As of April 1, Inuktitut became an official language of Nunavut, putting it on par with English and French in the territory.
“This level of statutory protection for an aboriginal language is unprecedented in Canada,” said the Government of Nunavut’s Department of Culture and Heritage in an April 2 news release.
The passage of the Official Languages Act has been five years in the making. This act takes the place of the Northwest Territories Official Languages Act, which recognized only English and French as official languages. The older act did give “a lesser set of rights to seven aboriginal languages, including Inuktitut,” according to Uqausivut, a comprehensive language plan. But, as the plan points out, “This does not reflect the realities of Nunavut, where a majority of people speak neither English nor French as their first language, but a single Aboriginal language.”
To help support public agencies in becoming compliant with the new act, the Department of Culture and Heritage will provide $5 million for Inuit language initiatives.
“I am proud that Inuit in Nunavut now have a clear statement of their inherent right to the use of the Inuit language in full equality with English and French,” said James Arreak, Minister of Languages, in the press release.
By Jack McNeel, Indian Country Today Media Network
There are no tipis, no horse parades, no trailers selling frybread. There’s not even any grass or dirt, but there’s no question that this is a pow wow—an important, meaningful pow wow. The smiles on the faces of the inmates, the laughter, the hugs and kisses, the families mixing freely with the prisoners—all this makes you momentarily forget that you are in a Washington state prison, in a large concrete room, surrounded by iron bars and razor wire.
What made the 2012 pow wow even better than the previous year’s is the kids, who were for the first time allowed to attend. The printed program provided at Airway Heights Corrections Center says: “This ceremony is dedicated to the shorties. We love you.”
In 2010 the state of Washington removed various traditional practices and religious rights from Native inmates because of budget constraints. One of those was access to pow wows. Some of those rights were reinstated in 2011, thanks to the work of tribal leaders and tribal lawyers. Common sense also prevailed, with people recognizing that the rehabilitation of inmates would be enhanced if these religious and cultural practices were permitted.
The Pacific Islanders bring the noise at Coyote Ridge Corrections Center. (Jack McNeel)
A new organization was formed to help Native prisoners receive better opportunities for cultural and religious activities aimed at rehabilitation. It’s called Huy, from a Coast Salish word meaning “See you again / We never say good-bye.” Gabriel S. Galanda, chairman of the board for that group, says, “Our imprisoned relatives are virtually forgotten, even by tribal communities. Huy intends to keep them in our hearts and minds, and to improve their tribal ways of life behind bars.
Minty LongEarth, an enrolled Santee Indian Nation of South Carolina tribal member, is the Native American Religious Services program director with the United Indians of All Tribes Foundation in Seattle. She basically oversees all the prison pow wows throughout the state. “There are 12 Washington prisons and at those 12 there are 20 Native circles,” she said.
An inmate from Montana who is a member of the Gros Ventre Tribe is at Airway Heights Corrections Center. He is grateful that someone had brought the pow wow back to his prison. “It’s a beautiful thing—all of us gathered together,” he says. “It’s a gathering of all our family, loved ones.… We’re one family, one circle. We dance and we sing and we pray and everything comes together.”
His nephew grabs a bite of food as his mother adjusts his regalia. He then joins his uncle in the dance area, moving to the beat of the drum, very much at ease despite the prison’s concrete walls. “It’s sharing,” he says. “Sharing gifts, stories, meeting new people, new tribes, different nations, different people. I take this walk seriously, this red road seriously. I’m a true believer in everything—the sweat lodge, pow wow, anything sacred.
“I had to come to prison, but prison isn’t always a bad thing. There’s good that comes with it—like this. It helps me get through the year. It’s the happiest I’ve been for a while. I can’t thank the Creator enough for this time and opportunity to be with my family and share this moment. I carry this deep within my soul, my heart, my spirit.”
Another inmate, from Fort Peck, Montana, also treasures the pow wows. “You can’t really put into words how much this means to us,” he says. “It’s the one day of the year that we’re able to show our families we’re better than what they saw us out there doing. Today was the first time that I’ve seen so many grown men in here shed a tear—[that happened] when they saw the little shorties out there dancing.” He says he still has a long time left on his sentence, 25 years, but, “this will help me get through the whole next year. Right after today we’ll start planning and looking forward to the next one.”
Joseph Luce, the chaplain at Airway Heights, also praises the monthly opportunities for Native inmates to engage in cultural activities: “Once a week they get to go out to the sweat lodge area. Twice a month they’ll sweat. The weeks they’re not sweating, they’ll go out and do a pipe ceremony outside. Once a week they’ll be drumming. They get together on average a couple times a week. We also offer special classes to work on drum skills and work on beading skills.”
The pow wow at the Coyote Ridge prison has a slightly different feel from the one at Airway Heights. Security seems a little tighter, but the smiles are equally broad and the drums equally busy.
“These kids coming to prison now are getting younger and younger,” says one inmate who has spent many years in prison. “How are we going to change that cycle? Inside prison, through this program, we’re able to bring up the younger kids, the 18-, 19- and 20-year-old kids and change their lives around by giving them a tool, by giving them a skill. Having them interact with United Indians of All Tribes. Just maybe through that collaboration they’ll be able to get some kind of help when they do get out.
“This is the biggest event of the year for the prison,” he says. “Without this event, life would really suck. This is a really happy event. You see all the men with smiles on their face. There’s a lot of unity here. Unfortunately, in the cells, that unity isn’t there. Here we come together as a family, as a fellowship. We can look at each other and think, That‘s my brother, my friend. This is almost like being free.”
The Sierra Club and four other environmental groups Tuesday said they intend to file a federal lawsuit to force BNSF Railway and six coal companies to better contain the coal being shipped in open-topped trains.
By Hal Bernton
The Sierra Club and four other environmental groups Tuesday said they intend to file a federal lawsuit to force BNSF Railway and six coal companies to better contain the coal being shipped in open-topped train cars.
In a legal notice sent to the companies, the environmental groups contend that the trains are spewing coal dust and chunks of debris into the Columbia River, the Lake Washington Ship Canal and other Northwest waterways in violation of the federal Clean Water Act.
The legal challenge comes as environmental groups are campaigning against proposals to build new coal-export terminals in Washington and Oregon that would greatly increase the amount of coal trains moving through the Northwest.
“This action today seeks to stop illegal pollution and keep our river free of dirty coal,” said Brett VandenHeuvel, executive director of the Columbia Riverkeeper. “The threat of coal export makes this lawsuit even timelier.”
Puget Soundkeeper Alliance, Friends of the Columbia Gorge and RE Sources for Sustainable Communities also signed on to the intent-to-sue letter.
In a statement released Tuesday, BNSF said that the railroad has ”safely hauled coal in Washington for decades. Yet despite the movement of so much coal over such a long period of time, we were not aware of a single coal dust complaint lodged with a state agency in the Northwest or with the railroad until the recent interest in coal export terminals.”
“This is nothing more than the threat of a nuisance lawsuit without merit, that is part of an ongoing campaign to designed to create headlines to influence the review process for proposed export terminals,” the statement said.
In Washington state, major new export terminals are proposed for Longview and Cherry Point near Bellingham to send Montana and Wyoming coal to Asian markets. Some coal already is being shipped through Washington for export from British Columbia, and some is shipped to coal-fired plant near Centralia.
That legal notice was accompanied by a listing of more than 20 sites in Washington where coal has spilled since the beginning of 2011.
The document also includes photographs that depict coal dust blowing off a train as it passes along the Columbia River near Horsethief Lake. They also show what appear to be nuggets or chunks of coal at other locations, including near the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks in Seattle.
In a teleconference with reporters, several Washington residents spoke about their experiences with coal from the trains. Don McDermott, of Dallesport, Klickitat County, says that coal dust has blown off the trains and settled on his grapevines that grow beside the railroad track in a fish pond.
“My primary concern is that there is trespass on my property,” McDermott said. “The railroads need to contain their loads. The shippers need to contain their loads.”
The legal notice by environmental groups cited industry studies that indicated from 250 to 700 pounds of coal were lost from each rail car during transport.
Courtney Wallace, the BNSF spokeswoman, said that past studies were rough estimates, and indicated the coal losses fluctuated, primarily while the trains were within the Powder River Basin in southeast Montana and northeast Wyoming.
She said the studies were done before 2011, when new regulations to reduce coal dust were put in place.
Wallace says the new coal-loading rules require shippers to take added measures to address coal loss, including putting chemicals known as “topper agents” on the coal that reduce most of the coal-dust loss.
The chemicals also have stirred some concern.
In a Jan. 22 letter to agencies that will prepare the environmental-impact statement for the proposed Cherry Point terminal, the Washington Department of Natural Resources notes that one of these chemicals used in cleaning up the 2010 Gulf Oil spill has “been implicated in subsequent fish and shellfish deformities.”
Controversy is Jeremy Scott’s thing; you may remember Co.Design’s coverage of his Adidas shackle sneakers, which braced wearer’s ankles with chains. “In retrospect,” wrote Mark Wilson, “they weren’t such a fantastic idea.” Last month, Scott unveiled his 2013 Adidas Originals collection, and while it’s not all easy punchlines about race and ethnicity, many critics are up in arms about several garments that borrow from Pacific Northwest Native American traditions.
Scott’s thing is parroting genres and subgenres–which usually results in some pretty awesome hybrid garments. Take a peek at the lookbook and see how many distinct cultural sects you can count. I got to five, at least. Scott gives nods to late ’70s British skinheads, ’80s urban streetwear, and ’90s raver culture, to name just a few.
The 2013 collection stumbles into some problematic territory when it comes to a series of tracksuits, shoes, and dresses decorated with cartoon renderings of Pacific Northwest Native American carvings–what some bloggers are calling “totem pole print.” Totems originated as a way for some First Nation groups along the Pacific coast to honor their ancestors, describe legends, and sometimes, memorialize the dead. Scott’s simplified the symbology and tacked them onto dresses, tracksuits, and sneakers.
Curious what those in the Native community would think, I reached out to Jessica Metcalfe, a Turtle Mountain Chippewa who is a professor of Native American art, fashion, and design. As it turns out, she’d already seen the designs and written a post about them. “Misappropriations like this one are bad, unethical, and in some cases illegal,” she told me. “Bizarre, garish, unpleasant and disgusting were several terms used to describe this outfit by people in the Native American community. Several individuals noticed that his inspiration was unoriginal, and that his take on Northwest Coast formline was ignorant, disrespectful and badly construed (in other words, Scott needs to work on his ovoids and u-forms).”
More than that, Metcalfe explains, they devalue the meaning and quality of the original source material. “When companies like Forever 21, Urban Outfitters, or Adidas put out tacky images like this, they perpetuate the idea that Native American people have no sense of ownership or artistic legacy when it comes to our art, and anyone can steal it, tack their name on it, and make a buck–all the while putting forward the idea that our art is ugly and cheap,” she says.
After mulling over these images for a bit, I wondered if there’s a “right” way to do this. Metcalfe thinks so–after all, she’s built a business mindfully promoting Native designers through her blog and online shop, Beyond Buckskin. For the prolific and often very funny Scott, it seems like a missed opportunity: Why not make this a joint effort with the First Nation artists? I’m willing to bet that the fruits of that collaboration would’ve been super interesting. Instead, we get a cartoon version of a tradition that goes back hundreds of years. Even divorced from its historical underpinnings, it’s just sort of. . .lazy.
Whether you agree with critics or not, it seems that Adidas wants to keep these from American eyes–these pieces won’t be available in the United States. Check out the full collection and judge for yourself here.
YAKIMA — A Northwest Indian tribe urged federal officials to explain their position against slaughtering horses in the United States, calling it “absurd” to prohibit the practice.
The question of equine slaughter has been a hot-button issue in the West, where horses hold an iconic role as loyal companions. Animal welfare groups have expressed outrage at the idea of resuming domestic slaughter, which Congress effectively banned in 2006 by cutting funding for federal inspection programs. Others, including some animal welfare groups, contend the ban has resulted in increased horse abuse and abandonment and booming wild horse populations on state, federal and tribal lands.
No group is perhaps more affected by the matter than the Yakama Nation, a Washington tribe with an estimated 12,000 wild horses roaming across its sprawling reservation in the arid, south-central part of the state, Yakama Nation Chairman Harry Smiskin said in a March 29 letter to President Barack Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.
“We don’t understand why it is OK to slaughter many animals in this country — certainly the White House and the USDA have meat on their cafeteria menus every day — but for some reason horses are considered sacrosanct,” Smiskin wrote. “We should not manage these horses based on purely emotional arguments, story books or movies we all saw as children.”
Smiskin argued the market for horse meat in other parts of the world, as well as the United States before World War II, could create jobs, humanely reduce overpopulated herds and feeds others, adding “it is absurd to prohibit it.”
Smiskin declined to talk about the letter in a telephone interview Monday.
Congress lifted the slaughter ban in a spending bill the president signed into law in November. Now the USDA is preparing to inspect a southern New Mexico meat company that has been fighting for more than a year for approval to convert its former cattle slaughter operation into a horse slaughterhouse.
Valley Meat Co. sued the USDA last year to resume the inspections, and the agency said last month it had no choice legally but to move forward with the application, as well as several others. However, the Obama administration threw a new twist into the more than yearlong debate with a statement urging Congress to reinstate the ban.
Several Northwest tribes have joined together in support of opening a horse slaughterhouse in the region to address booming wild horse populations on their reservations. The Yakama and Colville tribes in Washington, the Umatilla and Warm Springs tribes in Oregon, and Shoshone Bannock in Idaho say the horses destroy medicinal plants and damage habitat for other species.
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Associated Press writer Jeri Clausing contributed to this story from Albuquerque, N.M.
A retired Marine’s journey aims to raise awareness for those wounded in war
Mark Mulligan / The Herald Chuck Lewis, a Marine Corps veteran living in Ronan, Mont., walks eastbound down U.S. 2morning toward Gold Bar on Monday, the second day of a 3,300 mile, 6-month journey across the U.S.
By Gale Fiege, The Herald
STARTUP — Retired Marine Corps Sgt. Chuck Lewis is walking for the fallen.
U.S. soldiers, sailors and Marines killed in war or those who returned with physical and mental disabilities are the focus of his cross-country campaign.
Lewis is committed to walk 3,300 miles from Everett to Washington, D.C., during the next six months to raise money and awareness for programs that help military veterans.
Lewis, 62, from Ronan, Mont., began his patriotic journey Easter morning at Legion Park in Everett where Bill Quistorf, an Army veteran who lives near the park, shook his hand. Lewis said goodbye to his wife and daughters and started walking down Marine View Drive to Hewitt Avenue headed to U.S. 2.
He won’t see his wife again until he reaches Kalispell, Mont. They’ll have another reunion in Dubuque, Iowa, and she plans to meet him in late September when he finishes at the Vietnam Memorial in the nation’s capital. Hoping to walk 25 miles a day, Lewis plans to reach Chicago, dip down to North Carolina and then up to Washington, D.C.
Lewis, a Vietnam veteran and retired electrical engineer, is pushing a flag-decorated cart loaded with a tent, a sleeping bag, clothes for any weather condition, a second pair of shoes and a solar panel to power his iPhone, which is interfaced with a SPOT global positioning system that allows his supporters to track his progress online.
He spent Sunday night at the Sultan Firehouse, where firefighters Steve Tonkin, Michelle Fox and Andrew Lowry decided to take Lewis out for supper.
“He’s got a long way to go, so we wanted to give him a good start,” said Tonkin, 47. “Chuck’s a good guy. I’m a veteran, too, so what he’s doing hits home in several ways.”
Though he was prepared for chilly rain, Lewis donned a pair of athletic shorts and a T-shirt Monday morning to continue his spring walk along U.S. 2 in the Skykomish River valley.
In Startup, Lewis wondered aloud if this was the community where he would begin to see some elevation gain.
“Is this where I start going up? I see the mountains ahead,” Lewis joked. “I already have a blister, but I’ve run 100-mile races and I’m prepared.”
While taking a break, Lewis told a story about two Marine Corps veterans who returned to Ronan last year from combat duty in Afghanistan. One came home missing his legs. The other killed himself three weeks later.
“In the military, these guys have a purpose and people who have their backs. When they get home, everybody is busy, so they have nobody to talk to. The economy is poor and they can’t find a job,” Lewis said. “I probably can’t help too many of these guys personally, but I can raise awareness and money for the programs that can.”
Lewis waves to the drivers who honk their horns. Occasionally people stop him to ask about his journey.
The side of his cart is decorated with a thermometer graphic that shows how much Lewis has raised for veterans. His goal is $50,000, but he has a second thermometer ready to go should people donate more.
Lewis invites people to walk with him through their towns. If anyone asks, he is able to give a presentation about his trip. He also welcomes help with places to sleep, shower and wash clothes.
Source: Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, www.nwifc.org
OLYMPIA – The state of Washington must fix fish-blocking culverts under state-owned roads because they violate tribal treaty rights, federal Judge Ricardo Martinez ruled on Friday, March 29.
“This is a historic day,” said Billy Frank Jr., Nisqually tribal member and chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission. “This ruling isn’t only good for the resource, but for all of us who live here. It will result in more salmon for everyone. This is a great victory for all who have worked so hard to recover wild salmon.”
Martinez issued a permanent injunction requiring the state to repair more than 600 state-owned fish-blocking culverts over the next 17 years to “ensure that the State will act expeditiously in correcting the barrier culverts which violate treaty promises.” Treaty Indian tribes filed the initial culvert case litigation in 2001. The tribes, the United States and the state spent several years trying to settle the case, but were unable to reach agreement.
Tribes reserved the right to harvest salmon in treaties with the United States government more than 150 years ago. That right was upheld in U.S. v. Washington, the 1974 ruling that recognized the tribal right to half of the harvestable salmon returning to state waters and established the tribes as co-managers of the resource with the state.
The injunction was necessary, Martinez ruled, because the state has reduced repair efforts in the past three years, resulting in a net increase of fish blocking culverts. At the current rate, repairs would never be completed, he ruled, because more culverts were becoming barriers to salmon than were being fixed.
“The salmon needs our help now,” Frank said. “Salmon habitat throughout the region continues to be damaged and destroyed faster than we can repair it, and the trend is not improving. This ruling is a step in the right direction.”
Blocking culverts deny salmon access to hundreds of miles of good habitat in western Washington streams, affecting the fish in all stages of their life cycle. State agencies told the Legislature in 1995 that fixing culverts was one of the most cost-effective strategies for restoring salmon habitat and increasing natural salmon production. In 1997 state agencies estimated that every dollar spent fixing culverts would generate four dollars worth of additional salmon production. Recent studies support the state’s findings.
In the ruling Martinez wrote that the state’s duty to fix the culverts does not arise from a “broad environmental servitude” by the state to the treaty tribes, but rather a “narrow and specific treaty-based duty that attaches when the state elects to block rather than bridge a salmon-bearing stream. . .”
“Judge Martinez’s ruling was clear,” Frank said. “Our treaty-reserved right to harvest salmon also includes the right to have those salmon protected so that they are available for harvest, not only by the tribes, but by everyone who lives here.”
Cost estimates provided by the state are higher than the actual repair costs shown in court, Martinez held. He noted that repairs would be funded through the state’s separate transportation budget and would not come at the expense of education or other social services. Costs will be spread out over a 17-year correction program. As highway projects go, the corrections are mostly small.
“The cost will be a small sliver of the State’s two-year $7 billion transportation budget,” Frank said.
The March 29 ruling follows an August 2007 summary judgment issued by Martinez in favor of the tribes, but did not include a remedy to fix the culverts. He encouraged the tribes and state to continue to try and resolve the issue outside of court, but those efforts were unsuccessful.
“We prefer to collaborate with the state to restore and protect salmon and their habitat,” Frank said. “However, the state’s unwillingness to work together and solve the problems of these salmon-blocking culverts in a timely manner left us with no alternative except the courts.”
Photo courtesy of Rep. John McCoy Rep. John McCoy, D-Tulalip, during his Air Force duty in the 1960s. During the 1968 Tet Offensive, McCoy was stationed at Clark Air Base in the Philippines, a major supply base for U.S. forces in the Vietnam War.
There was no heroes’ welcome. When Tim McDonald and other Americans returned from their Vietnam War duty, they were ignored or worse.
“Many Vietnam veterans, myself included, we didn’t feel the support of the nation at all,” he said Thursday.
McDonald, 65, was in the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division. He was in Vietnam in 1970 and 1971.
It was 40 years ago today — March 29, 1973 — that the last U.S. combat troops left South Vietnam, officially ending direct American military involvement in the Vietnam War. Two years later, in 1975, the Saigon government fell.
McDonald lives on Whidbey Island. He is retiring today from his job as director of the Snohomish Health District’s communicable disease control division. Not only does the Vietnam War seem like ages ago, he said, “it seems like an entire separate universe.”
One major difference between then and now is the honor accorded servicemen and women returning from war. Today, Americans are united in our gratitude for veterans’ military service.
During the Vietnam War era, that wasn’t so. Troops came home to anti-war demonstrations, and were ignored or insulted.
Today, our state takes a step toward righting a wrong. At 9:15 a.m., Gov. Jay Inslee plans to sign House Bill 1319, an act declaring that March 30 be recognized each year as Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day in Washington state.
Not a legal holiday, it’s a day of remembrance on which public places will display the POW-MIA flag along with the American flag. The bill was sponsored by Rep. Norm Johnson, R-Yakima, and a number of co-sponsors, including Rep. John McCoy, D-Tulalip.
The proposal was brought to Johnson by a member of the Yakama Warriors Association, an American Indian veterans group in Eastern Washington.
An Air Force veteran, McCoy was stationed at Clark Air Base in the Philippines in 1968. That was the year of the Tet Offensive, heavy attacks by North Vietnamese forces. Clark Air Base was the major supply base for U.S. forces in Vietnam.
McCoy didn’t serve in Vietnam, but his memories of seeing what happened there are vivid.
“My place of work was across the street from the base morgue. I did see coffins stacked up,” McCoy said Wednesday.
He said his wife Jeannie had the harder time. A civilian worker in the base hospital’s records section, “she had to take records all over the facility,” McCoy said. “Hallways, waiting rooms, everywhere was clogged with the wounded, still in battle uniforms. It took her a long time to get over that.”
It is decades late, but McCoy hopes the day to welcome Vietnam veterans home will make a meaningful statement.
“My hope is that it brings closure for the troops, that their service is acknowledged and that it was not in vain,” McCoy said. “We still have veterans — that war will never leave them. They still struggle with it,” he said.
After Inslee signs the bill, the state House and Senate will honor Vietnam veterans. There will also be a short ceremony today at the Washington State Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the Capitol campus.
“Too often our Vietnam veterans returned home to a less than grateful nation, so it is fitting that we embrace these heroes today,” Alfie Alvarado, director of the state’s Department of Veterans Affairs, said in a statement Thursday. She said Washington is home to more than 200,000 Vietnam veterans.
Heidi Audette, a spokeswoman for the state’s veterans department, said Vietnam veterans are encouraged to seek the benefits they earned. “There are specific problems tied to exposure to Agent Orange. It’s not too late to go back to the VA, for either health care services or disability compensation,” she said.
Tim Davis is the manager and head clinician at the Everett Vet Center, a facility of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
“The treatment Vietnam vets got after they got back home from Vietnam was almost criminal. They felt the rejection by the general population,” Davis said.
He believes that even if Vietnam veterans say the welcome-home day is coming way too late, the state’s action will touch them. “What they will say is, ‘It’s too late.’ The reality will be something different,” Davis said.
In recent years, veterans have told Davis that strangers have come up to thank them after seeing a baseball cap or other indication that they served in Vietnam. “They tell me this in tears,” he said.
Davis served in the Army from 1969 until 1991. During the Vietnam War, he worked in amputee services at Valley Forge Army General Hospital in Pennsylvania.
Today, he helps veterans of all ages who suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome.
“It doesn’t matter if it was Somalia or Vietnam or Iraq, it’s all the same. But these young kids coming back have some appreciation from the country,” Davis said. “It’s different from Vietnam. They don’t understand what it feels like to be rejected by your country.”
McDonald, the Vietnam veteran from Whidbey, appreciates the welcome.
“The legislators who wrote this law did it to try to balance what happened in the past,” McDonald said. “They were doing something good. They really had their hearts in the right place.”
Herald writer Jerry Cornfield contributed to this story.
A federal judge has ordered culvert repairs to ensure tribes have fish to catch, as guaranteed by their treaty rights. The ruling could have broader impact on other types of development.
By Lynda V. Mapes, The Seattle Times
A long-awaited tribal fishing-rights decision by a federal judge Friday means the state must immediately accelerate more than $1 billion in repairs to culverts that run beneath state roads and block access to some 1,000 miles of salmon habitat.
The ruling comes out of the landmark 1974 Boldt decision, which upheld the rights of tribes to fish. The ruling Friday by U.S.District Judge Ricardo Martinez in Seattle is aimed at ensuring the tribes have fish to catch.
The ruling could eventually result in other court-ordered restoration work, according to tribal leaders and policy experts.
“This culvert case is a ringing of the bell, OK you got to wake up,” said Ron Allen, chairman of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe. “We have to protect and restore the environment while we continue to look creatively for ways to develop new job and industry opportunities.”
Martinez ordered the state departments of fish and wildlife, parks, transportation, and natural resources to accelerate work to remove, replace and repair about 1,000 culverts to help restore salmon runs within 17 years.
The state Attorney General’s Office had not decided as of Friday whether to appeal the case to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Martinez ruled in 2007 that Washington was violating tribal treaty rights by failing to protect salmon runs. He ordered the state and tribes to negotiate a schedule for fixing the culverts that block salmon passage to their habitat, but the parties were unable to reach agreement.
Friday’s order set standards and a deadline for the repairs.
While 17 years sounds like a long time, it’s been a dozen years since the tribes in 2001 asked Martinez to find that the state has a treaty-based right to preserve salmon runs and compel it to repair or replace culverts that impede them.
Many of the agencies have a backlog of plugged or failing culverts, the pipes that carry water beneath the state’s roadways.
The state has performed some $55 million in repairs to culverts since 2001, according to the Attorney General’s Office. However, the judge noted in his order that “despite past state action, a great many barrier culverts still exist, large stretches of potential salmon habitat remain empty of fish, and harvests are still diminished.”
Allowing salmon runs to decline further is a fundamental violation of promises made in the treaties of 1854 and 1855, Martinez wrote, under which tribes ceded most of what is present-day Western Washington.
“Governor Stevens assured the Tribes that even after they ceded huge quantities of land, they would still be able to feed themselves and their families forever,” Martinez wrote, referring to Isaac Stevens, Washington’s first territorial governor. “The promise made to the Tribes that the Stevens treaties would protect their source of food and commerce was crucial in obtaining that assent to the Treaties provision.”
While the order signed Friday focused on culverts, it may potentially have broader application to other habitat insults that harm salmon.
“Everyone knows there is a number of issues out there with regard to forestry, farming, development and standards that go along with all those different industries,” Allen said. “This case helps raise those issues on the radar.”
But the tribes’ main objective isn’t for the ruling to threaten the ability to create jobs, build homes and prosper, Allen said.
“It is a balance, so what do we do? It definitely lends itself as a steppingstone to the other issues, saying these are the other problems, and what are we going to do about them. It has to be part of the cost of doing business.”
In the short term, Brian Cladoosby, chairman of the Swinomish Tribe and Association of Washington Tribes, said tribes want to sit down with the state to figure out a schedule and budget to implement the order.
“The tribes have always been, I feel, like in a war, and this is just one of those battles,” he said. “We have to be humble in victory and now hopefully go forward working on a plan with the state to tackle this.”
He called the order a victory not only for tribes, but all of the state’s citizens. “The Creator blessed us with one of the greatest natural resources, and it is enjoyed by people of all colors, not just tribes.”
Robert Anderson, director of the Native American Law Center at the University of Washington School of Law, said it is yet to be seen how far the implications of the order reach into other types of development and habitat protection and repair.
“But this is a legal shot across the bow,” Anderson said, “indicating that more needs to be done to repair habitat and stop further damage.”
Will Stelle, Northwest regional director for the National Marine Fisheries Service, called the order “sobering and significant” because it cements the fact that treaty rights are not only a federal obligation.
Ultimately, the case is about more than culverts, or fish, said Fawn Sharp, president of the Quinault Indian Nation. The tribes want to protect not just a crucial food source, but a way of life, for Indians and non-Indians alike, she said.
“People will look back at this point in history, and I am confident that when the tribes stepped up to do this, they took a critical role in protecting Washington as we know it and the way we live here,” Sharp said.
“That is true for generations to come, and non-Indians will appreciate it, too. There is a common denominator with other residents that share these values.”
All photos courtesy Gathering of Nations Grand Entry at the Gathering of the Nations
Born out of humble beginnings, the Gathering of Nations, the world’s largest gathering of Native American and indigenous people, will celebrate its 30th anniversary in Albuquerque, New Mexico April 25-27. Considered the most prominent pow wow in North America, it will host tens of thousands of people and more than 700 tribes from throughout the United States, Canada, and around the world honoring three decades of Native American culture and traditions through dance, music, food and indigenous dress.
The three-day event includes more than 3,000 traditional Native singers and dancers competing and entertaining a capacity crowd, and more than 800 Native artisans, craftsmen and traders displaying and selling their work. In addition, dozens of different indigenous bands will perform various musical genres on Stage 49, and vendors will offer a wide variety of food in the Native America Food Court and Powwow Alley
As part of the Gathering of Nations, a young Native woman is crowned Miss Indian World and represents all native and indigenous people as a cultural goodwill ambassador. As one of the largest and most prestigious cultural pageants, Native American and indigenous women representing their different tribes and traditions compete in the areas of tribal knowledge, dancing ability, and personality assessment.
“This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Gathering of Nations, and we are busy planning for what we expect to be the largest and most exciting pow wow in the event’s history,” said Derek Mathews, founder of the Gathering of Nations. “The Gathering of Nations strives to be a positive cultural experience that is exhilarating for everyone. The pow wow features thousands of dancers performing different styles from many regions and tribes, offers the finest in Native American arts and crafts in the Indian Traders Market, a delicious variety of Native American and Southwest cuisine, and the best in contemporary performances in the arena, on Stage 49, and in Powwow Alley.”
The first Gathering of Nations was held in 1983 at the former University of Albuquerque where Derek Mathews was the Dean of Students, and a club campus adviser for the Indian Club. Four hundred dancers competed and about 1,000 spectators attended the first year. In 1984, the pow wow was moved to the New Mexico State Fair Grounds where it was held for two years. Then the Gathering of Nations moved to its current location, the University of New Mexico Arena (affectionately known as “The Pit”), in 1986. The organizers realized the Gathering of Nations had the potential to become a larger event and decided to create the Gathering of Nations Limited, a 501 c3 non-profit organization, allowing organizers to seek financial assistance to produce the event. Throughout the years, it grew to become the largest Native American pow wow in North America, but still honors its original intent of offering a pow wow contest that is fair to all dancers.
The Gathering of Nations is celebrating its 30th anniversary with the release of a new book and the launch of Gathering of Nations Internet Radio. The book titled 30 Years of Gathering: Gathering of Nations Powwow is a look back at previous pow wows and is told through photographs and written memories. The new book will be available in time for the event’s 30th anniversary in April. Additionally, the Gathering of Nations Internet Radio was recently introduced on iHeartRadio offering Native music of all genres including pow wow, rock ‘n’ roll and spoken word.
The 30th Annual Gathering of Nations begins Thursday, April 25, at “The Pit” with registration for singers and dancers and the start of the Miss Indian World competition. The crowning of Miss Indian World will take place on Saturday, April 27. The much anticipated “Grand Entry,” where thousands of Native American dancers simultaneously enter the stadium dressed in
colorful outfits to the sounds of hundreds of beating drums, begins at noon on Friday, April 26.
Gathering tickets cost copy7 per day, $34 for a two day pass, or $50 for a two day pass with VIP seating. They can be purchased at the door, or in advance online through mid–April. For participants and guests traveling to the 30th Annual Gathering of Nations from outside the state, Southwest Airlines has special airfare deals and Enterprise Rent-A-Car has an exclusive rental rate. In addition, the Hard Rock Casino and Hotel – Albuquerque is the host hotel for the event, and is offering special rates for camping facilities at Isleta Lakes.
For more information about the 30th Annual Gathering of Nations, visit GatheringOfNations.com.
