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Lightning-Sparked Wildfire In Central Washington Grows

Firefighters are battling the lightning-strike Snag Canyon Fire that’s grown quite large just north of Ellensburg.

The Snag Canyon Fire is sending plumes of smoke mixing with storm clouds above tinder-dry hillsides just outside of Ellensburg, Washington.

Credit Anna King / Northwest News Network

It’s burned nearly 2,000 acres and is challenging firefighters who are trying to secure lines closest to town.

Sarah Foster, an information officer with Washington State Incident Management Team 1, said the Snag Canyon Fire grew quickly over the weekend and the erratic winds are making it very unpredictable.

“We’re hoping that resources are coming in from all across the state and around the region to help fight this fire,” Foster said. “But as everyone knows with all the fires we’ve got in all of Eastern Washington and now in Oregon and other states as well, finding the resources is becoming more of a challenge.”

She said they just don’t have enough firefighters. An emergency shelter for livestock and other animals has been set up at the Kittitas County Fairgrounds. There are a few horses and dogs there so far.

6-year-old Bremerton girl still missing

This undated photo provided by the Kitsap County Sheriff's Office shows Jenise Paulette Wright. Kitsap County sheriff's deputies are searching for Jenise, 6, who is missing and was last seen Saturday night, Aug. 2, 2014, at her home in east Bremerton, Wash. Jenise is 3 feet tall, weighs 45 pounds and has black hair. She'll be a first-grader this coming school year. Photo: Uncredited, AP — This undated photo provided by the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office shows Jenise Paulette Wright. Kitsap County sheriff’s deputies are searching for Jenise, 6, who is missing and was last seen Saturday night, Aug. 2, 2014, at her home in east Bremerton, Wash. Jenise is 3 feet tall, weighs 45 pounds and has black hair. She’ll be a first-grader this coming school year. Photo: Uncredited, AP

By: Associated Press, Tuesday, Aug 5

BREMERTON, Wash. (AP) — Searchers worked through the night, looking for a 6-year-old girl who disappeared from her Bremerton home.

But a Kitsap County sheriff’s dispatcher says Tuesday morning there’s still no sign of Jenise (juh-NEES’)Wright.

She was last seen Saturday night but not reported missing until Sunday night.

A spokesman for the sheriff’s office, Deputy Scott Wilson, says the circumstances are suspicious.

The parents have agreed to take lie detector tests to help with the investigation.

On Monday, state child welfare workers removed two other children from the home, an 8-year-old boy and 12-year-old girl.

First Nations Transparency Act may do more harm than good: Hayden King

Aboriginal people may find themselves with even less power to create change

By Hayden King, for CBC News, Canada, Aug 02, 201

This week the federal government’s legislation, The First Nations Financial Transparency Act (FNFTA), was made law.

Financial statements and salaries of First Nation council’s were posted on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada’s website earlier this week. And those councils who refuse to participate will face a court order.

According to Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt, this is an effort to provide First Nations people with transparency and allow them to hold their elected leaders accountable. In other words, to empower them.

Given the early reactions to the publication of this data, I don’t share the assessment. So what can we expect?

First, we can expect the media to find a handful of chief and councils that pay themselves unjustifiable salaries.

This reporting has already begun and at least one B.C. chief has found himself on national news broadcasts and other national media for consecutive days.

AFN National Chief Ghislain Picard says the act calls for disclosure of information above and beyond that of other governments, including potentially sensitive information about business dealings. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

Of course, this information is important to know. But we can also expect the media to do little else. Few will cover the hundreds of chiefs and/or councils that make $10,000 a year. Few will examine the extreme AANDC underfunding this new data reveals.

Few will ask critical questions about the consequences of First Nations (which are often both governments and corporations) disclosing the details of business dealings with current and/or future negotiating partners.

Second, because of the likely superficial media reporting we can expect many to run with the popular “corrupt chief” narrative to shape their desired policy changes.

Many so-called experts on First Nations peoples in the media and politics will generalize to indict all leaders as taxpayer leeches (though the language will be more delicate).

‘With the media identifying the problem of corrupt chiefs and so-called experts proposing assimilatory solutions, there will be confirmation that the Indian problem is the Indian’s own fault’– Hayden King

Certainly we’ll see organizations like The Canadian Taxpayers Federation, which spearheaded the legislation in the first place, use the generalization to call for the erosion of treaties, end of “special” Indian status, privatization of reserves, etc. While taxpayer activism is certainly common, it seems to provoke a special kind of fury when involving Indigenous Peoples.

Third, we can probably expect many Canadians to harden their perspectives on First Nations peoples.

With the media likely focusing on the corrupt-chiefs problem and the so-called experts proposing assimilatory solutions, that will be confirmation for many that the Indian problem is the Indian’s own fault.

And since the challenges indigenous people face will be perceived as a self-inflicted suffering, many Canadians will feel absolved of any responsibility to First Nations, and will instead feel permitted to cast judgement and simply wait for civilization to reach the natives.

In short, the transparency act will be an effective tool to solidify apathy and disengagement with indigenous perspectives and ideas.

Fourth, we can probably also expect the federal government to double-down on the unilateral “aboriginal” policy that has been ongoing for some time.

This includes stripping communities of power in areas of social policy, extinguishing rights and title, reducing program resources, andgenerally trying to transform communities into municipalities under provincial jurisdiction.

With the First Nation leadership being stripped of legitimacy, and Canadians oscillating between aloof and angry, much of the opposition to this increasingly transformative trend will be neutralized. The FNFTA may actually grant AANDC greater licence to intervene in the lives of indigenous peoples.

Finally, we can expect First Nations people to use this data to continue to hold their leadership accountable.

The reality is that most communities already have access to this information (and much more) and generally they do not skirt or ignore issues of bad governance.

From the broad Idle No More movement to specific cases like the ongoing Wahta Community Fire in central Ontario (where a Kanien’kehá:ka community shut down its administrative building because the band council wasn’t following transparency rules), the formal and more provocative examples of communities holding leaders accountable and pushing for new (or very old) governance models independent of the Indian Act are numerous.

‘In an era where reconciliation actually means confrontation and our public discourse is often shallow, every new policy, law, court decision, protest and blockade is a struggle to shape the narrative’– Hayden King

All of this is not an argument against the legislation itself or an endorsement of the status quo.

Aside from the obvious absurdity of Canada continuing to dictate to and administer First Nation communities, the content of the legislation is relatively benign. But the consequences may be significant.

In an era where reconciliation seems more to mean confrontation and our public discourse is often shallow, every new policy, law, court decision, protest and blockade is a struggle to shape the narrative.

Despite what Bernard Valcourt claims about the FNFTA, First Nations may find themselves with even less power to create change.

You are here Sen. Murkowski reverses position on ‘Alaska exception’ to domestic violence law

By Sari Horwitz, The Washington Post

The 2013 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act was heralded by President Barack Obama as a significant step for Native American women because it allows tribal courts to prosecute certain crimes of domestic violence committed by non-Native Americans and enforce civil protection orders against them.

Before the bill passed the Senate, however, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, added Section 910, known as the “Alaska exception,” that exempted Alaska Native tribes. Murkowski argued that her provision did not change the impact of the bill since even without it, the bill pertained only to “Indian country,” where tribes live on reservations and have their own court systems. As defined by federal law, there is almost no Indian country in Alaska.

Now, after pressure from Alaska Natives, Murkowski is reversing her position and trying to repeal the provision she inserted.

The senator’s change of mind is the subject of much debate in Alaska, with state officials saying that ending the exception won’t make any difference for Alaska Natives because it only applies to Indian country and the state already takes action to protect Native women and children. Tribes and the Justice Department, on the other hand, argue that repealing the provision will have a significant impact.

Associate Attorney General Tony West, who called for the repeal of the “Alaska exemption,” says that the state needs to enforce tribal civil protection orders in cases of domestic violence and that the legislative change would send a strong message about tribal authority.

“It’s important to send a very clear signal that tribal authority means something, that tribal authority is an important component to helping to protect Native women and Native children from violence,” said West, who testified in June before a hearing in Anchorage of the Task Force on American Indian and Alaska Native Children Exposed to Violence. “Those civil protective orders can help to save lives.”

Murkowski’s provision, which was originally an amendment she co-sponsored with Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, in 2012, was supported by state officials. Begich has also changed his position since then.

Alaska Attorney General Michael Geraghty and Gary Folger, commissioner of the Department of Public Safety, have said that Alaska is already enforcing civil protection orders issued by tribes to try to keep one person from stalking or committing abuse or violence against another person.

But Murkowski’s “Alaska exception” reopened a contentious debate surrounding criminal jurisdiction over Alaska Native villages, and it has created confusion among law enforcement officials.

Alaska Native women protested Murkowski’s exception, and the Indian Law and Order Commission called it “unconscionable.”

“Given that domestic violence and sexual assault may be a more severe public safety problem in Alaska Native communities than in any other tribal communities in the United States, this provision adds insult to injury,” the commission said.

Troy Eid, a former U.S. attorney and chairman of the commission, said that only one Alaska Native village has a women’s shelter. He and the other commissioners were stunned by what they heard in remote Alaska Native communities, he said.

“We went to villages where every woman told us they had been raped,” Eid said. “Every single woman.”

On her Facebook page last year, Murkowski wrote: “It hurts my heart that some Alaskans may think I do not fully support protecting Native women from violence with every fiber of my being.”

“In Alaska, we have one, and only one reservation: Metlakatla,” Murkowski wrote. “The other 228 tribes have been described by the U.S. Supreme Court as ‘tribes without territorial reach.’ The expansion of jurisdiction over non-members of a tribe is a controversial issue in our state, and what works in the Lower 48, won’t necessarily work here.”

Murkowski said she still has concerns about repealing the exemption but said in a statement: “We must turn the tide of the rates of sexual assault, domestic violence, and child abuse in our state.”

“Caucasians” T-shirt That Mocks Cleveland Indians’ Wahoo a Best-Seller

Brian Kirby of Shelf Life Clothing in Cleveland designed the “Caucasians” logo T-shirt.

Source: Indian Country Today, 8/4/14

A new sports-logo T-shirt has become a hot seller in Canada and parts of the United States.

The words “Caucasians” with the image of a grinning caricature (reminiscent of the Indians’ Chief Wahoo) across the front hints at how offensive Native mascots on professional sports teams can be. The Toronto Star reported that it is a “hot fashion item” in the Ontario First Nations community.

“People’s reaction has been all positive and they see the humour in it both on and off the reserve,” Tracy Bomberry, Six Nations of the the Grand River, told the Star.

Her inspiration to wear the shirt came after learning that Ojibwa singer Ian Campeau, aka, DJ NDN of A Tribe Called Red was accused of being a “racist hypocrite” for wearing one, the paper said.

Campeau from A Tribe Called Red wears the “Caucasians” T-shirt. (cbc.ca)

According to MetroNews.Ca, an email was sent anonymously to Westfest, a popular music festival in Ottawa, Canada, where Tribe Called Red was scheduled to perform. The individual who sent the email threatened to boycott the concert because Campeau was spotted wearing the T-shirt.

“I thought how hypocritical that he would be accused of racism for wearing a shirt that turns the tables in a satirical way of how our image as native people has been misappropriated by the Cleveland Indians, Washington Redskins and the like,” Bomberry said.

Campeau, his band, and staff members of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), including First Nations Chief, Shawn Atleo, filed a lawsuit to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario claiming that the Amateaur football team, the Nepean Redskins, use of the R-word was racially discriminatory, and sought to quell its use. The tribunal dismissed the complaint in March, but the team changed its name to the Nepean Eagles.

Brian Kirby of Shelf Life Clothing in Cleveland said that the interest in the T-shirt “skyrocketed” after the Campeau controversy. “We have been selling a modest amount of shirts to Canada for years … but nothing like the volume of the last month,” Kirby told QMI Agency in an email interview Tuesday. “We are a mom and pop business, working day and night to make sure everyone who wants a shirt gets one.”

Kirby noticed the cultural effect of the Chief Wahoo logo in the Native community after moving to Cleveland from New York. He said that the overall interpretation of the shirt shifts. “Interpretation of the shirt ranges from a ‘reverse racism,’ ‘see how YOU like it’ intent, to a ‘see, I’m white and it doesn’t bother me to be caricatured!’ attitude,” Kirby told the Star.

3 West Coast governors oppose offshore drilling

By: Associated Press

The governors of California, Oregon and Washington sent a letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewel on Thursday to stress that they don’t want the possibility of drilling off of the West Coast.

The Interior Department is developing an updated plan for its Outer Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program, and the governors formally stated their opposition to the inclusion of any oil or gas lease sales off the coast as part of any new plan.

Govs. Jay Inslee, of Washington, Jerry Brown, of California, and John Kitzhaber, of Oregon, wrote that their three states “represent the fifth-largest economy in the world” and their ocean-dependent industries contribute billions of dollars to the region each year.

“While new technology reduces the risk of a catastrophic event such as the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, a sizeable spill anywhere along our shared coast would have a devastating impact on our population, recreation, natural resources, and our ocean and coastal dependent economies,” they wrote.

The governors, all Democrats, also stressed a commitment to develop a strategy to combat climate change.

“Oil and gas leasing may be appropriate for regions where there is state support for such development and the impacts can be mitigated,” they wrote. “However, along the West Coast, our states stand ready to work with the Obama Administration to help craft a comprehensive and science-based national energy policy that aligns with the actions we are taking to invest in energy efficiency, Oil and Gas Leasing Program alternative renewable energy sources, and pricing carbon.”

Inslee spokesman David Postman said that while there aren’t any current plans for West Coast leases, the governors want to ensure there aren’t any in the new plan.

Tribes support changing feds’ recognition process

By PHILIP MARCELO, Associated Press

MASHPEE, Mass. (AP) – American Indians attending a Tuesday hearing at the Mashpee Wampanoag community center on Cape Cod said they support the federal government’s plan to make it easier for tribes to gain federal recognition.

But the tribal representatives, from New Jersey, Virginia, Missouri, New England and elsewhere, urged the U.S. Department of the Interior to go further.

They called for setting a time limit on the review process, which can sometimes take decades.

“There’s something wrong when a process takes more than a generation to complete,” said Cedric Cromwell, chairman of the tribal council for the Mashpee Wampanoags, which won federal recognition in 2007 after a 30-year quest.

Federal recognition brings tribes increased government benefits and special privileges, including seeking commercial ventures like building casinos and gambling facilities on sovereign lands.

Tribal leaders also strongly objected to a proposal they said effectively gives “veto power” to certain “third parties” when a tribe seeks to re-apply for recognition.

Dennis Jenkins, chairman of the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation in Connecticut, said the provision would allow states, municipalities and other organizations that oppose tribal recognition to stand in the way of the federal decision-making process.

“It would be next to impossible for us to re-apply if this proposal goes through,” he said.

One attendee, meanwhile, suggested the proposed changes would “devalue” federal tribal recognition by setting the bar too low.

“The current process was not intended to create a tribal existence where none had existed,” said Michelle Littlefield, Taunton resident who has been an outspoken opponent of the Mashpee Wampanoags’ plan to build a $500 million resort casino in that city. “It is meant to protect the integrity of the historical Native American tribes that have an honored place in our nation’s history.”

The hearing was the last in a series of nationwide meetings on the proposal, and the only one held on the East Coast.

Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Kevin Washburn said the department believes it can make the tribal recognition process less costly and burdensome to tribes and more predictable and transparent without “sacrificing rigorousness.”

The Mashpee, who hosted the meeting, are among only 17 tribes that have been recognized by the Interior Department since the process was established 35 years ago.

The majority of the 566 federally-recognized tribes in the U.S. earned that status through an act of Congress.

The Interior Department proposes, among other things, lowering the threshold for tribes to demonstrate community and political authority.

Rather than from “first sustained contact” with non-Indians, tribes would need only to provide evidence dating back to 1934, which was the year Congress accepted the existence of tribes as political entities.

Washburn said that proposal, in particular, could help “level the playing field” among tribes.

Eastern tribes, he said, would otherwise need to provide a much more exhaustive historical record – sometimes dating as far back as 1789 – than their western counterparts.

“We’ve heard over and over that the process is broken,” Washburn said. “We’re going to do something.”

Tribes hold vigils for Columbia River salmon

By: Associated Press, August 4, 2014

HOOD RIVER, Ore. (AP) — Native American tribes in the U.S. and Canada are holding vigils along the Columbia River to pray for the return of salmon migration as the two countries prepare to renegotiate a treaty concerning the river.

The treaty, signed in 1964, governs operations of dams and reservoirs that have caused salmon run declines.

Tribes are pushing to include salmon restoration to the upper Columbia, above Grand Coulee Dam in northern Washington State, in the treaty.

In recommendations for potential negotiations, the U.S. says the two countries should study the possibility of restoring fish passage over that dam. But Canada says restoring fish migration and habitat is not a treaty issue.

Seventeen vigils will be held along the length of the river, in Oregon, Washington state and British Columbia.

Nisqually tribal fisherman maximizing value of salmon

Nisqually fishers listen to a presentation on the upcoming salmon seasons and how to maximize the value of their catch.

By: Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, Aug 4th, 2014

For the past several years, the Nisqually Tribe has bought and sold salmon caught by their fishermen. This summer, the tribe worked with Sea Grant and dozens of tribal fishermen to review techniques to increase the value of their salmon.

The goal of the program is to pass as much value as possible back to the fishermen. We wrote about the tribe’s fish marketing program last year:

The Nisqually Indian Tribe is creating a stable market for tribal fishermen by buying and processing salmon.

“What we’re trying to do here is to make sure tribal fishermen can afford to stay on the water,” said James Slape Jr., Nisqually Tribe councilmember.

…

“They’re able to keep the resource price consistently high throughout the season,” Slape said. “Our goal is to make sure that tribal fishers, not only Nisqually, take home livable wages. A good portion of the fishers rely on fishing as a single source of income for their families.”

Currently, the tribe is selling more than 6,000 pounds a month of tribally caught salmon to wholesalers and food supply companies.

By taking steps like icing and bleeding salmon soon after they’re caught, tribal fisherman can increase the health of the entire buying operation. “A higher quality of fish overall helps all the fishermen,” said Rick Thomas, who runs the buying program for the tribe.

One step the tribe took in 2011 to help fishermen was to invest thousands of dollars in an ice machine that makes 11 tons of ice available fishermen daily.

Jamestown S’Klallam Gathering Steelhead DNA for Database

By: Northwest Indian Fisheries Commissions

The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe wants to know which age class of steelhead is surviving best within the Dungeness River watershed.

While checking smolt traps and conducting spawning ground surveys this spring, the tribe took tail and scale samples from 500 juvenile steelhead in five creeks between Sequim and Port Angeles: Seibert, McDonald, Matriotti, Bell and Jimmycomelately.

“We’re already counting the adults and juveniles every spring and fall, so why not take DNA samples and develop an age database for steelhead?” said natural resources technician Chris Burns.

Steelhead scales are taken to be analyzed for DNA.

Analyzing the scales will tell biologists how long a steelhead has been in fresh water before out-migrating and how long it spent at sea. The DNA also will show whether the steelhead migrated back out to sea after spawning in fresh water.

Steelhead returns are harder to forecast because of their complex life history. Juvenile steelhead leave fresh water between the first and fourth years of life, but return from salt water in one to five years. Steelhead also are repeat spawners, returning to salt water before coming back to fresh water to spawn again during their lifespan, which can be as long as seven to nine years.

The genetics information would be shared with the state to help develop a larger database.

“By zoning in on steelhead ages, it will help the tribe with fisheries management, resulting in more accurate returns and harvest management decisions,” Burns said.

Puget Sound steelhead were listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act in 2007. The primary causes of the decline of the steelhead population include degraded habitat, fish-blocking culverts and unfavorable ocean conditions.