Please join us to hear Gaylen Edmo’s talk on the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes’ (Tribes) history, lifeways, sovereignty, and traditional and contemporary relationships to the land through the lens of his Tribal work. In the topic there are many legal aspects to understand, one of which is the Treaty era and its relationship to Indian Removal throughout the history of Federal Indian Policy. This includes the encounters and policies that led up to the Fort Bridger Treaty, what was specifically promised by the U.S. government, relevant case law, and what rights were reserved by the Tribes. Gaylen will touch on the history of the Tribes’ water rights, hunting rights, and current challenges of Tribal advocacy work.

This program will be livestreamed and available to watch later. Click here to watch online.

Gaylen Edmo, an enrolled member of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes,  holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree from BSU in Environmental Studies with a minor in Sustainability and a Juris Doctorate (law degree) from the University of Idaho. He was awarded his law degree with emphases in Federal Indian Law and Natural Resources-Environmental Law. Gaylen is admitted to practice law by the Supreme Court of the State of New Mexico and is admitted before the Federal Courts of Appeals for the Ninth and Tenth Circuits.

During law school Edmo gained legal experience clerking for Echo Hawk & Olsen, PLLC in Pocatello, Idaho; Native American Rights Fund in Boulder, Colorado; and for the United States District Court for the District of Idaho in Boise, Idaho. Prior to his legal experience, Gaylen held temporary positions at the Tribal Water Resources Department and the Tribal Fish and Wildlife Department.

Prior to Gaylen’s current job as a policy analyst for the Shoshone-Bannock Fish and Wildlife Department, he served on the Fort Hall Business Council in which he worked on a multitude of Tribal matters and represented the Tribes’ interests at the highest level of government. He has also worked for the Native American Rights Fund (NARF) as a post-graduate law fellow working under attorneys on various legal issues throughout Indian Country. Edmo also served as an adjunct professor at the University of Idaho, College of Law co-teaching their semester-in-practice programs at both the Moscow and Boise campuses. Gaylen also sits on the University of Idaho, College of Law’s - Law Advisory Council.

Gaylen is an avid outdoorsman, a lifelong hunter of big game, salmon, and yaha (rock chuck), practicing his Tribes’ treaty right to hunt and fish upon the unoccupied lands of the United States. When he's not hunting, you can find him coaching wrestling, cutting firewood, reloading, and spending time with his wife Alana and sons Orrin and Jovanii.