National Native News

Photo: Gallup Indian Medical Center, where some of the forced sterilization took place. (Francine K. Smith / IHS/NAV)

A new group of 34 experts is working on a report about the forced sterilization of Indigenous women.

As KUNM’s Jeanette DeDios (Jicarilla Apache and Diné) reports, this comes after the passage of a Senate Memorial in this year’s New Mexico legislative session.

The memorial directs the state’s Indian Affairs Department and New Mexico Commission on the Status of Women on how to lead a study with the goal of identifying all cases of forced sterilization in New Mexico.

According to the memorial, between 25 and 50% of Indigenous women of childbearing age were sterilized. Some of the highest concentrations of procedures were in the Indian Health Service regions of Albuquerque, New Mexico and the Southwest.

State officials told members of the legislative interim Indian Affairs Committee last week that experts will gather survivor testimony, evaluate access to reproductive health care, and develop policy, education, and recommendations for reparations.

State Rep. Patricia Roybal Caballero (Piro Manso Tiwa Indian Tribe of the Pueblo of San Juan de Guadalupe), D-New Mexico, shared her own experience of being nearly sterilized against her will in 1975.

“Had my husband not been there and asking the questions on a form that was being given to me with a checklist, and I being traumatized, I would have exited that very common post miscarriage procedure, fully sterilized at a very young age of 25.”

Roybal Caballero said that the brave women who shared their stories is what encouraged her to share hers and it is horrific that these practices are still occurring.

State Rep. Michelle Paulene Abeyta (Navajo), D-New Mexico, hopes the results will yield efforts to bring the topic of forced sterilization among Native Americans to school curriculums within the state.

“I think that’s an important thing that needs to be in our school curriculum. I, for one, did not learn that until I was in a Native American Studies higher education program, unfortunately.”

The Indian Affairs Committee has until December 2027 to publish a report.

Support for this coverage comes from Thornburg Foundation.

Alaska Native veterans unveil a new monument at the Alaska Native Heritage Center’s Ngíisdla Garden on Sunday, September 27. (Photo: Alena Naiden)

A monument honoring Alaska Native veterans was unveiled at the Alaska Native Heritage Center last month.

The Alaska Desk’s Alena Naiden from our flagship station KNBA reports that the monument was shaped through months of meetings between the artist and a group of veterans.

The Alaska Native Heritage Center’s garden was glowing with fall foliage last month as dozens of veterans gathered for the unveiling of a new monument honoring their service and healing.

Kelsey Wallace is the center’s president and CEO.

“This monument creates a permanent place here at the Heritage Center to recognize that service – your service, sacrifice, strength, and your legacy.”

The monument depicts a large Tlingit dagger in a sheath covered with quilt-style Athabaskan designs.

Yéil Ya-Tseen Nicholas Galanin (Tlingit and Unangax̂), an artist from Sitka, hand-carved the sculpture.

“The intention of this work is to have this dagger in the sheath, so it’s representing peace in that sense, not really violence, but maybe vigilance, memory and resilience.”

The day started with veterans posting the colors and lighting a seal oil lamp. Some reflected on their service and shared memories of friends and family who died in wars.

Chief Bill Smith (Valdez Native Tribe), a Vietnam Veteran, says he wears a Vietnam hat … “to find other brothers and sisters and welcome them home.”

Smith says coping with his experiences has been a slow and complicated process.

“We’ll never be cured, but we can always walk that healing journey.”

Tlingit elder George Bennett from Sitka also served in Vietnam. He spoke about the importance of healing through culture and remembering to treat your loved ones right.

“You know who else got hurt? We don’t speak of them. It’s the family of that veteran. Their veteran came home – they didn’t recognize him. The military changed you. It changed how you think. … The way we live as you interact with each others, treat each others good, how we speak to one another is like medicine to your soul.”

Organizers say a group of Alaska Native veterans met every month over the past year to discuss the monument and offer feedback to Galanin. They say more monuments will be developed in the coming years and placed in the garden.

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Tuesday, October 6, 2026 — What removing questions about race from the U.S. Census means for Native Americans

Photo: Rhyolite formations at Chiricahua National Monument in southern Arizona. (Charles Dischinger)

The U.S. Senate unanimously passed a bill last week that would turn the Chiricahua National Monument in Cochise County into Arizona’s fourth national park.

As KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, the southern Arizona congressman who championed the bill is confident it will get President Donald Trump’s signature.

Chiricahua is the unmistakable name of the Apache band that nomadically inhabited the rugged borderlands between the U.S. and Mexico. Among them was Geronimo.

Historically, tribes like San Carlos, Mescalero, and Fort Sill Apache have not backed the national park designation.

The bill’s sponsor, U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani, R-Arizona, sought to ease concerns that Apaches could no longer access the 12,000 acre site for ceremonies, but Ciscomani promised them that their right to pray and worship freely would not be infringed upon because of visitors or traffic.

“We were able to assure them of that and make sure that was protected. That addressed most of their concerns on this – enough to not oppose this anymore.”

Ciscomani is confident that Trump will sign the bill despite his administration’s funding and staffing cuts to the National Park Service.

“We expect this to get done very soon, sooner than later. We should expect the president to sign this – no indication at all that there’s any kind of reservation from the White House on this. Quite the opposite, they’re celebrating it.”

The state currently has three national parks – Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest, and, most recently, Saguaro, which was designated in October 1994.

“So October has become a great month to designate national parks in Arizona – 32 years apart – but nevertheless it happened in the fall. Beautiful time of the year. I encourage everyone listening to go check out the Chiricahuas, and a lot more people are going to find out about them soon.”

Rocky Shore area in September 2026. (Photo: Andrea Taylor)

The Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians ceded much of their ancestral land as the U.S. ratified treaties across Oregon in 1855, but as Brian Bull of Underscore Native News and KLCC reports, some of that land will be returned soon.

It is called Rocky Shores, and it is on the Oregon coast south of Yachats.

After colonization, it fell under private ownership, but with the help of the McKenzie River Trust and some conservation non-profits, this seven-acre area will soon be back under the tribe’s stewardship.

The Siletz’s natural resources director, Angela Sondenaa, says Rocky Shores is a  pristine space rich in biodiversity.

“There is a freshwater stream that runs through it. It’s rich in ferns and mosses and mushrooms. Abundant salal, other coastal species that are so critically important to us and our efforts to restore kelp and sea otters to our territory.”

The acreage was bought for $120,000 and is expected to be transferred to the Siletz soon.

The tribe will not open it to the public to protect its ecosystem, but might hold organized events there.

Land within Coppermine Chapter on the Navajo Nation. (Courtesy Loren Thomas)

A Navajo Nation community near Page, Arizona passed a resolution in August denying a controversial copper mine proposal.

KNAU’s Chris Clements reports the denial means the mine likely will not be able to move forward — for now.

The resolution says the community of Coppermine unequivocally opposes any company digging for copper due to concerns about public health.

David Kelley is the CEO of Chakana Copper, the Canadian mining company tied to the proposal. He says he is aware of the resolution.

“We want a project that’s wholeheartedly endorsed by by the community until such time that it gets to that point, then you know there there’s not going to be a project.”

That comes as a big relief to tribal members like Destinee Bigman, who opposed the mine because she is worried about environmental impacts.

“Our land holds a lot of meaning to us as a family, and it means a lot. I mean, we ranch out there. Everything we do our traditional ceremonies there.”

Bigman says she does not think the community will ever allow the mine to move forward.

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Monday, October 5, 2026 — One tribe breaks from the pack on prediction markets

Photo: Albuquerque Indian Health Center. (cmh2315fl / Flickr)

A new congressional resolution is confronting a painful chapter in federal health care for Native women.

Lawmakers are formally condemning the non-consensual sterilization of thousands of Native women by the Indian Health Service in the 1970s. as Jeanette DeDios (Jicarilla Apache and Diné) reports.

Sterilization abuse against Native women is at the center of a congressional resolution introduced this week.

U.S. Reps. Sharice Davids (Ho-Chunk Nation), D-Kansas, and Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pennsylvania, introduced a resolution officially condemning the non-consensual sterilization of Native American women by IHS during the 1970s.

According to Davids’ office, a federal investigation found that between 1973 and 1976, IHS performed sterilization procedures on more than 3,400 Native women in four service areas without fully complying with informed consent requirements.

The Government Accountability Office, then known as the General Accounting Office, found problems including inadequate consent forms, improper waiting periods, and procedures performed on women under the age of 21.

The resolution acknowledges the lasting harm caused by the practice and calls for greater awareness of the federal government’s role in the abuse.

Davids says the history is personal for Native communities and that acknowledging what happened is necessary to rebuild trust.

The resolution also calls for continued efforts to protect informed consent and reproductive autonomy for Native people receiving health care.

Davids is one of the first two Native American women elected to Congress.

(Courtesy National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation / Facebook)

Across the country, Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians marked the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation this week.

As Dan Karpenchuk reports, September 30, also known as Orange Shirt Day, has become an important day of survivors of Canada’s notorious residential school system.

It is also known as Orange Shirt Day and was declared by the Canadian government following the discovery of more than 200 unmarked gaves at the site of a former residential school in British Columbia.

The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation says more than 150,000 First Nations, Métis, and Inuit children attened the schools between the mid 1800’s to the late 1900’s. Many of them never returned to their homes and families.

The children were taken from their families and communites and sent the residential schools which were run by churches and financed by the government.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney spoke in Edmonton about the sixth National Day for Truth and Reconcialiation. He said the day is about the children – those who survived and those who did not.

“And this is not a distant chapter in Canada’s past, but a truth that endures. And truth is the foundation of justice. We shouldn’t choose, as we used to here, in Fort Edmonton, which parts of our history to remember. We shouldn’t admire the bead work, and foreget the children that were forced into uniforms. We shoudn’t honour the drum and ignore the years that it was made to fall silent. And we should not hear the truth of residential schools and fail to act on it.”

Across Canada, survivors of the schools told their stories of abuse and loss of culture. In Ottawa, Governor General Louise Arbour said it is important for all Canadians to face their unsettling past.

She said truth does not change the past; it is a reminder that memory carries responsibility, to recognize the injustices to learn from them, and to ensure that they are never repeated.

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Friday, October 2, 2026 — Indigenous design as visual sovereignty

Photo: Revillagigedo Island in Alaska where the old-growth forest plan is facing objections from KIC. (Anita Gould / Flickr)

Ketchikan Indian Community and two conservation groups are asking a federal court to halt an old-growth timber sale in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest.

The Shelter Cove sale offers about 4 million board feet of timber as part of the larger South Revilla project near Ketchikan.

The groups argue logging would harm subsistence resources, wildlife. and remaining old-growth forest.

KIC President Gloria Burns says Indigenous knowledge cannot be treated as an afterthought in decisions about Tribal homelands.

The groups are seeking an injunction while the court considers their broader lawsuit challenging the South Revilla project.

Bids for the timber sale are scheduled to open October 20.

Tesuque Casino in Santa Fe, N.M. (Courtesy Tesuque Casino)

Prediction markets are becoming an issue for Native American tribes who argue they are threatening their gaming revenues and thus their ability to fund vital services.

As KUNM’s Jeanette DeDios (Jicarilla Apache and Diné) reports, New Mexico tribes and state lawmakers are looking at taxing them.

Prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket are online platforms where people wager bets on an outcome around future real-world events, like sports or elections, but because of the way they are regulated they do not usually pay taxes to states.

Tribal gaming in New Mexico, however, contributed over $151 million to the state’s general fund in the last fiscal year.

Tribes fear that prediction markets will lead people away from gambling in tribal casinos to online markets, which people can access on their phones while on tribal lands. and tribal officials say that is a violation of the gaming rights they negotiated with the state as sovereign governments.

Tribes also use those revenues for things like early education programs, housing, and healthcare.

During a meeting of the Indian Affairs Interim Committee last week, Navajo Nation Council Delegate Eugenia Charles-Newton describes how prediction markets are also targeting minors to bet.

Right now, with prediction markets, we know that a 10-year-old standing next to the sheep camp, they can go onto a website and they can wager a bet.

Prediction market websites are classified as federal financial exchanges rather than traditional gambling platforms, which allows them to market to people 18 and older. With weak age verification on social media, minors have been reported making wagers.

Prediction markets currently exist in a legal gray area and gaming officials want the state to tax them, but lawmakers raised concerns. Those include whether taxes would affect current gaming compacts, how online activity would be tracked on tribal lands, and who would collect revenue.

The Mescalero Apache, along with Isleta, Pojoaque, and Sandia pueblos are suing Kalshi. The New Mexico Attorney General also filed suit in June.

They are among a number of lawsuits across the country against the platforms. In response, the federal government is suing New Mexico to block the state from enforcing its gambling laws against prediction markets.

(Courtesy Native Voters Alliance Nevada)

Voting disparities have deep roots for people of color and new research shows New Mexico’s Native voters are likely to face numerous roadblocks at the November ballot box.

Roz Brown has more.

Native voters in New Mexico face many barriers to voting, including disproportionately high rejections for voter registration and mail-in ballots.

The new Native American Rights Fund and Blockwell Consulting report, “Obstacles Persist”, analyzes data collected by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission from the 2020, 2022, and 2024 general elections.

The report found rejected voter registration applications increased by an average of 200% in counties where Native Americans make up at least a quarter of the population.

Senior staff attorney Allison Neswood says the report confirms what Native communities have long known to be true.

“Their registration is getting denied, their ballots [are] getting rejected, and all of this really adds up to the systemic disenfranchisement of our people in our own homelands.”

The report also outlines how disruptions at the U.S. Postal Service had a significant impact on Native voters. Even as overall mail-in voting numbers declined between 2020 and 2024, the rejection rate of ballots in areas with larger Native populations increased by 134%.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order, calling on the Postal Service to oversee mail-in ballots, a move plaintiffs successfully argued would have severely restricted voting by mail.

The report’s recommendations include expanding automatic and same-day registration to areas with larger Native populations, and paying poll workers comparable wages.

Neswood says more investment is needed for voting infrastructure in Indian Country.

“Making sure that our Native communities have polling locations in a reasonable distance from where they live, making sure they have registration opportunities, making sure that they can participate in mail voting.”

The study focused on counties with high Native populations, including Cibola, McKinley, and San Juan counties in New Mexico along with Apache and Navajo counties in Arizona.

Research by the Brennan Center in 2024 found voters of color are more likely to turn out when they live in jurisdictions where their ethnic group is the majority.

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Thursday, October 1, 2026 — Indigenous leaders take on organized attempts to downplay residential school narrative

Photo courtesy Tkʼemlúps te Secwépemc

Canadian political leaders are condemning a white nationalist demonstration on Indigenous land in British Columbia as “despicable”.

As Dan Karpenchuk reports, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are now investigating the incident.

(Courtesy Tkʼemlúps te Secwépemc)

The group displayed a sign near a former Residential school that appeared to question the existence of children’s remains.

Their demonstration took place on land belonging to the Tkʼemlúps te Secwépemc reserve near Kamloops.

Police were called and members of the group, wearing masks, moved on through the city of Kamloops.

Police officials say they take the matter seriously and are investigating.

British Columbia is in the middle of a provincial election campaign and New Democratic party leader David Eby condemned the demonstration as disgusting.

“This isn’t who we are as British Columbians. And we have seen a rise in hate, we have a rise in this kind of white nationalist behaviour in the province. So we got to do more to fight it.”

The province’s Conservative party leader Lorne Doerkson also voiced is disapproval.

“What happened yesterday, it was appalling and I hope that our law enforcement does everything they can, and everything that is available to them, to make sure that events like that do not happen in our province.”

Prime Minister Mark Carney called the demonstration both cowardly and abhorrent adding that it had no place in this country.

In a statement, Tkʼemlúps te Secwépemc Chief Rosaenne Casimir said it was deeply concerning. She said the safety and well being of band members is a priority, adding that her people had a right to feel safe in their homes and in their community.

According to the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, a white nationalist group called The Second Sons views violence as necessary and inevitable to defend their movement, attack opposition, and ethnically cleanse Canada.

(Photo: Dean Swope / KYUK)

The draft of a supplemental report for the possible environmental impact of Alaska’s proposed Donlin Gold Mine was released for public comment this week.

A federal court judge last year required the mine project to reexamine some of those impacts, particularly a larger spill scenario.

KYUK’s Samantha Watson reports on its findings.

The 2025 court order hinged on the possible environmental impact of the dam that would hold back waste from the proposed Donlin Gold mine project, called a tailings dam.

Donlin Gold plans for the construction of a dam taller than the great pyramid of Giza, with capacity to contain millions of tons of production waste.

It has been a focal point for regional opposition to the mine. Many locals have expressed fear about the possible contamination of the nearby land, communities, and the Kuskokwim River should that dam leak, or fail.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers examined potential environmental impacts of the project to inform the federal permitting process. The agency’s 2018 environmental assessment of the project, which was used to permit the proposed mine. modeled a spill of just 0.5% of the tailings dam’s contents.

But Bethel’s Orutsararmiut Native Council argued in federal court that the Army Corps should have considered the chance of a much larger spill. A federal judge agreed on that point.

This week, a draft of that court-ordered report was released for public comment. It examines a spill of 27% of the dam’s contents into the land and waterways surrounding the mine site on the middle Kuskokwim River.

In that catastrophic scenario, the Army Corps’ draft report says a spill could devastate fish habitats and aquatic activity in Crooked Creek, a community about ten miles from the proposed mine site, for decades.

Thousands of acres of wetlands and streams would be buried or eroded.

A spill that large would expose the people in Crooked Creek to contaminants, potentially displace members of the community, or even kill people, the report says.

Donlin Gold said in a written statement last Wednesday that it takes the report seriously.

The company also maintains that “the supplemental review does not mean the risk of a tailings release has increased, nor does it represent a change to the proposed tailings storage facility design.”

In a statement also released last Wednesday, the law firm Earthjustice, which represents tribal opposition to the proposed mine, said that the supplemental environmental review still falls short.

They argue that 27% is still a small percentage of what could be released. They want to see modifications to the design of the tailings dam.

The draft report now enters a 30-day comment period.

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Wednesday, September 30, 2026 — The Menu: Blue corn children’s book and a new Native pastry shop

Photo: The Alaska Federation of Natives educates young people in Indigenous villages about the importance of voting in every election. (Michelle Sparck / AFN)

Alaska Native leaders are working to bring back the power of the state’s Indigenous voters.

In a state where one in four voters is Native, Tribal leaders say that inaccessible geography and information gaps have combined to reduce the potency of Indigenous voices.

What was once a powerful voting bloc has weakened over the years as younger generations have become less politically active, as Mark Moran reports.

As recently as 1982, Indigenous people wielded substantial power at the polls – some villages even had voter turnout as high as 80%. That number has fallen drastically, now hovering at closer to 30%.

Michelle Sparck, director of Get Out Native Vote for Alaska Federation of Natives, says Indigenous leaders are encouraging Native villagers to carry on the tradition of democracy established by their elders.

“How difficult is it to convince a dozen of your friends and neighbors in a small community to invest in making informed decisions, and testimony, and willingness to serve? And that’s what we’re asking our people to do, is reflect on our history.”

Sparck says Alaska’s Indigenous population prefers to cast its vote in person rather than by mail, which can often be difficult due to geography, health issues or a lack of polling places. But even if voting by mail, postal service can often be interrupted by severe weather.

There is also limited access to Alaskan communities that can only be reached by boat or plane.

The Alaska Federation of Natives has worked in schools to teach young people about civics and government.

The organization also travels to villages to encourage young people to re-awaken the power of voting.

“We have so much political power. We have an ability to shape Alaska’s government in our own image, and we just need to own that power again, just like our elders did.”

Indigenous villages are also facing a shortage of poll workers, especially in the most remote regions of the state, or physical polling places that were never open at all in recent elections – including in Shaktoolik, Diomede, and Kobuk in northwest and western Alaska.

Federal officials are also working to build practices to best communicate with Indigenous villagers, and help them exercise their right to vote.

Organizations like the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center in south Minneapolis offer supportive housing that helps urban Native Americans access culturally responsive healthcare, social, and recreational services as they overcome obstacles in their lives. (Courtesy MIWRC)

Ending longstanding disparities for Native Americans is not just limited to reservations.

A lack of access to affordable, stable housing is an issue felt across Minnesota. Support organizations working with Indigenous populations in Minneapolis say they are working through a maze of complications, as Mike Moen reports.

Minneapolis is home to one of the largest concentrations of urban Native Americans in the United States with a key cultural corridor on the city’s south side.

The American Indian Community Development Corporation offers programs addressing housing and homelessness in the area.

Executive Director Travis Earth-Werner says the support system has had a lot to contend with recently.

“The opioid epidemic, the pandemic, all these events that have occurred throughout, you know, the last ten years [have] escalated homelessness, poverty. There’s a lot of first-time homeless individuals.”

His nonprofit has about 500 units available for Native Americans overcoming substance use disorders and other challenges so they can maintain their housing, but Earth-Werner says resources are stretched thin, with added concerns about possible federal cuts on the horizon. And he says there are still gaps to fill for needs like sober housing options.

In communities all over, Earth-Werner says everybody wants to add affordable housing development to meet demand, but he says to stay in those units, people need good paying jobs that do not always require a long list of education credentials.

And for areas with unique needs, he says groups on the ground need all the outside support they can get so that staff members can stay mission focused.

“It takes people with a lot of hard work to work with individuals and progress them forward when often there’s a lot of hopelessness involved.”

Ruth Buffalo, president of the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center, echoes thoughts about having strong supportive services to go alongside any new housing development.

In this part of South Minneapolis, she says public safety feels like an afterthought, with drug dealing and other criminal activity making it hard for American Indians to go about their daily lives.

“Our most vulnerable are really trying hard to make a new path forward, but they can just go right outside and there’s predators lurking.”

The Women’s Resource Center recently opened its 24-unit supportive housing building called Oshki-Gakeyaa, or New Way.

The city contributed funding to that effort, but on a larger scale, Buffalo says policymakers need to listen to what residents want in crafting solutions, like housing they can afford.

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Photo: Margaret Scott testifies before the Salix City Council meeting in Iowa on September 9, 2026. (Courtesy Kevin Hurley / Riverbend Video Production / YouTube)

The Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska is fighting to stop a potential Google data center in Salix, Iowa, just across the state line near the Missouri River. Chrystal Blair explains.

Google is considering a site spanning about 900 acres. Tribal leaders say the project could put pressure on water that the Tribe has a legal right to use based on a Supreme Court ruling more than a century ago.

Margaret Scott is a member of the Winnebago Tribal Council.

“The groundwater from the Dakota Sandstone Aquifer and the Missouri River are actually where our wells pull from in the Winnebago Reservation, and all the fresh water that sustains our community is actually from these two aquifers.”

She says the Winnebago Tribal Council has approved a resolution opposing hyperscale data centers on or near its reservation. Google says it is still evaluating the Salix site and intends to consider local water resources as it develops plans.

Scott notes Tribal leaders have attended meetings to make their position known, submitting written comments as Woodbury County consider rules for data centers.

She emphasizes that the Tribe’s opposition to the hyperscale data center is deeper than just an objection to a neighborhood development.

“This is a sovereignty issue, because whenever the U.S. government reserves land for an Indian Tribe, it’s implied that they reserve all the water necessary to sustain the Tribe now and into the future.”

She adds that protecting the water matters for the Tribe’s future generations, referencing a troubling global projection from UNICEF.

“UNICEF’s actually saying by 2040, one in four children will be in water stress, meaning that they will have a very, you know, high lack of water.”

Scott stresses that the Missouri River is part of the Tribe’s identity, history and way of life.

She says the Tribe has given its contact information to Google and MidAmerican Energy, but neither have contacted Tribal leaders about the potential data center.

Comedian and TV writer Joey Clift is out with his first book, “We’ve Been Here the Whole Time! A Not So Sacred Guide to All Things Native America.”

The Cowlitz Tribal member says it is to help non-Natives better understand Indian Country.

Brian Bull of Underscore Native News has this preview.

Clift is the creative mind behind a viral video about cultural appropriation and “Pretendians”, which hit social media four years ago. “Just Because You Say You’re A Bear Doesn’t Make You A Bear” is a light-hearted short with a serious message.

“If you wear the traditional clothing of a bear when telling a bear that you’re also a bear, you’ll get mauled by that bear.”

Clift sees humor as a way to ease some otherwise reluctant audiences into empathizing with other cultures and communities.

“Comedy is a fantastic tool to educate people about something they’re not educated about. I feel like your average person is probably not going to sit down and watch a lecturer read a thousand-page book about the history of this continent. But if you can wrap some of those lessons into a two-minute comedy video full of jokes, it’s basically like putting some sugar and some candy around the medicine.”

“I think that this book does a really good job of giving a base level Indian 101 conversation, covering a little bit of everything, things like history but also explaining things like the Land Back movement, and tribal enrollment, treaties, tribal sovereignty. I mean there’s an entire chapter about how cool my tribe’s casino is, y’know?”

The book expounds on a 2022 video Clift produced that took high schools to task for limiting Native history to the pre-1900s, leaving the rest to general ignorance and Hollywood tropes.

“We don’t have magic powers but I wish we did, ’cause I’d use them to make it so your school taught you that Native people can’t talk to animals instead of whatever the presidential fitness test is. You heard what I said!”

Figures like Andrew Jackson, John Wayne, and Native-themed sports mascots also get called out, but it is not just ire and eyerolls.

Clift also highlights notable Natives, from super athlete Jim Thorpe to Deb Haaland, the first Native person to serve as a U.S. Cabinet secretary.

The overall goal is to have a few laughs, but also learn some new things.

“I hope that this book is like, your first step into your Native education journey. And that your next step is to just inundate yourself with other cool Native orgs, artists, musicians and people to get even more educated about this. I’m just one person, so the only way to really get educated is to seek out other perspectives.”

“We’ve Been Here the Whole Time” hits bookstores October 6.

Statue of Juan Cabrillo at Cabrillo national monument in San Diego, Calif. in November 2025. (Photo: Blervis / Wikimedia)

And on this day in 1542, Portuguese explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo sailed into what is now San Diego Bay, becoming the first European known to reach the west coast of what is now the United States.

His arrival marked the beginning of European exploration and colonization along the California coast

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Monday, September 28, 2026 — The Menu: Traditional foraging in Yosemite, a blue corn children’s book, and a new Native pastry shop

An opera performed entirely in Lingít finished its run in Juneau, Alaska on Sunday.

The opera is about a series of battles in Sitka between Southeast Alaska Native peoples and Russian invaders.

One Lingít clan was especially involved in that history, and texts about the battles say this is their story, but members of that clan say they were never asked for permission to tell this story in the first place.

KTOO’s Yvonne Krumrey reports.

Ḵutulagaaw: The Tlingit-Russian Battles debuted in Juneau earlier this month, after nearly a decade of work.

The opera was produced by Sealaska Heritage Institute in partnership with Perseverance Theatre.

Members of the Kiks.ádi clan in Sitka, whose ancestors died and on whose land the battle took place, say SHI did not consult them about the project.

In August, SHI Director Kahaani Rosita Worl said at a public panel at SHI that the story does not belong just to the Kiks.ádi.

She said SHI had conversations about the ownership of this story back in the early 2000s, when the organization was compiling the written history of the battles.

“We came to the conclusion that since all of our clans and the Haidas united to battle the the Russians in 1802, we believed that these this story was owned by all of the clans and the Haidas, so we moved forward in that way.”

But Kiks.ádi clan members in Sitka see it differently.

Yeidikook’áa Dionne Brady-Howard is the Kiks.ádi clan mother. She holds important clan knowledge like songs and stories and clan members can consult her on protocols.

“When it comes to the Battle of 1804 in particular, that story is very much ours.”

She said asking for permission is not just about protocol, it is about respecting the power of these stories.

“It’s important at the very core to remember who we are and where we came from when we approach doing these kinds of things.”

Lduteen Jerrick Hope-Lang says Worl’s position contradicts with the written history of the battles, which was published by SHI.

“I think she saying that publicly, which is revisionist from what the SHI published history is, that she is doing that to allow herself the freedom to be able to tell the story.”

The creators of the opera based its story on an exhaustive tome of research about the battles.

That book is called “Anóoshi Lingít Aaní Ká Russians in Tlingit America: the Battles of Sitka 1802 and 1804”.

The book states that this history “belongs primarily, if not exclusively to the Kiks.ádi” and “(f)rom the Lingít point of view, an unauthorized telling constitutes stealing.”

But in a phone call with KTOO, Worl reiterated her stance on the ownership of this story.

When asked about the book’s claim that the Kiks.ádi own the story, she attributed that discrepancy to one of the three authors of the book, the late Richard Dauenhauer.

“I don’t think he understood the complexities of Lingít law and ownership, so that was his assumption, and I think it’s because he was interviewing primarily the Kiks.ádi in Sitka.”

Worl added that SHI has a council of traditional scholars, which ensures the nonprofit maintains cultural integrity.

Hope-Lang said he does not agree with Worl’s position on who owns the story.

“No one individual can alienate our history from us, although she’s certainly trying. So even I, a Kiks.ádi member, could not say to Rosita, ‘because you’re friends with me, or you’ve studied this, I’m going to give you this history, and you can mark it as whatever.’ I can’t alienate my history from my own people. It’s collectively owned.”

And Hope-Lang said he does not want this to take away from the work so many people put into this project.

“We have something in Lingít language, telling our history in 2026. That should be the celebration.”

He sent a letter to SHI and the Sealaska board outlining his concerns and asking for an apology.

Worl said SHI will respond to that letter.

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Friday, September 25, 2026 — Native Bookshelf: ‘The Birthing Tree’ by Amanda Peters and ‘How Settlers Get Away with Murder’ by Liza Black

A new NOVA documentary is highlighting Indigenous science and knowledge developed over thousands of years.

“Knowledge Keepers” explores how Native communities have used observation, experimentation, and relationships with the natural world to sustain their people.

The film features communities across North America and the knowledge they are working to carry forward.

For filmmaker Daniel Golding, a citizen of the Fort Yuma Quechan Indian Tribe, the project begins by reconsidering what we call science.

“I think, a lot of times we think of what science is, is from a Western perspective, but I think, if you really understand, deconstruct it and understand how Indigenous people have held this knowledge of this land, and how to live on it, work with it, and develop it, you know, they’ve developed their own sort of form of science that is a little bit different from Western science.”

One of the people featured in the film is Roberto Nutlouis, executive director of Nihikeya, a Diné organization working to restore traditional ecological and cultural practices on the Navajo Nation.

Nutlouis says Indigenous knowledge can offer solutions to challenges communities face today.

“I think for me, both for our own community, as well as the larger audience, is to demonstrate that Indigenous knowledge is not primitive, is not backward, that it holds so much potential solutions for the issues of our times.”

For Nutlouis, preserving that knowledge also means refusing to treat culture as something that exists only in history.

“We have to put it into the present tense, and in order to put it into the present tense, there has to be action behind it. There has to be some relevancy, applied nature to it.”

The documentary also explores Indigenous knowledge through Arctic navigation, traditional home construction, and coastal aquaculture.

Golding says making the film changed the way he looks at his own relationship with the environment. And he hopes viewers reconsider what Indigenous knowledge can teach them about the places where they live.

“Well, I think what I’ve been preaching now after I completed this is just, you know, go outside and take a look at your environment. See how you can work with it. See what kind of change you can make to better your place.”

“Knowledge Keepers” was produced by Hokan Media in association with Vision Maker Media for NOVA.

It premieres September 23 on PBS stations and streaming.

A new federal audit finds staffing shortages and case backlogs have hindered the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ efforts to investigate missing and murdered Indigenous people.

The U.S. Interior Department’s Inspector General found BIA’s Missing and Murdered Unit had 83 open cases and nearly 400 referrals awaiting review as of November 2024.

The Associated Press reports nearly half of the unit’s positions were still vacant last year.

Sarah Deer, a University of Kansas law professor, says the problems compound the grief families already face.

“A system designed as a response to that history cannot ask families to keep waiting.”

BIA says it has taken steps to improve case processing and victim services following the audit.

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Thursday, September 24, 2026 — AI threat goes beyond just misuse of data

A decade after thousands of Native activists and allies protested at Standing Rock against the North Dakota Pipeline Project, anniversary celebrations, tributes, and remembrances are being shared by many participants.

A Mni Wiconi reunion gathering was recently livestreamed by the Indigenous Environmental Network, while those “Water Protectors” who have died in the last decade have been memorialized online in social media and tribal news outlets.

The Guardian newspaper says the reunion event opened with the lighting of a sacred fire, using the very same coals that burned at the encampment in 2016.

Clashes with National Guard soldiers and police resulted in many demonstrators injured or suffering post-traumatic stress disorder, leading many anniversary events to include prayers for healing, as well as renewed calls to explore clean energy alternatives.

The Dallas-based company Energy Transfer Partners eventually built its pipeline which currently transports up to 750,000 barrels of oil a day from North Dakota to a refinery in Illinois.

Critics maintain the pipeline endangers the environment and could pollute critical waterways for regional tribes and rural communities.

Several Native activists told The Guardian that they “would do it again” and that the movement grew from a simple encampment to a global awareness of Indigenous resilience and environmental stewardship.

A commemoration was held this summer in Saskatchewan to mark 150 years since the signing of Treaty 6, between the First Nations and Canada.

As Dan Karpenchuk reports, the treaty set out the rights, benefits, and responsibilities of both parties.

Late in the summer, First Nations leaders, dignitaries, and community members gathered for a four-day commemoration at Fort Carlton. They were there to reflect on the history of Treaty 6 and the framework it established 150 years ago.

Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak is the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations.

“Today is not simply about remembering history. It is about recognizing that Treaty 6 is a living, enduring document. It speaks to the relationship between First Nations and Canada and guides that relationship.”

Some native leaders say they are still advocating for treaty rights, especially in the are of health care for Indigenous communities. And many spoke about the role of governments.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe attended the commemoration and talked about the importance of the treaty.

“We should talk and we should move forward together. We won’t always agree. However if we continue to talk and we can set our differences aside, we can truly build something that’s better for tomorrow, for our children, for the next generation.”

Earlier this year, several chiefs who represent Treaty 6 travelled to Buckingham Palace to invite King Charles III to attend the commemoration.

He was not able to attend, but his representative in Canada, Governor General Louise Arbour, was there, and she said more than ever our collective well being depends on the trust that we place in one another.

“The Captains’ Return” sits alongside the Mississippi River where the Lewis & Clark Expedition ended on this day in 1806. (Courtesy NPS)

And on this day in 1806, the Lewis and Clark Expedition completed its return journey after exploring much of the territory President Thomas Jefferson secured though the Louisiana Purchase.

Often called the “Corps of Discovery”, the explorers and their men encountered 70 Indian tribes and recorded roughly 200 wildlife and plants never before seen by the Western world.

A Native woman, Sacajawea, became an interpreter and liaison between the expedition and tribes they encountered. She delivered a baby boy in 1805, which was named Jean Baptiste Charbonneau.

The legacy of Lewis and Clark’s expedition is heralded by some as an adventure filled with scientific and diplomatic achievement, while others see it as the advent of Westward expansion and hardship for Native tribes across North America.

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Wednesday, September 23, 2026 — How Indigenous voices adapt to rapidly evolving media