Fort Washakie

The Northern Arapaho Tribe is holding its general election on Nov. 21. Twelve people are competing for all six seats on the Northern Arapaho Business Council.

The Eastern Shoshone Tribe is holding its general election on Oct. 22. Six people are competing for three seats on the Eastern Shoshone Business Council and a dozen people are competing for six seats on the tribe’s Entertainment Committee.

Earlier this year, the Federal Bureau of Investigation launched a data collection project to gather more information about missing and murdered cases involving Native Americans throughout Wyoming. Over a 90-day period, the agency received 35 tips, including four homicide cases and three missing persons cases. They’d all been previously reported to law enforcement and investigated already.

On the afternoon of May 7, elders, kids and people of all ages gathered around a long table at the Frank B. Wise building in Fort Washakie. The group of roughly forty people were there to share input on design plans for a building that could house a new museum and cultural center for the Eastern Shoshone Tribe.

More than a thousand rock art sites have been documented across Wyoming, with locations in every county in the state – but almost a quarter of them have been vandalized, by things like initials chiseled into stone or bullet marks.That’s according to state archaeologist Spencer Pelton, who spoke to the Select Committee on Tribal Relations in Fort Washakie at the first of their two interim meetings. This year, the group of legislators had a new item on their agenda – how to best protect and preserve Indigenous rock art throughout the state.

People recovering from addiction can sometimes have to wait for weeks or months to get into a residential treatment facility to get the help they need. Those shortages are especially felt in tribal communities in rural states like Wyoming and Montana – and last summer, inadequate treatment centers in Arizona made headlines for conducting a widespread Medicaid fraud scheme targeting Native Americans. But, a ten-acre ranch recently purchased by the Eastern Shoshone Business Council will help make that transition a little easier for tribal members.

Some tribal residents on the Wind River Reservation are concerned that a new law could allow Wyoming to take over jurisdiction of land within the reservation. But legislators say that wasn’t the law’s intent, and that tribal lands won’t be affected.

At a press conference in Fort Washakie on February 8, the FBI announced a new initiative to gather more data about Native Americans who’ve gone missing or been murdered in cases that haven’t been closed. The agency is seeking tips from the public to better understand what the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples (MMIP) crisis looks like in the state and what resources the agency can contribute to solving cases.

After five years of connecting people to the land through food, the Wind River Food Sovereignty Project finally has some land to call its own. The 30-acre property in Fort Washakie will be home to a demonstration farm and learning garden, and will also host programming focused on growing and preserving Indigenous foods.

The Eastern Shoshone Tribe is hoping to create a new community space dedicated to their culture, history, art and ongoing education. It’s a big undertaking, but the tribe now has some exciting financial and logistical support to help make this dream a reality.