Alaska Natives head to White House tribal conference

Leaders from 44 Alaska Native tribes will be in Washington, D.C., Thursday to attend the seventh White House Tribal Nations Conference, where they’ll hear remarks from President Barack Obama and a host of cabinet secretaries, Alaska Dispatch News reports.

The Obama administration hopes to, in part, highlight efforts over Obama’s two terms to set aside long-standing legal fights and shift federal focus to bolstering tribal sovereignty and aiding Native youth. Each U.S. tribe was invited to send one leader to the annual conference.

Obama focused much of his recent trip to Alaska on Native communities, restoring the peak formerly known as Mount McKinley to its Koyukon Athabasan name, “Denali,” announcing assistance efforts to remote tribal communities, and tying their local problems, particularly in the Arctic, to his efforts to combat climate change, the newspaper writes.