Tribal Lines Are Blurred" The problem with the Muckleshoot Tribe's argument that is being heard in appeals courts, Prucha says, is that tribes can use language in the treaty to claim that the words "Indian country" are always being used to refer to lands in trust. Under 18 U.S.C. 1151(c), "[i]ndian country" can also mean "fee simple absolute ownership, title, or interest." That, Prucha says, is the way to think about the land status of any piece of land under dispute. "The concept of Indian country, like the law on tribal immunity, is fluid," he says. "It changes over time." And the problem with the tribe's argument is that the land in question is not a permanent home of Indians but an active forestry site. The trees would have been cut down even if the tribe owned it and didn't sell it or build on it. One tribal official said the land in the Skookum-Chew parcel might once have been on what would be today's reservation boundary. It was cut out of the reservation in 1882, when the tribe moved to Whidbey Island. When the government was deciding to remove the tribes to reservations in the 1940s, it also made agreements that some lands would be set aside for tribal use. If the Skookum-Chew land were part of a reserve, it might be that the tribe would be able to do whatever it liked with it, including sell it. The Skookum-Chew land is actually being used as a trail system for logging trucks, where environmentalists and foresters say they have found evidence of clear-cutting and clear-cuts by heavy equipment. The tribes believe that is a violation of the treaty. Prucha says that the tribes were not looking for the land from the start, but it was only because of an act of Congress that the land was placed in trust and given to them. When the Bureau of Indian Affairs declared the land public in 1994, some tribal members didn't take kindly to the idea that land they felt should rightfully belong to them was being sold to non-Indian developers. As the land passed into private hands, it was not logged and not put to economic use. What the Skookum-Chew tribe sees as an opportunity to gain control of that land, a lawyer for the developers says is just "one more example of this tribe's ongoing efforts to exert sovereignty over lands outside its reservation." On the other hand, says the tribe's attorney, Bruce Macgowan, the argument the nation will make is that the U.S. government made a treaty with the tribes in the mid-1800s that guaranteed the land and forests of all Indians. That is one reason the lawsuit filed in 1994 says that the land would not have been put into trust without a determination that the land was "of a character as to render it a good forestry base." Macgowan argues that the question of what qualifies as "Indian country" has always been a subject of controversy. In the 19th century, the question was whether the lands of native people could ever become a part of white America. Now, he says, the question has become whether the country of native people could be carved up for the economic benefit of those same white people. That is what concerns Macgowan, too, about the concept of Indian country. "It's going to have an impact on other lands, so we don't want the United States to be able to say, `Hey, you know, this was Indian country, now it isn't,'" he says. "We want to keep our ability to protect these things." The Skookum-Chew tribe is a member of the Northwest tribes, which have similar language as the Skookum-Chew tribe in their 1855 treaty. They have the authority, through their membership in the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Indian Nation, to act for all the tribes in that treaty, including the Muckleshoot. That might seem a stretch since the Muckleshoot tribe now lives on another reservation in Idaho and their name is associated with another river that flows nearby. Their attorney, Mike McMahan, says the treaties they signed had in mind what is now called Indian country. So what is happening in Skookum-Chew is an example of one tribe claiming the treaty rights of all the tribes in a treaty. If a few thousand acres of forest are being logged off by a private company, the argument goes, the Skookum-Chew land should be used in the same way. That argument makes a difference in a case that goes against the Skookum-Chew tribe. "Indian country" is the issue in the Muckleshoot's lawsuit to stop logging in their traditional territory near Stehekin. They are trying to stop a company that is logging in the watershed of a stream they say feeds the fish they harvest. Because they say the land is Indian country, they argue that a U.S. Supreme Court decision from 1977, U.S. v. State of Washington, says that the land is protected from logging because it is considered land in trust. That decision, known as the "Opinion of the Cession," held that all lands set aside for Indian use would remain part of the reservation. But lawyers for the Forest Service, which granted the Skookum-Chew lands in trust, say the tribe's reliance on the Court's decision is misplaced. "It looks like they've gotten together with the Muckleshoot and decided to join forces and to sue," says John Freed, an attorney for the Forest Service. What happens now in this lawsuit depends on whether the "Opinion of the Cession" decision holds up. If the decision survives, then no matter what happens in other land disputes the tribe might have, that decision establishes that all the lands owned by the tribe are set aside as a reservation. All that adds up to making logging in what might be a clear-cut very difficult to allow. One thing is for certain. Any logging in the Skookum-Chew watershed would be a violation of the 1868 treaty, says Mark Roderick, the head of the U.S. Forest Service in the Pacific Northwest. "We are still talking about lands that are in trust for the Indians," Roderick says. "To me, it seems to me that the Tribe would have a vested right in that." The question is who owns that right, since the Tribe has been in and out of financial straits over the years, with fewer members than ever living on the land. Today there are five families who live on the reindeer ranch that is at the heart of this lawsuit. The tribe says it bought those lands in 1961, then sold them to the government for several million dollars in 1983. They say that the money from the sale was supposed to be used to buy more lands in North Idaho, but the money didn't end up there. It is still unaccounted for. What is going on in this lawsuit, which can be expected to drag on, is something that Congress has been trying to figure out since 1994, when the law allowing a tribe to "disclaim" its reservation was passed. Because such disputes can be so contentious, Congress went the furthest it could in writing a provision that would be an easier way for tribes to establish their ownership of reservation lands. It is called "disclaimer," and it is the basis for the case brought by the Muckleshoot. If that case is successful, it might be that the tribe would then reassert their ownership of lands anywhere in the country they once thought they owned. "What are the implications of that? If they can do that, then they own not only what they consider to be part of their reservation but, by the same token, what they once owned as a tribe is now a part of the United States," Prucha says. "What the hell are they going to do with that?"