From Mlive:
NEW BUFFALO TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — The American Indian tribe that owns the new Four Winds Casino Resort in extreme southwestern Michigan is withholding its first revenue-sharing payments from local governments and school districts.
The Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians says it has concerns about the organization of the board that is to oversee the distribution of the estimated $3 million a year in payments.
From Indian Country Today:Manoomin Project teaches at-risk youth respect, culture Posted: November 21, 2007 by: Greg Peterson
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| Photo courtesy Greg Peterson/second photo courtesy Steve Durocher — The Manoomin Project teaches at-risk teens – sentenced in juvenile court for minor crimes – respect for themselves, Native heritage and nature. The teens study and plant wild rice, and learn how the grain is used in ceremonies. Don Chosa, Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, guides the students on the outings. Teens and volunteers, who later planted wild rice, were shown young plants prior to the July 2006 survey. The teens were then asked to identify the wild rice – mixed with other plants – at the seven remote planting sites. |
MARQUETTE, Mich. – American Indians have long known the medicinal and spiritual benefits of manoomin; but along the shores of Lake Superior in northern Michigan, a wild rice restoration project is teaching non-Native teenagers respect for American Indian culture and the environment.”This is about respect for nature,” the Rev. Jon Magnuson said to a rambunctious group of teenagers.
On the first of a three-day outing in July 2006, the teens were embarking on a several-mile hike into the remote Northwoods of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to study the previous year’s wild rice crop.
It wasn’t long before those teens topped a hill and surprised two bear cubs that scrambled up a tree about 50 yards away.
”Look – there are two bears,” said a teenage boy motioning to others to run toward the cubs.
Their guide, Don Chosa, Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, knew that meant a protective mother wasn’t far away.
”Remember what I said about respect,” Chosa said – and the curious teens stopped in their tracks.
Chosa instructed the youth to give the cubs a wide berth.
The Manoomin Project teaches at-risk teens – sentenced in juvenile court for minor crimes – respect for themselves, Native heritage and nature. The teens study and plant wild rice, and learn how the grain is used in ceremonies.
Since 2004, about 130 teens and dozens of adult volunteers have planted more than a ton of wild rice seed in U.P. waters, where it once thrived but disappeared a century ago due to logging and other human activities.
The project is sponsored by the Cedar Tree Institute, the Superior Watershed Partnership and the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community.
Here are the materials in the Soaring Eagle v. Teamsters case:
Saginaw Chippewa Labor Ordinance
To Rob J. Peters at www.blog.yahbayrising.com for adding us to his blog role and writing nice things about us. We’ll do the same. Rob writes about his tribe, the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe, and other Native issues.
The film is called “The Canary Effect.”
For details about the panel discussion, see here.
The final report of this important forum is here (in pieces). Obviously parts of it are very dated, but this is important material regardless as legislative history of MCR 2.615.
Appendix II — Directory of Tribal Courts
From Indianz:
The National Labor Relations Board will oversee a union election at the casino owned by the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe of Michigan. The election takes place December 20. Teamsters Local 486 wants to organize about 300 housekeeping employees. This the second NLRB-overseen election at a tribal casino since the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the board’s ability to assert jurisdiction at tribal enterprises. Dealers at the casino owned by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation of Connecticut agreed to a union this past weekend.
Get the Story:
Union election date set for casino workers (The Mt. Pleasant Morning Sun 11/29)
From NPR:
Listen Now [4 min 30 sec]
Day to Day, November 27, 2007 · An underwater archaeologist has found what may be an etching of a mastodon at the bottom of Grand Traverse Bay in Lake Michigan. Members of a local tribe believe that there is a spear in the mastodon, which would be hard evidence that humans hunted the prehistoric elephant-like animals. Tom Kramer of Interlochen Public Radio reports.
The full text of the interview is here:
The new issue of Red Ink just arrived in the mail. I have a short story in this edition, Thinking about What I’ve Done. It’s about Indian lawyers, sorta.
From the Bay City Times:
Sunday, November 18, 2007By Helen Lounsbury
STANDISH – Rumored for decades, Northeast Lower Michigan’s first casino stands just six weeks from its scheduled Dec. 31 opening.
Yet even as construction crews put finishing touches on what has finally become a certainty for rural Arenac County, little else here is certain. Questions and few answers, loom about how the casino will change this industry-poor, farmland-rich community. Here, in open pasture, the casino marks Arenac’s biggest development project in years.
”People hope it creates good jobs. People hope it makes us a destination. People hope it means more revenue for the area,” muses Curt Hillman, a Standish businessman who has spent a lifetime serving on local economic development boards.
Turtle Talk 
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