Toastie

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Toastie
🛡️ toastie_at_journa.host@momostr.pink
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Indigenous affairs reporter for High Country News 🪶 Chahta | they/them or whatev ⚧️ Stories: https://www.hcn.org/author/b-toastie-oaster/
Schools have long taught that humans populated North America around 12K yrs ago by crossing the Bering land bridge. This story supports settler colonialism, and contradicts #Indigenous stories, which offer memories of human habitation here during the last glacial maximum. Also, the Bering land bridge story falls apart when you find out about the century of archaeological evidence academia has vigorously suppressed. Read more in my new essay. 👇
High Country News
What does ‘time immemorial’ really mean? - High Country News
If you’ve seen the phrase time immemorial used repeatedly in Indigenous affairs reporting, there are some compelling reasons why.
There’s a new book out about pretendians, 'Who Gets to be an Indian?', and I interviewed author Dina Gilio-Whitaker about this minefield of a topic and why she chose it for her research. She says while she doesn’t want to be in the business of calling people out, people should expect to have to prove their claims of Native identity.
High Country News
We need to talk about the pretendians in our midst - High Country News
Indigenous scholar Dina Gilio-Whitaker wants Natives to approach a difficult topic rationally, vulnerably and honestly.
 #indigenous
Thank you Covering Climate Now for recognizing our HCN and @ProPublica investigation into how solar developers can use for-profit archeologists to threaten or damage Indigenous cultures! Full story:
High Country News
Washington’s solar permitting leaves tribal resources vulnerable to corporations - High Country News
Tribal officials say the process threatens cultural resources and what remains of healthy Indigenous foodways.
 Award winners:
Covering Climate Now
The 2025 CCNow Journalism Awards — Covering Climate Now
Covering Climate Now is thrilled to announce the winners of the 2025 CCNow Journalism Awards. Our awards program, now in its fifth year, honors exc...
A while back a source told me she was working on decommercializing huckleberries — a fascinating first food crop threatened by commercial overharvesting. I wanted to know more, but she said she wasn’t ready to talk to the press about it. I was also overloaded with other assignments (there are many, many underreported stories in Indian Country, and one reporter can only take on so much).