Issue 017
The Weekly Brief
For the week of August 30, 2026
The Fall 2026 issue of Mazina'igan arrived this week like a gift, dense with Ceded Territory science, treaty commemoration, and the rhythms of a harvest season already underway. Manoomin specialist Kathleen Smith reminds us that no single weather event tells the whole story of a rice year, and that lesson applies to the week's broader news as well: Line 5 continues its slow grind through Iron County and the Michigan Straits, the Bureau of Indian Education lawsuit sharpens into a genuine constitutional fight over federal trust responsibilities, and a NARF report on Native voting barriers lands just as mail-ballot litigation reshapes the national landscape. Through it all, Red Cliff elder Marvin DeFoe Jr. is on Madeline Island bending birch bark into a jiimaan, and that image is worth holding alongside everything else.
Listen to this issue
Spoken by Deepgram Aura. The written brief above is the canonical version.
Across the Twelve Nations
A full Mazina'igan fall issue dropped this week, and it anchors the Wisconsin report. Read it alongside the WPR and GLIFWC items below.
Red Cliff Elder Marvin DeFoe Jr. Builds a Wiigwaasi-Jiimaan on Madeline Island to Honor the 1854 Treaty
On Mooningwanekaaning-minis, Red Cliff Ojibwe elder Marvin DeFoe Jr. harvested birch bark and cedar the old way, then led construction of a traditional wiigwaasi-jiimaan intended to mark the 1854 Treaty and the cultural revitalization it continues to inspire. The canoe is both object and argument: the Anishinaabe relationship to these waters predates every treaty and outlasts every political season. Mazina'igan's account of the build is the kind of specific, grounded reporting that puts a face and a set of hands on what sovereignty actually looks like. This one belongs in the Red Cliff section of the Ojibwe chapter.
WPR Follows Red Cliff Elder Building a Birch Bark Canoe the Way His Ancestors Did
Wisconsin Public Radio's Native American coverage put a camera on the same Red Cliff canoe-building story that Mazina'igan reported in print, giving it a broader audience. Privilege the Mazina'igan account for depth, but the WPR piece extends the reach. Together they make a strong pairing for anyone updating the Red Cliff section of the Ojibwe chapter.
GLIFWC Manoomin Specialist Kathleen Smith: Read the Whole Season, Not Just One Snapshot
Kathleen Smith, GLIFWC's manoomin specialist, offers the 2026 wild rice harvest preview in Mazina'igan with a framing that Patty will recognize immediately: no aerial photo or single weather event tells the full story of a rice year. The season opened with variable water levels across Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, and Smith's holistic read of conditions is itself a lesson in how Anishinaabe ecological knowledge and Western survey data can work together rather than past each other. Worth reading before the harvest window closes.
Ojibwe Hunters Head into Their Ninth Consecutive Elk Season in the Wisconsin Ceded Territory
The Voigt Intertribal Task Force has selected four bands to receive single bull-only tags for the 2026 dagwaagin elk season, marking nine consecutive years of off-reservation Ojibwe elk hunting in the Ceded Territory. The omashkooz (elk) story is a quiet success in the long arc of treaty rights implementation after the Voigt Decision, and it deserves a line in the Ojibwe chapter alongside the more contested walleye and manoomin fights. Mazina'igan's account names the bands and the process.
32nd Annual Partners in Fishing Event Brings 160 Representatives to Lac du Flambeau for Walleye Co-Management
The 32nd annual Partners in Fishing gathering convened roughly 160 representatives from Ojibwe tribes, the State of Wisconsin, and federal agencies at Lac du Flambeau to fish the Flambeau Chain and take stock of co-management in the Ceded Territory. Thirty-two years of this event is itself a data point: the co-management framework forged after the Voigt Decision has become institutional, even as individual disputes (the road easement fight, the recent fishing-restriction ruling) continue to test it. Mazina'igan's coverage names agency leaders and tribal researchers together, which is the right framing.
Bad River Forester Gena Abramson Plants 400-Plus Giizhik Trees Along Denomie Creek to Replace Ash Lost to Emerald Borer
Mashkiiziibii Natural Resources Forester Gena Abramson, with community help, put more than 400 giizhik (cedar) trees in the ground along Denomie Creek on the Bad River Reservation, replacing a green ash stand the emerald ash borer has effectively sentenced to death. The creek's name carries its own weight here: Edward DeNomie, Patty's grandfather, is the ogichidaa for whom it is named, and watching his namesake waterway be tended this carefully is the kind of continuity that the Seventh Generation principle is built on. This is Bad River exercising stewardship, not waiting for a crisis.
Should the Apostle Islands Become a National Park? Red Cliff and Bad River Have Questions.
A proposal to redesignate the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore as a national park is drawing skepticism from tribal members and community stakeholders who say the process has lacked meaningful consultation with Red Cliff and Bad River, whose ceded territory and treaty rights are directly implicated. WPR's Native American desk covers this with the right frame: the question is not just what designation does for tourism, but what it does to tribal access, co-management authority, and the ongoing relationship between the National Park Service and the Anishinaabe nations whose homeland this is.
Hundreds Paddle Across Big Sandy Lake to Reach the Mikwendaagoziwag Memorial, 25 Years On
More than 30 canoes and hundreds of Ojibwe descendants crossed Big Sandy Lake in Minnesota to reach the Mikwendaagoziwag Memorial, which GLIFWC and a dozen Ojibwe bands built 25 years ago to honor those who died during the Sandy Lake Tragedy of 1850. The crossing is ceremony and history lesson at once, a living reminder that the forced removal that killed hundreds of Lake Superior Ojibwe is not ancient history but a wound whose commemoration is still tended by living communities. Mazina'igan's account is the right source for this.
Treaty Rights, Line 5, and the Waters
Line 5 dominates again, with Mazina'igan providing the most complete picture of the week's developments in both Wisconsin and Michigan.
Line 5 in Wisconsin and Michigan: A Drilling Fluid Spill, Notices of Noncompliance, and the Straits Fight Continues
Mazina'igan's fall issue gives the fullest account available of where Line 5 stands in both states: in Wisconsin, a reroute crew spilled 1,900 gallons of drilling fluid in Iron County near the Bad River Reservation, triggering multiple notices of noncompliance; in Michigan, the Straits tunnel permit fight grinds on. The spill near Mashkiiziibii is not a footnote. It is exactly the kind of incremental harm that Bad River has been warning about since the easement expired, and it will matter for the next edition of the Ojibwe chapter. Read this alongside the earlier Wisconsin Examiner piece on Great Lakes businesses opposing the tunnel permits.
GLIFWC's New LakeCare Program Brings $5 Million to Protect Aquatic Ecosystems in the 1836 and 1842 Ceded Territories
A new four-year initiative called LakeCare, funded by a $5 million National Fish and Wildlife Foundation grant, is launching to protect aquatic ecosystems in Michigan's 1836 and 1842 Ceded Territories from environmental change and shoreline degradation. The program is tribally driven, with frontline conservation priorities set by the nations whose treaty rights depend on healthy lakes. This is the kind of institutional development that belongs in the Ojibwe chapter's co-management section: a new named program, a significant grant, and a clear connection to the treaty framework Patty has written about for decades.
Wisconsin Tribes Take 33,206 Walleye in a Successful Inland Ogaa Season; Non-Native Species Detected
Tribal harvesters across Wisconsin reported a strong ogaa (walleye) season, with 33,206 walleye and 208 muskellunge taken collectively, while Minnesota's Mille Lacs Lake added another 9,321 walleye to the regional total. The season's success is a testament to the co-management framework built after the Voigt Decision, even as GLIFWC biologists flag the detection of a non-native species in Wisconsin waters as a watch item for coming seasons. Mazina'igan's harvest totals are the primary record.
Michigan Congressional Candidate Sean McCann, the Only Native Running in Michigan This Fall, Pledges to Fight Line 5
State Sen. Sean McCann, the Democratic nominee for Michigan's 4th Congressional District and the only Native candidate running for Congress in Michigan this cycle, has made opposition to Enbridge Line 5 a centerpiece of his campaign. McCann's position matters for Bad River because the Michigan Straits fight and the Wisconsin reroute fight are the same pipeline, and a sympathetic voice in the House could shift the federal posture. Native News Online has the interview; note the source flag, but the underlying development is substantive.
Indian Country: Federal, Courts, and Sovereignty
Tribes and Students Sue the Bureau of Indian Education Over Staff Cuts That Are Gutting Tribal Schools
Three tribal nations, including the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, and individual students have filed an amended federal lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's cuts to Bureau of Indian Education staff and services, arguing the reductions violate the federal trust responsibility to provide Indian education. NARF is lead counsel, and the case is shaping up as one of the most consequential federal Indian law fights of the current administration. The Prairie Band Potawatomi connection gives this a Three Fires dimension worth tracking for the Potawatomi chapter.
NARF Report: Native Voters Face Compounding Barriers at Every Stage of the Election Process
A new report from the Native American Rights Fund documents significant, layered obstacles Native voters encounter from registration through ballot counting, arriving at a moment when mail-ballot litigation is reshaping the national landscape. The report's findings are not abstract: rural reservation communities with limited postal service, long distances to polling places, and ID requirements that don't match tribal enrollment documents are the specific mechanisms. Read alongside the Supreme Court mail-ballot ruling (candidate 72) for the full picture of what this midterm cycle looks like for Indian Country.
Supreme Court's Mail-Ballot Ruling Could Suppress the Native Vote This November
ICT's analysis of the Supreme Court's decision not to block Trump's mail-in voting restrictions focuses specifically on what the ruling means for Native communities: reservation residents who rely on mail ballots because polling places are hours away, and who already face the compounding barriers documented in the NARF report above. The piece names the specific structural problem rather than treating this as a generic voting-rights story. Pair with the NARF report for the full picture.
Turtle Mountain and Spirit Lake Tribes Forced to Re-Argue a Voting Rights Case They Already Won
The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians and the Spirit Lake Tribe are back in federal court, re-arguing a successful challenge to a discriminatory North Dakota redistricting map after a procedural ruling sent the case back down. NARF is representing the tribes, and the case is a reminder that winning in federal court is often not the end of the fight. The pattern here, where tribes win and then must relitigate, is directly relevant to how Patty frames the post-Voigt legal landscape.
Wisconsin Corrections Officers Altered a Native Prisoner's ID with a Racial Caricature, Lawsuit Claims
A federal lawsuit filed on behalf of Dylan Leenheer, a Native prisoner in Wisconsin, alleges that state corrections officers altered his identification with a racial caricature. Senior attorney Maura Battersby of Flood Law, who is 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 connects to the broader pattern of Native overrepresentation in Wisconsin's prison system, which hit a record population of 23,854 this week.
ICT Investigation: A 'Ghost Tribe' in the Texas Delta Collected Millions from the Climate Movement. No One Checked Its Story.
ICT's investigative piece on a Texas group that claimed tribal identity, secured significant climate-movement funding, and appears to have fabricated its Indigenous credentials is uncomfortable and important reading. The story is a case study in what happens when the 4 R's, and especially Relationship and Responsibility, are bypassed in favor of a compelling narrative. It also raises questions about due diligence in Indigenous-led philanthropy that the broader movement needs to reckon with. Patty's framework for covering Native identity is exactly the lens this story needs.
People Worth Knowing
GLIFWC's Mark Luehring on What Healthy Walleye Lakes Actually Look Like, and Why Shoreline Development Is the Quiet Killer
GLIFWC Inland Fisheries Section Leader Mark Luehring uses a two-lake comparison in Mazina'igan to show, concretely, how shoreline development degrades walleye habitat in the Ceded Territory: undeveloped shorelines, clean water, and sustainable harvest produce healthy ogaa populations; the alternative produces the opposite. It is the kind of applied science communication that bridges TEK and Western fisheries management without subordinating either. Luehring is a named expert worth tracking for the co-management sections of the Ojibwe chapter.
Mary Peltola Is Not Alone: Two More Alaska Native Candidates Could Appear on November Ballots
Bill Hill, Dena'ina Athabascan, secured a spot in Alaska's U.S. House general election, and David Leslie, Inupiaq, is within reach of the fourth slot in the U.S. Senate race, according to ICT's election coverage. The story is worth noting not as a horse-race item but as a marker of the expanding presence of Native candidates in federal races, a trend Patty has watched since Ada Deer's 1992 run. The Alaska context is different from Wisconsin, but the pattern is continental.
Long Read
One piece worth fifteen minutes of your Sunday morning.
Ten Years After Standing Rock, Exclusive Documents Reveal the Digital Mercenaries Who Targeted Tribal Communities and Manufactured Anti-Protest Sentiment
High Country News obtained internal documents showing that a coordinated digital influence operation, run by private contractors on behalf of pipeline interests, targeted Standing Rock Sioux tribal members and surrounding communities during the 2016 Dakota Access Pipeline standoff, seeding social media with disinformation designed to erode public support for the water protectors. The piece is not a retrospective; it is a forensic account of how propaganda infrastructure was deployed against a sovereign nation, and it has direct implications for how we read the current Line 5 fight and any future pipeline dispute involving tribal land. Ten years on, the story is bigger and darker than it looked in real time, and the tactics documented here did not disappear after 2016. Read it with the Seventh Generation lens: what was done to Standing Rock's information environment is a template, and understanding it is part of being prepared.