Conversation with Jon Proudstar about the return of his comic book series, ‘Tribal Force.’
Tribes
Posted inFebruary 3, 2014: The Hanford Whistleblowers
The great Flathead fish fiasco
State and tribes disagree over how to tackle an exotic species’ takeover of a Montana lake.
Posted inFebruary 3, 2014: The Hanford Whistleblowers
Location matters in the war on lake trout
Lake trout aren’t just found in low-elevation lakes with large recreational fisheries, like Montana’s Flathead Lake. For more than two decades, they have thrived in the crystalline, icy waters of Yellowstone Lake, in the heart of Yellowstone National Park. Biologists believe someone introduced lake trout to Yellowstone Lake back in the 1980s. Since then, the […]
Posted inJanuary 20, 2014: Building a More Sustainable West, One City at a Time
Building better homes in Indian Country
Tribes use green building to address housing shortages.
Posted inDecember 23, 2013: Beauty or Beast
Tribes struggle to house their ‘invisibly homeless’ veterans
Red tape makes it difficult for veterans in Indian Country to access a key federal assistance program.
Posted inNovember 25, 2013: Ecosystems 101
Worst place for a major mine?
Backers of Alaska’s colossal Pebble Mine, including Republican Gov. Sean Parnell, have predicted tremendous economic benefits from developing what would be the continent’s largest open-pit mine (see map at lower left). But the actual economic forecast is not that clear, and recent events might force a recasting, or even the abandonment, of the scheme. An […]
Posted inNovember 25, 2013: Ecosystems 101
Montana tribes will be the first to own a hydroelectric dam
The three tribes of the Flathead Reservation may see significant economic and cultural benefits.
Posted inOctober 14, 2013: The New Geronimo?
A new Apache homeland in New Mexico?
An Okie Apache fights his kin to build a casino and bring his people home.
Posted inFebruary 18, 2013: Farming on the Fringe
Economy, distrust complicate allocation of tribal settlement money
When the Obama administration announced in April that it would pay 41 tribes some $1 billion to settle a lawsuit over federal mismanagement of trust funds, many saw it as a sort of stimulus package for Indian Country — a chance to invest in long-term development and infrastructure, such as schools, clinics and roads. “The […]
Posted inFebruary 4, 2013: Making Good on the Badlands
Will the Badlands become the first tribal national park?
Oglala Lakota leaders hope to transform their bombed-out Badlands and help lift the tribe out of poverty, but it won’t be easy.
Posted inNovember 26, 2012: Casting for Common Ground
A Washington tribe and a timber company wrestle over a forest’s future
Updated 11/30/12 The Indian chief and the timber agent meet near the shores of Port Gamble Bay. The spring air is cool and breezy along this small and sheltered nook of northwest Washington’s Puget Sound. Inside the room where the two men sit side-by-side, the atmosphere is civil, yet tense, as they discuss their separate […]
Posted inOctober 15, 2012: Are you a local?
Vagabond writer Craig Childs on 20,000 years of wanderlust
Savoonga is the place to be on the Fourth of July. The village is a cluster of roofs on the north side of St. Lawrence Island, a treeless hump of capes and dormant volcanoes rising out of the Bering Sea, battered by Arctic weather. The Native Yup’iks here celebrate the holiday with more gusto than […]
Posted inJune 25, 2012: Special travel issue
Tracking Ice Age people in Oregon
Wind-whipped rainclouds formed a low ceiling over the oceanic buttes and basins of south-central Oregon. The usually sundrenched sage darkened in the weather as I walked, my hood pulled up against the grass-bending tug of the northwest breeze. The air smelled richer than it usually does on the dry side of the Cascades, the sagebrush […]
Posted inJune 25, 2012: Special travel issue
The Quileute Reservation copes with tourists brought by “Twilight”
Five Quileute boys emerge from a phalanx of drummers. Barefoot and bare-chested, they wear black cloaks and wolf headdresses, and dance, crouch and crawl within the center of a large circle. On the outskirts, women and girls move rhythmically to a chant and steady drumbeat, several of them sporting red and black capes emblazoned with […]
Posted inApril 16, 2012: The Other Bakken Boom
The Other Bakken Boom: America’s biggest oil rush brings tribal conflict
Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, a lilting swath of prairie in western North Dakota, was once a quiet place. Though thrice the area of Los Angeles, it had only 5,000 residents. Even New Town, a more populous district east of a reservoir called Lake Sakakawea, looked sparse and ephemeral. There was a granary, a fire station, […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2011: High Tension
Regaining identity through restoration
Charles Wilkinson’s new book describes how a tribe “terminated” by the federal government fought to regain its identity.
Posted inGoat
Crow Tribe to vote on water compact
Federal settlement could fund reservation infrastructure improvements.
Posted inFebruary 21, 2011: Palin, politics, and predator control
Craig Childs walks with desert ghosts on the Navajo Nation
The dogs are getting closer, barking through junipers about a half-mile away. We douse our small can stove, scoop the rest of breakfast into our mouths, and within two minutes are gone. The day before, we were dropped off on a dirt two-track where we hopped a gate and smuggled ourselves into the wilderness atop […]
Posted inBlog
Cobell, settled at last
Federal government finally accounts for money mismanagement of tribal nations.
Posted inNovember 8, 2010: Dr. No
The dark side of Indian law
In his new book, In the Courts of the Conqueror, Walter Echo-Hawk discusses the 10 worst Indian law cases ever decided.