Flathead Lake, Montana

Joe McDonald didn't plan on staying at Salish Kootenai College for 32 years. That's just the way it happened. .

Plenty of room to work, good lighting, the right tools, and sound, safety practices are some of what makes a creative environment more appealing.

Ben Hinmon was pleased to make public the two recently redesigned workshops at the Seventh Generation Program/ Elijah Elk Cultural Center last week.

Recently, Lee Sakiestewa of Tuba City - salutatorian of his graduating class of 2009 - sat down to talk about his struggles and successes during his journey through college.

Many students face obstacles and challenges while juggling family, work and school, and Sakiestewa was no different. Some students overcome even bigger obstacles such as difficulties with transportation, family tragedies, and economic hardships.

For every $1 invested in a child's education, Hopa Mountain's StoryMakers Program said $8 to $17 will be made in long term public return in "increased earnings and tax revenue, and less public money required for remedial education, health problems and criminal behavior."

If you see a wolf on the Pueblo Magnet High School (of Tucson, AZ) campus, don't panic, it's just the new mascot.

The student body has submitted its votes and the wolf beat out both the dragon and the puma, which were also vying for the coveted spot.

More than 70 participants from around the United States and Canada participated in a three-day National Indian Youth Leadership Project at the All Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque. Participants were introduced to Project Venture, a model program developed in the 1980s that targets regional middle schools with large Native at-risk student populations with alternatives to alcohol, tobacco and other drug abuse.

Wearing white lab coats, and inquisitive expressions, a group of teens in Toronto huddled around a scientist as he explained the delicate process of transforming cocoa beans into chocolate.

First Nations, Metis and Inuit students were trading in a week of freedom for a taste of university life, and taking a small bite out of the unique field known as food science.

Called "Milagro at Los Luceros," the initiative is a nod to "The Milagro Beanfield War," which Redford directed and shot in Truchas in 1988. Los Luceros is in Alcalde and is a 148-acre ranch complex that will house the programs. The New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs operates the property.

Over the years, canoe journeys have become an integral part of many coastal tribes' way of life and tradition. But it was not always like that. For more than a century, cultural practices, language and spiritual expression were suffocated in Native American culture.

"Canoe Way," a new documentary by Puyallup tribal member Robert Satiacum and filmmaker Mark Celletti, showcases the significance of the cultural revival in Northwest Indian culture, and the growing tradition of annual canoe journeys throughout the Puget Sound and beyond.

There weren't any wild car chases, eye-popping explosions, or bodacious babes flickering on two screens Tuesday night at the Celebration Cinema North in Grand Rapids to an overflow crowd of nearly 800 people.

Just quiet conversation and interesting visuals that show how an area family makes, of all things, baskets.

And the audience was enraptured.

"The Aztec Pantheon and the Art of Empire" is a show of modest size but outsize impact. Not only is the subject unexpected and intriguing, but the loans that have been secured are phenomenal. It's the most impressive show the Getty Villa has organized since reopening four years ago.

The first gallery introduces Spain's conquest of Mexico. A second gallery charts an array of Aztec deities. The third room considers imperial power. In each section, a few European objects are also included.

The Cleveland Museum of Art's big new exhibition on the art of American Indians, which opens Sunday, focuses on extraordinary objects from the early 19th to the early 20th centuries.

A companion show, already on view, carries the story of American Indian life forward to the present, through the medium of photography, with two dramatically different messages.

The Yup'ik people have no word for science yet their tools were so well designed that they allowed the Yupiit to live in a land no one else would inhabit. The exhibition "Yuungnaqpiallerput (The Way We Genuinely Live): Masterworks of Yup'ik Science and Survival" presents remarkable 19th and early 20th century tools, containers, weapons, watercraft and clothing in an exploration of the scientific principles and processes that have allowed the Yup'ik people to survive in the sub-arctic tundra of the Bering Sea coast.

Late last year, Santo Domingo Pueblo's tribal council quietly, and unanimously, decided to change the pueblo's name.

The traditional community, about halfway between Santa Fe and Albuquerque, is now known as Kewa Pueblo.

The name change was disclosed at a meeting of the All Indian Pueblo Council in January, according to the Alvin Warren, secretary of the state Department of Indian Affairs.

The name change became more widely known when operators of the Rail Runner Express announced last week that a new train stop opening March 22 will be called Kewa Pueblo Station.

In an effort to revitalize the Salish language, members of the Salish Tribe are holding monthly meetings to discuss reorganization of language teaching and initiatives to encourage use of the native language. During the fifth meeting, held March 3 at the Salish-Pend d'Oreille culture committee building, a plan of action was submitted for elder approval.

Linda Ferris, who is training to be a Salish language teacher with the Native American Language Teacher Training Institute at the Salish Kootenai College, said the meetings are a way to coordinate a variety of efforts to teach the Salish language.

Her victory cry shot out over the crowd like a well-aimed bottle rocket launched from an ornery older brother’s hand.

Ramona ‘Monie’ Horsechief dashed to the stage, skipping and dancing the entire way, to join her sister Lisa Pahsetopah behind the microphone.The sisters had just been announced the winners of the 2009 World Champion Indian Taco Contest in Pawhuska, Okla. Monie took the prize for best traditional taco and Lisa won for best dessert taco.

When the Pawnee Tribe of Oklahoma returns to Kearney for a powwow in June, its members will be getting building lessons from their long lost cousins, the Arikara of North Dakota.

Plans are rapidly coming together to build an authentic earth lodge near the Great Platte River Road Archway.

Decades ago, some American Indian tribes of Nebraska occupied earth lodges built of saplings, earth and sod stacked over frames of heavy timbers.

This 1783 observation by the "sage of Philadelphia" is worth recalling at a moment when some pundits are suggesting going to the British parliamentary approach for the next phase of American political discourse – arguably to apply an interruptive, point-counter-point talk show format to the congressional and national dialogue.