KNBA News

A Native woman who grew up in the Interior is running for mayor of Seattle . Colleen Echohawk heads a Seattle nonprofit that helps and heals indigenous people in need by affirming their cultural identity while providing housing and job training. She says the holistic approach could be applied to uplift all the people of Seattle. Colleen Echohawk began her journey 44 years ago in Fairbanks, where she was born, and then Delta Junction, where she was raised. She concedes it may seem unlikely that a

A large number of unfilled seats on the councils that manage Alaska’s subsistence hunting and fishing has left advocates worried their voices won’t be heard and confused about the process of filling those seats . The decisions for opening and closing hunting grounds and setting harvest limits are decided by the more than 100 Alaskans who sit on 10 regional advisory councils that inform the Federal Subsistence Board . “They’re the ones that are on the ground and making these observations based

The COVID-19 pandemic has not put a pause on the Y-K Delta’s environmental threats. In Chefornak, a family was forced to evacuate their home because a sinkhole caused by thawing permafrost formed underneath it. That family had to move into a building intended to be a quarantine facility. Delores “Dolly” Abraham’s original fear was not a sinkhole, but the river. By last spring, she said that the riverbank, which is eroding in Chefornak, had almost reached the edge of her home. “Probably like 6 or

Sitka illustrator Michaela Goade was awarded one of the highest honors in children’s literature this week. Goade, who is Tlingit, is the first Indigenous person to win the Caldecott Medal for her work on “We are Water Protectors.” Earlier this week, Michaela Goade thought she was signing on to an ordinary Zoom call with her small publishing team. Instead, she was met with a group of new faces congratulating her on her win. “I was completely caught off guard and didn’t even really know what to

Researchers have confirmed the location of an important site in Tlingit history. The Sitka National Historical Park has long commemorated the spot of a Kiks.ádi fort destroyed by Russian invaders over 200 years ago . The fort’s exact location remained uncertain until now. A peaceful clearing, a plaque and a totem pole mark the spot where Shís’gi Noow , or the Fort of Young Saplings, once stood. “It’s a sacred place, and I have been going out there for years when I feel in the need of strength,”

Providers with the Kenaitze Indian Tribe have opened up COVID-19 vaccinations to all Indian Health Service beneficiaries 16 and older . As of Wednesday night, a small team of medical staff at the Dena’ina Wellness Center in Kenai had vaccinated 427 people, said Sheilah Kean, a registered nurse and primary care practice manager with the Tribe. “Our Tribal council had made that decision to open it up by 10 years each week," she said. "But the priority for that week is always going to be the oldest

At the end of 2020, a 36-year-old former Tribal police officer died from COVID-19. He was to be buried in Kongiganak, a burial which his family in Akiachak couldn’t attend because of travel restrictions. Here’s a story about how people are finding new ways to say goodbye to their loved ones during the pandemic. David Aqvang Evon grew up in Akiachak, then moved to Kongiganak where he worked as a Tribal police officer. Last year, he and his family moved to Fairbanks because of his daughter’s

Nearly 5,000 people in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta have received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, and almost a fifth of those people have also received their second dose. That makes more people in the region who have received at least one dose of the vaccine than have tested positive for the virus. Across the region, 4,248 people have tested positive for COVID-19 as of Jan. 20, according to the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation. YKHC opened eligibility for the vaccine to the general

The Chugach Alaska Corporation recently re-acquired land that has been in private hands since the 1900s. The buyers say you can’t put a price on the return of traditional lands to Indigenous stewardship. Chugach Alaska Corporation announced the sale in mid-January. The Native regional corporation purchased more than 150 acres of surface and subsurface estate land at the mouth of the Copper River Delta near Point Martin, Alaska, from The Nature Conservancy. “The Copper River Delta was besides

President Joe Biden imposed a “temporary moratorium” on all oil and gas leasing activities in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge shortly after taking office, citing the “alleged legal deficiencies underlying the program” and the inadequacy of a required environmental review. Biden’s move to slam the brakes on drilling in the northeast Alaska refuge is among a list of executive orders the newly-inaugurated president swiftly signed to undo actions by his predecessor. The new moratorium comes a