Babaamaajimowinan (Telling of news in different places)
Babaamaajimowinan (Telling of news in different places)
Sorted by date Results 1 - 18 of 18
BEMIDJI, Minn. — Even though the city of Bemidji is surrounded by three Indian reservations, there have been few Native American-owned businesses in town. Now, a Red Lake tribal member has opened a new restaurant. It's believed to be the first American Indian-owned restaurant in the city. Owner Marv Hanson tapped into a little-used state fund intended to help American Indian entrepreneurs. Hanson's new Marvelous Fish House and Market restaurant is decorated with American Indian art and lots o...
PONSFORD, Minn. — The White Earth Band of Ojibwe in northwestern Minnesota could become the first member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe to revise its constitution and completely change the rules for who can be a tribal member. Since the 1930s, Minnesota Chippewa Tribe members have operated under "cookie cutter" constitutions that contain no separation of powers. The proposed White Earth constitution would add checks and balances and place term limits on elected officials. The proposed c...
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Citizens of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe will vote on constitution reforms in a referendum planned for this summer. The proposed new constitution includes a controversial provision that would change the requirement for tribal membership. Right now, people must have one-quarter Indian blood to be citizens of the tribe. The new constitution would use family lineage, where children and grandchildren of tribal members would be citizens, as well. Tribal member Donald Vizenor says fewer and fewer people qualify for the o...
More than one hundred tribal members gathered inside the Paul Bunyan Mall in Bemidji Wednesday to stage a "flash mob" drum and dance circle. The event was organized as a show of support for a Canadian tribal chief who is on a hunger strike in Ottawa, Ontario. SImilar events supporting the Canadian "Idle No More" movement have been staged in Duluth, Minneapolis and other cities across the country over the past few weeks. Tribal Chief Theresa Spence of the Attawapiskat First Nation in far...
BEMIDJI, Minn. -- The Red Lake Band of Ojibwe in northern Minnesota will receive more than $21 million in loans from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Development Program. Red Lake will use some of the money to build a 42,000-square-foot tribal college. It will replace an older building that has limited classroom space and create room for technology equipment. USDA spokesman Adam Czech said the tribe also plans to construct a tribal government center. "The tribe currently works out of two older buildings that have all kinds of issues...
A few Ojibwe tribal members spent part of the weekend protesting Minnesota's first managed wolf hunt, which began Saturday. Tribal members on the White Earth Indian Reservation stood along highways in several tribal communities, carrying signs of protest. Minnesota's Ojibwe reservations in northern Minnesota have put their tribal lands off-limits to wolf hunting. The White Earth band has declared all of its reservation a wolf sanctuary. But much of the land within the reservation is owned by the state or by non-Indians. White Earth resident...
BEMIDJI – When Alvin Clark needs a meal, he sometimes comes to the basement of the People’s Church, where poor people in Beltrami County know they can find help. Clark, 55, is a member of the Red Lake Band of Ojibwe. Injured in a construction accident nearly 20 years ago, he lives on a Social Security disability check. Many others also are battling tough circumstances in northern Minnesota. According to 2010 Census data, Beltrami County’s poverty rate is about 20 percent, or about double the s...
CASS LAKE – Fred Isham sits near a blazing fire just outside Cass Lake on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation. The 37-year-old tribal member helped build the fire to heat carefully selected stones that will be used in a nearby sweat lodge. Inside the sweat lodge, Isham and others will pray and conduct spiritual Ojibwe ceremonies. Isham participates in the Cass County-Leech Lake tribal “wellness court.” He’s encouraged to use ceremonies and other cultural activities as part of his recovery from alcohol and drug addiction. It’s not required,...
Cass Lake, Minn. — Fred Isham sits near a blazing fire just outside Cass Lake on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation. The 37-year-old tribal member helped build the fire to heat carefully selected stones that will be used in a nearby sweat lodge. Inside the sweat lodge, Isham and others will pray and conduct spiritual Ojibwe ceremonies. Isham participates in the Cass County - Leech Lake tribal "wellness court." He's encouraged to use ceremonies and other cultural activities as part of his r...
BEMIDJI - A northern Minnesota telephone cooperative has put a $19 million broadband expansion on hold because of federal changes aimed at extending high-speed Internet access in rural areas. Bemidji-based Paul Bunyan Communications, which provides service to some 28,000 phone customers, is slowing down an aggressive expansion of fiber optic cable because the Federal Communications Commission is shifting how it allocates money in what is known as the Universal Service Fund. The company could...
Young people on the Red Lake Indian Reservation will soon have new places to exercise and hangout with friends. The Red Lake Nation this week received a $750,000 community development grant from the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community south of the Twin Cities. Red Lake will use the money for youth projects, including construction of a skateboard park and basketball court, as well as amenities for the Ponemah Community Center. Red Lake Tribal Chairman Floyd "Buck" Jourdain says the tribe's goal...
BEMIDJI – Red Lake tribal officials say they’re frustrated over a funding dispute that has left a juvenile detention center empty and unused since it was built by the federal government seven years ago. The $2 million juvenile center sits behind the tribe’s main criminal justice complex in Red Lake. A 13,000-square-foot building paid for by the U.S. Department of Justice, it was designed to provide minimum security detention for up to 24 juveniles. But the center never opened. “It’s frustrating and at times hopeless,” Red Lake Tribal Chairman F...
LEECH LAKE INDIAN RESERVATION, Minn. — Law enforcement officials are tracking a drop in gang activity in some tribal communities that they say is the result of a sweeping take-down of Native Mob gang leaders earlier this year. A federal indictment in January charged two-dozen alleged members of the Native Mob with crimes ranging from conspiracy and racketeering to drug trafficking and attempted murder. The Native Mob has terrorized tribal communities in the region since it formed in the early 1...
LEECH LAKE INDIAN RESERVATION, Minn. – Authorities in some tribal communities say they have noticed a drop in gang activity since January’s sweeping take-down of two dozen suspected Native Mob gang members. The Native Mob has terrorized tribal communities in the region since the gang began in the 1990s. Gang experts say the town of Cass Lake on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation has been the center of the gang’s operations, Minnesota Public Radio News reported Thursday. About one-third of those arrested in January were on the Leech Lake Reser...
Red Lake Indian Reservation, Minn. — Jerilyn Graves is unemployed, lives on public assistance and at 32 wonders if she'll ever have a job. One of her biggest regrets is that she dropped out of high school in 1998, her junior year. "I was into alcohol, and I was suspended from school in April, so I never went back for my senior year," said Graves, of Ponemah, Minn. "And the following September I just stayed home." With a high school drop-out rate among the highest in the state, there are p...
Bemidji, Minn. — The Red Lake Band of Ojibwe is gearing up to reforest 50,000 acres of tribal land. Red Lake was once a sea of red and white pine forest stretching across the reservation. But tribal officials say the federal government mismanaged the forest starting in the early 1900s. The pine trees were cut down and never successfully replanted. Red Lake sued the federal government and won a $53 million settlement in 2001. The tribe is using that money to grow its own pine seedlings. At the t...
St. Paul, Minn. — Suspected black market fishing operations on two Indian reservations in northern Minnesota are under federal investigation. Enforcement agents with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service led the so-called 'takedown' of illegal netting and walleye-selling operations on the Red Lake and Leech Lake reservations last weekend. The takedown also involved state and tribal conservation officers. No arrests were made, but an investigation continues, said Jeanne Cooney is a spokesperson f...
Bemidji, Minn. — Minnesota is approaching another walleye fishing opener this weekend, but there is still no resolution to a treaty rights dispute between the state and two Ojibwe bands in northern Minnesota. The Leech Lake and White Earth bands say an 1855 treaty with the federal government gives them the right to fish and hunt in much of northern Minnesota without state interference. But state officials limit the time when people can fish and hunt -- regulations they also apply to members o...
