Issue 016
The Weekly Brief
For the week of August 23, 2026
The dominant story this week belongs to Bad River and the broader pipeline fight: a federal appeals court ruled that Enbridge is trespassing on tribal lands and must remove Line 5, a landmark decision that lands squarely in the Bad River section of the Ojibwe chapter. Simultaneously, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approved the Line 5 tunnel under the Straits of Mackinac, drawing sharp condemnation from tribal nations and NARF. Closer to home, the Stockbridge-Munsee Community welcomed repatriated belongings of Sachems John and Austin Quinney back to Bowler in a ceremony that joined language camp and NAGPRA in one moment of living history. Wisconsin's August primary produced a governor's race that will put Tom Tiffany, the congressman who has been a persistent adversary of tribal interests north of Highway 29, against Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, a contest every Wisconsin nation will be watching through November.
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Spoken by Deepgram Aura. The written brief above is the canonical version.
Across the Wisconsin Nations
A repatriation homecoming, dual-language highway signs, a veterans memorial, and a Red Cliff elder at work on a birchbark canoe: this week the Wisconsin nations offered more than the usual headlines.
Wisconsin Completes Dual-Language Highway Sign Initiative, with Stockbridge-Munsee as the Final Nation
Governor Tony Evers joined the Stockbridge-Munsee Community Band of Mohican Indians on July 30 at North Star Mohican Casino and Resort to unveil the last set of dual-language highway signs, completing a statewide initiative that now recognizes all twelve Wisconsin tribal nations in their own languages along state highways. The signs are a small but visible act of sovereignty on the public landscape. For the Stockbridge-Munsee, whose Mohican and Munsee languages were traditionally considered one tongue before colonial dispersal, seeing those words on a state road sign carries weight that a press release cannot fully convey.
Stockbridge-Munsee Welcomes Quinney Sachems' Belongings Home After Repatriation from Smithsonian
On August 5, the Stockbridge-Munsee Community celebrated the return of twenty-five cultural items belonging to Sachems John and Austin Quinney, repatriated from the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian and welcomed home during the 2026 Language and Culture Camp. John Quinney's 1854 Fourth of July address, reprinted in full in this month's Mohican News, is a foundational document of Mohican political thought; bringing his material belongings home alongside a living language camp is the kind of convergence that makes repatriation feel like more than paperwork. The Mohican News has also been running Quinney's address in full this summer, a reminder that the community is actively curating its own intellectual archive.
Red Cliff Elder Builds a Birchbark Canoe the Way His Ancestors Did, and WPR Is There to Watch
Wisconsin Public Radio's Native American bureau followed a Red Cliff elder through the process of constructing a birchbark canoe using traditional methods, a practice that connects directly to the Anishinaabe relationship with the Great Lakes watershed. This is the kind of story Patty, you have argued for your entire career: craft as living knowledge, not museum artifact. Wayne Valliere at Lac du Flambeau has been the most prominent public face of this tradition, but Red Cliff elders carrying the same knowledge deserve equal visibility.
Mohican Veterans Join Wisconsin Tribal Nations at Highgrounds Memorial Park for Day of Recognition
Stockbridge-Munsee veterans joined Native American veterans from across Wisconsin at the Highgrounds Veterans Memorial Park in Neillsville on June 25, where eight of Wisconsin's federally recognized nations were represented. The gathering is a reminder that the ogichidaa tradition runs through every Wisconsin nation, not only the Ojibwe bands Patty documented in Way of the Warrior. The Mohican News coverage names specific veterans and their service branches, the kind of granular honoring that institutional press releases rarely manage.
Apostle Islands National Park Proposal Moves Forward, but Bad River and Red Cliff Say Community Buy-In Is Missing
A proposal to redesignate the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore as a national park is drawing skepticism from tribal nations whose ceded territory and treaty rights are directly implicated in how the islands are managed. WPR's Native American bureau reports that some community members say the process has moved without adequate consultation, a concern that echoes the broader pattern of federal land decisions that affect Ojibwe treaty rights without meaningful tribal input. The Apostle Islands sit at the heart of Bad River and Red Cliff homelands, and any change in federal designation has potential consequences for fishing, gathering, and access rights under the 1837 and 1842 treaties.
Wisconsin Corrections Officers Altered a Native Prisoner's ID with a Racial Caricature, Lawsuit Alleges
A lawsuit filed on behalf of Dylan Leenheer, a Native American man incarcerated in Wisconsin, alleges that state corrections officers altered his identification with a racial caricature. Senior attorney Maura Battersby of Flood Law, representing Leenheer, said the incident is "very telling about the environment and about how people who are Native American, who are non-white are being treated." The case is a stark reminder that the carceral system's relationship with Native people does not end at the reservation boundary, and that the MMIW and Missing and Murdered Indigenous People crisis has a corrections-system dimension that rarely gets named as such.
Treaty Rights and the Pipeline Fight
Two Line 5 decisions landed in the same week, pointing in opposite directions: a federal appeals court told Enbridge it is trespassing and must go; the Army Corps told Enbridge it can tunnel. The legal terrain has never been more contested.
Federal Appeals Court Rules Enbridge Is Trespassing on Tribal Lands and Must Remove Line 5
In a ruling that Bad River tribal members and their allies have been working toward for years, a federal appeals court found that Enbridge Energy is trespassing on tribal lands with its Line 5 pipeline and ordered the company to remove it. The decision is a direct vindication of the legal strategy Bad River has pursued since the easement expired, and it lands in the same week that the Army Corps of Engineers approved the Line 5 tunnel under the Straits of Mackinac, creating a split legal landscape that will define the next phase of this fight. WPR's Native American bureau has the story; read it before the mainstream outlets frame it as a pipeline dispute rather than a sovereignty case.
Tribes Condemn Army Corps Approval of Line 5 Tunnel Under the Straits of Mackinac
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a record of decision approving the Line 5 tunnel under the Straits of Mackinac, drawing immediate condemnation from tribal nations who say the process failed to honor the federal trust responsibility. NARF, which published this report, notes that Enbridge still needs a new permit from the Michigan Public Service Commission before construction can proceed, meaning the fight is far from over. The approval comes in the same week a federal appeals court ruled Enbridge is trespassing on Bad River tribal lands, a juxtaposition that captures the whiplash quality of pipeline politics in the Great Lakes region.
NARF Marks the Voting Rights Act's Anniversary by Documenting Its Role in Protecting Native Democracy
On the sixty-first anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, NARF published a detailed account of how the law has been used to challenge barriers to Native voting, from polling place access in rural Alaska to language assistance requirements in Wisconsin counties with significant Ojibwe populations. The piece is a useful counterweight to the week's news about Alaska Native polling stations opening late and broader federal pressure on mail voting. Sovereignty begins with the ballot, and NARF's framing connects voting rights directly to treaty rights.
Indian Country: Federal, Courts, and Sovereignty
A new IHS director after nineteen months without one. A Brookings report documenting chronic underinvestment in Indian Country. And a Tohono O'odham sovereignty fight at the southern border.
Mark Cruz of the Klamath Tribes Confirmed as IHS Director After Nearly Nineteen Months Without One
The U.S. Senate confirmed Mark Cruz, a citizen of the Klamath Tribes of Oregon, as director of the Indian Health Service by a 51-47 vote, ending a leadership vacuum that stretched across most of the current administration. Cruz becomes the twelfth Senate-confirmed IHS director. ICT broke the story; NCAI followed with a congratulatory statement. The confirmation matters for every Wisconsin nation that relies on IHS funding and policy guidance, and the Klamath Tribes' own history of dam removal and salmon restoration gives Cruz a TEK-informed background that Indian Country has rarely seen at this level.
Brookings Institution Finds Philanthropy Has Chronically Failed Tribal Communities, Calling It a Violation of U.S. Trust
A new Brookings Institution report finds that private and government funding to Native organizations lags far behind comparable groups, a gap the report frames as a violation of the federal trust responsibility. ICT covered the findings, which arrive as Congress is on summer recess and federal cuts to tribal programs are accumulating. The report's framing as a trust violation rather than a charitable shortfall is the right frame: this is not generosity that is missing, it is obligation.
Federal Judge Denies Tohono O'odham Nation's Bid to Halt Border Wall Construction on Its Reservation
A federal judge denied the Tohono O'odham Nation's emergency request to stop border wall construction on its reservation, a ruling the Nation called a blow to tribal sovereignty and the protection of sacred sites. The Nation is considering its next legal options. The case is a reminder that the border wall is not only an immigration story; it is a sovereignty story, a sacred sites story, and for the Tohono O'odham, a family separation story, since the wall bisects a community whose members live on both sides of the international line.
Alaska Native Polling Stations Opened for Only Three Hours on Primary Day, Continuing a Pattern of Disenfranchisement
At least two polling stations serving rural Alaska Native communities opened late during the August statewide primary, with one reportedly open for only three hours, the Alaska Division of Elections confirmed. Observers independently reported other sites also opened late. The problem is not new, and it is not accidental: rural Alaska Native voters have faced systematic barriers to ballot access for decades, a pattern that NARF's Voting Rights Act anniversary piece this week documents in detail. This week's Alaska primary also produced two additional Native congressional candidates who may appear on the November ballot alongside Mary Peltola.
Indigenous Leaders Warn the United Nations That AI Data Center Expansion Threatens Their Lands and Rights
Indigenous leaders from multiple nations brought concerns to the United Nations this week that the rapid global expansion of artificial intelligence data centers poses direct threats to their territorial rights, water sources, and sacred sites. ICT reports that the warnings come as Wisconsin's own governor's race is dominated by data center debates, a convergence that is not coincidental: the energy and water demands of data centers fall disproportionately on communities with the least political power to resist them. This is a story worth watching as it develops.
People: Remembrance and Recognition
Deb Haaland on Tribal Sovereignty, Tradition, and Her Vision for New Mexico
High Country News published a substantive Q&A with Deb Haaland as she campaigns for governor of New Mexico, in which she speaks directly about tribal sovereignty, the relationship between Indigenous governance and state politics, and how her Laguna Pueblo background shapes her policy vision. This is a different story from the debate coverage that ran in mainstream outlets: HCN gave her room to think out loud about what sovereignty means in a state where nineteen pueblos and multiple other nations are major political actors. Worth reading as a model of how to interview a Native candidate about Native issues without reducing her to a symbol.
Mayme 'Pat' Melva Davids, Age 95, Second-Eldest Member of the Stockbridge-Munsee Community, Walks On
Mayme 'Pat' Melva Davids, age 95, of the Stockbridge-Munsee Community passed to the spirit world on May 12, 2026, as the second-eldest tribal member. Born in 1930, she lived on the reservation for most of her life and was remembered as a devoted community presence across nearly a century of Mohican history. Patty, you will recognize the Davids name: Dorothy 'Dot' Davids, the Stockbridge-Munsee educator who appears in Indian Nations of Wisconsin, was part of this same family network that has anchored Mohican civic and cultural life for generations. Pat Davids carried that continuity quietly, the kind of elder whose presence is felt most fully in her absence.
Harold Robert 'Whitey' Bowman, Mohican Nation Veteran, Age 72, Walks On
Harold Robert 'Whitey' Bowman, age 72, of Shawano and an enrolled member of the Mohican Nation, passed away peacefully on July 23, 2026, surrounded by family. He served eleven years in the United States Navy during the Vietnam era, reaching the rank of petty officer. His service joins a long line of Stockbridge-Munsee veterans whose military records are being honored this summer through the Banners of Honor project at North Star Mohican Casino Resort. Miigwech for his service.
Long Read: The Treaty That Won't Stay Quiet
'Quite Frustrating': Heirs to the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott Explain What It Means to Defend an Agreement the United States Keeps Ignoring
High Country News gave substantial space this week to members of Coast Salish nations who are heirs to the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott, asking them to explain in their own words both the wisdom their ancestors brought to the treaty table and the daily, grinding work of defending rights the federal government repeatedly treats as negotiable. The piece is not a crisis story; it is a sovereignty story told from the inside, with specific people speaking about specific rights in specific waters. The parallels to the 1837 and 1842 Wisconsin ceded territory treaties are direct: the same federal pattern of acknowledging treaty rights in court and then undermining them through administrative action, the same exhaustion among tribal members who have been making the same arguments for generations, the same insistence that the treaties are not historical documents but living law. Patty, this one is worth your full attention, both for what it says about the Pacific Northwest and for what it illuminates about the legal and emotional terrain your own Ojibwe chapter covers.