By Claire Carlson for The Daily Yonder.
Broadcast version by Eric Tegethoff for Oregon News Service for the Public News Service/Daily Yonder Collaboration

A new public health clinic on the Grand Ronde reservation in rural Polk and Yamhill counties, Oregon, promises to address healthcare gaps and advance tribal sovereignty for the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. The clinic, which opened May 17, 2024, will offer preventative services like vaccines, dental care, and nutrition classes to bolster the overall wellbeing of tribal members.

Officials working for the tribe say the new clinic will help the community take care of its own. "We're making sure that we can look after our own members and not be waiting on somebody else to provide some kind of help or service or something," said Ryan Webb, the engineering and planning manager for the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, at a press tour of the new building on May 6.

The clinic will add to an already robust hospital system that offers basic and specialty care to the community, which means tribal members don't have to travel far distances (a minimum of 50 miles round trip to the nearest city) to access the majority of their healthcare needs.

Tribal members said this kind of self-reliance is nonnegotiable because of a long history of mistreatment by the federal government.

In 1857, the government forcibly removed the Tillamook people - a diverse group of Native Americans who lived up and down the Oregon coast in 29 distinct bands each with their own language - from their homelands and onto the original Grand Ronde reservation, creating the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. Over 300 Native Americans were forced to walk more than 200 miles to get to the reservation, a journey that's remembered by tribal members as Grand Ronde's "Trail of Tears." Once they reached the reservation, services like healthcare and education were promised to be provided by the federal government, but tribal members say these promises were not kept.

Then, in 1954, Congress passed the Western Oregon Termination Act that ended federal recognition of 60 tribes in western Oregon, the largest number of tribes to be terminated under any single federal law. This meant that the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, along with tribes like the Coos, Coquille, Siletz, Siuslaw, and Lower Umpqua, lost every treaty right they had with the federal government.

"Everything was taken," said Cheryle Kennedy, chairwoman of the Grand Ronde tribal council and former tribal health director. "There wasn't compensation or anything. It was, 'no, you're no longer Indian, no more identity. You can't receive any Indian service and all of your land is gone.'" It was the government's way of assimilating Native Americans into mainstream American culture.

The government was no longer required to offer any of the programs or resources extended to federally recognized tribes. Any property held by the tribes was taken by the government, which proved to be economically devastating, especially to the Klamath Tribes in southern Oregon who possessed valuable timberlands.

Eventually, after nearly three decades of lobbying, some Oregon tribes regained federal recognition, including the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde in 1983. Their current reservation is roughly 11,500 acres in size.

The tribe has been working to rebuild their nation since receiving federal recognition for the second time, and a thriving healthcare system has been central to this effort. The first health clinic in Grand Ronde was built in 1997, and the tribe has been expanding ever since.

Currently, tribal members can receive optometry, pharmacy, behavioral health, cardiology, opioid treatment, and naturopathy services on the reservation. Kelly Rowe, the tribe's current health director, is working to bring endocrinology, rheumatology, and nephrology services to Grand Ronde. All enrolled Grand Ronde tribal members can get free health services from the hospital.

"The whole thought behind the big clinic was to bring everything here to Grand Ronde so people could get it without having to travel," Rowe said.

The newly-built public health clinic expands the hospital's preventative health services by providing a permanent location for vaccine administration (a need the Covid-19 pandemic highlighted), dental care, and nutrition classes. It also features an outdoor fish pit where tribal members can learn how to prepare traditional meals.

The clinic was built with support from Energy Trust, a nonprofit that works with utilities, community organizations, government agencies and others to bring the benefits of energy efficiency and renewable energy to more people in Oregon, according to an Energy Trust spokesperson.

Energy Trust pointed the tribe to sustainability grants to pay for the solar panels that cover the building's roof, which the tribe said will enable them to be even more self-reliant in the face of natural disaster. If their electricity goes out, the new building will still be able to power itself, keeping vaccines that require refrigeration cool.

Along with the technical support from Energy Trust, the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde paid for the project using Covid-19 federal relief funds and tribal money.

"I think that [shows] the tribe's investment in healthcare for its people, because they're very committed to making sure that they're providing healthcare and providing as much as possible for the membership," Rowe said.


Claire Carlson wrote this article for The Daily Yonder.


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Montana has joined a coalition of Indigenous groups working to address Canadian coal mining pollution in the state's Kootenai River.

The International Joint Commission, formed in 1909, works to settle boundary waters differences between the U.S. and Canada. It has formed a governance body to take on the issue.

Tom McDonald, vice chair of the Salish and Kootenai Tribal Council, based on western Montana's Flathead reservation, said Canadian coal mines have been polluting the Kootenai for more than a century.

"To the point where the fisheries in Montana, as the watershed drains into Montana from Canada, it's caused fish to be deformed," McDonald explained. "Our native fish, like bull trout."

McDonald pointed out after years of stalled talks with Canada, the binational governance body will establish a cleanup plan for the 18,000-square-mile watershed over the next two years. One of the group's members is from Montana.

McDonald noted the runoff has affected the Kootenai River for nearly 400 miles into Montana and Idaho, and added the tribes finally resorted to involving the International Joint Commission to help. He emphasized selenium levels from the Canadian mines have reached the point where tribal members, who subsist on the fish in the river, cannot eat it.

"We don't know how far it's going into the food web," McDonald stressed. "We've been asking for Canada to fix the problem, enforce their regulatory laws against the coal mines, and they just haven't been able to do that. It's just elevated every year, and they keep expanding and getting bigger."

The Canadian company NWP Coal is proposing a new mine in the same watershed as the existing coal mines. The company claims its project will not increase selenium contamination but does not address the current pollution issue.


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A great way to observe National Native American Heritage Month is to support Native artists but some in Wyoming said there are barriers to their exposure and success.

Some new programs and exhibits support Native art in the region, including a Native Arts Fellowship from the Wyoming Arts Council and a permanent space in Boulder, Colorado's Dairy Arts Center dedicated to Native arts, called the Creative Nations Sacred Space.

Bruce Cook, a Native American artist based on the Wind River Reservation, is a fellow this year and was awarded a startup challenge grant from the Wyoming Innovation Partnership to help emerging Native artists become established creative professionals.

"We just closed the Homeland Show for the welcoming back of the Arapaho and the Cheyenne to their homelands," Cook noted. "We're going to continue on that theme with bringing emerging artists from the reservation down there to get them a show and professional development."

Cook is a celebrated wood carving artist in the Haida tradition and has been expanding his ledger-painting work in the Arapaho tradition. His work will be on display at Scarlow's Art and Coffee in Casper through the end of the month.

Cook pointed out there is not a lot of opportunity for Native artists in the area. Business was easier in Seattle, he said, where he was represented by a gallery. In Wyoming, the road for Native art to be accepted, recognized and funded has been more difficult.

"There's a lot of sales of beadwork within the reservation," Cook acknowledged. "But it's not really being seen outside the reservation. As far as the arts scene in Wyoming, it's pretty nonexistent."

With fellow artist Robert Martinez, Cook cofounded the Northern Arapaho Artists Society and this was the second year they ran a Native arts market in Jackson. He reminded supporters of arts in the West that Native artists are "alive and well, creating art."


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President Joe Biden's recent apology on behalf of the federal government for harms done to generations of Native American children and their families in boarding schools was long overdue, according to Cheryl Crazy Bull, president and CEO of the Denver-based American Indian College Fund.

And she said the apology is also a good start toward reconciliation.

"I feel like when you acknowledge something, you take a step toward healing that," said Crazy Bull. "You can't really have reconciliation unless people acknowledge that harm was done."

The U.S. Government removed Native children from their homes and families by force, and placed them in boarding schools where connections to their culture and language were severed.

Children were routinely beaten for not speaking English, and many were killed.

Until now, the program which operated between 1819 until 1969, was justified by U.S. officials as a necessary evil in order to achieve Manifest Destiny.

Crazy Bull said Native people believe that destiny is laid out by the Creator, not people.

She noted the Tribal College movement is in part an effort to take back control of education, and allow members to learn through a Native lens.

"If Manifest Destiny says that somebody else gets to dictate the path that you take," said Crazy Bull, "Tribally Controlled means that you get to dictate that path as a tribal person."

A bill making its way through the U.S. House would create a truth and healing commission, similar to efforts in South Africa in the aftermath of Apartheid.

Crazy Bull said native communities are still struggling - not only with inter-generational trauma - but also a lack of adequate housing, jobs, health care, and education opportunities.

"I feel like there needs to be a significant investment for the reparative work that needs to be done," said Crazy Bull, "in order for Native people to be healed of the harms."



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