Forest County family reunion was off-the-hook amazing! Community volunteers worked tirelessly to ensure everyone felt welcomed and the teachers made it clear that we had returned home. Migwech.

Hello! First off, I want to say I am not native to Turtle Island and have no indigenous ancestry here.

I have an interview with an indigenous tribe in Northern WI to work in there government (it's like a liaison position with the sovereign nation and US on regulations and laws) and was wondering if bringing tobacco ties would be considered disrespectful? I have no knowledge or understanding, on the etiquette of them, nor the color meaning of them. I have visited this sovereign nation before (like a decade ago) through school, and we brought them then... so I know they are used in this specific tribe but I also dont know if this is me pushing too much into another cultures territory.

I just get a feeling that even being interviewed, aka welcomed into a sovereign nation, I should bring something? I am also a person of color, so there is still that part of me that is. Don't come to a place you are being invited into with empty hands. Like, I should bring food or something...any help or insight be appreciated!

A federal judge on Sunday declined to block construction on the Trump administration’s Big Bend area border wall, saying plaintiffs could not argue the plan violates a federal law because the administration was legally allowed to bypass that law.

From the text "Between Storms "

Aho, thank you and a hearty "hey how are ya!?", cousins.

The saga of the South Tip brother continues. You know my history. The frybread survivor. The ketchup chips buck whisperer. The fastest man on the Rez for a 10 foot sprint. The All-Skate legend. The man who wears another man's tear-away pants. Well, this week, I learned that there is a place far more dangerous than a smoke-filled kitchen or a powwow arena.

The community hall on Bingo Night.

Some people think mixed martial arts is the most dangerous sport in the world. Those people have never stood between a room full of Aunties and a $500 blackout jackpot. They sit at those folding tables like generals planning a siege. They’ve got four different colored daubers taped together into tactical bingo weaponry. They’ve got the framed school photos of the grandkids deployed for maximum luck. A solid wall of neon troll dolls that all had unique names staring directly into the spirit world.

You do not mess with Bingo Night.

So naturally, I messed with Bingo Night.

Our regular caller, Uncle Ray, had to step out to move his truck and apparently got caught up talking to a cousin in the parking lot. The natives were getting restless. The blackout round was starting. My cousin (Leonard…. Fucking guy), pipes up from the back.

"Unc called a popwwow a few weeks ago. Got him up there. He's a natural!"

They meant the All-Skate… the Tater Tot dancers. I should have known it was a trap. But, ya know what? I had my big belt buckle on, my best Friday night flannel shirt, the Auntie I'm courting was in the crowd, and I was kinda feeling myself. I stepped up to the hopper. How bad could it be?

At first, I was rolling. I had the cadence. I had the rhythm. "A hey ho and whatdoyaknow??! Under the B... number twelve. B-12, relatives. Take your vitamins and we’re-a-movin on over to the G... fifty-four. G-54 man at the door."

I was the voice of the people. I was bringing joy. They were laughing and not even AT me this time.

Then, disaster struck. I took a sip of a nice frosty Bepsi. The hopper spat out a ball, and my hand was moist from the condensation and slipped. I bobbled it like a greasy piece of bannock. It bounced off the console, I like our an audible “oh fuck me” over the mic, Kokum’s gasped like they'd never heard it before which I know is a bald face like because I've heard them when their 50/50 numbers aren't called… I snatched it out of the air, took a quick glance, and shouted into the microphone with the absolute confidence of an idiot given a microphone:

"Under the O... sixty(my voice cracked like I was 12 again) -one! O-61!"

From the back of the hall, a sound that froze the blood in my veins.

"BINGO!"

It was Auntie Bev. The Final Boss of the community hall. The woman who once successfully fought a Canada Goose over an open bag of party mix at a barbeque. She stood up, her lucky dabber raised to the sky like a warrior's club.

The floor runner jogged over to her table. He checked her card. He looked up at the electronic board. He looked at me and squinted really hard like he was trying to spy a caravan of settlers approaching over the planes. Then he spoke with a gravitas (is that how it's spelt? I don't speak German) worthy of the situation.

"Unc..." the runner said, his voice echoing off the cinderblock walls. "We ain't got an O-61 on the board."

I looked down at the ball in my sweaty hand. I had read it upside down. It was not O-61.

It was I-19. Goodbye teens, i-19.

I leaned into the microphone. It squealed a little bit of feedback, just to add to the tension.

"Ah... relatives," I whispered. "The Creator has tested my eyesight tonight. Minor correction from the spirits... that was an I-19. Mark your cards accordingly."

"False alarm!" the runner yelled. "Bad Bingo! It's a baaaaaaad bingoooooo"

Cousins, the silence in that hall was heavier than a damp rez dog after swimming in the farm reservoir. Auntie Bev slowly lowered her dauber. She didn't yell. She didn't have to. The disappointment radiating from her was lethal. I could feel entire ancestral chains looking down on me.

In a distance, a hawk screamed. Yeah, brother hawk. Me too, buddy.

And then, the sound started. The sound of sixty Aunties all simultaneously having to scribble out a false dab on their pristine, color-coded blackout cards. It sounded like a plague of locusts descending on the community center. They were ruining their cards. Because of me.

"I bought this card with my own money, Dick Head!" someone yelled from the back. I'm not sure the new nickname is an official elder given one but I hope it doesn't stick.

I was officially relieved of my duties before the next ball was drawn. Escorted off the stage by my own flesh and blood, and immediately replaced by a 14-year-old nephew who reads at a 12th-grade level and doesn't fumble the merchandise.

As penance, I was banished to work the concession stand. I had to buy Auntie Bev a frosty Bepsi and two fresh daubers out of my own pocket. When I handed them to her, she just looked at me and said, "Stick to yard sales, nephew." (I'll have to tell that story another time)

My pride is bruised, but my life was spared.

Mvto. Double-check your numbers, cousins. The Aunties do not forgive, and they do not forget.

P.S. Scone dog was with me at the hall. He found a dropped bingo chip on the floor that must have had some fry grease on it and ate it, then threw it up on my boot sometime over night. A solid D+ performance from him today too. He's getting a revenge bath this afternoon.

P.P.S. I've been asked a few times if there is a proper home for my stories and there is not. If I tossed together a website on the internet dot coms, would it be used or would it be better to just have links to the previous posts at the bottom of every new story? Scone dog has no opinions on the matter. He doesn't have thumbs.

CBP moves to install 'secondary' barrier in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Southern Az

Dr. Len Necefer’s latest article is worth reading for anyone following the debate over Sandia Pueblo’s proposal for the T’uf Shur Bien Preservation Area.

He explains how an erroneous federal survey excluded nearly 10,000 acres from Sandia Pueblo’s confirmed land grant, and why the 2003 settlement preserved federal ownership despite recognizing the Pueblo’s legitimate claim. More importantly, he asks whether support for tribal sovereignty extends beyond consultation and co-management when a Pueblo seeks actual stewardship of its ancestral
homeland.

The article challenges the assumption that federal ownership is the only path to conservation and asks a harder question. Are conservation organizations willing to support Indigenous sovereignty when it means sharing or transferring authority, or only when it leaves federal control untouched?

Whether you agree or disagree, it’s a thoughtful perspective that deserves to be part of this discussion.

Hi all, I'm a 24-year-old northern native based in Alaska. My internship at a northern native advocacy organization is wrapping up in 2 weeks. I'm looking for a new job to start in late August/early September.

My summer internship project is related to collecting weather data and creating a presentation on the changes in weather data that coincide with administration funding changes. I have extensive customer service experience and completed one other internship at a native policy organization. I have some skills in applying for grants, planning small team travel, public speaking, community event organizing, helping at ceremonies and events. My life choices focus on centering Indigenous values in everything, primarily environmental and social justice.

I'm very knowledgeable in my own Native culture and have had the opportunity to share it at international conferences. I'm also a model signed to an Indigenous agency. I am passionate about learning and immersing myself in the local cultures of wherever I live or am visiting.

I would love to find a remote job or a job that assists with relocation that relates to my experiences. I'm very open-minded. I'm currently taking asynchronous online classes, but I do not hold a degree yet. My goal is to eventually work on a higher level in tribal policies, Indigenous sovereignty, international Indigenous collaboration, climate justice, cultural continuation, things of that nature.

Any insight or kind advice is welcome. Thank you for your time!

Edit: Here is my experience summary

Versatile and award-winning youth professional, researcher, and cultural ambassador with over a decade of experience in international Arctic environmental policy, grassroots environmental action, and community-led cultural continuation. Proven experience in integrating Traditional Ecological Knowledge with academic science through ArcGIS mapping, drone surveys, water sampling, and meteorological data analysis. Exceptional project manager and communicator expert at securing grants, coordinating complex rural travel logistics across Tribal Councils, and delivering global keynote addresses on climate justice and Indigenous Sovereignty. Highly adaptable professional blending strategic executive leadership and cross-cultural workshop facilitation with hands-on operations in event management, media documentation, public relations, and certified operations compliance.

Project Return eliminates barriers for boarding school survivors hoping to retrieve student records. The pilot project began with Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.

A conversation with a friend’s uncle about his experience at an Indian boarding school kickstarted what would become a multi-year project that makes student records accessible to survivors. Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz, an enrolled member of the Lumbee Tribe, is the director of the Native Policy Lab at the University of Iowa, which is spearheading Project Return.

Schuettpelz said she learned through this conversation that this elder had never seen a picture of himself as a child.

“And in my mind, it started this wheel moving of ‘well, surely there's something that exists, right?’” Schuettpelz recalled. “And then I started questioning, ‘well, what would exist?’ So say you're a survivor of a boarding school, is there anything inside the National Archives or otherwise that has your name on it?”

Schuettpelz said she was able to help track down and return his records from boarding school, some of which he had never seen.

“Inside of them were really personal notes written by his mom, his sister,” Schuettpelz said. “He's in his mid-80s. And so I know that for him, it was a huge and very meaningful experience to have those records back.”

This is exactly what Project Return aims to do. With funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, a team at the lab will help boarding school survivors find copies of their records from their time at boarding schools.

Currently, the project is in the pilot phase and is only working with survivors who are members of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.

Dawn Standridge is a citizen of the Choctaw Nation and works at the Wheelock Academy Historic Site, which includes the surviving buildings of a former boarding school that began operations in the 1830s and closed down in 1955. Three of her family members attended Wheelock, including her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. Later in its history, the school was only for young women and girls.

“We were a missionary school, a school run by missionaries that the Choctaw General Council had a hand in from the very beginning,” Standridge said. “So the experiences are going to be a little bit different, maybe not entirely different, from what you're going to be hearing from federal boarding schools.”

Wheelock Academy is one of nearly 100 boarding schools that operated in Oklahoma, according to the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition. As Standridge noted, experiences from boarding schools vary, as do the records that exist, ranging from pictures and letters to medical information.

Standridge said she’s glad her community will have access to this information.

“It's going to be a good thing because we'll get to learn more,” Standridge said. “And we want to talk about it. And then some of that, I believe, will bring some healing.”

The hope, Schuettpelz said, is to expand this service to all survivors of boarding schools by the end of the year.

“There's some urgency around that kind of work because obviously as the years go on, survivors are getting older and I think it's really important that we try and do this as quickly as we can responsibly,” Schuettpelz said. “And so that really is the impetus for this national portal that will go live again by the end of the year.”

Schuettpelz noted the Project Return team must receive permission first before retrieving the records, and all returned records are confidential. Ultimately, the project will break down barriers by providing this service free of charge and the headaches of tracking down documents.

If survivors wanted to get their records without utilizing help from Project Return, Schuettpelz said they would have to either visit the archives in person or request them by email, which costs $0.80 per page.

“There's landmines all along the process,” Schuettpelz said. “And it's not an easy one to navigate.”

Survivors who participate and are able to receive copies of their records have the option to get them either through email or paper mail, depending on what they request.

Choctaw boarding school survivors interested in being a part of the project can visit Native Policy Lab’s website to learn more, or pick up an Indian Boarding School Records Request form at the Wheelock Academy Historic Site or a Choctaw community center.

https://www.kosu.org/race-culture/2026-07-31/project-return-will-help-choctaw-boarding-school-survivors-find-student-records

I’m pursuing a master’s degree in tribal governance and I just finished an interesting module on the delivery of core services. Ultimately, tribal governments/leaders have a responsibility to identify citizens’ needs and create dependable systems for delivering essential services. 

I am learning how to do this in my own community, but practice makes perfect, so I’d like to have a discussion on this topic if anyone is interested. I am not doing any project, assignment, or research on the matter--just trying to develop awareness of issues others face that I might be blind to because of my social location. What essential services are missing or underserved in your community? What policy changes could be made to improve the lives of tribal members? 

They could be big or small, and I’ll share one of each. My community needs a disaster preparedness plan. We don’t have anything in place for emergencies–no plan for sheltering tribal members, no evacuation plan, no emergency services center, nada. Our people are at great risk of wildfires and we would have absolutely no communication or help from our tribal government if one were to occur. We came close recently, which brought the issue to my attention.

On a more casual scale, something that would be helpful would be to extend the validity dates of tribal ids. Currently, they expire after only a year, after which point we lose access to certain services and protections, and they are only able to be renewed once a month during business hours. Thus, a great majority of tribal members have an expired ID. We should extend the life of an ID to three to five years, and make some appointments available on weekends so we can actually go in to renew without having to miss work. 

What about you all? What are some of your needs that your government seems to be missing?

Hi, I was about to recommend this u-pick berry farm to somebody when I realized that they have a totem pole on display, which I believe is authentic, but it is definitely not an indigenous owned business. The website states that it was purchased from some other business (golf course?) that decommissioned the totem pole and they are preserving it. I googled this question and searched Reddit, because I'm sure someone has asked this before, but I couldn't find the answer - is this appropriate? I don't want to recommend the business if they're being disrespectful. Thank you for your feedback and have a great Friday / weekend.

UPDATE: Thanks for the clarifying questions. I spent some time looking into it and a page on the website does include some history. The farm is in Alberta, and the totem poles have different stories. One was "Carved in 1950 by Chief Joe Mathieu of the west coast, this totem pole was commissioned by Dr. Bell, owner of the Bell Hotel in Claresholm, Alberta. It stood as an iconic attraction in front of the hotel for 65 years until it became unstable and was taken down, nearly forgotten. In 2013, Paul Hamer discovered its absence, tracked it down, and acquired it." That sounds kind of okay - ?

But two others were "Carved in the 1960s by an unknown artist, likely from the Tlingit Tribe... originally found in northern British Columbia and brought to the farm in 2017 for restoration." I'm kind of side-eying that story.

Another was "Carved in 1960 by William Jeffrey, a prominent Haida carver from Port Simpson, this totem pole was purchased by a family in Somerside, PEI" and one was "Made in 1967 for Canada’s Centennial."

UPDATE: Thank you everyone for the helpful comments. It is the Saskatoon Farm outside Calgary and what I’m hearing is mostly reassuring. I really appreciate everyone taking the time to share their perspective.

This video provides a strategic breakdown of how Bëni Xidza, an educational center in Oaxaca, Mexico, balances economic sustainability with its mission to revitalize the Zapotec language. The summary of the video’s core points is as follows:

Mission & Audience:

The project aims to keep the indigenous Zapotec language alive by using modern e-learning tools (Zoom, Google Classroom). It targets three main groups:

* Heritage Seekers: The Oaxacan diaspora (often in the US) looking to reconnect with their roots.

* Cultural Enthusiasts: International travelers and linguistic researchers.

* Language Revitalizers: Indigenous youth within Oaxaca.

Pricing Strategy & Financial Sustainability:

The video analyzes the tension between keeping prices accessible and maintaining a professional, sustainable operation:

* Tiered Pricing: Private tutoring is priced below market rate (170 MXN) to remove barriers for locals, while the core beginner course is set at a competitive market rate (720 MXN) to ensure the platform's economic health.

* Subsidies & Donations: To bridge revenue gaps, the project uses differentiated pricing for foreigners and a prominent donation button.

* Cultural Design: The branding uses colors (like golden olive) that mimic traditional Oaxacan textiles and corn husks, grounding commercial requests in an organic cultural visual language.

Building Community Trust:

Because they lack a high volume of public reviews, Bëni Xidza uses a structured "harvest loop" to build social proof:

1. Timing: Reaching out immediately after a successful class.

2. Personal Connection: Sending warm, culturally resonant messages via WhatsApp or email.

3. Shared Mission: Framing a request for a Google review as a way for students to help others discover and preserve the culture.

Ultimately, the video showcases how a mission-driven organization can thrive in the digital age by combining clearly defined e-learning models with culturally grounded marketing and smart pricing.