Search Results for: april 12

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A public records request in a Missing Indigenous Persons case in North Dakota has revealed unusual footage.

As reported this week in Buffalo’s Fire, 77 hours of surveillance footage from the Mandan Police Department shows 20-year-old Renzo Bullhead (Standing Rock Sioux) approaching a railroad bridge, headed east towards Bismarck, N.D. on March 16.

But in footage not previously seen by the public, a large splash in the Missouri River appears on the opposite side of the bridge, roughly 20 minutes after Bullhead passes by the first camera.

Since Buffalo’s Fire posted the story on its website and social media venues, the new footage has generated calls for further investigation into Bullhead’s disappearance.

The Mandan Police Department has not responded to emails asking what they make of the disturbance in the water.

While Arizona, neighboring states, the federal government, and Mexico are negotiating over a dwindling supply of water from the Colorado River, another key stakeholder is tribes.

Thirty in all, trying to either ratify their rights or safeguard their allocations to the West’s most precious water resource.

KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports how the tribes’ seats at the negotiating table are being shaped by the second Trump administration.

More than two-thirds of the Colorado River Basin tribes are from Arizona.

They all need to negotiate with the federal government to essentially get what they want.

Unlike states, tribes were historically excluded from these dialogues, but lately their engagement in defining the future of the Colorado River has been celebrated.

“All of those tribes are in very different places and there’s no one size fits all. And what’s going to work for one tribe is probably going to not work for most of the other 30.”

Scott Cameron, currently the top-ranking Interior Department official on Colorado River matters, reiterated his agency’s commitment to tribal consultation this month at an annual water conference in Boulder, Colo.

“So we really need to have these conversations on a one-on-one basis, that having been said, trying to negotiate with 37 people in the room is a lot more complicated than negotiating with seven.”

So far, tribes seem fairly content with the Trump administration’s recent and frequent communication – a sentiment shared by Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis of the Gila River Indian Community during an annual Tucson, Ariz. water conference last month.

“We’ve already made significant progress with the new administration, and we’re more optimistic than ever that they’re listening and seriously considering new proposals.”

At the same time, the federal agency responsible for refereeing talks has also made notable cuts – gutting roughly 4% of all Interior staff – and potentially shaping its water priorities for years to come.

“I’ve heard on calls that about 25% of the workforce is now gone from Reclamation in general, and so just for water in the West, that’s significant.”

Cora Tso (Navajo) researches tribal issues at Arizona State University’s Kyl Center for Water Policy.

When pressed to confirm how many Bureau of Reclamation employees were lost, the Interior Department repeatedly said it does “not comment on personnel matters”.

Tomorrow we’ll bring you part two of this special report on water access and tribes.

And on this day in 1868, a Jesuit priest, Father Pierre Jean De Smet, met with Chief Sitting Bull of the Hunkpapa Lakota to negotiate a peace treaty.

Meeting with the famed chief at his encampment along the Powder River in present-day Montana, de Smet was not able to sway Sitting Bull to sign a treaty. But the chief did send one of his delegates to Fort Laramie in Wyoming to sign a treaty which allowed whites to travel and settle in designated areas.

De Smet died in 1873, three years before Sitting Bull and his forces defeated General Armstrong Custer at the Battle of the LIttle Bighorn.

 

 

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Photo: The perch at North Slope Borough’s bowhead whale census, April 16, 2019. (Ravenna Koenig / Alaska’s Energy Desk)

Scientists and Alaska hunters have been counting bowhead whales passing by the northernmost American town, Utqiagvik, for the past two months.

It is part of a once-in-a-decade effort to evaluate the health of the whale population up north – and support subsistence in the area.

The Alaska Desk’s Alena Naiden with our flagship station KNBA reports that so far, the number of whales seems to be on the rise.

When bowhead whales pass Utqiagvik on their way up north, it’s a good time to count them.

Every 10 years, scientists and local hunters team up to carry out the census for bowhead whales that migrate between the Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort seas.

Biologist John Citta says the data helps ensure that the bowhead population is healthy.

It’s also used to set subsistence harvest limits in the years to come.

“We do it for the whaling captains, and we do it in collaboration with them.”

First, they build a perch on the sea ice, right on the edge with a stretch of open water, or lead.

Observers have been climbing the perch and counting the whales passing by since the beginning of April.

The visual count is only the first step of the census. But so far, Citta says the final estimate might be around 20,000 whales or more.

“There are a lot more whales out there now than what there used to be, and we suspect the populations continue to grow, but we just don’t know that for certain yet.”

Citta says the bowheads might be thriving because the sea ice in the Arctic is declining.

Whalers in the Arctic have been involved in the bowhead census since the early 70s. That’s when the International Whaling Commission counted whales for the first time.

Retired whale biologist Geoff Carroll co-led subsequent counts.

“We were able to show that there’s plenty of bowheads to support the subsistence hunt.”

That initial count only included whales passing through the stretch of open water. But hunters knew that some animals traveled far from shore or under thick ice.

Throughout the years, the census has included acoustic and aerial surveys that account for those whales.

This year, the acoustic part of the count is also happening.

“It turns out that bowhead whales really talk a lot.”

The International Whaling Commission expects the final estimate in 2029 to decide whether to renew the region’s current subsistence whaling quota.

A state of emergency was declared this week, on the Rosebud Sioux Tribe Reservation in South Dakota.

It was issued by the tribe’s president Kathleen Wooden Knife.

The declaration states it is “due to threats posed by widespread methamphetamine and illicit drug use, trafficking, and related gun violence, which poses risks to public safety, community health, and tribal welfare.”

The tribe is seeking increased patrol and investigation from federal agencies, cooperation from the community in reporting crimes, and urgent action to address law enforcement gaps.

According to the Office of the President, this follows previous declarations issued in 2019 and 2024.

Twelve bike riders from the Cherokee Nation left this week from Tahlequah, Okla., for Cherokee, N.C., to participate in this year’s Remember the Removal Ride.

The cyclists will join riders from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians for the ride, which official begins next week.

The ride spans about 950 miles along the northern route of the Trail of Tears in Georgia and ends in Tahlequah on June 21.

The ride honors Cherokee ancestors who were forced to march the route in the late 1830s.

Cyclists will visit several Cherokee gravesites and historic landmarks.

Their journey can be followed on the Remember the Remove Bike Ride Facebook page.

 

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Nearly 1,000 Indian Health Service (IHS) layoffs were rescinded Friday, as tribal organizations from across the country advocate to protect the federal workforce serving Indian Country.

The layoffs are part of the Trump administration’s effort to shrink the size of the federal workforce.

More than a dozen tribal organizations sent a letter to the Office of Personnel Management and the administration on Friday, urging for the protection of federal employees serving Indian Country.

The letter raises concerns about what they say would be devastating impacts on essential services in tribal communities, including critical service disruption to healthcare and emergency services, and jobs with ripple effects on local economies.

The groups are calling for full exemptions for employees in the Indian Health Service (IHS), Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Indian Education, and other federal offices that support tribes.

The National Indian Health Board (NIHB) is among organizations to sign the letter.

The NIHB told Native News Online on Sunday that the IHS layoffs were rescinded “thanks at least in part to advocacy by the many Tribal organizations.”

ICT reports new health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. verbally rescinded the IHS layoffs Friday evening.

Tribal organizations are reminding officials that tribes have unique political status, and the government has trust and treaty obligations.

A recent report shows that in rural counties home to large numbers of American Indians, including in Montana, people are more likely to rely on Medicaid for health insurance across all age groups.

Kathleen Shannon has more.

About 23% of Montanans rely on Medicaid for their health coverage. But the four counties with the highest rates – roughly 40% – are all home to American Indian reservations.

That’s according to a report from the Georgetown Center for Children and Families on Medicaid’s role in rural areas.

Executive Director Joan Alker says that’s a national pattern.

“This is important because if Congress moves ahead to make large cuts, these areas and Indian Country more generally will be in big trouble.”

Alker says documents leaked from the House Budget Committee show it’s considering cuts to Medicaid between $200 billion and $2.3 trillion.

She adds the cuts are not a “foregone conclusion.”

Jason Smith, executive director of the Montana Consortium for Urban Indian Health, says Medicaid doesn’t just cover individuals, it also helps reimburse health centers like his.

“I would say the UIOs, particularly, had a lot of revenue coming from Medicaid. So it’s really a great secondary source of funding that has helped their organizations run and provide services for the communities.”

As of January, more than 14,000 American Indians in Montana were enrolled in Medicaid expansion.

An effort to improve response to reports of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP) in Oregon is underway in the state legislature.

KLCC’s Brian Bull reports.

State Rep. Tawna Sanchez (Shoshone-Bannock, Ute, and Carrizo descent/D-OR) is building on a 2019 MMIP bill she sponsored, that created talking sessions between tribal communities and state agencies, including the Oregon State Police (OSP).

That led to improved training and a tribal liaison in the OSP.

Now Rep. Sanchez has a bill that aims to have Oregon’s nine federally recognized tribes and urban communities partner up with another state agency.

“It’s asking that we put a sort of intervention kind of situation in the Oregon Health Authority. They’ve already got established prevention models that they’ve used, they already have the ability to get out to community.  They already have the ability to bring folks into sort of that thought process of, like, ‘How do we fix this?’”

The bill is currently in front of the legislature’s budget-writing committee with an estimated price tag of $500,000 per year.

She’s concerned about whether federal funds could be tapped, given the uncertainty about the future of federal spending.

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The office of Gov. Greg Gianforte (R-MT) met the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and local officials last week to settle a dispute over law enforcement funding on the Flathead Reservation.

Montana Public Radio’s Aaron Bolton has the latest.

For years, Lake County has sought state funding to cover its costs for enforcing and prosecuting felonies on the reservation.

It’s exercised that authority under a decades-old agreement with the state and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.

The county is once again backing legislation that would fund its law enforcement services for tribal members, but Commissioner Gale Decker says this time is different.

“The county is saying fund us until the state can retrocede and the feds can come in and take it over.”

That bill would give the county a little more than half of what it says it costs to police the reservation over the next two years.

The state intends to pull out of the law enforcement agreement, known as Public Law 280, but the timeline is unknown.

Gov. Gianforte’s office did not respond to a request for comment about whether it supports temporary funding for Lake County.

If both the county and state pull out, it will be left up to the tribes and the federal government to provide law enforcement.

The tribes have taken over more felony cases, but it’s unclear if they are able to take every case.

Federal officials have long said they do not have the resources spare for the reservation.

An author of a new report says institutions need to do more to close the higher education graduation gap for Native Americans.

As Isobel Charlé reports, that includes in Oregon where there are some efforts to boost higher education among Native students.

The report notes at just 25%, Native Americans have the lowest college-going rate of any racial group in the country.

Cheryl Crazy Bull with the American Indian College Fund, who helped author the report, recommends states set specific higher education goals focused on increasing Native participation.

She adds they should prioritize direct engagement with tribes and schools to provide resources, as well as expanding recruitment practices.

“Those practices can often exclude Native students who live in reservation rural areas as well as urban Native students. ”

In 2022, Oregon made public universities free for Native students enrolled in one of the state’s nine federally recognized tribes through the Oregon Tribal Stewardship Grant.

The program has been gaining steam over the years, but the graduation gap, made larger during the pandemic, has not closed.

While Crazy Bull says financial barriers play a big part in preventing Native people from accessing higher education, she adds not all issues can be solved with money.

“How do institutions create a place or a sense of belonging for students? That’s just a constant effort.”

Crazy Bull adds, even before the new administration, anti-DEI practices were harmful to Native students’ experiences.

Native students can apply for the Oregon Tribal Stewardship Grant until April, as long as funds are available.

To qualify for the grant, they must be accepted for enrollment at an Oregon college or university.

Former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) is running for governor of New Mexico.

The announcement was made in a video, which was launched Tuesday.

In the video, Haaland talks about her time in Congress and at the Interior Department saying among things she worked on in the state – helping open small businesses, expanding solar power, and bringing water to rural communities.

Her platform for governor includes lowering costs for families, improving schools, and addressing crime prevention.

Haaland made history becoming one of the first Native American women to serve in Congress and the first Native person to hold the position of Secretary of the Interior.

Haaland says in the coming weeks, she’ll be traveling the state to hear directly from community members.

 

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A post shared by Deb Haaland (@debhaalandnm)

 

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Photo: U.S. Rep. Raul Ruiz announces the Chuckwalla National Monument Establishment and Joshua Tree National Park Expansion Act of 2024 on April 17, 2024. (Courtesy Rep. Ruiz / Facebook)

A signing ceremony is expected to take place next week for two new national monuments in California, which include tribal cultural and sacred sites.

The White House announced the designations Tuesday and an event was to take place in the state, but was postponed due to high winds.

Suzanne Potter reports.

U.S. Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-CA), whose district includes parts of the 624,000-acre Chuckwalla National Monument, says the lands will now be protected from mining, drilling, and development.

“This is one of these unique examples where you have both the conservation and tribal leaders, as well as the renewable energy and utility companies, all endorsing this enormous monument.”

Big news! 🎉 @POTUS designated 600K+ acres in #CA25 as the Chuckwalla National Monument—a win for wildlife, sacred sites, tourism, and climate goals.

Grateful to @SenAlexPadilla, @Senlaphonza & all partners.

Watch my recap! 🎥 pic.twitter.com/7sfeXfuHlg

— Congressman Raul Ruiz, M.D. (@RepRaulRuizMD) January 7, 2025

The area south of Joshua Tree National Park is also habitat for the Chuckwalla lizard, bighorn sheep, and the endangered desert tortoise.

Thomas Tortez is former chair of the Torres Martinez Band of Cahuilla Indians.

“The next step is to strategically develop a co-stewardship plan, put all those resources together and then, start to protect the land.”

The White House also intends to designate a new national monument near Shasta Lake in northern California.

Brandy McDaniels with the Pit River Tribe says they’ve been fighting development in the area for decades.

“As social, economically suppressed communities, having to fight against people with deep pockets and have all the money in the world to come in and destroy our lands – and that’s what we’ve been fighting to protect for a very long time.”

Tribal leaders are also calling on President Biden to designate one more national monument in California before the end of his term.

This week, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) shared her perspective about the agency’s Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative and President Joe Biden’s apology to Indian Country.

In a blog post on the Interior Department website, Sec. Haaland says, of all the work in the department under the Biden-Harris Administration, one of the most significant, she says, has been the boarding school initiative, which she launched in 2021.

Haaland shares thoughts about her own family history with Indian boarding schools.

A day ahead of President Biden’s apology, Haaland told National Native News, she’s been personal impacted.

“Decades ago, when I was sitting at my grandmother’s kitchen table and talking to her about boarding schools she didn’t tell me everything, right? I knew there was more to what she was telling me.”

Haaland says she still feels the impact of injustices on her ancestors, including that her great grandpa, being more than 100 miles away from his daughter’s boarding school, only had a “horse and wagon”.

“She told me he was able to only visit her twice during the five years that she was there. Her time there, her dad’s time at boarding school, that affected my life, and I didn’t realize how much it affected my life until I got a little bit older.”

Haaland’s boarding school initiative included an investigative report and listening tour across Indian Country.

Biden traveled to a tribal community in Arizona in October, where he formally apology to Native Americans and Alaska Natives.

In December, Biden established the Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School National Monument.

In the blog post, Haaland says the work is not finished, but also talks about healing.

The Pennington County Commission in South Dakota has approved a statue commemorating the search for justice for missing and murdered Indigenous peoples.

C.J. Keene has more.

The statue, created by the Red Ribbon Skirt Society, will be installed outside the county administration building.

The base of the statue’s plaque reads “And her name shall be Justice.”

The small-scale mockup of the statue features a woman in traditional regalia holding an eagle feather.

Artist Rachel Berg of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe is creating the statue.

The Red Ribbon Skirt Society has raised about half of the statue’s $30,000 cost and hopes to install the memorial by summer.

 

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Photo: Roylene Comes At Night, left, State Conservationist for the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Washington, Robert Bonnie, Under Secretary of Agriculture for Farm Production and Conservation, and state leaders toured multiple sites associated with the Odessa Groundwater Replacement Program throughout central Washington on June 6, 2024. (Nate Gallahan / USDA / Public Domain)

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has a new plan to strengthen its collaboration with tribes. And help them build more sustainable food systems.

The Mountain West News Bureau’s Kaleb Roedel has more.

Nationwide, there are 574 federally recognized tribes.

Nearly half of them are in the West – where tribes manage or farm more than 55 million acres of land.

The USDA’s new strategy aims to help tribes better protect and preserve the natural resources and farmland they rely on.

That includes dedicating more staff and funding to conservation across tribal lands. And incorporating Indigenous knowledge into that work.

Roylene Comes At Night is a conservationist with the agency and a member of the Blackfeet Nation in Montana.

“This gives us an opportunity to now build this tribe by tribe, so that each tribal nation that has their own concerns can adapt and adopt those concerns to meet their needs.”

She says, overall, the new strategy supports tribes’ cultural and farming traditions – and will make sure their priorities and knowledge shape future federal policies.

 

 

A new study profiles a recently discovered species of amphibian that survived harsh Wyoming weather by burrowing into the ground.

Wyoming Public Radio’s Chris Clements has more on the slimy tetrapods, which lived near the Wind River Reservation millions of years ago.

University of Wisconsin researcher Dave Lovelace came across the fossils, still preserved in their burrows, on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land near Dubois, Wyo.

He returned there over the years, eventually partnering with the Eastern Shoshone Tribe to bring local middle school students and elders to the site.

The idea was to have researchers talk about the fossils, and for elders of the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone tribes to discuss their knowledge of the creatures.

“Looking at weaving those two narratives together. We don’t have that built in knowledge and history.”

Reba Teran is Eastern Shoshone and a co-author of the paper.

She named the species Ninumbeehan dookoodukah, two Shoshone words.

“The Ninumbee are still here with us. They were very powerful beings. They were only like three feet tall. And they live up in our mountains even today.”

Lovelace says the early amphibians’ burrowing habit gives researchers hope about a way for modern amphibians to survive climate change.

The Alutiiq Museum has received a grant to revamp the Koniag Cultural Library.

The grant comes as it’s finishing construction on its new building.

As KMXT’s Brian Venua reports, staff say it’s good timing to have even more to show off at its grand reopening in May.

The Alutiiq Museum has been closed for over a year for an expansion to nearly double its size.

Museum officials plan to display more items from its collections as well as feature more art from contemporary culture bearers.

But now with this grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the museum will make it easier than ever to access its library, too.

“In the past, we had a library – I don’t think anyone knew that.”

That’s Amanda Lancaster, the museum’s curator of collections.

Since 2018, the library has served as the official tribal library of Koniag, Kodiak’s regional Native corporation.

It was in the basement, it was very inaccessible, you had to make an appointment, you had to have a staff member with you just because it was in the basement and sort of more of a staff space.

The library features thousands of printed materials, hundreds of audio/visual items, and well over 10,000 photos as part of the collection for people to research Alutiiq culture.

The new funding will help the museum pay for renovations for a more friendly library space.

Lancaster says they’re aiming to have matching shelving units, furniture for a seating area and computers for research.

Patrons won’t need appointments or staff supervision just to be in there – they’ll just need to check in and use the library at their leisure.

“We’re just hoping that it will make it much more accessible so that people will want to come and use it.”

While the new money won’t cover new acquisitions, it could make room for future donations.

“It’s going to be much larger and much more spacious and (have) space to sit and read.”

It’s also a reason to recatalog and reorganize all of those resources.

“I’m just really excited to have one sort of dedicated project where we make sure everything’s in the right space.”

After the renovations, the grant will also pay for an outreach effort to solicit comments on how to make the library as useful as possible.

 

 

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Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota is pulling its share of funding from a clinic meant to provide women’s health services for enrolled members living in Rapid City.

One official says that’s because the clinic has not offered appointments for over a year.

SDPB’s Lee Strubinger has more.

The Native Women’s Health Clinic is contracted to provide obstetric and gynecologic services for eligible Indian women.

The clinic is located in the Oyate Health Center, but operates as a separate organization.

According to a report obtained by SDPB earlier this year, the clinic had 4,800 visits in 2021.

The number of visits plummeted to zero by April of 2023.

This April, both Rosebud and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes put the clinic on notice — saying they would pull their funding shares if the clinic failed to start seeing patients.

Rosebud Sioux Tribal President Scott Herman says the tribe has concern about the women’s health clinic.

“It was stated at one of the meetings they haven’t provided that service for a year and a half. It became an issue with some of the leadership as far as how we’re going to provide that service down there.”

Herman says the Rosebud Sioux Tribe is trying to correct a problem.

He says it’s too premature to say what the tribes plan to do with their shares allotted to the tribe to fund women’s health in Rapid City.

Patients are getting referred to midwives located at Oyate Health Center and floor below the clinic, as well as other clinics in Rapid City.

Herman says Rosebud’s resolution mirrors a Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe resolution to pull its shares from Native Women’s Health Clinic.

Cheyenne River officials have not return requests for comment. Additionally, the tribe voted last month to pull its publicly available council meeting video feed.

Oglala Sioux Tribal president Frank Star Comes Out has also not returned requests for comment.

Diné College in Tsaile, Ariz. is starting a new program that will focus on Navajo law.

Clark Adomaitis has more.

Diné College serves primarily a Navajo student population, and focuses on Navajo language and culture.

The college is collaborating with Arizona State University in offering 20 undergraduate students a Bachelor of Arts program in Navajo law starting in the fall.

“When it comes to Western law, that process is important and it’s followed.”

Patrick Blackwater is a Dean at Diné College.

“To understand what law is from different perspectives, especially from the Navajo Nation side, meaning the cultural side that level of fundamental law that should also be incorporated into it.”

Blackwater says that Navajo Fundamental Law is an important but not well understood aspect of legal practice on the Navajo Nation.

It is a written way of Life for Navajo people, which provides principles that were once only passed down verbally.

“Navajo fundamental law is the way in which Navajos understand natural law in which we communicate, interact with each other, but also every being and resource within the universe in this world…that’s how we understand our beginnings and our laws. And that’s what is mostly going to be the foundation of this program.”

Students who complete the Navajo Law program will have opportunities to study higher level law at Arizona State University.

U.S. Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) has announced $1.75 million for the White Earth Nation in Minnesota to use energy storage to increase the tribe’s use of solar power.

The project will expand an existing solar array at an elementary school and community center in efforts to help lower electricity costs.

The funding is from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity.

 

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A new clinic has recently opened on the Grand Ronde reservation in eastern Oregon to address gaps in care for tribal members.

Eric Tegethoff has more.

The Cheryle A. Kennedy Public Health Clinic expands the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde’s health system and will provide a range of benefits, including preventative services like vaccinations, dental care, and nutrition classes.

Kelly Rowe, health director for the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, says the the goal of the clinic is to ensure tribal members have health services nearby.

“The whole thought behind the big clinic was to bring everything here to Grand Ronde so people could get it without having to travel.”

With the clinic, members won’t have to drive long distances for most of the their health-care needs.

The closest city is 50 miles away.

Enrolled members of the Grand Ronde can get free health services from the hospital.

Tribal members say self-reliance is nonnegotiable because of their long history of mistreatment by the federal government.

The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde were created in 1857 after the federal government forcibly removed the 29 distinct bands of the Tillamook people from the Oregon coast.

Rowe says the goal is to add even more health services to the clinic.

“They’re very committed to making sure that they’re providing health care and providing as much as possible for the membership.”

This story is a collaboration with Oregon News Service and Daily Yonder

About the only signs of the rare white raven that entertained Anchorage last winter are pictures posted on a Facebook page, taken before it disappeared.

It’s a photo parade of the bird’s greatest hits, with its trickster nature on full display as it relished pieces of toast and tater tots from restaurant dumpsters.

Thousands and thousands of photos were taken and yet, as Rhonda McBride from our flagship station KNBA tells us, the bird remains a mystery.

Anchorage’s love affair with the white raven began last October, when it was spotted in a neighborhood called Spenard, with lots of restaurants and lots of dumpsters.

To the delight of photographers, the bird seemed to enjoy playing to the cameras and was quite vocal.

The bird went silent in April, when it left town with most of the ravens that had wintered there.

Biologists say this is normal – that ravens fly far afield in the summer in search of solitude to nest and raise their young.

Even so, the White Raven’s departure has left a hole in the heart of Spenard.

“We were able to realize and see something that had been foretold.”

Charlene Apok says Alaska Natives have many stories about how the White Raven would someday appear as a messenger of hope and healing.

Last winter, she says she saw the bird a lot from her office building, where White Raven’s visits caused considerable excitement.

“Oh, White Raven out this window. Then you hear the whole building, thump, thump thump. Everyone would run across the building to see the raven.”

Apok says she misses White Raven, but says bird’s absence leaves time and space to reflect.

Aaron Towarak: “I couldn’t really believe it. It was kind of surreal in the moment.”

Towarak may have been one of the first people to photograph the bird.

He saw it on October 20, as he walked along Spenard.

At first, he thought it was a seagull.

“But then I looked a little closer and there’s another raven with it, and then it cawed. And I was like, is that a White Raven?”

Towarak does know something about raven sounds. He spent his childhood in Unalakleet learning how to talk to the birds.

Towarak says White Raven marks an important turning point in his life. He was living in a hotel, waiting to get into an alcohol and drug treatment program, but relapsed and was kicked out.

“It’s a tough when you’re in your addiction to feel much outside of wanting that high. But in that moment, it kind of re-awoke something in me. I felt wonder.”

Towarak eventually got into a treatment program, found sobriety, got a job, and reunited with his children, a journey that began with a call from White Raven.

Towarak never did try out his raven call on the bird. But perhaps if it returns to winter in Anchorage, he’ll get a chance to say “thank you.”

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