National Native News

Photo: Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, D-Minnesota, connects with a student during an Indigenous Peoples Day event on Monday, October 12, 2026. (Courtesy Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan / Facebook) Indigenous Peoples Day celebrations in Minnesota gave educators a chance to spark curiosity for Native history. As Mike Moen reports, Minnesota is rolling out enhanced learning opportunities in K-12 schools and state law now requires teachers to complete training on Native history when renewing their licenses. Sung Ja Shin, director of K-12 education programs at the Minnesota Humanities Center. says this knowledge boost can be powerful. “There’s a lot of background knowledge, context, and history that is less known, and understanding treaties and sovereignty is critical for understanding how our government relationships have worked, how they failed.” She says learning more about that history also helps Minnesotans recognize how tribal sovereignty continues to shape present-day issues, including land use. MHC helps distribute books under the Native Lives series and is collaborating with the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community on a new interactive map of Dakota history. Away from the classroom, it is the 15th anniversary of the “Why Treaties Matter” exhibit, on display at the Minnesota State Capitol. For a more immersive, real-life setting tied to Native history, learners can schedule Dakota-led tours along the Bdote, where the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers meet. Shin says these experiences weave together stories and past events in a beautiful way. “It’s a way for adults to step outside of their traditional learning environments and to really let those places speak to you.” She says enhancing Indigenous learning in a more engaging way is an antidote to the negative effects of digital devices. “When things are whittled down to sound bites, digital content only, it’s easy to make assumptions. It’s harder to challenge ourselves to reach beyond, and it’s, it’s frankly harder to remember the storytelling.” Prime Minister Mark Carney announced this month that the new West Coast Oil Pipeline, now known as Pacific Link, has been officially listed as a project of national interest. (Courtesy Prime Minister Mark Carney / Facebook) An Alberta First Nation is taking the Canadian government to court over a proposed oil pipeline. Cold Lake First Nations has filed for judicial review of Ottawa’s decision to designate the Pacific Link pipeline as a project of national interest. The designation would accelerate reviews of the pipeline connecting Alberta to British Columbia. Chief Kelsey Jacko told the Canadian Press that his community was excluded from consultations, despite being located in Alberta’s oil sands region. “I’m here to protect the best interests of my people and for the ones yet to come.” The First Nation argues the designation threatens treaty rights and could worsen the environmental impacts of oil sands development. It is asking the Federal Court to overturn the designation and recognize the government’s duty to consult. Canadian officials say consultations and environmental reviews are still required, with construction targeted for September of next year. Image of the death of General Brock at the Battle of Queenston Heights by John David Kelly published 1896. And on this day in 1812, Mohawk warriors helped defeat American forces at the Battle of Queenston Heights during the War of 1812. Fighting alongside British and Canadian troops, Indigenous warriors played a critical role in defending the Niagara frontier in present-day Ontario, Canada, against an American invasion. Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out today’s Native America Calling episode Tuesday, October 13, 2026 — Yosemite is the latest in a 10-year expansion of tribal National Park foraging

The investigation into the death of a 19-year-old Alaska Native college student in January is still ongoing. As Rhonda McBride from our flagship station KNBA reports, Anchorage Police say they have taken some unusual steps. Kelly Hunt’s teachers remember her as a strong student with a bright future. They say she hoped to return to Shaktoolik one day to become a teacher or work in health care. Last week, the department revealed it sent detectives hundreds of miles away to Kelly Hunt’s home village. They traveled to the Bering Sea community of Shaktoolik on a U.S. Marshals Service plane in September, eight months after she disappeared in Anchorage. Police Chief Sean Case says investigators had a two-fold mission: to give Hunt’s family an update and learn more about her last moments. “Although the case remains open, there’s a very narrow window that this can turn into a homicide.” In January, Hunt passed through Anchorage on her way back to college. She stayed with some friends, who told police she was last seen headed to meet someone to buy alcohol. Three months later, as the snow began to melt, Hunt’s remains were found at the bottom of steep, wooded embankment. The Medical Examiner said she died of hypothermia with alcohol in her blood. Alexis Savage, an advocate for the Hunt family, says the fact that an underage girl had alcohol in her system raises questions investigators need to answer. “In my heart, I just don’t feel like a 19-year-old would end up in that ravine. And even if she did, we need to know who supplied that alcohol to her.” The Anchorage Police Department is saying little about their investigation, except that it also wants to answer the same question. “If we can uncover that question, we also going to get more of the story.” Savage says this case is bigger than Kelly Hunt. She believes there is a network of illegal alcohol suppliers who make money off young Alaska Natives. “A lot of times, they’d say something like, I’ll give you a tip of $15 and gas money. A lot of times, it’s just that.” Savage says these sellers, often called “plugs”, can be found on Snapchat. She says what begins as an alcohol sale can become a gateway to sex trafficking. Case says trafficking does not appear to be a factor in Hunt’s case, but says alcohol sales to minors often end in violence. “We have so many cases and it’s in sexual assault cases, it’s assault cases. It’s in robbery cases. We’ve seen this over the years.” Case declined to say whether they have any suspects in the Hunt case. An ad funded by a political action committee backing U.S. Rep. Eli Crane, R-Arizona, attacked his Democratic opponent, Jonathan Nez, on Friday, but as KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, it misidentified Nez twice – before the error was corrected. Nez, a former Navajo Nation president, points out the PAC released the ad just days before the controversial federal Columbus Day holiday. He thinks they were in a rush. “And they didn’t do their research obviously, because they mixed up me with my former vice president.” While Arizona families are struggling, Jonathan Nez was accused of using tribal money to take his family to Disney World. A photo of his former VP, Myron Lizer, appears twice as the ad references Nez. And ironically, Lizer is an outspoken conservative and staunch Trump supporter – even speaking at the 2020 Republican National Convention. KJZZ reached out to both Lizer and Crane about the ad, but neither immediately responded. “That just shows you that there is fear amongst my opponent and his supporters in this election.” Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out today’s Native America Calling episode Monday, October 12, 2026 — Joy Harjo on the healing power of poetry

The Kitt Peak National Observatory is hosting a special family night tomorrow for the Tohono O’odham Nation, whose tribe views sacred the mountain that hosts over two dozen research telescopes. And as KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, a science center there has been renamed in southern Arizona. Long before the National Science Foundation looked to the starry sky, O’odhams like Jacelle Ramon-Sauberan stood atop I’oligam Du’ag, or Manzanita Shrub Mountain. So the legend goes, the creator I’itoi would come from his home in a nearby cave and pluck food from this mountain’s bountiful slopes. Jacelle Ramon-Sauberan is the education liaison for Kitt Peak National Observatory. “And whether we were farming, wild harvesting or hunting, we use the night sky as a resource. You know, we used it to help teach directions. We used it to be able to count.” The tribal council signed a lease in 1958 allowing astronomers to use this summit. Since then, more than two million visitors have climbed the nearly 7,000-foot tall peak. This spring, its science center was renamed after an O’odham word meaning a place of illumination and understanding. “And since we opened Taṣogida Ki, our field trips have all been ramping up, which is really great and a big part of my job is just telling people, ‘Come visit. Call me, let’s set up a tour,’ and having that direct invite has brought a lot of our tribal members back to the mountain.” Devil’s club grows in the understory of the Tongass National Forest in Juneau, Alaska. (Photo: Alix Soliman / KTOO) Public comments closed Tuesday on a federal proposal to lift a roadbuilding ban in national forests across the country, including the Tongass National Forest, as KTOO’s Alix Soliman reports. More than 370,000 people submitted comments online and 99% of them oppose a rollback of the Roadless Rule. That is according to an analysis published Wednesday by the Center for Western Priorities, a conservation advocacy group. Many comments pointed to research that shows the Tongass holds more than 40% of all carbon stored in U.S. national forests, and called the forest the “lungs of the Earth.” Adrian Lee is a representative of the Tongass Hub of the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network. She testified at the hearing that her small village of Hoonah is still recovering from issues brought by logging camps. “The impacts with addictions and violence was huge in our community.” While tribes and environmental groups have said millions of acres of Tongass forestland could be opened up to logging without roadless protections, some members of the timber industry disagree. Sarah Dahlstrom is the director of public relations at Viking Lumber. Her family’s multi-generational sawmill is on Prince of Wales Island. In an interview with KTOO, she said that timber sales likely will not open immediately if the Roadless Rule is lifted and an amendment to the current Forest Management Plan will be necessary to identify areas that could be available for roadbuilding and logging. “I’m going to say it’s a very small amount of acreage that gets opened up that could have road building on that.” The Alaska Forest Association is an industry group that advocates on behalf of timber companies in Southeast and supports lifting the roadbuilding ban. In an email to KTOO, the association estimated that around 188,000 acres of currently roadless areas could be considered suitable for logging under the Tongass Forest Management Plan, which is undergoing a revision. That is less than 2% of the Tongass. The association says that is because most roadless areas of the Tongass have additional layers of protection, like a wilderness, natural area, or recreation designation. The Forest Service did not respond to a request for comment. Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out today’s Native America Calling episode Native America Calling • Today’s Episode Assessing college campus safety in light of troubling allegations at Cornell University Listen now →

Photo Courtesy Stewardship Utah / Instagram Rural Native American voters in Utah often face long distances, unreliable mail service, and changing election rules ahead of the November 3 midterm election. As Mark Richardson reports, the challenges are especially acute in rural San Juan County. The Navajo Nation covers about one-third of the county’s land, with more than 6,000 people in that portion of the county. Lenise Peterman is rural director for Stewardship Utah. She says rural residents can face both current and historic voting obstacles. “Rural counties, and especially when we talk about San Juan, is so large that people who reside on Navajo Mountain literally have to drive four hours to get to a polling place.” The county lists Election Day sites in Blanding, Montezuma Creek, Monument Valley, Navajo Mountain and Monticello. Navajo and Ute language help and ballot boxes will be available at each site. Peterman says a recent legislative audit found San Juan County generally conducts elections well, but auditors also found compliance gaps. County officials will mail ballots on October 13, and early voting starts October 20. “We encourage people to immediately fill them out if they’re dropping them back in the mail, because postal service on Navajo Nation is questionable, and if it’s not received on November 3, it will not count.” Peterman says Stewardship Utah has worked on another basic barrier: street addresses. The group worked with Google and Google Earth Maps in 2018 to help Navajo Nation residents establish mapped addresses. She says the effort improved ballot delivery, but the memory of past voting problems may be harder to overcome. “There’s not a lot of trust there. There’s not a lot of buy-in to the system. But we’ve been trying to educate and work with them and let them know that you do have a voice.” Vision Maker Media is bringing five new Native documentaries to public television in November for Native American Heritage Month. The films will air nationally on the PBS WORLD channel and explore issues ranging from land return and missing and murdered Indigenous people to boarding school history, incarceration and cultural resilience. “Coming Home: From Shadowland to Spiritworld” follows Kashia Pomo Tribal members in California seeking the return of ancestral coastal lands after generations of dispossession. “She Cried That Day” follows Christine Means and her family as they seek answers surrounding her sister’s death, bringing them into the MMIP movement in New Mexico. “Medicine Ball” follows Native basketball players at the University of Minnesota Morris, which sits on the site of a former Native boarding school. The film examines how basketball has become a source of resilience and cultural pride in Native communities. The lineup also includes “Reservation Redemption” about a Colville citizen who reconnects with his heritage during decades in prison – and “The Land Returns”, examining efforts to return land to Indigenous nations. Vision Maker Media President and CEO Francene Blythe-Lewis says audiences can expect stories of “reciprocity, recovery, and perseverance.” Two new episodes of “First Peoples, First Stories”, featuring films from emerging Native filmmakers, will also air in November. Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out today’s Native America Calling episode Thursday, October 8, 2026 — Native authors and book sellers reflect on a record year for banned books

Photo: The Alaska Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration Windracers ULTRA drone, carrying chilled human blood samples, takes off from Nenana Municipal Airport on Aug. 19, 2026. (Pietr Buttelmann / Sysmex) Researchers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks have completed a 620-mile drone test flight to see if human blood stays stable in transit. The new means of delivery could dramatically reshape health care services in the most remote reaches of the state, many of which can become inaccessible during extreme weather, as Mark Moran reports. Scientists in Alaska have successfully carried the human blood samples for the International Testing Agency, which investigates doping by athletes at the Olympics and other major sporting events. The Alaska Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration’s nearly nine-hour flight near Nenana, Alaska tested whether unmanned aircraft can rapidly transport blood samples without them degrading. The Center’s Cathy Cahill says using the technology in the future can make delivering medicine and other essential healthcare safer and more efficient. “A community can get fogged in, they might need blood because of a crash victim or some other emergency. How do we get that blood into that community safely and not put manned aircraft and pilots at risk?” Teams of emergency medical services workers collected small blood samples from volunteers the day before the test flight, which were tested by an international agency for stability. Cahill says commercial use of the technology is still a few years off, but scientists will continue to make test flights with the drones and work with the Federal Aviation Administration to ensure drones can interact safely with commercial air traffic. Alaska has become a leader in drone research, mostly because of its vast geography, challenging landscapes, and harsh weather, but in addition to making medicine and other services safer and easier to deliver, Cahill says drones can also create economic benefits in a state where, right now, it is more expensive to transport remote people to healthcare services than the actual healthcare. “So if we can get the healthcare into the communities so they don’t have to fly out, that is a huge savings of time, effort, money, and it lets people be treated in their home community.” Alaska has come a long way since 1925, when mushers used sled dogs to deliver serum to Nome during a diphtheria outbreak, which prompted the genesis of the now storied 1,100-mile Iditarod sled dog race. Cahill says while there are no planned routes yet for medicine delivery by drone. If and when that happens, researchers may create a ceremonial run from Nenana to Nome – and call it the “Flyditarod.” To get voters on Standing Rock Reservation to the polls in 2018, the Lakota People’s Law Project commissioned a bus. (Courtesy Nicole Donaghy / North Dakota Native Vote). With less than five weeks until the midterm elections, new data shows Native voters in North Dakota could face potential barriers at multiple points in the voting process, as Judith Ruiz-Branch reports. The new report from the Native American Rights Fund examines data from the past three federal elections in four North Dakota counties where Native Americans make up between 28-84% of the population. Allison Neswood with the group says the findings confirm 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 finds voting barriers can compound – from registration and mail delivery to polling place access and ballot processing. Mail-in voting is a major part of North Dakota’s elections. Forty-one percent of ballots cast in the state’s June primary were either absentee or early votes, even as the state requires absentee ballots to be received by the close of polls on Election Day. While North Dakota counties reported relatively low numbers of rejected ballots, the state did not provide the number of rejected provisional ballots for the years included in the report. The findings come as the U.S. Supreme Court blocked efforts from the Trump administration for the U.S. Postal Service to oversee mail-in ballots, a move plaintiffs successfully argued would have severely restricted voting by mail. But the administration says it will continue to verify voter eligibility and prevent illegal voting. A recent MIT study found no evidence of fraud at a scale that actually impacted election outcomes. Neswood believes partisan actors are intentionally pushing a false narrative. “It feels like an effort to sow doubt. What impacts the outcome of elections is the systematic disenfranchisement of groups that are already disempowered in our society.” To curb potential barriers for Native voters, the report recommends expanding voting options on or near Tribal lands. Neswood also says election officials should consult Tribal governments before making changes that could affect access to the ballot. “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.” Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out today’s Native America Calling episode Wednesday, October 7, 2026 — Native Playlist: Jeremy Dutcher and Mali Obomsawin