Steelhead in the Columbia River Basin are threatened. Current populations have dwindled to a fraction of the historic numbers a century ago. That has led two Northwest Indian Tribes to try something new to help this struggling fish survive. Both tribes are learning from each other along the way.
The snow is almost gone in north Idaho. But it’s still cold, almost freezing on this early morning at the Dworshak National Fish Hatchery near Orofino.
That’s Andrew Pierce with the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission or “CRITFC.” He and several dozen Nez Perce tribal members pull large fish from tanks of water. The fish are weighed and measured. Then the eggs and what’s called milt – or semen – are removed. This is all part of an artificial spawning program. The eggs and milt will be combined later in plastic tubes. It’s a process that has a higher success than if the fish were to spawn naturally in the river.
Salmon and Steelhead die in the traditional artificial spawning process which involves killing the fish then surgically removing the eggs and milt.
While salmon die naturally after spawning, Steelhead don’t. They return to the ocean and back to Northwest rivers year after year. Scott Everett is a Nez Perce project manager who says his tribe decided that to maximize the natural process, they needed a method of artificial spawning that didn’t kill the fish. That’s what they are doing here.
“Instead of killing the fish, you’re filling the body cavity with air and that essentially forces the eggs out,” Everett says.
The steelhead are then placed in large tanks for a few weeks to recover. Females that spawn repeatedly are known as kelts. That’s how this program got it’s name – Kelt Reconditioning Program. Everett says the goal is to rebuild the once abundant populations of steelhead that northwest tribes have traditionally relied on along with salmon. Overfishing, water quality and hundreds of dams that make passage difficult for the fish have impacted steelhead numbers over the years.
“We’re hopefully getting enough fish alive that we can actually put them in our reconditioning project here and keep them alive for three to six month or longer and get them back out in the river,” Everett says.
Thats where the Yakama Nation tribe comes in. The central Washington tribe has been using the Kelt Reconditioning Program for 14-years.
Iceberg Point Shoreline, Lopez Island. Photo by Tom Reeve.
Source: Indian Country Today Media Network
On March 25, President Obama established the San Juan Islands National Monument by proclamation. The Islands, a stunningly beautiful archipelago off the coast of Washington state and home to abundant wildlife, will now enjoy the benefits of being a National Monument. The Coast Salish peoples, for which the islands are traditional and hereditary lands, are celebrating Obama’s move.
Patos Island (photo by Linda Hudson)
According to the National Park Service, San Juan Island has been a magnet for human habitation. Its location at the crossroads of three great waterways, plus sheltered harbors, open prairie and secluded woodlands, drew people wanting to stake a life, or find rest and relaxation amid an abundant food source.
The ancestors of today’s Northern Straits Coast Salish people began to appear in the wake of the continental ice sheet that started to recede 11,000 years ago. Archaeological evidence suggests that the island supported hunting and gathering between 6,000 and 8,000 years ago. The marine culture encountered by the first Europeans to the area developed about 2,500 years ago, and traces of its once thriving villages remain in the shell middens found along the shoreline of American and English camps and throughout the San Juan Islands.
Patos Island sunset (photo by Linda Hudson
By early historic times, the indigenous people of the San Juan Islands and nearby mainland areas were primarily members of six Central Coast Salish Tribes who spoke the Northern Straits language: Sooke, Saanich, Songhee, Lummi, Samish and Semiahmoo. Another Central Coast Salish tribe that entered the Northern Straits country spoke the closely related Klallam (or Clallam) language.
In addition to sharing these languages, the Central Coast Salish tribes shared a culture and way of life through which they used a wide range of marine, riverine, and terrestrial resources. They followed patterns of seasonal movement between islands and the mainland and from large winter villages to smaller resource collection camps occupied in the other seasons. Because of the exposure to severe winter winds and storms of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, those sites found within the Cattle Point-Mount Finlayson-South Beach were considered to be more likely seasonal subsistence and resource collection and processing camps, rather than permanent settlements.
The Lummi are one of the Coast Salish peoples whose ancestors lived in the San Juan Islands.
Patos Island Lighthouse (photo by Tom Reeve)
The San Juan Islands National Monument will encompass approximately 75 Bureau of Land Management sites totaling about 1,000 acres in San Juan, Whatcom and Skagit counties. Designation as a National Monument removes these lands from possible sale or development by the Bureau and engages the local community in developing and carrying out a management plan for these lands. Under permanent protection will be dozens of small islands in the San Juans, like Indian Island near the town of Eastsound, that provide breeding grounds for birds and safe refuges for everything from harbor seal pups to rare plants.These lands include ancient fishing sites and camas gardens that are important to Native American culture, and historically important lighthouses on Patos Island and Turn Point.
Also to be protected are popular recreation destinations in the islands like Iceberg Point and Watmough Bay on Lopez Island, Patos Island and Cattle Point on San Juan Island.
Watmough Bight (photo by Steve Horn)
Here is the text of Obama’s proclamation, and visit the monument’s website: SanJuanIslandsNca.org.
Presidential Proclamation — San Juan Islands National Monument
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SAN JUAN ISLANDS NATIONAL MONUMENT
– – – – – – –
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A PROCLAMATION
Within Washington State’s Puget Sound lies an archipelago of over 450 islands, rocks, and pinnacles known as the San Juan Islands. These islands form an unmatched landscape of contrasts, where forests seem to spring from gray rock and distant, snow-capped peaks provide the backdrop for sandy beaches. Numerous wildlife species can be found here, thriving in the diverse habitats supported by the islands. The presence of archeological sites, historic lighthouses, and a few tight-knit communities testifies that humans have navigated this rugged landscape for thousands of years. These lands are a refuge of scientific and historic treasures and a classroom for generations of Americans.
The islands are part of the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. Native people first used the area near the end of the last glacial period, about 12,000 years ago. However, permanent settlements were relatively uncommon until the last several hundred years. The Coast Salish people often lived in villages of wooden-plank houses and used numerous smaller sites for fishing and harvesting shellfish. In addition to collecting edible plants, and hunting various birds and mammals, native people used fire to maintain meadows of the nutritionally rich great camas. Archaeological remains of the villages, camps, and processing sites are located throughout these lands, including shell middens, reef net locations, and burial sites. Wood-working tools, such as antler wedges, along with bone barbs used for fishing hooks and projectile points, are also found on the islands. Scientists working in the San Juan Islands have uncovered a unique array of fossils and other evidence of long-vanished species. Ancient bison skeletons (10,000-12,000 years old) have been found in several areas, indicating that these islands were an historic mammal dispersal corridor. Butcher marks on some of these bones suggest that the earliest human inhabitants hunted these large animals.
The first Europeans explored the narrows of the San Juan Islands in the late 18th century, and many of their names for the islands are still in use. These early explorers led the way for 19th century European and American traders and trappers. By 1852, American settlers had established homesteads on the San Juan Islands, some of which remain today. In the late 19th century, the Federal Government built several structures to aid in maritime navigation. Two light stations and their associated buildings are located on lands administered by the
Bureau of Land Management (BLM): Patos Island Light Station (National Register of Historic Places, 1977) and Turn Point Light Station (Washington State Register of Historic Places, 1978).
The lands on Patos Island, Stuart Island, Lopez Island, and neighboring islands constitute some of the most scientifically interesting lands in the San Juan Islands. These lands contain a dramatic and unusual diversity of habitats, with forests, woodlands, grasslands, and wetlands intermixed with rocky balds, bluffs, inter-tidal areas, and sandy beaches. The stands of forests and open woodlands, some of which are several hundred years old, include a majestic assemblage of trees, such as Douglas fir, red cedar, western hemlock, Oregon maple, Garry oak, and Pacific madrone. The fire-dependent grasslands, which are also susceptible to invasive species, are home to chick lupine, historically significant great camas, brittle cactus, and the threatened golden paintbrush. Rocky balds and bluffs are home to over 200 species of moss that are extremely sensitive to disturbance and trampling. In an area with limited fresh water, two wetlands on Lopez Island and one on Patos Island are the most significant freshwater habitats in the San Juan Islands.
The diversity of habitats in the San Juan Islands is critical to supporting an equally varied collection of wildlife. Marine mammals, including orcas, seals, and porpoises, attract a regular stream of wildlife watchers. Native, terrestrial mammals include black-tail deer, river otter, mink, several bats, and the Shaw Island vole. Raptors, such as bald eagles and peregrine falcons, are commonly observed soaring above the islands. Varied seabirds and terrestrial birds can also be found here, including the threatened marbled murrelet and the recently reintroduced western bluebird. The island marble butterfly, once thought to be extinct, is currently limited to a small population in the San Juan Islands.
The protection of these lands in the San Juan Islands will maintain their historical and cultural significance and enhance their unique and varied natural and scientific resources, for the benefit of all Americans.
WHEREAS section 2 of the Act of June 8, 1906 (34 Stat. 225, 16 U.S.C. 431) (the “Antiquities Act”), authorizes the President, in his discretion, to declare by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest that are situated upon the lands owned or controlled by the Government of the United States to be national monuments, and to reserve as a part thereof parcels of land, the limits of which in all cases shall be confined to the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected;
WHEREAS it is in the public interest to preserve the objects of scientific and historic interest on the lands of the San Juan Islands;
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by the authority vested in me by section 2 of the Antiquities Act, hereby proclaim the objects identified above that are situated upon lands and interests in
lands owned or controlled by the Government of the United States to be the San Juan Islands National Monument (monument), and, for the purpose of protecting those objects, reserve as a part thereof all lands and interests in lands owned or controlled by the Government of the United States and administered by the Department of the Interior through the BLM, including all unappropriated or unreserved islands, rocks, exposed reefs, and pinnacles above mean high tide, within the boundaries described on the accompanying map, which is attached to and forms a part of this proclamation. These reserved Federal lands and interests in lands encompass approximately 970 acres, which is the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected.
All Federal lands and interests in lands within the boundaries of the monument administered by the Department of the Interior through the BLM are hereby appropriated and withdrawn from all forms of entry, location, selection, sale, leasing, or other disposition under the public land laws, including withdrawal from location, entry, and patent under the mining laws, and from disposition under all laws relating to mineral and geothermal leasing, other than by exchange that furthers the protective purposes of this proclamation.
The establishment of the monument is subject to valid existing rights. Lands and interests in lands within the monument boundaries not owned or controlled by the Government of the United States shall be reserved as a part of the monument upon acquisition of ownership or control by the Secretary of the Interior (Secretary) on behalf of the United States.
The Secretary shall manage the monument through the BLM as a unit of the National Landscape Conservation System, pursuant to applicable legal authorities, to implement the purposes of this proclamation, except that if the Secretary hereafter acquires on behalf of the United States ownership or control of any lands or interests in lands within the monument boundaries not owned or controlled by the United States, the Secretary shall determine whether such lands and interests in lands will be administered by the BLM as a unit of the National Landscape Conservation System or by another component of the Department of the Interior, consistent with applicable legal authorities.
For purposes of protecting and restoring the objects identified above, the Secretary, through the BLM, shall prepare and maintain a management plan for the monument and shall establish an advisory committee under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (5 U.S.C. App.) to provide information and advice regarding the development of such plan.
Except for emergency, Federal law enforcement, or authorized administrative purposes, motorized vehicle use in the monument shall be permitted only on designated roads, and non-motorized mechanized vehicle use in the monument shall be permitted only on designated roads and trails.
Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to enlarge or diminish the rights of any Indian tribe. The Secretary shall, in consultation with Indian tribes, ensure the protection of religious and cultural sites in the monument and provide access to the sites by members of Indian tribes for traditional cultural and customary uses, consistent with the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (42 U.S.C. 1996) and Executive Order 13007 of May 24, 1996 (Indian Sacred Sites).
Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to enlarge or diminish the jurisdiction or authority of the State of Washington or the United States over submerged or other lands within the territorial waters off the coast of Washington.
Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to enlarge or diminish the jurisdiction of the State of Washington with respect to fish and wildlife management.
Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to limit the authority of the Secretary of Homeland Security to engage in search and rescue operations, or to use Patos Island Light Station, Turn Point Light Station, or other aids to navigation for navigational or national security purposes.
Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to revoke any existing withdrawal, reservation, or appropriation; however, the monument shall be the dominant reservation.
Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to restrict safe and efficient aircraft operations, including activities and exercises of the Armed Forces and the United States Coast Guard, in the vicinity of the monument.
Warning is hereby given to all unauthorized persons not to appropriate, injure, destroy, or remove any feature of the monument and not to locate or settle upon any of the lands thereof.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-fifth day of March, in the year of our Lord two thousand thirteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-seventh.
By Carol Berry, Indian Country Today Media Network
Photo by Carol Berry. Edward Nichols, president and CEO of History Colorado, spoke with Terry Knight, a cultural leader of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, at a meeting March 22 of the Colorado Commission of Indian Affairs. The commission has been asked to help foster negotiations between the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes and History Colorado in a conflict over consultation for the Sand Creek Massacre exhibit at the History Colorado Center.
When tribes, whose ancestors are the subject of a museum exhibit, are against that exhibit and ask for it to be closed pending further consultation, it’s obvious something is amiss.
Although reluctant in the past to close the exhibit, officials of a Denver museum are now considering it to repair a damaged partnership with the affected tribes.
The controversy focuses on History Colorado Center’s exhibit on the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864, when more than 150 Cheyenne and Arapaho people, mostly children, women and elders, were killed by U.S. Army volunteers in a southeast Colorado camp where they had been promised safety.
Past meetings with tribal representatives have led museum officials to correct some editorial errors in the exhibit, but that didn’t solve the deeper problem that the officials didn’t consult with tribes as much as they should have.
The Sand Creek Massacre exhibit is a cluster of small chambers with curved walls alight with shifting messages and images that characterize 19th century beliefs about Natives and non-Natives. Throughout the exhibit a recording of the late LaForce Lone Bear singing his ancestor Chief White Antelope’s death song plays. The music is interspersed with muted gunshots and cries. One message in colors shifting from blue to violet on a wall says, “Ve’ho’e is the Cheyenne term for spider as well as for white man. It represents an intelligent mischief-maker or villain.”
The mass killing at Sand Creek is neutrally attributed in the exhibit to a “collision” of cultures, but it was “one of the most heinous crimes committed on the planet,” said David Halaas, former chief historian of the Colorado Historical Society, which preceded History Colorado.
The tribes involved have repeatedly asked—and continue to ask—that the exhibit be closed until they are consulted fully about its content. Although History Colorado officials said recently that a meeting with tribes will be held before the end of March, the Colorado Commission of Indian Affairs said it’s waiting to hear from the tribes. The commission has been asked to help negotiate among the government-designated partners overseeing the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site—the National Park Service, the state through History Colorado, the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, the Northern Cheyenne Tribe and the Northern Arapaho Tribe.
Although partnered management of the massacre site may not technically extend to the museum exhibit, History Colorado stresses that “partnership with the tribes is what we want to achieve and have enjoyed in the past.”
“They [History Colorado] present quotes that try to tell the story in all its fullness—but this was a massacre,” stressed Halaas, a long-time tribal friend. “They use quotes which seem to explain why the soldiers did what they did—those quotations are unacceptable.” Meetings between the museum and tribes in 2011 and 2012 concerning the exhibit were unsuccessful, he said, and tribal representatives boycotted the center’s opening last April.
Now, closing the exhibit pending tribal consultation and approval is “under consideration,” said Edward Nichols, president and CEO of History Colorado. “We’re as interested in getting to a resolution of their concerns as they are.” He believes not getting the tribes involved sooner is at the heart of the dispute and is anxious for a conversation with them.
There are further complexities to this consultation process. Gordon Yellowman, a principal Cheyenne tribal chief and a Peace Chief on the Cheyenne Council of Forty-Four, said the tribe is governed by a dual traditional/Western-style system. A required federal government-to-government consultation process was established between the National Park Service and elected tribal officials who are, in turn, supposed to bring decisions back to the traditional leaders and headmen to whom they customarily defer, but the process hasn’t run smoothly, he said.
The museum conducts audience surveys to see how the exhibit was received by patrons. But Halaas feels, “they should be more concerned about the reaction of the tribes” both in terms of whether it’s an accurate, non-eurocentric historical account and how well it describes the event’s illegality and its past and present impacts on the tribes.
The most graphic material presented in the exhibit may be in a letter from Capt. Silas Soule, who refused to follow the orders of his commander, Army Col. John Chivington, to fire on the unarmed Indians and who later testified against Chivington for atrocities committed that day. Chivington later resigned his post in disgrace. Soule wrote in a letter to Gen. George Wynkoop, only one copy of which was available to the public at the installation:
“I tell you Ned it was hard to see little children on their knees have their brains beat out by men professing to be civilized… One squaw with her two children, were on their knees, begging for their lives of a dozen soldiers, within ten feet of them all firing—when one succeeded in hitting the squaw in the thigh, when she took a knife and cut the throats of both children and then killed herself.”
“This is an open wound—this is not healed,” Halaas said. “Let’s sit down together, and while we’re doing that, close this thing and reopen it after full consultation—that’s what the tribes want.”
“After all,” he concluded, “it isn’t their [museum officials’] history—but it’s affected every tribal family.”
The Swinomish Tribe has lived on the coasts of the Salish Sea for thousands of years. Today, rising seas not only threaten cultural traditions, but also the economic vitality of this small island nation in the shadow of two oil refineries.
After scientists identified sea level rise as a threat to the Lower Skagit River area, the tribe launched a climate change initiative to study the long-term impacts of climate change on their reservation, and to develop an action plan to adapt. Impacts of sea level rise on the island, including coastal erosion, habitat loss, and declining water quality, raised central concerns. The study presented the Swinomish with a difficult question: whether to plan for inches or feet of rise?
Planning must embrace a range of possibilities. Important factors used to calculate global sea level rise, such as melt rates of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, vary widely. In addition, regional estimates must include local factors such as wind patterns and tectonic activity.
The Upper Skagit Tribe is exploring the possibility of using a tangle net to learn more about Skagit River steelhead.
Last year, the tribe collected scales to determine the age and life history of 75 steelhead harvested over a two-week period during its ceremonial and subsistence fishery. But from a scientific standpoint, researchers need more than 75 samples and a longer sample period to learn about the steelhead run. This year, tribal natural resources staff are investigating whether a tangle net could enable them to sample a greater number of fish without increasing the impact to the run.
Tangle nets are similar to gillnets, but have a smaller mesh size, allowing fish to be released.
“Tangle nets have been demonstrated to allow steelhead to be released with limited mortality,” said Bob McClure, fisheries biologist for the Upper Skagit Tribe.
“The purpose of this year’s exploratory fishery is to collect additional biological and abundance data for management purposes,” McClure said. “If the tangle net fishery is successful, we could eventually use this method to gather data about winter steelhead outside of the traditional commercial fishery.”
During future fisheries, fishermen who harvest steelhead tagged with fluorescent orange Visual Implant tags are asked to contact McClure at 360-854-7058 with the tag and catch information.
In addition to taking scale samples, tribal natural resources staff measure and mark each steelhead with a small reflective orange tag behind its right eye. The tag will provide additional information if the fish is recaptured or harvested later during this fishery. It also allows for long-term identification beyond the duration of the test fishery.
For more information, contact: Bob McClure, fisheries biologist, Upper Skagit Tribe, 360-854-7058 or
Gale Courey Toensing, Indian Country Today Media Network, March 27, 2013
IGRA architect Frank Ducheneaux (left), Macarro (AP)
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the passage of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, the legislation that dramatically changed the economic landscape for tribal nations with casinos. In recognition of that momentous event, Indian Country Today Media Network decided to take a look at some of the early heroes of Indian gaming—the tribes and individuals who advanced it both before and after the passage of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.
TABLE STAKES
The precursor to IGRA was the 1987 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in California v. Cabazon Band of Indians, which upheld the right of sovereign Indian nations to conduct gaming on Indian lands free of state control when similar gaming is permitted by the state elsewhere. While Cabazon is often cited as the legal foundation for Indian gaming, a Supreme Court ruling more than a decade earlier paved the way for Cabazon: Bryan v. Itasca County. Russell and Helen Bryan, the Chippewa couple who brought the case forward, deserve a top spot on the list of early Indian gaming heroes, even though they had nothing to do with gaming.
In June 1972, the Bryans received a personal property tax bill for $29.85 from Itasca County in Minnesota, an assessment on their trailer home on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation. They took it to the local Legal Aid Society office, and attorneys there brought a lawsuit to challenge the tax bill in state court. The assessment, which kept going up over time, was challenged all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, and in June 1976, the high court ruled that states do not have authority to tax Indians on Indian reservations or to regulate Indian activities on reservations.
“Bryan thus was the bedrock upon which the Indian gaming industry began,” Kevin K. Washburn wrote in a Minnesota Law Review article entitled: “The Legacy of Bryan v. Itasca County: How an Erroneous copy47 Tax Notice Helped Bring Tribes $200 Billion in Indian Gaming Revenue”. Washburn, who was Oneida Nation Visiting Associate Professor of Law at Harvard Law School when his article was published in 2007, is currently the Interior Department’s Assistant Secretary—Indian Affairs. “If economic impact is a useful measure of importance, Bryan may be the most important victory for American Indian tribes in the U.S. Supreme Court in the latter half of the 20th century. Indian gaming is simply the most successful economic venture ever to occur consistently across a wide range of American Indian reservations,” Washburn wrote. If there’s any doubt about the importance of Bryan, he added, “consider that on the basis of the Bryan precedent, the Indian gaming industry was generating between copy00 million and $500 million in annual revenue before Cabazon was decided.”
And, indeed, all across the U.S., Indian country was bustling with gaming activities during the 1970s and 1980s.
THE BIRTH OF RED CAPITALISM
One of Turtle Island’s greatest advocates for Indian sovereignty and self-determination was the late, iconic Mescalero Apache leader Wendell A. Chino. Born in 1923, Chino was elected chairman of the Mescalero Apache’s tribal governing committee at the age of 28 and was reelected every two years until 1965 when he was named the first president of the Mescalero Apache Tribe, serving in that capacity for 16 consecutive terms.
Chino spearheaded the tribe’s shift to controlling its own natural resources, and by the same philosophy of “red capitalism,” in 1975 the Mescalero Apache Nation built the Ski Apache Ski Resort and the Inn of the Mountain Gods resort in the Sierra Blanca Peak, including the first tribal-owned golf course in the United States. At the Mescalero resort property, Chino was also instrumental in establishing one of the earliest Indian casinos (now called the Inn of the Mountain Gods Resort and Casino) by asserting that the state of New Mexico could not outlaw gaming on sovereign tribal land.
Chino led his Nation until his death in 1998 at the age of 74. “In the scheme of the 20th century, it has been said that Wendell Chino was a Martin Luther King or a Malcolm X of Indian country. He was truly a modern warrior,” said Roy Bernal, then chairman of the All Indian Pueblo Council and a member of the Taos Pueblo, in Chino’s obituary in the The New York Times.
From left: Hayward, Tommie and Halbritter (Courtesy Seminole Tribune/Seminole Tribe of Florida [Tommie]; courtesy Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation [Hayward]; Onieda Indian Nation [Halbritter])
Fifteen years ago, the National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA) established the Wendell Chino Humanitarian Award in his name to recognize tribal leaders whose actions have improved the lives of citizens in Indian country. For the first time, in 20 the award was presented to an entire tribe, the Quapaw Tribe of Oklahoma, whose altruistic and humanitarian actions helped tornado victims and their devastated community of Joplin, Missouri.
The winner of this year’s award will be honored on March 26 at the Wendell Chino Humanitarian Award Banquet during NIGA’s Indian Gaming 2013 Tradeshow and Convention in Phoenix.
On the East Coast, the Oneida Indian Nation, the Seminole Indians of Florida and the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation were among the earliest to develop Indian gaming.
FROM THE ASHES
Oneida’s gaming enterprise emerged from a tragedy. In June 1976, the aunt and uncle of Ray Halbritter, Oneida Nation Representative and Chief Executive Officer of Nation Enterprises, parent company of Indian Country Today Media Network, burned to death after their trailer caught fire. “The city of Oneida, which is named after us, refused to send the fire department,” Halbritter says. “It was a very tragic time for us. It was horrible.”
Tensions both on and off the reservation were running high because the nation had filed a lawsuit to restore its land rights, which was opposed by many in the surrounding communities. The reservation by that time had been reduced to 32 acres divided into 36 trailer lots, with a mud road down the center and no services. After that tragic fire, the nation’s leaders knew they needed to provide fire protection for the people, but there was no money, Halbritter recalls. They decided to follow the lead of the small fire departments and charities in the surrounding communities that held bingo and “Las Vegas” gambling nights as fund-raisers.
By October of that year, the Oneidas’ bingo operation was up and running. In an effort to develop a better relationship with the city of Oneida, the nation planned a bingo night fund-raiser for the city police department’s benevolent society. The nation informed the state of its plans and invited members of the police department to the event. “A certain number of police came representing the department, but we didn’t anticipate they would use the opportunity to arrest us for operating bingo without a license,” Halbritter recalls.
The nation didn’t have money to wage a legal battle against the state, so their high-stakes bingo operation was shut down. The Oneidas then opened a high-stakes bingo operation in 1985 after the Seminoles in Florida had fought—and won—some of the most important legal battles for Indian gaming. “After they went through all the legal battles, I went down there to visit and they had a flier that told the story of Seminole bingo and they mentioned the Oneida Nation of New York; they talked about the bingo that we had stared years earlier,” Halbritter says.
By 1993, the Oneida Nation, under Halbritter’s leadership, transformed its high-stakes bingo operation into the hugely successful Turning Stone Resort Casino, a world-class golf, gaming, entertainment and hotel resort destination.
SOVEREIGNTY IN THE SUNSHINE STATE
The Seminoles, under the leadership of Howard Tommie, had opened a high-stakes bingo hall on their reservation on December 14, 1979. It was the first casino on Indian land in the country and Broward County Sheriff Robert Butterworth threatened to shut it down and arrest the Seminoles for allegedly violating a Florida gaming statute the minute it opened. The tribe sued the county in Seminole v. Butterworth and won in both federal district court and in the appeals court, which upheld the lower court ruling that Indian tribes have sovereignty rights that are protected by the federal government from interference by state government. The ruling affirmed the Seminoles’ sovereign right to conduct high-stakes bingo on its land and established the tribe’s leadership in Class II gaming.
THE CONNECTICUT MIRACLE
Meanwhile, in Connecticut Pequot leader Skip Hayward was engaged in a three-pronged battle: (1) to save the Pequot reservation from a state takeover after his grandmother Elizabeth George died in 1973, leaving the 200-acre reservation without any residents; (2) to re-establish the fragmented Pequot people as a tribal community and (3) to gain federal acknowledgment. Working with attorneys in a Legal Aid office in 1974 and following a model set by the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy tribes in Maine, Hayward initiated a land claim lawsuit based on the 1790 Indian Nonintercourse Act and drafted a settlement agreement. The land claim raised a storm of opposition in the community and throughout the state, and was challenged in federal court. In 1983, the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation received from Congress 2,000 acres of land, federal acknowledgement, and $300,000 to invest in tribal economic development. Thus began the path that led to the creation of Foxwoods Resort Casino, the largest gaming facility in the country, and to an authentic and astonishing rags-to-riches story for the Pequot people.
“Clearly, we would not be here today without the remarkable dedication and commitment of our early leadership and that goes back to Skip Hayward,” Mashantucket Pequot Chairman Rodney A. Butler says. “His willingness to stand up and fight for Indian rights in the 1970s and again in the 1980s
Clockwise, top left: Wendell Chino, Jana McKeag, Leonard Prescott, Marge Anderson (Richard Pipes/Albuquerque Journal [Chino]; courtesy Leonard Prescott
on Indian gaming can’t be underscored enough. Clearly we wouldn’t be here without his persistence and efforts.”
Hayward started a very successful high-stakes bingo operation in 1986. After the Cabazon ruling in 1987 and the passage of IGRA in 1988, the nation began its pursuit of a casino. By 1993, the bingo operation had evolved into the full-fledged Foxwoods Resort Casino. Hayward had envisioned Foxwoods as the first world-class, family-oriented destination resort casino. “That was a tremendous credit to him and where he wanted it to grow,” Butler says.
Foxwoods’s spectacular success has stood as an inspirational story for all of Indian country, he adds. “Here’s this small tribe from Connecticut now owning one of the largest casinos in the world—we can all do that, right? Well, we can’t all do that, but just the inspiration and hope that it provided, I think, was a big influence on Indian gaming.”
MYSTIC LAKE
The Shakopee Mdwakanton Sioux (Dakota) Community in Minnesota was treading a similar path to Indian gaming success in the early 1980s. The poverty-stricken tribe opened a high-stakes bingo hall in 1982, which laid the groundwork for the development of Mystic Lake Casino a decade later. Leonard Prescott, a founding member of the National Indian Gaming Association in 1985, became the Shakopee chairman in 1987. “I built Mystic Lake Casino in 1991, 1992,” Prescott says. Under his leadership the Shakopee and other Minnesota tribes negotiated the first tribal state gaming compacts in the country in 1989. “The compacts are perpetual,” he says. “We have no time limits. We have no jackpot limits. We pay copy0,000 per tribal government which means today we pay copy50,000 to the state of Minnesota for a $2.5 billion business.”
The Mystic Lake Casino Hotel is one of the most successful in the country, providing the less than 400 citizens of the nation with more than copy million annually in payments. The nation also has a philanthropic program that has distributed hundreds of millions of dollars to local governments, organizations and people in Indian country. Last year, Shakopee donated $29 million.
Prescott says he is astounded at the tribe’s transformation. “When we first developed our bingo hall, we had a dirt road, we were making tracks to our building that sold welfare products, we had no sewer and water. So coming from there to where we are today is miraculous.”
WEST COAST FAST-TRACK
California developed the largest number of Indian gaming facilities in the shortest amount of time in the 1980s and 1990s, and even now—with 62 gaming tribes—it has the highest number of gaming tribes in the country, according to Casino City’s Indian Gaming Industry Report for 2013. The Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians opened its casino in 1995, the last tribe to do in the state during that early era, said Pechanga Chairman Mark Macarro. Numerous California tribes had successful bingo operations in the 1980s—the San Manuel, Morongo, Cabazon, Barona, and Viejas, Sycuan and Yocha Dehe. “These were the first and therefore the trailblazers,” Macarro says.
Several California tribal gaming facilities were shut down in the 1980s by sheriffs eager to prove tribal gaming was illegal under state laws. Those raids led directly to the watershed ruling in Cabazon, “which then rather quickly was contained and abridged in October of 1988 by the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act,” Macarro says.
But state opposition didn’t stop even after Cabazon and IGRA. Then-governor Pete Wilson disliked gaming and refused to negotiate with the tribes, despite IGRA’s mandate that he do so. Wilson complained about tribal gaming to anyone who’d listen—federal and state officials, Congress, U.S, attorneys, law enforcement, Macarro recalls. Finally, in March 1997, U.S. Attorney Nora M. Manella took action. “Each tribal chair (myself included) was issued a summons to appear in Los Angeles Federal District Court. Our machines had been legally seized, i.e. they were arrested—it’s called in rem seizure.”
The tribal leaders didn’t go to jail, and they called for a huge demonstration. Around 5,000 to 7,000 employees and supporters rallied and shut down the streets of downtown Los Angeles, Macarro says. “The point was: Shut us down? Do so and lose a huge economic engine and these thousands of people go unemployed. The high-point of this rally was when all the tribal chairs stood literally in unity on the top step of the courthouse—summons in hand—and spoke to the crowd. It galvanized us as a group and forged a strong bond which became the keystone for the first statewide ballot proposition battle—Prop 5—in 1988. This was the next major evolution for tribal cohesion and became a watershed period.” Macarro says. Prop 5 passed with 62 percent of the vote and established tribal-state compacts that allowed, among other things, slot machines in tribal casinos.
DOUBLING DOWN
This has been only a partial look at the early Indian gaming “heroes”—it would be impossible to acknowledge the contributions of everyone who worked to make Indian gaming a reality. But no list of Indian gaming trailblazers would be complete without mention of two great women of gaming: Marge Anderson, of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe in Minnesota, was the driving force behind the opening of Grand Casino Mille Lacs and Grand Casino Hinckley within four years of the passage of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act in 1988; Jana McKeag, of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, was one of the commissioners on the newly created National Indian Gaming Commission in 1991 and began the commission’s first task—writing the regulations that govern Indian gaming.
In the years since the passage of IGRA, Indian gaming has grown to a $27 billion-plus a year industry, giving tribal governments the means to build their nations and provide services for their citizens. It has also infused the U.S. economy with hundreds of billions of dollars and almost 700,000 jobs. While there are potential threats to Indian gaming in the long-term, the industry is likely to continue its success into the mid-term future, says economist Alan Meister, author of Casino City’s Indian Gaming Industry Report for 2013. “The economy will continue to improve over time, bringing back disposable income, consumer confidence and spending on casino gambling.” So, in the words of former Shakopee chairman Leonard Prescott, it is likely the country will be able to enjoy the miraculous phenomenon of Indian gaming for the foreseeable future.
Research into the effects of same-sex parenting shows that the sexual orientation of parents is not a major determinant in how well children fare. What matters more, researchers found, is the quality of parenting and the family’s economic well-being.
By Sandhya Somashekhar, The Washington Post
From left, the Rev. Rebecca Voelkel, partner Maggie George and their daughter Shannon Voelkel take part in a demonstration in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday as justices heard arguments on the California Proposition 8 appeal. Win McNamee / Getty Images
WASHINGTON — Amid the legal arguments at Tuesday’s Supreme Court hearing on same-sex marriage, there loomed a social-science question: How well do children turn out when they are raised by gay parents?
Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is widely considered the swing vote, called the topic “uncharted waters.” Conservative Justice Samuel Alito Jr. wryly asked, “You want us to step in and render a decision based on an assessment of the effects of this institution which is newer than cellphones or the Internet?”
Indeed, gay marriage is a relatively new phenomenon in the United States. It has only been legal since 2004, when Massachusetts began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Eight more states and Washington have legalized same-sex nuptials since then, but they have been banned in 35 states.
Researchers have been delving into the effects of same-sex parenting only since the 1980s and 1990s. Most of the studies involve relatively small samples because of the rarity of such families.
Still, there is a growing consensus among experts that the sexual orientation of parents is not a major determinant in how well children fare in school, on cognitive tests and in terms of their emotional development.
What matters more, researchers found, is the quality of parenting and the family’s economic well-being.
“I can tell you we’re never going to get the perfect science, but what you have right now is good-enough science,” said Benjamin Siegel, a professor of pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine. “The data we have right now are good enough to know what’s good for kids.”
Siegel co-authored a report issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics last week when it came out in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage. The group looked at dozens of studies conducted over 30 years and concluded that legalizing same-sex marriage would strengthen families and benefit children.
The best study, Siegel said, is the National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study, which began in 1986 with 154 lesbian mothers who conceived children through artificial insemination. A recent look at 78 offspring found that the children did fine — better, even, than children in a similar study involving more diverse families.
Many opponents of same-sex marriage argue that the academy’s conclusions are premature. They point to some recent studies, including one from Mark Regnerus, a sociology professor from the University of Texas at Austin.
Regnerus, who could not be reached for this article, found that adults who reported being raised by a person who had a homosexual experience were more likely to be on welfare or experience sexual abuse.
Regnerus has been the subject of intense criticism from mainstream researchers and pro-gay marriage activists. But opponents of same-sex marriage say his work should provide a note of caution on an issue that has yet to be studied in adequate depth.
“What the social science makes clear, and it has for several decades, is that children tend to do best when they’re raised by their married biological parents,” said Jennifer Marshall, director of domestic policy studies for the conservative Heritage Institute. “In the case of same-sex households, there is not yet evidence that (children) are going to be the same. There’s every reason to believe that different family structures will have different outcomes.”
Susan Brown, a professor of sociology at Bowling Green State University in Ohio who studies family structures, said it is true that decades of research show that children turn out slightly better when they are raised by their biological parents compared with those reared by single parents or in “step” households.
But children raised in committed same-sex couple-led households do not appear to do statistically worse, she said.
“One thing we’re finding that’s very important for children is stability in their family life,” Brown said.
“To the extent that marriage is a vehicle through which children can achieve stability,” she said, “It only follows that marriage is something that would be beneficial to children.”
Seven eagles poisoned nearly to death after feeding on carcasses of euthanized horses in Lewis County should be well enough for release from wildlife shelters this week.
By Lynda V. Mapes, The Seattle Times
A volunteer at the West Sound Wildlife Shelter on Bainbridge Island nurses one of the eagles sickened by eating carcasses of euthanized horses. Photo: Dottie Tison
Seven eagles poisoned nearly to death after feeding on euthanized horse carcasses are expected to be released this week.
The eagles are alert, getting feisty and are being moved to outdoor cages, said Mike Pratt, wildlife director at the West Sound Wildlife Shelter on Bainbridge Island, which cared for six of the eagles. The shelter, funded by donations, takes in wild animals of all sorts that have been injured or orphaned.
The shelter started getting calls over the weekend about first one eagle, then a second found nearly dead on private property in Winlock, Lewis County. By the time shelter staffers arrived to pick up the birds on Sunday, four more had become sick, Pratt said. The six birds — five juveniles and an adult — were so ill they were convulsing, vomiting, and could not stand. Two were comatose.
Back at the shelter, volunteers and two veterinarians were waiting. They administered a charcoal purgative around the clock and, by Tuesday morning, even the sickest birds had revived. They may be released by the end of the week, right back where they came from, Pratt said.
A seventh poisoned eagle had been taken to the wildlife shelter at the Audubon Society of Portland on Friday. That eagle, a first-year male, looks excellent and will be released Wednesday, said Lacy Campbell, operations manager at the wildlife center.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is investigating the incident, said spokeswoman Joan Jewett. It is a federal offense to poison an eagle, even accidentally.
It all started with horses, euthanized and left by their owner in a field, said Jewett, who added that the carcasses have since been buried.
Stephanie Estrella, director and wildlife rehabilitator of Raindancer Wild Bird Rescue in Olympia, which cared for the birds before the larger Bainbridge shelter could come collect them, said this was the first time she had encountered raptors poisoned by tainted carcasses.
Most of the raptors she has cared for were victims of car strikes, or torn up in fights with other raptors.
She got the first call from Sharon Thomas, a Winlock resident who saw an eagle acting strangely in a field in front of her house.
“It flopped and flew, and flopped and flew. It crashed several times,” Thomas said. “Then it came right to me, it sat right at my feet as if it had come for help.”
Thomas took the eagle to her house, put it in a kennel, took photos of it, and put them on Facebook asking for help. Ultimately, it was Estrella from Raindancer who came to collect the eagle.
Little did Thomas know she was in for a long weekend of more of the same, as she and her neighbors walked and drove the area, on the alert for more animals in distress. “It was heart-wrenching,” Thomas said. “Seeing a large, majestic bird falling over on its head is very sad. Picking them up, seeing them unresponsive and lethargic. Picking up the two others that seemed dead, their eyes were not open, they were barely breathing.”
Eventually, she and the neighbors walking the field and thickets found two horse carcasses, with eagles feeding on them. “I picked an adult off one of the horses. He was covered in rotten meat and blood and so was I,” Thomas said.
She and other neighbors collected six sick eagles, and drove off others trying to feed on the carcasses. “It was very hard to drive away from the work Monday morning,” Thomas said. “I don’t know what other wildlife may have been affected.”
The Longview Daily News reported Monday that the horses’ owner, Debra Dwelly, said she had no idea she had created a hazard until federal wildlife agents, alerted by the animal-shelter operators to the eagles’ plight, showed up at her home on Sunday, after cruising the area in a small plane and spotting the carcasses.
Dwelly told the Daily News the poisoning was an honest mistake that occurred because a friend’s backhoe had broken down, delaying burial of the horses she had put down earlier last week.
Washington state law requires the owners of animals or owners of land on which animal carcasses are found to bury or incinerate carcasses within 72 hours so they do not become a hazard.
Attempts by The Seattle Times to reach Dwelly were unsuccessful Tuesday.
Meanwhile, all seven eagles were getting stronger by the hour. Thomas said she is eager to seeing them released.
“I look forward to them returning and behaving as an eagle should,” Thomas said. “They should be aggressive. You shouldn’t be holding them in your arms.”
The Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office’s newly acquired SeaLion-2 underwater robot, dubbed “Batman” by deputies, cruises in a South Everett swimming pool last week. Its controllers are seen above the robot. Photo: Mark Mulligan / The Herald
EVERETT — In the water, the robot looked like a curious critter.
It glided through the pool, poking its nose up to the surface to nudge at obstacles.
The robot is construction-equipment yellow, about the size of a small dog.
Nearby, specially trained deputies watched its movements on a computer screen, scanning the water through its “eyes.”
The Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office recently acquired an underwater robot, a JW Fishers SeaLion-2, through a federal grant.
They call it “Batman.”
Batman went for a test drive last week at a community pool in south Everett. It splashed around and posed for pictures.
Its true missions are more somber.
The sheriff’s office got Batman in January, Lt. Rodney Rochon said.
Later that month, Batman helped them gather underwater visuals as they pulled a car from the Snohomish River. The bodies of two missing people were inside.
On March 16, Batman found the body of a fisherman who drowned in Silver Lake the day before.
Batman’s worth about $40,000, Rochon said. As part of the federal grant that paid for the acquisition, the dive team and the robot can be called to help with rescue and recovery operations throughout the region.
At least two children and two adults drowned in Snohomish County in 2012.
Rescues are the team’s top priority, Rochon said. In the cases when they can’t rescue someone, they try to find the body.
“We need to recover the victim so the family can get closure,” Rochon said. “It’s not just about the investigation.”
The robot also can be used to gather intelligence and limit the time human divers spend in the water, he said. It can weather harsher conditions and dive deeper — up to 1,000 feet — and for longer than people can. Deputies only can dive 100 feet for safety reasons.
The SeaLion-2 design is most popular with law enforcement, said Chris Combs, a spokesman for JW Fishers, the Massachusetts-based manufacturer. It weighs about 40 pounds. It has high-resolution color cameras in front and back and four motors to propel it forward, backward, up and down. Some models have sonar technology.
“The SeaLion-2 is really a pretty neat little machine,” Combs said.
The sheriff’s office also got to lease a SWAT robot for free for a while last year. On one mission, it helped dissolve a standoff in Marysville.
The lease ended a while back, and that robot went back home.
FLAGSTAFF Ariz. — Two Southwest tribes are moving closer to securing radio stations that others in Indian Country have turned to for emergency alerts, health tips, the latest rodeo news, traditional stories and language lessons.
American Indian tribes hold less than one percent of the roughly 15,200 radio station licenses issued by the Federal Communications Commission, a figure the commission has been trying to boost through a rule it approved in 2010 to give federally recognized tribes priority in the application process, and help preserve language and culture.
“Telling one’s own story, broadcasting in one’s own voice, in an exercise of self-determination and self-reliance, is so important a goal of so many broadcasters in tribal communities that its value cannot be overstated,” the FCC said in its 2012 annual report.
Earlier this month, the FCC set aside the first two FM allotments under its Tribal Radio Priority for the Hualapai Tribe in northwestern Arizona and Navajo Technical College in northwestern New Mexico. The tribe and the college owned by the Navajo Nation are now waiting for the FCC to open a filing window so they can secure construction permits and build their stations.
“Radio will give them tremendous community outlook,” said Fred Hannel, a consultant for the Hualapai Tribe. “They can rally the whole community around a radio station, give them a sense of identity.”
Other tribal entities will have an opportunity to apply for the same allotments for the commercial stations after the FCC’s order takes effect April 15. The Hualapai Tribe says it isn’t expecting to lose out because no other tribe is located in the area it wants to broadcast.
Applicants who want to be considered under the tribal priority must be a federally recognized tribe or an entity, like the college, that is majority-owned by a tribe and propose to cover at least 50 percent tribal land. Successful applications are processed without going through an auction.
Navajo Technical College had faced competition in applying for a construction permit for a non-commercial educational station under a points-base system. But the college did not build the station before the permit expired in August 2008, and the FCC denied a request for an extension and to downgrade the service area. The college said it erroneously believed that grant funding it secured to set up the radio station and the construction permit would expire at the same time, and it also couldn’t get electricity to its original transmitter site, according to FCC documents.
At the time, the college said it was “virtually guaranteed” to prevail under the Tribal Radio Priority for a commercial FM station. The FCC said it wouldn’t prejudge a future proceeding nor apply the tribal priority retroactively. The station would reach out to 13,500 people in remote, isolated areas around Crownpoint, N.M., and be broadcast in Navajo, the college wrote in FCC documents.
The Hualapai Tribe already has been using the Internet to broadcast morning blessings, results of tribal elections, a radio drama aimed at improving health, traditional Hualapai music and community service announcements. The FM radio station would allow anyone within a 30-mile radius of the station to tune in, particularly those who can’t access the Internet.
“Once we get our FM frequency on, it’s really going to build a lot of interest,” said tribal member Candida Hunter.
The spread of information on the reservation otherwise comes through fliers posted at government offices, a tribal newsletter or word of mouth. Terri Hutchens, project coordinator, said tribal members could have benefited last year from an announcement over the radio about water contamination, which led to a temporary school closure. She said some people received fliers but others didn’t find out until days later when the problem was fixed.
“That’s something certainly that could be addressed through the emergency alert system,” she said.
The radio station won’t reach the entire 1-million-acre reservation along the southern edge of the Grand Canyon on the western corridor. Hutchens said the tribe has plans to expand the range within five years. The funding is in place for terrestrial radio equipment, and the tribe will use existing towers for the transmitter.
For now, community members are encouraging each other to listen to the Internet broadcast and volunteers are pitching in to provide content in the Hualapai language.
“We’ve actually been having fun. We’ve been bringing them in to train them on how to be a DJ,” Hutchens said.
![From left: Hayward, Tommie and Halbritter (Courtesy Seminole Tribune/Seminole Tribe of Florida [Tommie]; courtesy Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation [Hayward]; Onieda Indian Nation [Halbritter])](http://ictmncdn1.tgpstage1.com/sites/default/files/default/files/uploads/screen_shot_2013-03-26_at_4.03.54_pm.png)
![Clockwise, top left: Wendell Chino, Jana McKeag, Leonard Prescott, Marge Anderson (Richard Pipes/Albuquerque Journal [Chino]; courtesy Leonard Prescott](http://ictmncdn1.tgpstage1.com/sites/default/files/default/files/uploads/screen_shot_2013-03-26_at_4.04.07_pm.png)
