KNBA News

A Washington state Supreme Court decision could mean a legal victory for Native communities in terms of child welfare cases. Washington Supreme Court ruled Thursday, September 3, 2020, that state courts must use a “broad interpretation” when determining whether children who face removal from their parents -- have Native heritage . The decision also says that a Tribe has the exclusive role to determine who is a member, not states. Justice Raquel Montoya-Lewis wrote the unanimous decision: “We

Biologists are tracking some unusual stranding events around Sitka this summer , and hoping to learn more about what brought about the deaths of two killer whales, and what has made a sea lion gravely ill. The most recent stranded killer whale was found beached on Pain Island, near Kake, in August. Back in June, another killer whale was found dead in Crawfish Inlet south of Sitka. This doesn’t feel normal for these animals, which occupy the top of the food chain in Southeast Alaska. “For the

The D.C. Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals heard Friday oral arguments in a federal court case on whether Alaska Native corporations are eligible for part of CARES Act funding. The original lawsuit filed in April claims that Alaska Native corporations should not be eligible to receive a portion of about $8 billion of a Tribal-government set-aside of the federal COVID-19 relief money. The idea is that Native corporations are not Tribal governments – at least not in the way that Lower 48 Tribes

During a virtual discussion August 27, hosted by the American Public Health Association , the director of a newly formed Indigenous-led non-profit talked about Missing and Murdered Indigenous People and why Indigenous data sovereignty is so important in Alaska. Charlene Aqpik Apok is the executive director of the Alaska-based Data for Indigenous Justice . She says the non-profit seeks to reclaim and consolidate data that was largely incomplete – and move toward data sovereignty -- by putting

Tribal Judge Ingrid Cumberlidge is the state's first Missing and Murdered Indeginous Persons coordinator . Cumberlidge is Aleut and Tlingit. She’s from Sand Point, and she’s worked there as an educator and Tribal Court chief judge for 30 years. “I came to this job because I was concerned about what was happening in rural Alaska," Cumberlidge says. "In my community, we’ve had people go missing from the community as well, later to be found after they passed away. Some real concerns about that. I’m

Petersburg Borough Assembly is considering an opinion on a draft senate bill that would give federal land to five Southeast communities – Petersburg, Wrangell, Ketchikan, Haines, and Tenakee Springs. These communities were left out of the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, which transferred millions of acres to native corporations all over the state. Petersburg Assembly member Chelsea Tremblay wanted to discuss the topic as a follow-up to requests from Native leaders last December asking

A dumpster in Bethel that is generating a lot of conversation . Right next to city hall is a dumpster with “Black Lives Matter” painted boldly on the front. Last week, someone took a can of spray paint and crossed out those words. Bethel’s dumpsters are usually painted by children in summer art camps. This year, because of COVID-19, those camps were canceled. Margaret Hannah, an art teacher at the high school, decided to open up the project to anyone in the community, and she provided few rules

The multinational company that operates the massive Red Dog Mine in Northwest Alaska says that thawing permafrost linked to global warming has forced it to spend nearly $20 million to manage its water storage and discharge . The problems at Red Dog, one of the world’s largest zinc mines, show how climate change poses a challenge not just to residents of Arctic Alaska, but also to the economy of the region, which is warming at triple the rate of the global average. Vancouver-based Teck Resources

An Alaska Native rights group is backing the federal subsistence board’s decision to allow a village in Southeast Alaska to hunt out of season during the pandemic. The Dunleavy administration has challenged that move , which will soon get its day in court. The Native American Rights Fund (NARF) is asking the court to intervene on behalf of the Organized Village of Kake which took advantage of the emergency hunt to take two moose and five deer. The meat was distributed in the community during the

Tlingit master carver Tommy Joseph is prolific: He’s created nearly 20 totem poles in Sitka alone, not to mention his work around Southeast and in other parts of the state and country. His latest project is a reproduction of the “Waasgo Pole” for the Sitka National Historical Park . Tommy Joseph holds out a realistic wooden fist attached to a 6-foot pole and gives a socially-distanced fist bump. Then, he gets to work inside a roped-off shed, tucked behind the visitor’s center at the Sitka