Veterans encircle the Warrior/Veterans Wall of Remembrance at Eagle Circle during a victory song Wednesday. (LINDA THOMPSON/Missoulian)

Artist Corky Clarimont was talking about eagles when he spoke of the strength of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, but he might just as well have been speaking of the veterans honored by the memorial he designed.

That memorial was unveiled yesterday at the tribes’ headquarters on the Flathead Indian Reservation in western Montana. As Missoulian reporter Vince Devlin writes, here, the Warrior/Veterans Wall of Remembrance at Eagle Circle is unique to the tribes:

Tepee poles 65 feet tall rise over the memorial, and serve to welcome Indian veterans both alive and dead back home to their reservation.

Inside the monument, the head of an eagle occupies the tallest piece of granite, and other pieces form the wings that circle around to protect those inside.

On those inside walls, the names of more than 1,200 Indians from the Flathead Reservation who have served their nation are carved into the stone.

During the nearly daylong ceremonies that marked the dedication, CSKT chairman E.T. “Bud” Moran noted that 44 members of the tribes volunteered to serve in World War I, even though Indians had not yet even been granted U.S. citizenship and were not required to serve.

Clicking on the link to the story will also lead you to a video, here.

Gwen Florio

Shane Hendrickson watches as his daughter Aspen sits on one of his horses, Many Moons, on Saturday in Arlee. Hendrickson is putting on the rodeo this year at the Arlee Celebration. (MEGAN GIBSON/Missoulian)

Here’s how Keila Szpaller of the Missoulian tells the tale, via Johnny Arlee:

When the Salish people first saw horses, they weren’t sure what they were seeing, said Johnny Arlee, a spiritual and cultural leader of the Flathead Reservation: “They thought they were monsters, half human and half animal.”

The Shoshone Tribe had raided a Salish hunting party, and the survivors returned to camp and formed a group to retaliate. Instead of descending on the Shoshone right away, though, the Salish observed them.

They noticed their enemies tending horses and leading them to water. Arlee, vice chairman of the 2010 Arlee Celebration Committee, said a plan for revenge emerged: “Instead of wiping them out, let’s go steal what they like.”

The Salish did, and on their way walking back to camp, someone suggested the group could get away from the Shoshone faster if people rode the horses, as they had witnessed.

Scouts at home saw the men astride the horses and at first mistook them for monsters. Salish people at camp nearly fled until the riders signaled their identity, said Arlee, who told the story. Then, the Shoshone arrived in pursuit of their animals.

“The Shoshone came and begged for their horses back,” Arlee said.

The Salish said no and explained they had taken the horses to retaliate for the deaths of their own people. Eventually, though, the parties came to an agreement, and the tribes became allies. The bond had formed over the horses.

Want to read more? Click here, where you can see a video, too. And enjoy!

Gwen Florio

Happy Father’s Day!
Jim Boyd’s song, “Father and Farther,” was featured in “Smoke Signals,” the movie based on Sherman Alexie’s short stories. Meanwhile, in Carroll County, Ark., the annual Father’s Day Powwow is going on this weekend, according to this Carroll County News story. Happy Father’s Day to all the dads!

Sounding off on New York’s latest cigarette tax plan aimed at Native Americans
Managing editor Eric DuVall of the Tonawanda News does not think much of New York’s plan to tax tribes’ cigarette sales. Of the complicated plan, he says here: “Either system would be surely subjected to a court review, and considering either system does mean that Native Americans will be taxed on sales to fellow Native Americans, it’s likely to be struck down. And if it isn’t, I sincerely hope they go back to burning tires on the Thruway.”

Deadline extended in Keepseagle suit on behalf of Indian farmers and ranchers
Shades of Cobell – the deadline to settle a lawsuit on behalf of Native American farmers and ranchers denied access to USDA loans has been extended until July 29. A tentative agreement in a similar case involve Hispanic ranchers reportedly has been reached, Rob Capriccioso of Indian Country Today writes here. A report in the Keepseagle v. Vilsack case estimates Native farmers and ranchers were denied about $3 billion in credit, resulting in between $500 million and $1 billion in damages.

Salish language camp attracts students of all ages
Last week’s Salish language camp on the Flathead Indian Reservation in western Montana was a blend of old and new, B.L. Azure writes here in the Char-Koosta News. Part of the Salish Language and Culture Camp held by the Salish Pend d’Oreille Culture Committee involved lessons by Shirley Trahan, who used a MacBook Pro computer loaded with the Salish language font.

Wisconsin tells school to dump Ho-Chunk chief logo
The state of Wisconsin wants the Osseo-Fairchild high school to ditch its nickname — the Chieftains — and logo of a Ho-Chunk chief. Local parents Harvey and Carol Gunderson filed a complaint about the logo. “It’s about a matter of psychological harm to students. Research has found that it lowers the self-esteem of American-Indian students, but it raises the self-esteem of European-American students,” Harvey Gunderson tells WQOW, here. The state agrees, but a school board member is fighting the order. A hearing is set for June 28.

Gwen Florio

It’s almost impossible to imagine Salish Kootenai College on the Flathead Indian Reservation in western Montana without its president, Joe McDonald.

He was there from the start, 30 years ago, when the college was just a handful of students working for a few credits in borrowed classrooms across the reservation. Now, as the Missoulian’s Vince Devlin writes here, it has 53 buildings, more than 1,100 students, a faculty of 58, 181 employees, a $26 million annual budget and an $8 million endowment started with a $5 bill from McDonald.

Last night, though, McDonald began the next phase of his life, launched with a long and festive retirement party. (In photo above, by the Missoulian’s Michael Gallacher, McDonald and his wife Sherri are escorted into McDonald’s retirement ceremony Thursday afternoon in Pablo by members of The Great Scotts Pipes and Drums band.)

Among those lauding his accomplishments was Rick Williams, executive director of the American Indian College Fund, who called SKC “the finest tribal college in the nation.”

Click on the link to read more, and also to watch a video from the party.

Gwen Florio

Some of the people most affected by the massive oil sands project in Alberta are coming to Montana to help organize protests against an Imperial Oil/ExxonMobil plan that would send massive trucks through that state on their way to those oil sands.

As Marty Cobenais, an activist for the Indigenous Environmental Network tells Missoulian (Mont.) reporter Kim Briggeman here, it’s like war.

“You know the old military strategy of cutting off the supply chain?” says Cobenais:

He’s one of three people who’ll be in Missoula on Wednesday evening to present the ugly side of bitumen mining in Alberta as the “big rig” flap in western Montana shifts to a higher gear and a broader realm.

A free screening of the 75-minute documentary “H2Oil” is set for 6 p.m. at the Roxy Theater to kick off what organizers have titled “A Walk Through the Tar Sands.”

It’ll be, according to the group, “a night of firsthand accounts regarding the most destructive industrial project on the face of the planet.” Presentations will follow the film by Cobenais, of Minnesota; George Poitras, former chief of the Mikisew Cree First Nation, which is downstream from the oil fields in Alberta; and Simon Reece, a youth from Fort McMurray, Alberta, with the Fort McKay First Nation.

Other events include Saturday’s presentation on the Flathead Indian Reservation by the Grammy Award-winning Indigo Girls. They’ll be part of a panel discussion, moderated by Native American activist Winona LaDuke, that will focus on Native environmental issues. And, Eriel Deranger, who is Athabasca Chipewyan from northern Alberta, will talk about the impact of the tar sands.

The discussion, “Environmental Justice in Montana: Protecting the Land for Future Generations” starts at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at the Johnny Arlee/Victor Charlo Theatre at the Salish Kootenai College.

The focus on Montana comes because “Montana is considering collaborating to some degree in terms of tar sands production here … whether it’s heavy-truck hauling in Montana or pipelines that are running through their traditional lands that are coming from the tar sands,” says George Poitras.

Poitras is a former chief of the Mikisew Cree, the largest of five First Nations directly affected by tar/oil sands mining, and is traveling the world talking about the vast mining project and its effect on his people, who he says suffer unusually high rates of cancer.

Gwen Florio

The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes have announced that medical marijuana providers who sell their product to Indians on the Flathead Indian Reservation in western Montana can be charged with felony drug distribution.

The Tribal Council’s decision was made after consulting with elders from the Salish, Kootenai and Pend d’Oreille peoples, the Missoulian’s Vince Devlin reports here.

“The result was a consensus from the elders that marijuana has no cultural significance,” says tribal spokesman Rob McDonald, “and that we, as a people, have other indigenous means to deal with pain.”

The decision only applies to Indian people, no matter the tribe, within the boundaries of the reservation.

Gwen Florio

Where the Jocko River had once been diked into a straight channel after a flood threatened the nearby state-owned fish hatchery, restoration included rebuilding the floodplain and re-channeling the river into a meandering, dynamic waterway. (KURT WILSON/Missoulian)

Instead, they thought big. Really big. The tribes set about restoring 25 miles of the Jocko River that flows through their Flathead Indian Reservation in western Montana reservation, as well as the entire Jocko watershed.

Time – and the influence of man – had taken a terrible toll on the Jocko. Because its meandering course threatened a trout hatchery run by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, the river was straightened, looking more like a big ditch. And three dams were built on Montana’s Clark Fork River, meaning bull trout couldn’t migrate 174 miles from Idaho’s Lake Pend Oreille and eventually wind up in the Jocko.

As Devlin writes, the tribes’ Jocko River Master Plan aims to change that:

Restoration workers for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, Jero Sharp, left, and John Hammer, have been tearing down structures and salvaging the useable wood on the Schall Ranch north of Arlee since the tribes bought the property as part of the Jocko watershed restoration project. The ranch fronts the Jocko River and is being brought back to its natural habitat. (KURT WILSON/Missoulian)

“It’s sort of a ‘Field of Dreams’ vision,” says Germaine White, information and education specialist with CSKT’s Natural Resources Department: ” ‘If you build it, they will come.’ Instead of growing and throwing, we’re trying to restore the habitat for bull trout.”

It’s a massive project covering the entire Jocko watershed, years in the works, with years left to go.

In some places, it’s as simple as removing the cattle that defecated in the river’s tributaries and grazed their banks down to dirt.

In others, entire homes, barns and other outbuildings are disappearing from the Jocko floodplain, torn down one by one as the tribes begin restoring land near the river to its natural habitat.

“We’re fortunate to be in the backbone of the world, where water begins,” White says. “There are so many others down the system, especially by the time you get to the Columbia River, where you encounter dam after dam, and they have no choice but to grow and throw.”

More than a century of confusion and disagreement over that most tension-producing of subjects in the West — water — came to an end yesterday when the Flathead Indian Irrigation Project was signed in Washington, D.C.

The agreement, between tribal and nontribal entities, is the first of its kind, and goes into effect tomorrow, Missoulian (Mont.) reporter Vince Devlin recounts here.

“This is truly a historic agreement we are signing today with our non-Indian neighbors,” says E.T. “Bud” Moran, chairman of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.”I am glad we decided a few years ago to resolve our differences through negotiation.”

Devlin writes:

The agreement creates the Flathead Indian Irrigation Project Cooperative Management Entity, or CME, which will have an equal number of representatives from the Flathead Joint Board of Control and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes….

The project, including rights-of-way and real property, will remain a federal project. It includes 17 major storage reservoirs, 1,300 miles of canals and laterals and more than 10,000 structures….

The Flathead Indian Irrigation project dates back more than a century, to 1908. Four years after it enacted the Flathead Allotment Act, Congress authorized construction of the irrigation project and directed the transfer of its management and operation to the owners of the lands being irrigated, when certain conditions and repayment of the debt of construction were met.

But the Joint Board of Control and the tribes never could agree as to what precisely was to be turned over.

Moran, Walt Schock, chairman of the Joint Board of Control, and Larry Echohawk, assistant secretary of the Interior and head of the BIA, signed the agreement at the Department of Interior yesterday.

Gwen Florio

Elouise Cobell and attorney David Smith explain details of the $3.4 billion Indian trust settlement at a public meeting held on the Salish and Kootenai College campus in Pablo on Monday afternoon. Approval of the settlement funding by Congress has been delayed to April 16. “You need to weigh in now,” says lead plaintiff Cobell. “We need help in Congress.” (LINDA THOMPSON/Missoulian

That long-running lawsuit, filed by Elouise Cobell, who is Blackfeet from Montana, resulted last winter in a $3.4 billion settlement for Indian people who collectively lost billions because the federal government mismanaged royalties from the use of their lands.

But Congress has yet to sign off on distribution of the money and in the meantime, questions have arisen about the settlement. Cobell and her attorneys have been traveling Indian Country to answer some of those questions. Yesterday, she was on the Flathead Indian Reservation in western Montana. Missoulian reporter Vince Devlin covered the story, here:

This is a political settlement,” Cobell said. “The federal government always said they didn’t owe us any money. This would not have happened without a president who wanted it done.”

The settlement, she said, is President Barack Obama making good on a campaign pledge.

The settlement does not involve lawsuits by tribal governments over similar issues, only individual tribal members, who would receive $1,000 for the century of alleged historical mismanagement of their accounts, and a minimum of another $500 that addresses mismanagement of assets and resources on their land.

As Devlin reports, an estimated $15 million is scheduled to go to Cobell and the lead plaintiffs to pay costs incurred during the 14 years of litigation. That has been pointedly criticized by Richard Monette, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin and former chairman of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians.

Yesterday, Cobell termed Monette “a clown” and said “he’s doing a disservice to Indians.” But at least one man seemed to disagree with Monette, calling the settlement “junk change.”

Gwen Florio

Elouise Cobell (AP photo)

Information on how Native Americans in Montana may be able to share in a recently announced $3.4 billion settlement of Indian Trust claims will be discussed at meetings Friday and next week.

On Friday Elouise Cobell of Browning, lead plaintiff in the case, will be meeting with Blackfeet Tribal Members at the New Eagle Shield Center in Browning from 11:30 a.m. until 1:30 p.m.

On Monday she and David Smith, a member of the plaintiffs’ litigation team that helped negotiate the settlement, will begin visiting other three Indian communities to share information about the agreement.

They will visit the Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes Monday at the Salish Kootenai College Victor Charlo/Johnny Arlee Theater in Pablo from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.

On Tuesday they will visit the Fort Belknap Tribes at the Little River Learning Lodge in the Bee Gawn Hey and Si Si Rooms at Fort Belknap College from 1 p.m to 5 p.m. and on Wednesday they will visit Fort Peck Tribes at the Silver Wolf Casino, Highway 25 East, Wolf Point, from 1 to 5 p.m.

Native Americans whose families have individual Indian money trust accounts or who own individual Indian trust land are welcome to attend the meeting and ask questions about the settlement.

The Obama administration announced the proposed agreement to resolve a 14-year-old class action lawsuit Ms. Cobell, a member of the Blackfeet Nation, and other Native Americans filed against the government in 1996. The lawsuit claims that the federal government mismanaged individual Indians’ trust accounts.

Congress and the courts must approve the settlement.

Under the proposed terms, the federal government will create a $1.4 billion Accounting/Trust Administration Fund and a $2 billion Trust Land Consolidation Fund. The settlement also creates an Indian Education Scholarship fund of up to $60 million to improve access to higher education for Indians.

Cobell also answers questions about the settlement online in her weekly Ask Elouise column, here.