he went on a cruise.
He left Koenig’s body in a shed outside his Anchorage home for two weeks, according to the FBI.
After the cruise, Keyes drove to Texas.
The FBI said that during this time, Keyes may have been responsible for a homicide in Texas or a nearby state — a crime Keyes denied.
Keyes was arrested in Lufkin, Texas, about six weeks after Koenig’s disappearance. He had sought a ransom and used Koenig’s debit card.
Three weeks after the arrest, Koenig’s dismembered body was found in a frozen lake north of Anchorage.
The FBI said Keyes also traveled internationally, but it’s unknown if he killed anyone outside the U.S.
He is known to have been in Belize, Canada and Mexico.
Remote areas
Keyes frequented remote areas such as campgrounds, trailheads and cemeteries to pick victims, according to the FBI.
While the specifics of his murders are largely unknown, the FBI hopes that by elaborating on Keyes’ whereabouts and the nature of his crimes, anyone with information might come forward to provide details on who Keyes’ victims may have been.
“In a series of interviews with law enforcement, Keyes described significant planning and preparation for his murders, reflecting a meticulous and organized approach to his crimes,” the FBI wrote in a release accompanying the timeline.
“It’s a more comprehensive timeline,” Gonzalez said of the updated breakdown of Keyes’ whereabouts.
“It’s based on investigations and on speaking with Keyes. It’s the best timeline that we have. We’re really just opening it up and putting it all out there at this point.”
Keyes killed himself by slitting one of his wrists and strangling himself with bedding, police said. He left behind an extensive four-page note that expressed no remorse nor offered any clues to other slayings.
He studied other serial killers but “was very careful to say he had not patterned himself after any other serial killer,” Anchorage Police Detective Monique Doll said last December.
Investigators said he had “a meticulous and organized approach to his crimes,” stashing weapons, cash and items used to dispose of bodies in several locations to prepare for future crimes.
Authorities have dug up two of those caches — one in Eagle River, Alaska, outside Anchorage, and one near a reservoir in the Adirondack Mountains of New York.
Advice for other business owners: “If you can think of it, I’m sure there is a way to do it. Once you can figure out the steps involved, then you can figure out how to finish the product and start up a business.”
Cameron Benally sporting his most popular t-shirt: the Navajo-run-print pocket. (Courtesy Cameron Benally)
Last August, Cameron Benally, a Navajo native from Mesa, Arizona, became inspired by a moment of sheer boredom. The 19-year-old sophomore at Arizona State University had nothing to do one hot summer day, so he grabbed some scissors, fabric and a hat, and stitched together a business.
“I started seeing people wearing more and more of these hats with prints on the brim, so I figured out how to do it and kind of perfected the method,” explains Benally, the founder of Profound Product, a one-man street-wear operation that jazzes up hat brims and makes T-shirt pockets from an assortment of eye-catching fabrics, like tribal and animal prints.
Since that serendipitous day more than a year ago, Benally is filling orders for about eight custom hats and T-shirts a week that he sells online through social media sites, such as Facebook and Instagram (@ProfoundProduct), as well as through word-of-mouth. Hats range in price from copy0 to $60, and Benally charges a flat copy8 for his T-shirts. His best seller is the black t-shirt with the Navajo rug print.
His roster of clients spans the globe—from California to New York, Massachusetts, Florida, and even as far away as France. “I’m also starting to get orders from the Navajo reservation, so that’s pretty cool.”
The real beauty of Benally’s start-up business is that he didn’t have to invest much money at all. “The original investment was very small. …and now I’m making a pretty good amount.” Benally would not disclose specific numbers, but he did say that profits go back into the business and help supplement scholarships he’s been awarded toward a degree in digital culture and media processing.
Cameron Benally redisgns his school ASU’s hats and t-shirts. (Courtesy Benally)
The young entrepreneur likes to sew, he says, because it’s relaxing. He first learned how to run a sewing machine when he was in middle school, but then forgot how to use it. “So my grandmother taught me how to sew again.”
In fact, Benally’s entire family is very supportive of his dreams and goals. “My dad really helped me out because he wants me to succeed.” His father, Dino Benally, actually started a sportswear store on the Navajo reservation many years ago, but the business didn’t pan out. “He’s happy seeing me doing what he wanted to do and be able to go farther with it.”
While Benally is proud of what he has achieved in only one year—“I really didn’t think it would go this far”—he has even bigger dreams. “I hope it becomes a really big clothing brand someday. I’d love to see my stuff being sold in stores across the country.”
It’s been 68 years since the Navajo Code Talkers landed on the beach of Iwo Jima, Japan, and successfully delivered more than 800 encrypted messages without error.
In 1982, 40 years after that famed campaign, in honor of their bravery, skill and service, then-President Ronald Reagan declared August 14 as National Navajo Code Talkers Day.
The Navajo Code Talkers are lauded for hastening a swift end to World War II by providing the U.S. with a dictionary of Navajo words that were transmitted by radio and telephones. The code carried sensitive information about troop movements and other imperative field operations.
Following Iwo Jima, Howard Connor, 5th Marine Division signal officer, stated “were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima.”
A monument to the Navajo Code Talkers in Ocala, Florida Memorial Park. (Photo courtesy Wikipedia.org.)
On Sept. 17, 1992, 35 Navajo Code Talker U.S. Marine Corps veterans were honored at the Pentagon in Washington D.C. for their service to their country. That same day an exhibit was dedicated to their prowess.
The exhibit includes radios, photographs and an explanation of how the code worked.
In 2000, then-President Bill Clinton awarded the original 29 World War II code talkers with the Congressional Gold Medal. Five were still alive at the time, but only four could make it to Washington in 2001 where then-President George W. Bush personally presented them with their medals.
The Navajo Code Talkers’ operation was finally declassified by the U.S. in 1968, opening up the opportunity to honor the Marines who drew up and employed the uncrackable code.
From July 10th to 14th, roughly 200 Indigenous and non-Indigenous people gathered in unceded Wet’suwet’en territory in central British Columbia for the 4th Annual Unis’tot’en Action Camp. The Unis’tot’en clan of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation have maintained a blockade on the only bridge leading into their territory since July 2010 in an attempt to keep seven proposed oil and gas pipelines off their traditional lands. The pipelines would carry shale gas obtained through fracking, or bitumen oil from the Alberta tar sands, to the Pacific coast, where it would be exported on mega-tankers towards Asian markets
The action camp brings supporters of the Unis’tot’en to the blockade site in order to learn about the struggle, to network, and to bring action ideas back to their own communities.
Toghestiy, Hereditary Chief of the Likhts’amisyu Clan of the Wet’suwet’en nation, said he was very happy with the high proportion of Indigenous participants at this year’s camp compared to previous years.
“I would say about 40% of the population of the action camp was Indigenous, and they were Indigenous from different parts of Turtle Island,” Toghestiy told the Vancouver Media Co-op (VMC). “So it was amazing to have all these grassroots Indigenous people come together in solidarity with one another. We created an alliance, and it was a pretty beautiful experience. It will help us fulfill our responsibility [to the land] into the future.”
While most participants at the camp hailed from Vancouver and Victoria, people also travelled from as far away as California, New Mexico, and Toronto to lend their support. Amber Nitchman travelled up to the Unis’tot’en Action Camp from Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
“I want to support Indigenous rights and sovereignty everywhere, especially those who are opposing extractive industries,” Nitchman told the VMC while on a night-time security shift at the blockade site. At home, she is involved with anti-coal mining campaigns. “Some of the pipelines [here] are for the same industry, and it’s the land and water being destroyed in both places for profit, and destroying what little is left that people are able to live on in a sustainable way.”
Wet’suwet’en territory is located about 1000 km north of Vancouver. It lies on what has been described as Canada’s “carbon corridor,” a geographically strategic region where major oil companies such as Chevron and Exxon are seeking to connect the Alberta tar sands to the Pacific coast for export. The Unis’tot’en claim that these pipelines, requiring clear cutting and prone to leaks and spills, would threaten watersheds, forests, rivers, and salmon spawning channels—source of their primary staple food.
Some of proposed pipelines on Wet’suwet’en territory are intended to carry natural gas from hydraulic fracturing (or “fracking”) sites near Fort Nelson, BC, close to the border of the Northwest Territories. Wet’suwet’en activists are concerned not only for their own community, but also for communities at tar sands and fracking extraction sites.
“In those territories, those people are suffering from decimated water,” said Mel Bazil, a Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan activist who has been helping out with the Unis’tot’en blockade. “They have no clean drinking water left in their territories. All of their right to clean drinking water is delivered to them by truck. They allowed their responsibility to clean drinking water that already exists in their territories to be diminished, and in place of that, now they have the right of clean water being delivered to them.”
Water is central to this struggle. The pristine Morice River flows through Wet’suwet’en territory, and is still clean enough to drink and fish from. For contrast, local people often reference Michigan’s Kalamazoo River, devastated by the largest inland oil spill in U.S. history when an Enbridge tar sands pipeline burst in 2010.
At the action camp, Unis’tot’en clan members declared Wet’suwet’en territory to be the epicentre for struggles against the tar sands. The Alberta tar sands are the largest industrial project on Earth and the tar sands mining procedure is hugely energy-intensive. Extraction at the tar sands releases at least three times the amount of carbon dioxide as regular crude oil extraction, and uses five barrels of fresh water to produce a single barrel of oil, according to the activist research group Oil Sands Truth.
“My people have been on these territories for thousands of years, until about 100 years ago when the government forced our people off these lands and put them in reservations,” said Freda Huson, the spokesperson for the Unis’tot’en camp, in an interview under the food supplies tent. “And probably just about four years ago, my generation has stood up and said, ‘No more.’
“There’s too much destruction happening out here, because we grew up on these lands, coming out here all the time. And every time we came out here we saw more and more destruction. So we sat down with our chiefs and said, ‘We can’t just sit by any more and let them keep destroying the lands.’ There will be nothing left for our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. We found out about the pipelines and which route they were planning to go.”
In May, the BC provincial government officially opposed one of the proposed pipeline projects on Wet’suwet’en territory, the Enbridge Northern Gateway. Premier Christy Clark cited environmental safety concerns. But Huson was skeptical.
“To me they’re just all talk. I don’t believe anything the government says,” retorted Huson. “They make all these empty promises, and they do exactly the opposite of what they say. Based on how Christy Clark has been talking pro-pipelines, that this is going to get them out of deficit, because we know for a fact that the BC government is in a huge deficit.”
Indigenous people from different nations across ‘Canada’ came to the Unis’tot’en camp to make links between struggles against oil and gas pipelines. One of them was Vanessa Grey, a 21-year old activist from the Aamjiwnaang First Nation reserve in southern Ontario.
Aamjiwnaang sits on the pathway of Enbridge’s Line 9 project, which will carry tar sands bitumen eastward towards Maine. Demonstrators have attempted to stop the project through a variety of direct actions, including a five-day occupation of an Enbridge pumping station near Hamilton, Ontario, this past June.
“I feel that there’s a lot here that someone like myself or the youth who have come here can really learn from,” said Grey, sitting in a forest clearing near the Morice River. “Where we come from, the land has already been destroyed and we already see the effects. Here, they are trying to save what’s left of it, and we’re able to see what could have been without the industry.”
During the five days of the camp, participants attended action planning sessions and workshops on a variety of subjects, including decolonization, movement building, and the Quebec student strike. Participants also had the chance to help construct a permaculture garden and pit-house directly on the route of the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline.
On July 20, just days after the action camp had ended and all of the participants had returned home, a helicopter carrying pipeline surveyors was discovered on Unis’tot’en territory, behind the blockade. The workers were quickly confronted by Chief Toghestiy and were forced to leave.
“We were busy that day working on salmon that day, and locating berry patches to start harvesting for winter. Then all of the sudden we heard a helicopter fly over,” Toghestiy told the VMC over the phone.
Helicopters flying overhead is a common occurrence around the Unis’tot’en territory, but something seemed wrong about this one to Toghestiy. “This one sounded like it was slowing down, and you could hear the rotors ‘whoop-whooping’ really loud. I thought to myself, ‘This helicopter might be landing.’” Toghestiy and a supporter of the camp who was on the scene immediately drove down the road in the direction of the helicopter, and discovered it had landed not far away.
According to Toghestiy, the workers were wearing hard-hats, reflector vests, and had clipboards with them. When confronted, they confirmed that they were pipeline workers, but didn’t know that they had infringed on an Indigenous blockade site. “I told them ‘bullshit! Your company knows [about the blockade]!” said Toghestiy as he recounted the situation.
After he yelled at them to leave, they quickly got back in the helicopter and the pilot restarted the motor and took off. “As they were flying away, the helicopter pilot assured me that they wouldn’t come back, and so did the workers.”
Toghestiy said the workers did not reveal which company they were with, but he observed that “they were standing in the … proposed new alternative route of the Pacific Trails pipeline project.”
The helicopter visit was not the first infringement by pipeline companies onto sovereign Wet’suwet’en territory. In November 2012, surveyors were also found behind the blockade lines, and were issued an eagle feather, which is a Wet’suwet’en symbol for trespassing.
Toghestiy said that expelling these unwelcome workers from unceded Indigenous lands also has a deeper meaning. “We’re stopping the continued delusion that the government is putting out there that they still have right to give out licenses or permits on lands that were never ceded by the Indigenous people. There is no bill of sale that has ever been produced that says they have the right to do that,” he said.
Huson added that if a helicopter is discovered again on her territory, the company’s actions will have more severe consequences. “I’m planning to draft a letter to the helicopter company and other companies working for Apache right now, saying, ‘You’ve received your final warning, and if any more choppers or equipment comes across the blockade again, we’ll confiscate whatever comes in, and workers will be walking out,’” she said in a stern but calm voice.
Indigenous delegates at the camp decided to hold a Day of Action against extractive industries on August 14, 2013, and fundraising is already underway to support the blockade throughout the winter. Meanwhile, Toghestiy and Huson expect even more people to come up for the action camp in the summer of 2014.
For more information about the August 14th Day of Action and next year’s action camp, visit: www.unistotencamp.com or their Facebook page.
Click here for full audio interviews and a photo essay from the camp.
Aaron Lakoff is a radio journalist, DJ, and community organizer living in Montreal, trying to map the constellations between reggae, soul, and a liberated world. This article was made possible with support from the Vancouver Media Co-op.
The highly anticipated “Paul Frank Presents” Limited Edition collection will be revealed this week during a special event at the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts
Source: Paul Frank
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 12, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — Paul Frank, in partnership with the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA), is pleased to announce the debut of its first ever collaboration with four Native American designers during Santa Fe Indian Market this week. The fashion collection will be showcased during a panel and event held at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on Friday, August 16 from 5:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. The “Paul Frank Presents” collection will also be available for purchase at the IAIA MoCNA store.
To kick off the event, MoCNA Director Patsy Phillips will introduce a panel entitled, Beyond the “Tribal Trend”: Developing Proactive Native American Collaboration in Fashion. The panel will feature Jessica Metcalfe of the Beyond Buckskin blog and Beyond Buckskin Boutique, Adrienne Keene of Native Appropriations and Tracy Bunkoczy, Paul Frank’s VP of Design as they discuss the brand collaboration, the background story and creation of the collection and the development of proactive Native partnerships in the fashion world.
After the panel, each of the designers will present their products and talk about their personal inspiration for the collaboration. These Native American designers include Louie Gong of Eighth Generation, Autumn Dawn Gomez of The Soft Museum, Candace Halcro of Brownbeaded, and Dustin Martin of S.O.L.O. The “Paul Frank Presents” fashion collection includes a printed tote, pillow and throw blanket by Louie Gong, five collections of Hama bead jewelry by Autumn Dawn Gomez, authentic Paul Frank hand-beaded sunglasses by Candace Halcro and a variety of tees, tanks and bandanas by Dustin Martin.
“This collaboration has been an opportunity for us to help raise awareness about cultural misappropriations, which unfortunately happen too often in product, promotion and fashion,” said Elie Dekel, President of Saban Brands. “Our partnership with these four talented Native American designers was the direct result of our own awakening to this issue from our Paul Frank Fashion’s Night Out event back in September of 2012. We hope this ‘Paul Frank Presents’ collaboration will demonstrate more appropriate ways to engage and celebrate the Native American communities.”
These products are now available for purchase at the IAIA MoCNA store, the websites of the contributing designers and also on shop.beyondbuckskin.com. For additional information about this collection, please visit www.paulfrank.com.
About Paul Frank
Acquired in 2010 by Saban Brands, Paul Frank began in 1997 as an independent accessories company in a Southern California beach town. The brand has steadily grown to become a globally recognized, iconic brand that features artistic and entertaining designs inspired by a love of avant-garde, modern influences and everyday objects. By creating relationships through exciting collaborations and strategic licensing partnerships, Paul Frank merchandise includes apparel and accessories for all ages, books, stationery, eyewear, home decor, bicycles and more. To see what’s new and exciting at Paul Frank, visit www.paulfrank.com.
About Saban Brands
Formed in 2010 as an affiliate of Saban Capital Group, Saban Brands (SB) was established to acquire and develop a world-class portfolio of properties and capitalize on the company’s experience, track record and capabilities in growing and monetizing consumer brands through content, media and marketing. SB applies a global omni-channel management approach to enhancing and extending its brands in markets worldwide and to consumers of all ages. The company provides full-service management, marketing, promotion and strategic business development for its intellectual properties including comprehensive strategies unique to each brand, trademark and copyright management and enforcement, creative design, retail development, direct-to-consumer initiatives and specialized property extensions. SB is led by a superior management team with decades of experience in media, content creation, branding, licensing, marketing and finance. SB’s portfolio of properties currently includes Power Rangers, Paul Frank, Vortexx, Zui.com, The Playforge, Julius Jr., Digimon Fusion and Popples. For more information, visit www.sabanbrands.com.
About the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts
The mission of the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA), a center of the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA), is to advance contemporary native art through exhibitions, collections, public programs and scholarship. MoCNA’s outreach through local and national collaborations allows us to continue to present the most progressive Native art and public programming. MoCNA’s exhibitions and programs continue the narrative of contemporary Native arts and cultures. MoCNA is located at 108 Cathedral Place, Santa Fe, NM 87501. For more information please contact: (505) 983-1666 or visit www.iaia.edu/museum. For the MoCNA store, please call (888) 922-4242 or email shop@iaia.edu.
About IAIA
For 50 years, the Institute of American Indian Arts has played a leading role in the direction and shape of Native expression. As it has grown and evolved into an internationally acclaimed college, museum and community and tribal support resource through the Center for Lifelong Education, IAIA’s dedication to the study and advancement of Native arts and cultures is matched only by its commitment to student achievement and the preservation and progress of the communities they represent. Learn more about our achievements and mission at www.iaia.edu.
Many Democratic Indian-focused strategists are betting that Hillary Clinton will choose to run for president in 2016, and some are working feverishly in these summer doldrums – 17 months out from any serious presidential campaigning – to convince her and her associates that they would be best to handle her Native American portfolio.
The former First Lady, New York senator, and Secretary of State has not even said that she plans to run again, but she has signaled anew that she cares about some key American constituencies. Her speech at the American Bar Association’s (ABA) annual meeting in San Francisco on August 12 crystalized her focus.
“We do — let’s admit it — have a long history of shutting people out: African Americans, women, gays and lesbians, people with disabilities,” Clinton said. “And throughout our history, we have found too many ways to divide and exclude people from their ownership of the law and protection from the law.
“Skepticism of authority has been part of our national character since the Pilgrims, and complaining about government is a treasured American pastime,” Clinton added, as part of her overall point of wanting to build confidence in government.
Native Americans and the injustices long served to them were conspicuous in their absence from Clinton’s speech, and now, several American Indian affairs gurus are lining up to ensure she will remember to specifically address Indian country’s economic and social needs in the future, especially if she happens to want to do so from the perch of the White House.
Old and new Native-focused friends of the Clintons are eager to help get out the vote, raise money, and develop sweeping, reservation-changing platforms. As shown in past presidential elections, resoundingly in 2008 and again in 2012, this is an area ripe with votes, and especially with cash, thanks to some wealthy tribes.
Mary Smith, a Cherokee Nation citizen and partner at Schoeman Updike & Kaufman, is one of the early frontrunners. While attending the ABA meeting this year – where she had the connections to score tickets to Clinton’s big speech – she didn’t hesitate to remind lawyers gathered there how much she has done for the Clinton family in the past, having been a member of the D.C. Finance Committee for Hillary Clinton for President until the candidate dropped out in June 2008. Plus, she worked in President Bill Clinton’s administration both as a Justice Department lawyer and in the White House counsel’s office.
President Barack Obama later nominated Smith to lead the Justice Department’s tax division in 2009, but her nomination was blocked by senators who expressed concern about her lack of experience in the tax industry.
Smith, perhaps realizing that her boasts were making the rounds, told Indian Country Today Media Network that she was just there to attend the meeting, as she usually does, but legal officials who met with her said there’s no doubt she’s wired into the Clinton camp again, and she’s more than ready to go to bat for Indian country.
While Smith is off to a solid start, she will face steep competition from other Indian legal eagles who aim to secure a win for Indian country with Clinton.
Kimberly Teehee, also Cherokee and Obama’s former White House Native affairs policy advisor, is widely expected to make a play to lead Native political outreach for Clinton. Now a lobbyist for the Mapetsi tribal policy group, Teehee has been making behind the scenes overtures to those connected to the Clinton camp. Her widespread name visibility in Indian country will be helpful, but some run-ins with tribal leaders on Indian policy issues as a result of working in the Obama White House and as a congressional staffer could haunt her effort. She’s also told friends that she’s enjoying her rest from working for politicians, so only she knows if she’s ready for the Clinton rollercoaster.
Holly Cook Macarro, Red Lake Ojibwe, is another legal ace who is working hard to make sure the Clinton camp knows her name. A former Democratic National Committee staffer and member of the Clinton administration’s White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, she’s now a tribal lobbyist with Ietan Consulting. Married to tribal chairman Mark Macarro, of the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians, she has many, many friends in Indian country, and her jobs haven’t called for her to get into many squabbles with tribal leaders.
In recent years, Cook Macarro’s firm has developed an alliance with the Holland & Knight law firm, where lawyer Lynn Cutler serves as a senior advisor. Cutler joined the firm in 2001, after serving as senior staff to President Bill Clinton on Intergovernmental Affairs where she was in charge of overseeing advocacy for tribal governments.
Cook Macarro has a strong relationship with Cutler, both from their firms’ current strategic relationship and from having worked under her during the Clinton administration. She knows how important her in with Cutler will be if Clinton does run, and she even includes a note in her official biography to affirm the relationship.
Debora Juarez, meanwhile, a Blackfeet lawyer with Williams Kaster who is based in Washington state is also staking a claim. “I don’t plan on being in [Washington, D.C.] anytime soon…not until My Girl Hillary runs for President!” Juarez recently told ICTMN. “I plan on being there and suffering in the ‘other Washington’ for HRC Campaign.” Juarez was a delegate for Hillary Clinton in 2008, and said she’d love to do it all over again.
All of these strong-minded Indian women will also have sharp-elbowed Indian men to contend with in their efforts to court Hillary.
The tribal affairs crew at Arent Fox law firm have an early in, for instance, having recently facilitated a partnership between the Clinton Global Initiative and six South Dakota tribes in developing a joint wind energy project. And it was Richard Trudell, the Sioux director of the American Indian Lawyer Training Program, and Kevin Gover, the Pawnee director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian and former Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs under President Clinton, who previously had the closest Indian ties to the Clintons.
While Gover has long said he’s quite comfortable at the museum, who knows what could entice him back to the political frontlines? He isn’t saying. “I’m totally out of the loop on this sort of thing now,” he said. “I only know what I read in ICT[MN].”
Trudell, too, hasn’t said if he’s trying to get back in the Clinton’s good graces.
Philip Baker-Shenk, a Republican Indian affairs lawyer who battled to help Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in his presidential ambitions, is one who is willing to talk, probably because the stakes for him are low this season. Based on his experiences, he said the circle of friends and former aides are jockeying at their hardest right now, trying to gain attention, favor—anything they can do to be on the winning team.
“It is an often brutal contest over who is more loyal than whom,” Baker-Shenk shared. “The loyalists chat up her chances, organize visible and financial support for her campaign, and arrange her meetings with key people. The competition for a candidate’s time and attention quickly moves to a feverish campaign pace, when every minute on the schedule is the result of negotiated trade-offs and winners and losers.
“With most national candidates, the Indian portfolio has been like the flip side of a hit record – an afterthought, a filler,” he said. “But that doesn’t stop Indian loyalists from trying. Nor should it.”
