A mother from the Rosebud Sioux Tribe faces arrest for protecting her children from an abusive couple:
The emergency room doctor was furious at what he had seen, recalled Audre’y Eby, who is Rosebud Sioux and the mother of disabled 16-year-old twins. One of her sons, who is blind and autistic, squirmed on the examination-room table, screaming, “Ow, ow, it hurts!” The doctor had found livid red and purple bruises covering his penis and scrotum, according to the Nebraska hospital’s records. Those injuries would soon lead to an arrest warrant for the mother—not because she had caused the harm, but because she did not return her son, along with his wheelchair-bound twin, to their abusers.
Indian child welfare expert Frank LaMere called the twins’ situation more extreme than any he’d seen in his many years of work in the field. “These boys are suffering,” said LaMere, who is Winnebago and the director of Four Directions Community Center, in Sioux City, Iowa.
The day before the ER visit, Eby, who is 45, drove from the Nebraska farm where she lives with her husband, Faron, to pick up her boys from their father in Iowa. It was early August of 2013, and she was going to have them for the once-a-month weekend visit the courts allow her. The boys’ father is Eby’s ex-husband; he has physical custody of the kids, and his live-in girlfriend is their primary caretaker. Eby and the boys are Native, and the father and his girlfriend are white—facts that LaMere says overshadow decisions that social-services professionals and the courts make on the children’s behalf.
TULALIP – A 35-year-old man was struck by a vehicle Tuesday evening and was airlifted to Harborview with serious injuries.
The driver of the vehicle was driving along 35th Avenue NE on the Tulalip Reservation when he said something struck his windshield, shattering it. The driver stopped his vehicle immediately on the roadway at the 7000 block and got out to investigate. It was then he saw the victim lying off the roadway and called 911.
There were no witnesses to the accident, but family members of the victim said they believed he was near the roadway talking on his cellphone. The victim is believed to be a transient living on the Tulalip Reservation.
The Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the incident, but no criminal charges against the driver are expected at this time
Northwest sports teams are leading an effort to use the widespread appeal of basketball, football, baseball and hockey to spread an environmental message.
A group formed by six teams in Portland, Seattle and Vancouver, B.C., called the Green Sports Alliance set out three years ago to improve the environmental performance of professional sports. The alliance has grown to hundreds of teams across the country that are now competing to see who can be the greenest.
Baseball fields, basketball arenas and football stadiums across the country are installing solar panels and wind turbines. They’re selling local and organic food to their fans, and replacing trash cans with recycling and compost bins.
Supporters of this movement say sports offer a fun, non-political way to promote environmentalism. It saves money, cuts carbon emissions, and the environmental benefits count toward the teams’ record of community service.
Tracking Green Stats
The green sports game isn’t as exciting to watch as a slam dunk, a home run or a touchdown. But it has racked up some impressive stats:
The Portland Trail Blazers have cut the carbon emissions at the Moda Center by 50 percent since 2008 and saved $3.3 million in utility costs in five years.
The Seattle Mariners raised their recycling rate from 38 percent in 2010 to 90 percent in 2013 and saved $2.2 million in utility costs in seven years.
The teams are tracking their environmental performance with help from the Natural Resource Defense Council and the Environmental Protection Agency. So they know where they stand in the environmental rankings. According to Martin Tull, executive director of the Green Sports Alliance, that has spurred some friendly competition.
“When one facility puts up 3,000 solar panels, the next time an owner is going to build a stadium, he wants to have 3,001,” Tull said. “We try to use that as much as we can to give them little catalyst to have the biggest solar array or to have the least energy used.”
Scott Jenkins, vice president of ballpark operations for the Seattle Mariners, said his team has been trying to match the San Francisco Giants’ recycling rate for years. This year, the Mariners fell a little short once again as the Giants reached a 95 percent recycling rate.
“Every time I think we’re going to catch up to them they raise the bar a little bit more,” Jenkins said.
Tracking environmental performance has also yielded some interesting data. When the Blazers commissioned a study to measure their carbon footprint in 2008, it revealed that 70 percent of the carbon emissions associated with the Moda Center come from fan and employee transportation to and from the arena. Team transportation and business travel, by comparison, only accounted for 4 percent of the team’s carbon emissions.
“That surprised us all,” said Justin Zeulner, sustainability director for the Blazers. “We realized we have to start engaging with our fans and our community to get to our impacts because they’re the ones selecting behavior. They’re the ones that decide: How am I going to get to the game?”
Making it fun
Sports teams aren’t looking to bog people down with environmental doom and gloom. Instead, they say, they try to make the idea of sustainable living fun. One hockey arena, for example, invites fans to shoot aluminum cans into the proper recycling receptacle.
The Mariners introduced two recycling superheroes: Captain Plastic and Kid Compost. They roam the concourse of Safeco Field offering photo ops and recycling and composting assistance. The compost from the games goes to Cedar Grove Composting, which in turn creates bags of Safeco Soil made from compost at its facility. Fans can take that compost home to use in the garden; the team also offers “kitchen catchers” to hold household food scraps.
The Blazers have a living wall that invites fans to high-five a hand print if they support the team’s environmental mission. It also has a chalkboard for people to share how they’re going green in their own lives.
Watch the video:
Saving money
Tull says money is another motivation for teams going green – and one the alliance uses to attract new members.
“When we sit down with a new team that we haven’t worked with we ask a very simple question: Would you like to learn how other teams have saved millions through conservation,” he said. “And what do you think they say? They say hell yeah.”
Northwest sports teams are among the first to prove that conservation measures such as replacing light bulbs and reducing water use at event centers have a quick return on investment.
“When you look at your bottom line and say I’m saving $400,000 a year in utilities, I’m saving $200,000 a year on my waste costs, and I’m building brand value and doing what’s right, it really is a no-brainer to get into that area,” said Scott Jenkins, vice president of operations for the Mariners.
Selling environmentalism
For those who are rooting for a cleaner environment, Tull says, sports teams are a great way to sell the idea to a mass market.
“If I talk to a middle school student and say, ‘Did you realize the Portland Trail Blazers cut their energy use in their house by 30 percent?’ It’s a lot more exciting than if we say, ‘Did you realize that this local bank did a retrofit and cut their energy use?’”, said Tull. “Even with the exact same statistics it’s always going to be more exciting if it comes through the lens of sports.”
Allen Hershkowitz, director of the Natural Resource Defense Council’s Sports Greening Program, says his environmental group hatched the idea of using sports to sell environmentalism back in 2004.
Sporting events themselves don’t have huge environmental impacts, he says, “however, where the impact of sports is enormous is in its cultural and market influence. The cultural and market influence of sports is almost unparalleled.”
He cites a statistic: 13 percent of Americans follow science while 63 percent follow sports.
“So, if you want to reach Americans, you’ve got to go where they’re at,” he said. “Using the non-political, non-partisan, politically neutral space of basketball, baseball, football, hockey, tennis, soccer to educate people about the need for recycling, energy efficiency, water conservation and safer chemical use. It’s a spectacular platform and at the same time tens of millions of pounds of carbon have been reduced.”
Peter Murchie is an environmental health manger for the EPA in Seattle. He says his agency is hoping that fans will take environmental lessons home with them from the big game. He’s hoping the movement will trickle down to younger sports teams, too.
“Sports translates down into your local communities,” he said. “If you see that the Seattle Seahawks or Portland Trail blazers being green, there’s a chance that your local little league and youth sports will also look at how they can do things in a more sustainable way. That gets an even broader marketplace.”
What about climate change?
So far, sports teams are leading by example and sticking with subtle environmental suggestions. However, this year several league commissioners sent letters to Congress acknowledging the issue of climate change.
The Trail Blazers are the first and only professional sports team to sign a climate declaration. Zeulner says he’s hoping the unifying nature of sports can move people beyond political barriers toward taking action on climate change.
“You can go to a sporting event and be sitting with people who are complete strangers to you, but you’re all focused on that energy of what’s happening on the field – what’s happening on the playing surface,” he said. “You start seeing people high-fiving each other, hugging each other over this thrill of whatever the sport is. The emotion of that sport. These are Republicans and Democrats. They’re different races. Different sexes. It doesn’t matter. Sports gives you that opportunity to strip all those barriers down and realize we actually want the same things.”
The Green Sports Alliance is already expanding into college sports and is now looking at the prospect of including teams across the globe in Europe and South America.
A sabertooth salmon, as depicted by artist Ray Troll. The mural is part of the UO Museum of Natural and Cultural History. credit: University of Oregon. A sabertooth salmon, as depicted by artist Ray Troll. The mural is part of the UO Museum of Natural and Cultural History. | credit: University of Oregon.
For years, museum conservators and paleontologists have yearned for a way to duplicate fragile fossils without damaging them. Now scientists with the University of Oregon say they have found a way to do just that, with the help of a relatively inexpensive 3-D printer.
They’ve starting by duplicating the skull of a particularly important fossil in their collection: a giant saber-toothed salmon fossil discovered near Madras, Ore.
Nick Famoso, a PhD student at the university, is helping with the replication process. He says saber-toothed salmon, Oncorhynchus Rastrosus, swam the oceans and rivers of the Northwest 5 to 7 million years ago. They were ancestors of sockeye salmon.
“Put a big old gnarly tooth in the front jaw. Make it a lot bigger. That’s a saber-tooth salmon,“ he says.
The salmon grew to be 6- to 12-feet long, on a vegetarian diet of plankton and filter food. The tooth, which grew as long as a human thumb, developed on spawning males.
Famoso says the university holds what’s known as a “type specimen” of Oncorhynchus: a particularly well-preserved example that was used to describe the species. The university wanted to make the fossil the centerpiece of a salmon evolution exhibit at its Museum of Cultural and Natural History. But the Oncorhynchus fossil was too fragile and too scientifically valuable to risk casting — using the traditional method of pouring a latex mold around the fossil.
The saber-toothed salmon fossil.
Famoso says delicate fossils of fish and bird skeletons can shatter and be permanently lost during the process of removing the mold.
“Generally when you do that we use latex and we make molds, and we pull the mold and we make a cast out of that mold. That’s great but not all fossils can be molded and cast. This is where the 3-D printing comes in and it’s really exciting.”
Instead, the salmon fossil was given a CT scan, creating a detailed 3-D image. Now the university’s science librarian, Dean Walton, is feeding that image file into a 3-D printer. The printer’s software slices the image into a series of thin layers that are laid down with a plastic called polylactic acid.
“In some ways, you can think of this as a glorified glue-gun that’s melting and squirting out a little line of plastic,” he says.
Walton says the printer, which cost a little over $2,000, can print objects the size of a milk carton and has a resolution down to a tenth of a millimeter. He says University of Oregon students and faculty can use the printer for free, but should be warned it’s a slow process. Printing the first piece of the salmon fossil took 72 hours.
The first piece of the fossil’s printed plastic replica.
Walton is printing several more segments of the fossil this month. When it is complete, Famoso will use the plastic replica to make a traditional cast model for display. He hopes the new replication technology will make it easier for scientists to share copies of fossils for research and public display without putting the originals at risk. He says Badlands National Park in South Dakota is also experimenting with the technique. Paleontologists at the University of Washington are using a 3-D printer to make custom cradles to securely hold delicate fossils in place.
The ocean grew choppy and storm clouds darkened the southern sky as we paddled the final miles toward an abandoned Haida village site at the heart of a wedge-shaped archipelago 175 miles in length, 70 miles off the northwest coast of British Columbia. Until recently, this remote chain of islands was known as the Queen Charlotte Islands, but three years ago, the Haida Nation returned that colonial name to the provincial government, in a ceremony using the same style of bentwood box that once housed the remains of the dead. The place is now Haida Gwaii (pronounced HI-duh GWY) — Islands of the People — both officially and, unquestionably, in spirit.
Bruce Kirkby for The New York Times Carving the Legacy Pole.
The hillsides soaring above our kayaks, scraped bare by clearcutting three decades earlier, were an emerald-hued crew cut, a fuzz of young alder and spruce interspersed with occasional landslides. On a distant ridge beyond stood the silhouettes of giants, stark evidence of where logging had ground to a halt.
There is an even older Haida name for this archipelago, which roughly translates to “Islands Emerging From (Supernatural) Concealment.” It is an apt moniker. On these craggy islets — perched on the edge of the continental shelf and pressed against the howling eternity of the Pacific — life exists on such a ferociously lavish scale that myth and dreams routinely mingle with reality.
For three days, Dave Quinn and I — neighbors, friends and longtime sea kayak guides — had rejoiced amid a world of windswept islets, breaching humpbacks, raucous seabirds, natural hot springs and solitude. While it was glorious to return to waters we knew so well, there was a deeper purpose to our journey: Paddling from dawn until dusk and then some, we’d been racing north toward Windy Bay.
Even as our kayaks crunched aground on its white shell beach, elsewhere bags were being packed, boats readied, float planes fueled. Two great war canoes — long and colorful — were plowing southward from the traditional Haida strongholds of Old Massett and Skidegate, crammed with youth. The next morning, we would all converge here, to witness the raising of a monumental pole (a term preferred by First Nation groups over “totem”) in the southern archipelago, the first such event in over 130 years, since smallpox decimated the local population and left every village unoccupied. That fishermen, loggers, police and government officials would join alongside the Haida Nation in celebration, after decades of bitter land-use conflict, marked a once unimaginable reconciliation — and a way forward extending far beyond these remote shores.
After setting up our tent and brewing cowboy coffee, we set off on foot toward the village site — Hlk’yaah in Haida — tucked in an adjacent cove. Just a few steps into the forest, we paused in awe. Arrow-straight trunks, the girth of minivans, rose like cathedral columns from a thick blanket of moss cloaking the forest floor. Drenched with an average of 250 days of rain annually, the conifers of Haida Gwaii — red cedar, Sitka spruce, western hemlock — attain storybook proportions. According to the West Coast writer John Valliant, “These forests support more living tissue — by weight — than any other ecosystem, including the equatorial jungle.”
Bruce Kirkby for The New York Times Eagle down on the pole.
Forty years earlier, a logging company applied to move its clearcutting operations from northern Haida Gwaii — at that time ravaged by industrial-style logging — to this very soil. As John Broadhead, a local conservationist, wrote: “The company couldn’t have been leaving behind an area of more ecological devastation, or moving to one more pristine.” Having witnessed the frontier’s rapacious appetite drive sea otter and whale populations to the brink, the Haida voiced immediate opposition, but it seemed unimaginable that anyone might deflect the logging juggernaut.
The ’70s and ’80s were a time of excess and frenzy on this coast, when tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of salmon could be hauled from a single net, and the hewing of trees worth $20,000 each was not uncommon. While the Haida engaged in a decade of fruitless committee meetings, negotiations and court cases, clearcutting crept relentlessly southward.
By 1985, the small nation was fed up. Establishing a remote camp on Lyell Island, they settled in for the long haul, standing arm in arm, blockading a logging road and day after day turning back furious loggers who in many cases were neighbors, and even friends. Beyond lay Windy Bay, and some of the last remaining stands of “Avatar”-scale old growth on the coast. Tensions skyrocketed, and soon national news outlets descended.
Eight months later a showdown took place and as police officers moved in, a young Haida Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer was forced to arrest his own elders. Over the next two weeks, 72 protesters were shackled and led away. But the images that emerged changed the mood of a nation, and led to an unprecedented agreement between the Haida Nation and the government of Canada. Agreeing to manage cooperatively what, in 1993, would become Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve, they created an accord now emulated around the world. And while roots of the Haida revival can be traced back to the ’60s — when the lost arts of canoe building, mask making and pole carving began to re-emerge — it was the blockade and the resulting co-management of traditional territory that changed everything.
Bruce Kirkby for The New York Times Traditional Haida canoes arrive for the ceremony.
Dave and I arrived at the once-abandoned village site to find a hive of activity: electrical generators, an excavator and steaming vats of seafood chowder. At the center of everyone’s attention — though still horizontal — the 40-foot Legacy Pole, celebrating the 20th anniversary of moving from conflict to reconciliation with the establishment of the park. Lying beside a recently constructed longhouse, and surrounded by carvers, its 17 deeply incised figures, all based on the traditional Haida ovoid form, sprang from luxuriant cinnamon-colored cedar.
Although the raising was just 24 hours away, plenty of work remained to be done. Penciled design lines were shaved away, even as traditional black and red paints were applied. (The red, interestingly, was “Navajo” from Benjamin Moore.) Jaalen Edenshaw, the lead carver, quietly shaped a raven’s eyes as he told us of selecting a living tree from the forests. Alongside two apprentices, he had shaped the pole for an entire year. Among the many modern stories depicted in his design was the blockade, symbolized by five protesters with interlocked arms. With an eagle at the peak and a sculpin fish at the foot, the pole also tells of Gwaii Haanas becoming the first area on the planet to be protected from mountaintop to ocean floor when a National Marine Conservation Area was added to surrounding waters in 2010.
Amid the crowd was Guujaaw (pronounced GOO-jow), Mr. Edenshaw’s father and the widely recognized former president of the Haida Nation, who had stared down decades of negotiators and became emblematic of the Haida’s dignified, nonviolent resistance.
Suddenly, above the hubbub, came a cry: “Guuj! How about a birthday song?” The war canoes had arrived, and one of the young paddlers was celebrating a birthday. Guujaaw raised a skin drum, its rhythmic beat echoing through the forest like a heart. As he launched into a forceful chant — “Hey hi yo, ha wee ah” — everyone joined in. The young birthday boy rushed forward, dancing a traditional Haida stomp, knees deeply bent, arms in the air. Then, as quickly as it began, the song ended, and the carvers returned to their work.
Bruce Kirkby for The New York Times Dave Quinn stands beside a giant tree near the Windy Bay village site.
The next morning we woke from our tent to find an immense Coast Guard cutter anchored offshore, surrounded by an armada of smaller fishing vessels. Zodiacs began shuttling dignitaries, elders, children and curious visitors ashore. By noon, more than 400 people had gathered — unquestionably the most to stand on these shores since the village was abandoned 150 years previously.
By early afternoon the skies had cleared. Chiefs gathered in ceremonial headdresses adorned with ermine skins and sea lion whiskers. Blessings were given, speeches made. A bare-chested man in a nightmarish mask danced to clear away malevolent spirits, and afterward, a matriarch splashed water over the pole, purifying it. Children followed, tossing handfuls of fluffy eagle down that floated on a soft breeze.
Six immense ropes — two inches in diameter — had been lashed to the top of the pole, and at last the assembled crowd was directed to find places on each. Weighing 7,000 pounds, the pole was relatively light, but a weathered Haida fisherman explained that any pole raising can be dangerous. The countdown began. Boots bit into mud, backs heaved, and the great pole floated skyward. In a blink it was up. A few more hoarsely shouted instructions — “Pull on the yellow rope! Ease off on blue” — and it stood vertical. Cheers erupted. Boulders were rolled into the deep hole at its base, pounded in place with long wooden beams. Shovel after shovel of gravel followed.
Two days later, Parks Canada and the Haida Nation hosted a potlatch, or celebratory feast, and in Haida tradition, every person on the islands was invited. The Canadian government outlawed potlatching from 1884 to 1951, making the event a poignant symbol of progress. In a community hall packed to the rafters, I found myself sitting near Allan Wilson, a hereditary chief from Old Massett and the junior Mountie officer forced to arrest his own elders at the blockade, decades ago. He is a squat, powerful man, and his crew cut was peppered with white. A tangle of necklaces hung from his neck. “To this day I remember every step I took,” he said. “My legs felt like they weighed 300 pounds each.” He paused, then laughed. “I was happy it was raining, so no one could see my tears.”
I asked about the pole. “It feels as if we’ve had a big pot here on Haida Gwaii with a hole in it,” he said. “Now that missing piece has been put back in. The leak has been plugged. And all our stories, from before and those still to come, can stay in there.”
Later, 14 elders who stood on the line were introduced. As drums beat and dancers danced, Miles Richardson — who led the resistance during the blockade — uttered once again the words heard on newscasts across Canada: “We are here to uphold the decision of people of the Haida Nation. There will be no logging in Gwaii Haanas anymore.” The deafening applause was that of a nation whose history now lies newly ahead.
The Washington state organization that was founded in 2012 to assist in protecting the rights of imprisoned American Indians in the state has appointed a new member to the Board of Advisors.
Huy announced that effective January 1, Minty LongEarth (Santee/Creek/Choctaw) would be assisting the nationally recognized, 501(c)(3) non-profit organization in it’s efforts to give American Indians who are down a second chance.
From 2011 to 2013, Minty was the Program Manager for the United Indians of All Tribes Foundation DOC Native Religious Services Program. She later became United Indians’ Interim Executive Director.
“Minty’s commitment to the free exercise of tribal religion by Native Americans who are down, is unmatched,” said Huy Board Chairman Gabe Galanda. “We are thrilled by her addition to the Huy Board and hope she will help us attract more tribal volunteers and other supporters to our cause.”
As Minty told Indian Country Today Media Network in 2012: “The need for tribal volunteers and support is paramount in the development of a comprehensive service model to combat recidivism. The key to lowering the number of incarcerated Indians is first understanding that we are no different than our relatives in the iron houses, in terms of needing recovery, forgiveness and repair. Then we must act on that understanding.”
Huy (pronounced “hoyt”) is a term in the traditional Coast Salish language known as Lushootseed that means: “See you again/we never say goodbye.” The organization seeks to enhance religious, cultural, and other rehabilitative opportunities for imprisoned American Indians, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians.
Since 2010, Huy has participated as friend of the court before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and U.S. District Court of Hawaii, and in administrative rulemakings in California and Washington State, in matters involving the religious rights and civil liberties of American indigenous prisoners. Huy has also entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Washington State DOC, under which it has facilitated the gifting of nearly copy00,000 for indigenous prisoner religious activities.
Flu shots work to prevent illness – lots of vaccine available in the county
SNOHOMISH COUNTY, Wash. – Snohomish County’s first confirmed flu death of the 2013-14 season has been reported to the Snohomish Health District. A Bothell, Wash. woman in her thirties died from influenza complications on January 4. She had underlying health conditions, and passed away in a King County hospital.
“This next few months could be a rough start to 2014 for people who do not protect themselves from the flu,” said Nancy Furness, Director of Communicable Disease Division at Snohomish County’s local public health agency. Furness noted that seven county residents died from influenza-related illness in 2013.
A flu shot every year is recommended for everyone age 6 months and older. Different strains of flu circulate each year. So far this year, the most common flu virus has been H1N1, the “swine flu” that hit young adults and children hard in 2009. This year’s flu vaccine includes H1N1, substantially reducing the chances you will get a serious case of the flu or pass it to others.
The state Department of Health reports five flu-related deaths statewide as of Dec. 28. Official statewide cumulative totals about illness activity are issued once a week, and do not include data from the current week. The Jan. 4 Snohomish County death is not reflected in the most recent statewide total.
Two upcoming community clinics in Everett offer flu and whooping cough shots at no cost for uninsured, low-income adults.
·10 a.m. to noon Friday, Jan. 10 at Everett Station, 3201 Smith Ave., Everett, Wash.
·3:30 to 5:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 11 at Comcast Arena, 2000 Hewitt Ave., Everett, Wash.
The vaccine for this current flu season is available at medical providers and pharmacies throughout the county and will protect against three or four kinds of influenza virus — including H1N1 — that make people sick.
Washing hands, covering your coughs, and staying home when you are sick are effective ways to reduce spreading and getting diseases. Vaccination is the best way to protect yourself and others.
The Snohomish Health District’s clinics in Everett and Lynnwood have vaccine to protect you against the flu. The cost for an adult flu shot at the Snohomish Health District is $30. A flu shot for a child costs $23. The Health District accepts payment by cash, check, VISA, MasterCard, Provider One (coupons), and Medicare for clients whose primary insurance is not with an HMO. Clients may apply for a reduced fee, based on income and household size.
Snohomish Health District clinic hours – shots by appointment only:
·SHD Everett Immunization Clinic, 3020 Rucker Ave, Suite 108, Everett, WA 98201
425.339.5220 for an appointment: 8 a.m.- 4 p.m., Mon-Wed-Fri; closed on weekends & holidays
425.775.3522 for an appointment: 8 a.m.- 4 p.m., Tue & Thu; closed on weekends & holidays
Established in 1959, the Snohomish Health District works for a safer and healthier Snohomish County through disease prevention, health promotion, and protection from environmental threats. Find more information about the Health Board and the Health District at http://www.snohd.org.
Producer Sherman Alexie in attendance on Thursday night!
Both directors in attendance Thursday, Friday, Saturday!
Cast & crew in attendance!
(Alex and Andrew Smith, United States, 2013, 105 min)
Virgil First Raise wakes in a ditch on the hardscrabble plains of Montana, hungover and badly beaten. He sees a shocking vision: his father, ten years dead, lying frozen at his feet. Shaken, Virgil returns home to his ranch on the Reservation, only to find that his wife, Agnes, has left him. Worse, she’s taken his beloved rifle. Virgil sets out to town find her— or perhaps just the gun— beginning a hi-line odyssey of inebriated and improbable intrigues with the mysterious Airplane Man, his beautiful accomplice, Malvina, and two dangerous Men in Suits. By embracing— and no longer fleeing— his memories, Virgil is finally able to thaw the ice in his veins.
The mission of Longhouse Media is to catalyze indigenous people and communities to use media as a tool for self-expression, cultural preservation, and social change.
Northwest Film Forum partners with Longhouse Media to present this ongoing series showcasing emerging talents in indigenous communities. This exciting program exemplifies how Native American and indigenous filmmakers are at the forefront of the industry, successfully establishing a dialogue and creating images that are challenging and changing long established cultural attitudes towards indigenous culture.
Source: Indianz.com
