Roughly one-third of the Quinault Reservation lacks internet access at home. The remaining two-thirds have service below the FCC’s minimum broadband standard. Now Quinault is building infrastructure that one of the world’s largest technology companies needs to connect North America and Asia.
Amazon Web Services will own Sta’O’Nuk, a subsea cable planned to connect Washington and Japan in 2029. Quinault, through Toptana Technologies, is constructing the Tribally-owned landing station where that cable will connect with terrestrial fiber networks.
Sta’O’Nuk, which means “lightning serpent” in the Quinault language, will be the facility’s first cable, but Toptana is building something larger than an AWS terminal. The open-access station is designed to accommodate additional subsea systems, while its backhaul network will connect the Washington coast with major interconnection markets in Seattle and Hillsboro.
The landing station won’t itself connect individual homes, but Toptana says the infrastructure is intended to enable affordable high-speed service for Quinault and other underserved communities.
Quinault’s geography made this possible. It’s one of only four Tribal Nations in the United States with coastal access and adjudicated ocean rights. But geography alone didn’t create the project. The Nation began exploring broadband infrastructure in 2017 and created Toptana in 2022 with Quinault’s business committee approving the organizing of Toptana under the Tulalip Tribe’s LLC law in 2025.
Tribal law supplied the institutional foundation. Quinault invested in Toptana, remains its sole shareholder, supplied land and rights-of-way, and retained authority over major contracts. Tribal officials have also described an approved profit-sharing arrangement intended to return revenue to the Tribal government.
Quinault began this work because its own community lacked adequate broadband. It’s now becoming an owner of the physical infrastructure that will carry communications across the Pacific and into the Pacific Northwest.
Click on the image above to watch a 3 minute video on Toptana Technologies: Our Vision for Connectivity for All
Today is Michigan Indian Day, designated by Michigan law as the fourth Friday of every September.
In honor of the day, I’m offering a snapshot of what Tribal sovereignty looks like in Michigan. It includes:
Land Back • Treaty Rights • Citizenship • Education • Child Welfare • Health Care • Policing • Courts • Utilities • Economic Regulation • Manoomin • Culturally Grounded Governance
Below are 12 recent examples, one drawn from each Michigan Tribe.
It looks like bringing ancestral land home, and deciding what happens next. At the end of 2024, 188 acres along West Grand Traverse Bay were returned to the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians. GTB named the land Mashkiigaki, “place of the medicines,” reflecting its significance for hunting, fishing, gathering, medicines, wetlands, and coastal habitat. Since then, GTB has begun reconnecting Tribal citizens with the land and laying the groundwork for ecocultural restoration. The Tribe has surveyed citizens about their memories and aspirations for Mashkiigaki, initiated bird and invasive species surveys, planned a study of creek and wetland hydrology, and begun mapping sensitive habitat and possible public access routes. In 2026, GTB received approximately $1.3 million from NOAA, part of the federal grant approved in 2024, to support restoration and community engagement at Mashkiigaki. The planning remains Tribal-led, with elders, citizens, and government staff helping determine the land’s future. GTB’s announcement on the return of Mashkiigaki
It looks like leading a fight to protect treaty-protected waters.Bay Mills Indian Community has been a central leader in the Tribal campaign against both the existing Line 5 dual pipelines and Enbridge’s proposed tunnel beneath the Straits of Mackinac. Its opposition is grounded in the 1836 Treaty of Washington, treaty-protected fishing and gathering rights, and the Tribe’s sovereign responsibility to protect Michilimackinac, a sacred place at the heart of Anishinaabe creation traditions. Bay Mills formally called for Line 5’s decommissioning in March 2015, supported Michigan’s 2020 revocation and termination of Enbridge’s 1953 easement, and in 2021 formally banished Line 5 from Tribal lands, including the Straits. The Tribe also helped bring the dispute before the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, which in 2023 recommended that the United States and Canada decommission Line 5. In litigation over the existing crossing, Bay Mills filed amicus briefs supporting the State’s efforts to keep its shutdown cases in state court, including a 2023 Sixth Circuit brief in Nessel v. Enbridge on behalf of a coalition that NARF describes as more than 60 Tribal Nations and First Nations.
Bay Mills has simultaneously challenged the proposed tunnel before the Michigan Public Service Commission, EGLE, the Michigan courts, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It intervened in the MPSC proceeding and introduced Tribal and expert testimony on treaty rights, fisheries, climate impacts, alternatives, and tunnel explosion risks. It also challenged EGLE’s 2021 wetlands permit and participated in the Army Corps’ federal review as a cooperating agency. In March 2025, Bay Mills and other Tribes withdrew as cooperating agencies after the Corps moved to fast-track approval under the asserted national “energy emergency.” The MPSC approved the tunnel in December 2023, and the Court of Appeals affirmed in February 2025. In July 2026, the Michigan Supreme Court vacated the MPSC’s approval. It remanded for a new analysis of the project’s environmental effects, feasible alternatives, and impacts on public trust resources (In re Application of Enbridge Energy to Replace & Relocate Line 5, No. 168335 (Mich. July 31, 2026)). EGLE had approved wetlands and bottomlands permits for the tunnel two weeks earlier. The Army Corps issued its record of decision in August notwithstanding the ruling, and Bay Mills condemned the federal decision as a breach of treaty and trust responsibilities. In September 2026, after Governor Whitmer announced that EGLE would re-review its permits, Bay Mills and three other Tribal Nations petitioned for a contested case hearing to overturn them. Bay Mills’ Line 5 information portalMichigan Supreme Court decision
It looks like deciding who belongs to the political community. In March 2026, Hannahville Indian Community amended its Tribal Enrollment Ordinance, governing membership applications, the Enrollment Committee, appeals, records, relinquishment, and loss of membership. Few exercises of governmental authority are more foundational than determining the citizenship of the political community. Hannahville’s 2026 Tribal Enrollment Ordinance
It looks like reshaping a regional education system.Keweenaw Bay Indian Community is leading a five-year Promise Neighborhood covering the L’Anse Reservation and surrounding Baraga County. The cradle-to-career initiative links local schools with early childhood, family, college, and career supports; KBIC cultural advocates and Ojibwe language instructors also work with area schools to bring Ojibwe language, history, and culture into classrooms. KBIC Promise NeighborhoodsU.S. Department of Education project profile
It looks like exercising responsibility for Tribal children under Tribal law. The Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe governs child protection through its own Children’s Code and institutions. Tribal law provides for Children’s Court jurisdiction, child protection proceedings, foster care and child care regulation, adoption, and other matters affecting Tribal children, while Anishnaabeg Child and Family Services carries out child and family services within that Tribal governmental and legal framework. Saginaw Chippewa Children’s CodeAnishnaabeg Child and Family Services
It looks like building a health system across the Upper Peninsula. The Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians operates nine health clinics or centers across its 7-county service area, providing varying combinations of medical, dental, behavioral health, pharmacy, and other services. Earlier this week, the Tribe broke ground on a major expansion and renovation of its Sault Health Center, designed to improve patient care while maintaining connections to Anishinaabe spiritual and cultural beliefs. Sault Tribe Health DivisionSeptember 22 groundbreaking announcement
It looks like making jurisdiction work across borders. In October 2025, the City of Petoskey formally swore in Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians Tribal Police under a cross-deputization arrangement allowing LTBB officers to assist within city jurisdiction. Petoskey officers, in turn, were to be sworn in by LTBB so they could respond where the Tribe has primary jurisdiction. The arrangement is especially striking given that shortly after LTBB’s federal reaffirmation, local officials once accused its officers of “impersonating police officers.” Today, Tribal and local governments extend law enforcement authority to one another. Petoskey Department of Public Safety 2025 Annual ReportFrank Ettawageshik recounts LTBB’s earlier cross-deputization history
It looks like a Tribal court telling another branch of Tribal government what the Constitution requires. In Romanelli v. Tribal Council, the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians Tribal Court ruled in May that the Ogema’s proposed FY2026 budget had become the Tribal budget by operation of the Constitution and issued a writ of mandamus requiring the Tribal Council to appropriate the funds. That’s Tribal constitutional law in action, with a Tribal judiciary resolving a separation of powers dispute within Tribal government. Romanelli v. Tribal Council order
It looks like making sure the drinking water is safe and the sewer system works. In March, the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians (Gun Lake Tribe) enacted a new Water and Sewer Act. The law creates a Tribal regulatory system covering utility connections, permits, inspections, industrial discharges, water use restrictions, enforcement, fines, and Tribal Court proceedings. Sometimes sovereignty looks like constitutional litigation, and sometimes it looks like the sewer code. Gun Lake Tribe Water and Sewer Act
It looks like regulating a new market, and mobilizing government to protect citizens. In 2025, the Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians entered a Tribal-State cannabis compact allowing a Tribally regulated cannabis business to participate in Michigan’s regulated market. Then, in January, amid concerns about ICE activity affecting Native people, the Tribal Council issued formal guidance to citizens, waived fees for replacement Tribal IDs, and directed citizens to Tribal enrollment, law enforcement, leadership, and legal offices for assistance. LVD–Michigan cannabis agreementLVD Tribal Council statement regarding ICE activity
It looks like making law for a relative rather than merely regulating a commodity. In September 2025, the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi enacted a Mnomen (Wild Rice) Code. The law recognizes Mnomen as the Tribe’s official grain and a protected Tribal resource, creates a Mnomen Wgema composed of Tribal citizens, regulates harvesting and transplantation, authorizes enforcement by Tribal conservation officers, and provides penalties for violations. The Code also recognizes Mnomen as a living spirit, medicine, and part of the Tribe’s migration story. Environmental regulation, cultural responsibility, and Indigenous law operate here in the same legal framework. NHBP Mnomen (Wild Rice) Code
It looks like designing governmental institutions on Indigenous terms. Under the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians’ Elders Council Code, the Elders Council is a governmental instrumentality that provides guidance to the membership and to the Band’s legislative, executive, and judicial institutions on matters of history, traditions, and culture. Pokagon law also permits one of the seven Tribal Council seats to be held by an Elders Council representative, who carries all the rights and responsibilities of a Tribal Councilperson. Pokagon Elders Council Code, current through May 2026
Every day across the state, each of Michigan’s 12 Tribes exercises governmental authority over lands, resources, institutions, services, and citizens.
Recent warnings that AI is advancing faster than government can control it have focused on threats to jobs, democracy, and even humanity. Whatever you might think of the most extreme predictions, AI needs guardrails and too few jurisdictions are responding. For tribes, that’s a sovereignty question.
The Cherokee Nation’s AI policy and Data Sovereignty and Governance Task Force report offers an important model of executive action. But Tribes aren’t merely employers. Sure, they purchase technology, control data and resources, own businesses, and manage employees, but they also legislate, regulate, prosecute, adjudicate, provide remedies, and negotiate with other governments.
Tribes can begin to take action by inventorying AI uses and assessing risks to citizens, elections, decision-making processes, Indigenous data, cultural knowledge, jurisdiction, treaty rights, and future generations. One possible approach is to use a sequence like below, with steps that will overlap and that can proceed in parallel:
continuous risk assessment → executive policy → employment, contracting, and procurement protections → administrative capacity → Tribal legislation creating rights, duties, oversight, and remedies → Tribal enforcement and remedies →intergovernmental and external enforcement
Jurisdictional limits matter, especially when vendors, data, or harmful actors are beyond a Tribe’s reach. But those limits make contracts and intergovernmental agreements more important; they don’t justify inaction. The magnitude of the risks also requires inter-Tribal coordination and resource-sharing between Tribes.
The question isn’t simply how Tribal employees should use AI. It’s how Tribal governments will exercise sovereignty over it.
Image of the design of the new Muscogee (Creek) Nation Tribal Courthouse under construction in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. The 43,514 square foot building will feature larger jury courtrooms with room for up to 150 spectators each, multiple additional courtrooms, judges’ offices, inmate holding areas, and ceremonial design elements reflecting Muscogee traditions. Muscogee (Creek) Nation Tribal Courthouse – New Fire Native Design Group
Muscogee (Creek) Nation v. Banks provides an example of Tribal law taking on an independent life after federal law prompts institutional change.
In Banks, the Nation prosecuted an Indian defendant for domestic abuse and moved to exclude non-Indian jurors, arguing that VAWA’s expanded jury protections were unnecessary because the Nation already possessed inherent criminal jurisdiction over him.
The Muscogee Supreme Court rejected that position because Mvskoke law itself required the expanded jury pool. When the National Council amended the Nation’s laws in response to VAWA, it adopted a rule providing defendants charged with domestic, dating, or family violence crimes a jury drawn from a fair cross-section of the community, including non-Indians. The Tribal statute doesn’t distinguish between Indian and non-Indian defendants.
The Court acknowledged that the Nation’s sovereignty and ICRA arguments were “persuasive,” but held that they could not authorize the judiciary to disregard the National Council’s unambiguous statute. If the National Council wants to change the jury formation process it created, the Court made clear, it must do so through legislation; the judiciary won’t rewrite it by interpretation.
That makes Banks more than a VAWA implementation case. Federal law prompted the Nation to redesign its jury system, but Mvskoke law now operates independently of the federal minimum that inspired it. The opinion expressly describes the decision as resting on “traditional and modern Mvskoke law.”
The ruling was interlocutory, and the Supreme Court remanded the case for continued proceedings related to Banks’ prosecution. The opinion was issued on May 29, 2026.
Highly recommended. More great work on Anishinaabe Inaakoniewin from Prof. Stark.
Here is the abstract:
In the field of tribal law, the term justice is a commonly used term, yet the term has often gone undefined. So how is justice as an Indigenous concept defined? What does justice as an Indigenous concept entail? When is a dispute (or a tribal court action) justiciable? This article will address these questions. As evidenced from the story of The Woman Who Married A Beaver we can think of justice as inherently tied to our preexisting obligations and responsibilities to one another through the implementation of thoughtful decisions, made on behalf of the people through the achievement and maintenance of harmony, balance, and reciprocal kinship relationships. Utilizing this understanding, this article examines the concept of Indigenous justice through four basic principles: harmony, relationality, inclusivity; and responsibility. This article proceeds to illustrate examples of how the justiciability concepts of standing, ripeness, mootness, and the political question doctrine apply in tribal forums and provides tribal courts and tribal law practitioners recommendations for the future. In summary, this article urges tribal practitioners and tribal courts to utilize the principles embodied in the concept of Daabidawise Onaakonigewin (justice). As such, tribal practitioners and tribal courts will be able to recognize the reciprocal kinship relationships, responsibilities, duties, and obligations of all those that encompass Indigenous justice.
Citizens of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, Michigan’s largest federally recognized Tribe with more than 50,000 citizens, will vote on a proposed new Constitution that would significantly restructure its Tribal government.
The Tribe’s current Constitution, adopted in 1975, vests governing authority in a Board of Directors and provides for a Chairperson to be elected by the voters of the Tribe who then serves as a member of the Board. The proposed Constitution would establish three co-equal branches, including a 12-member Tribal Council, an executive branch led by an independently elected Tribal Ogemaa, and a constitutionally established judiciary consisting of a Trial Court called the Court of Gweyakwaadziwin (Honesty) and a Supreme Court called the Court of Nbwaakawin (Wisdom). It also expressly provides that the Tribal citizens are the source of governmental authority and that powers not granted to the government are reserved to the citizenship.
The proposal also includes a detailed Bill of Rights protecting, among other things, religious and cultural beliefs; speech and press; privacy against unreasonable searches and seizures; criminal process rights; equal protection, application, and opportunity under the law; whistleblower protection; the right to own, bear, and use arms; and property rights. It also expressly addresses sovereign immunity and waivers of immunity, suits against elected officials and employees acting in their official capacity or within the scope of their authority, and the right of citizens to bring Tribal Court actions to enforce constitutional rights.
Anishinaabe language and law are reflected throughout the proposed Constitution. The Preamble invokes Anishinaabe Bimaadziwin (the Anishinaabe way of life) and the Seven Grandfather Teachings, and Tribal courts would have jurisdiction over matters arising under Tribal customs as well as the Tribe’s Constitution, treaties, and laws.
The proposal also constitutionalizes the Mackinac Band as a seventh historical band for citizenship purposes, resolving a longstanding difference between the existing Constitution which does not include the Mackinac Band, and the Tribe’s Membership Ordinance, which does.
Here, hosted by the National Center for Restorative Justice.
From the site:
The National Center on Restorative Justice’s (NCORJ) Tribal Restorative Justice Laws Database was created as a resource for restorative justice advocates, practitioners, researchers, and policy-makers—both for tribes and throughout other jurisdictions in the United States. Our aim is to organize and display in an easily navigated format the ways in which tribes have codified the use of restorative justice approaches. This database expands upon NCORJ’s Restorative Justice Laws Database, which lists state restorative justice laws.
The expansion of the Restorative Justice Laws Database to include tribal laws was a natural one. Contemporary restorative justice has roots in Indigenous cultures and practices, both in the United States and globally, and tribes continue to be leaders in restorative justice practice and systems today. This Tribal Restorative Justice Laws Database shows the many codified restorative justice practices that exist in tribal law and is, to our knowledge, the first time this data has been collected and presented in a public and easily accessible format.
Thank you to Grace Carson for her leadership and expertise in the creation of this database. Thank you also to the research assistants who helped on this project: Kylie Belt, Anna VanRoy, and Jonathan Eagle. The NCORJ is committed to continuing to update this database. This database was last updated in January 2026. If you see something that is missing or a correction is required, please be in touch. For more information about the development of the database, to get assistance navigating it, or to request a copy of the raw data for research purposes, please contact Lindsey Pointer (lpointer@vermontlaw.edu).
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