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Photo: Apache Stronghold supporters shout “Protect Oak Flat” outside the Sandra Day O’Connor Courthouse on May 7, 2025. (Gabriel Pietrorazio / KJZZ)
Despite the U.S. Supreme Court refusing to hear arguments last month from Apache Stronghold, the nonprofit is trying to revive its religious freedom case over Oak Flat in Arizona.
As KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, the group is asking the high court to reconsider.
“I betcha the courts don’t change their mind in 0.001% of the time.”
Bob Miller (Eastern Shawnee) is with Arizona State University’s Indian Legal Clinic. He’s been following the saga to protect Oak Flat from copper mining.
The nation’s highest court allows parties to re-appeal a denied petition within 25 days. But Miller says asking the nine justices to reconsider will almost certainly not alter the outcome.
“I cannot conceive of the Supreme Court changing its mind.”
Conservative Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas argued in a dissent that not hearing Apache Stronghold’s case was “a grievous mistake” threatening to “reverberate for generations.”
In a statement, Resolution Copper says the company appreciates the court’s attention to this case – which had been reviewed over a dozen times.
A letter to President Donald Trump from the nonprofit Apache Stronghold sent on May 29, 2025. (Courtesy Apache Stronghold)
K’dazq’eni Glacier. (Courtesy Alaska Volcano Observatory)
Although Alaska is the land of 100,000 glaciers, only 700 of them have names.
Very few of those are Indigenous. But they are important for the writer of a new book called “The Alaska Glacier Dictionary” to include them.
As KNBA’s Rhonda McBride tells us, it’s more than a reference book, but full of stories.
Naomi Klouda says her glacier dictionary is for travelers and armchair adventurers alike, to give them quick access to a glacier’s vital stats and nuggets of history – some that have been erased from recent memory.
“There are some really beautiful Alaska Native designations on glaciers, like they’ll be very descriptive. So it was really important to me to get the Indigenous names wherever I could find them.”
Like K’idazq’eni, the Dena’ina name for a glacier on Mt. Spurr.
“And it means one that is burning inside. Now picture this glacier is on Mount Spur, so in local memory, in Indigenous memory, they would have known about the times that mount had erupted.”
Klouda says the names of Alaska glaciers also tell the story of colonialism.
When geologists from the U.S. Geological Survey mapped and named glaciers, they often supplanted Indigenous names – or failed to acknowledge the contributions of Alaska Natives – like the Athabascan hunting party led by Chief Sesui, who came to the rescue of some starving, nearly frozen U.S. Army explorers, after a bear raided their cache in 1899.
They took the men to their village, fed and clothed them for several months and, when the weather improved, guided them to safety. But it was the leader of the expedition, Lt. Joseph Herron, who was remembered with the name Herron Glacier, not Chief Sesui.
“Every glacier has a story and no two are alike. They are very individual.”
That’s why Klouda says when it comes to the Indigenous history, the name of a glacier is literally the tip of the iceberg.
Special thanks to Aaron Leggett for Dena’ina Athabascan pronunciations.
Cherokee Nation bike riders returned to the capital city of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma on Friday, after finishing a 950-mile journey.
This year’s ride marked the Remember the Removal Bike Ride’s 41-year anniversary.
Riders followed the northern route of the Trail of Tears honoring Cherokee ancestors who were forced to march it in the late 1830s.
The journey began in Georgia and ended in Tahlequah, Okla.
Twelve cyclists from the Cherokee Nation took part in the ride over three weeks.
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U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has sworn in Mark Cruz (citizen of the Klamath Tribes) as senior advisor to the secretary for Indian Health Services.
In a video on social media, Sec. Kennedy said the appointment is important for decision making in the Health and Human Services Department for Native Americans.
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