1974-08-15 Char-Koosta News

              THE NEWSPAPER OF THE SALISH, PEND d ORIELLES AND KOOTENAI TRIBES OF THE FLATHEAD RESERVATION*
15 C
HARKOOSTA
Volume 4 - Number 8    FULL MOON OF THE WILD ONION    August 15,19 7 4
Tug-Of-War Over Ashley Log Unit
Dixon -- In a reversal of policy, the Tribal Council voted July 22 to sell the Mission mountain Ashley logging unit and the norther-reservation Ervine Unit. However, during the following meeting, August 2, the council voted to restore a 'clean logging' pilot project for the Missions and postpone the sale of the Ashley.
Several tribal members appeared during the Aug. 2 meeting to protest the logging of the Missions. The group included several old people from St. Ignatius.  Germaine White explained to the council that opposition to the sale in St. Ignatius was Violent' and added that Detitions to stop the project altogether were being circulated. Petitions against Mission logging were started last winter but were abandoned when the council decided to defere sales until the pilot project was completed.
The action Aug. 2 still left the Ervine unit, which people in the northern half of the reservation say they want for a primitive area, up for sale.
Tribal Member Tom 'Satch' McDonald agreed saying that the people of the reservation are 'really emotional' about cutting the Mission foothills. McDonald said most people though the Ashley unit had been postponed and 'were really mad' when it became known the sale had been approved.
The two units were scheduled for cutting this year in a harvest plan drawn up several years ago by BIA Forestry. Opposition to logging the units, however, did not begin to flare until the units were actually offered for sale.
The Ashley unit...so called because it is largly composed of Ashley ridge, just south of McDonald Lake...has been a raging controversy on the reservation since January. The project would place most of the McDonald Mountain massif foothills under logging and many people feel it would destroy the beauty of the mountains and shatter the balance of wildlife in the area.
The area to be logged in the Ashley would include some 2,200 acres of tribal forest in a narrow band between just south of McDonald Lake to just north of Mission Lake. The cruise plan includes construction of a-bout 30 miles of roads to harvest some 9 million board feet.
Ashley...(Continued on Page 3)
Irrigation Service Muddies Jocko...Again
Ravalli: Remember the great Jocko J-Canal fish massacre of the summer of 19 7 3 ? That was when every living creature in the Jocko...including some 7 00 fish...was wiped out by 80 pounds of raw poison dumped into the canal by the Flathead Irrigation Service (FIP). Well, those same folks were back again this year at the same time and same station with another melodramatic episode.
This year, FIP's assault on the lower Jocko was mechanical, rather than chemical. An Irrigation Service crew moved into the bed of the Jocko just below the J-Canal headgate with a D 9 cat on July 18. For the next week the cat gnawed away at a gravel bar in the middle of the Jocko, pushing some of it up against a north-bank rip rap and the rest against the
Jocko...(Continued on page ten)
Jerome Vanderburg 1890 ¦ 1974
Hundreds of people from all over the reservation and western Montana said goodby to Jerome Vanderburg during funeral services at the Jocko Church and Cemetery July 2 7.
Mr. Vanderburg, who was 83, was one of the I two last "children of the Bit-fterroot "...Salish Indians Iwho were born in the j Bitterroot valley bofore I Chief Charlo moved his band I up to the Flathead reservation. Among those attending the funeral was Mary Ann .Combs, who remains the Mast survivor of that "Salish Trail of Tears."
The last rites for Mr. Vanderburg focused on:lhis life-long devotion to Salish Iculture and the Indian way. In his memorial, Father Joseph Obersinner noted that Mr Vanderburg maintained his Indian identity during a period of overwhelming cultural change. Salish language prayers for the service were sung by Francis Jerome...(Continued on page 6)
Jerome Vanderburg