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The “Newtok Mothers” assembled as a panel at the Arctic Encounter Symposium on April 11 discuss the progress and challenges as village residents move from the eroding and thawing old site to a new village site called Mertarvik. Photographs showing deteriorating conditions in Newtok are displayed on a screen as the women speak at the event, held at Anchorage’s Dena’ina Civic and Convention Center. (Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)

News

Relocation of eroding Alaska Native village seen as a test case for other threatened communities

Newtok-to-Mertarvik transformation has been decades in the making.

Delegates offer prayers during the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska’s 89th Annual Tribal Assembly on Thursday at Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall. (Muriel Reid / Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska)

News

Tribal Assembly declares crisis with fentanyl and other deadly drugs its highest priority

Delegates at 89th annual event also expand foster program, accept Portland as new tribal community.

A panel on “Northern Indigenous Leadership: Our Future, Our Vision for Success,” is held at the Arctic Encounter Symposium on April 10 in Anchorage. (Joaqlin Estus/ICT)

News

Alaska Native vision for the future: Self determination

‘Nothing about us without us.’

Newly elected tribal leaders are sworn in during the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska’s 89th annual Tribal Assembly on Thursday at Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall. (Photo courtesy of the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska)

News

New council leaders, citizen of year, emerging leader elected at 89th Tribal Assembly

Tlingit and Haida President Chalyee Éesh Richard Peterson elected unopposed to sixth two-year term.

An illustration depicts a planned 12-acre education campus located on 42 acres in Juneau owned by the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, which was announced during the opening of its annual tribal assembly Wednesday. (Image courtesy of the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska)

News

Tribal education campus, cultural immersion park unveiled as 89th annual Tlingit and Haida Assembly opens

State of the Tribe address emphasizes expanding geographical, cultural and economic “footprint.”

Maddy Fortunato, a Chickaloon middle school student, sets to attempt the one-hand reach by touching a suspended ball while remaining balanced on the other hand during the Traditional Games on Sunday at Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Empire)

Sports

Striving for the perfect balance of competition, camaraderie at seventh annual Traditional Games

More than 250 participants pursue personal goals while helping others during Indigenous events.

Visitors to the Denver Art Museum look at “Drum (Gaaw),” a cultural item from the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, on display in the Northwest Coast and Alaska Native Art Galleries on March 27. The tribes, from Southeast Alaska, have been trying to reclaim their cultural items from the Denver Art Museum for more than 30 years. (RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)

News

Tlingit and Haida delegation came to Denver to reclaim their cultural heritage. They left empty-handed.

Tribal representatives say city museum has historic objects that should be returned under 1990 law.

(Photo courtesy of The Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska)

Neighbors

Neighbors: Tunic returned to the Dakhl’aweidí clan

After more than 50 years, the Wooch dakádin kéet koodás’ (Killerwhales Facing Away From Each Other Shirt), a…

Donovan Jackson, 12, of Juneau competes in the one-foot high kick during the 2022 Traditional Games on April 2, 2022. (Ben Hohenstatt / Juneau Empire file photo)

Sports

Record number of participants expected for seventh annual Traditional Games

Teams from Alaska, Canada and Lower 48 to compete in 12 Indigenous skills events starting Friday.

In this Sept. 29, 2023, photo at the grave of Lucky Pitka McCormick, her granddaughter Kathleen Carlo, left, and McCormick’s great-great-grandchildren Lucia, center, and Addison Carlo place candles and stones on the grave during a reburial ceremony in Rampart, Alaska. Pitka was one of the Lost Alaskans sent to a mental hospital in the 1930s. Her grave was recently discovered, and family members brought her back to Alaska for a proper burial. (Wally Carlo via AP).

News

Volunteers uncover fate of thousands of Lost Alaskans sent to Oregon mental hospital a century ago

Lucy Pitka McCormick’s relatives cooked salmon, moose, beaver and muskrat over an earthen firepit on the banks of…

Annauk Olin, holding her daugher Tulġuna T’aas Olin, and Rochelle Adams pose on March 20, 2024, after giving a presentation on language at the Alaska Just Transition Summit in Juneau. The two, who work together at the Alaska Public Interest Research Group’s Language Access program, hope to compile an Indigenous environmental glossary. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)

News

Project seeks to gather Alaska environmental knowledge embedded in Indigenous languages

In the language of the Gwich’in people of northeastern Alaska, the word for month known in English as…

Tongass National Forest (Photo by U.S. Forest Service)

News

New Department of Interior opinion promises to recognize expanded tribal jurisdiction in Alaska

Tribes can exert jurisdiction over allotments granted to individual Natives, opinion states.

Wanda Culp (left) speaks during a rally at the Alaska State Capitol on Saturday, June 22, 2019. (Michael Penn / Juneau Empire file photo)

Opinion

Why Alaska Natives like me oppose the landless bill

The 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) has never addressed Native claims. ANCSA is an industrial-rooted tool…

A framed picture of Alaska Native civil rights leader Elizabeth Peratrovich is seen in the lobby outside of Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall on Friday. (Photo by Claire Stremple/Alaska Beacon)

News

On Elizabeth Peratrovich Day, Alaska Native leaders teach continuing advocacy

On Feb. 16, 1945, Alaska legislators signed the nation’s first anti-discrimination law. Historical records show that the words…

Students with the Tlingit Culture, Language and Literacy Program perform a traditional dance during a “community conversation” between local Alaska Native residents and municipal leaders Thursday night at Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall to discuss the Juneau School District’s budget crisis. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Empire)

News

Show and tell: Local Natives highlight cultural education impacts of school district’s budget crisis

Students, teachers say preserving language, other programs vital as officials consider what to cut.

A dance group sings in a presentation by the Alaska Native Heritage Center and Native Movement at the state Capitol on Monday. (Photo by Claire Stremple/Alaska Beacon)

News

Public safety commissioner seeks change in Alaska’s missing and murdered Indigenous people response

“We’ve closed our eyes and allowed rural Alaska to be seriously victimized,” Cockrell said.

An image from the cover of the book “Sah Quah.” (Courtesy Sealaska Heritage Institute)

Neighbors

Neighbors: SHI publishes book on slavery in Alaska that endured after federal abolishment

Book explores Haida man’s quest for freedom that ended slavery in Alaska

The Unuk River is one of the transboundary watersheds of Southeast Alaska. (U.S. Geological Survey Alaska Science Center photo)

News

Southeast Alaska tribes seek Canadian recognition due to transboundary issues

A group of Southeast Alaska tribes is asking Canada to recognize their right to have a voice in…

Cathy Walling of the Alaska Quaker Friends hugs Jamiann S’eiltin Hasselquist in Kake, while Ati Nasiah of the non-profit Haa Tóoch Lichéesh smiles in the foreground on Jan. 19. (Photo by Shaelene Grace Moler)

News

Monetary reparations follow Quaker apology to Alaska Native community on Kake Day

An unused U.S. Forest Service building in Kake may soon be a healing center for the community to…

A view from the library of the Angoon High School, one of Alaska’s public schools, is seen on June 19, 2023. (Claire Stremple/Alaska Beacon)

News

Alaska board of education sends the plan for tribally run public schools to lawmakers

A report detailing the framework for tribally run public schools will be sent to the legislators and the…