Volume 3, Issue 16

Abitibi league rejects Cree hockey team

For a second year in a row, Crees have been barred from sending a Cree Nation team to play in the Midget AA Hockey League of Abitibi-Témiscamingue. Crees went all out this year to get into the league, hiring a director of hockey development and offering to pay travel expenses ... read more ››

Cree Business To Make Fire-Safety Products

Rev. Billy Ottereyes is going into the fire-fighting business. His new company, called Cree Nation Enterprise, has obtained the exclusive license to make and distribute three innovative fire-safety products throughout Canada. The former chief of Waswanipi will manufacture a new foam to put out fires, a clear non-flammable lining for ... read more ››

Eeyou Astchee Belongs To Quebec, Not Crees

The Quebec government has news for you. Eeyou Astchee is not Cree land. It belongs to “the public.” That’s the latest word from Quebec’s Native Affairs department. “It’s all of Quebec’s territory. If you say it’s Cree land, this we won’t accept. It’s public land according to the law,” said Claude Despatie, ... read more ››

Forest Fires Force Community Evacuations

The forest fire wasn’t all that noticeable when first arriving Monday, June 17 in Mistissini. The community didn’t have the look of a place that only three days before had evacuated the Elders, babies, pregnant women and people with asthma. Mistissini residents working at the nearby Troilus Mine had gone ... read more ››

George Coon An Undisputed Champion

George Coon from Mistissini is this year’s undisputed Amateur Status Ski-Doo Champion from Quebec. At the end of the 1995/96 year he was alone in the lead with 835 points, compared to the second-place competitor from Chibougamau who only scored 565 points. George is a shy winner often ducking reporters. We wish ... read more ››

Gino Ojick fine after assault in O.J.

“There’s always an idiot in every community,” commented Gino Ojick after getting stabbed in Ouje-Bougoumou. The Vancouver Canucks right-winger was in town for some autograph-signing and to play in a baseball tournament. Early the morning of Monday, June 24, at 3:45 am, Ojick and a friend witnessed one of their ... read more ››

How goeth the campaign? you ask.

How goeth the campaign? you ask. Damage control tells me I am the frontrunner. To save me some heartache, he did not mention it was purely by virtue of the fact that I am the only one who has so far announced his candidacy. I have also secured several votes. ... read more ››

Memories of Old Nemaska Post

This article was submitted to The Nation as part of the commemoration of the 1996 Year of the Child in Nemaska. Nemaska was originally established in the late 1800s at its present location approximately 80 miles east of Rupert’s House on the Rupert River. Initially, it was just a summer ... read more ››

Message From George Coon

Just a short message to the following sponsors who have done a lot to keep me on the 1996 CCMQ Circuit. I just want you to know how much I appreciate your financial support. Without you I would not be able to attend all the 11 races I participated in ... read more ››

Native Festival on St. Denis Street

The Native presence in Montreal was celebrated on St. Denis Street from the 18th to the 2st of June. A Native encampment was erected. At La Place Pasteur (Place Mashteviatsh) were Native dancers accompanied by Eagle Wing Dancers and the Keepers of the Eastern Door performed daily. Also daily were ... read more ››

Native Pool Team Hits Las Vegas

In the summer OF 1994, a couple of local Aboriginal pool players – Roy Rae and Les Louttit – had the idea of entering an all-Aboriginal pool team in the Thunder Bay Selectomatic Pool League, a member of the Valley 8-Ball League Association. Upon contacting other pool players, Roy Rae ... read more ››

Nookom

The person who I admire is my grandmother. She is capable of doing anything she wants to do. She is almost 60 years old. My grandmother loves to be in the bush. She was born there. She has lived most of her life in the bush. She married at 16 ... read more ››

Police Criticized Over Shooting

Native leaders in Northern Ontario are calling for police reforms after a SWAT team shot and killed a troubled young man in the community of Cat Lake. Killed was Orval Wesley, who had been struggling with solvency abuse for several years. Wesley was killed by provincial police as he fired ... read more ››

Red Like Me

“A lot of Canadians think Natives are pampered. If they are, why are so many down-and-out? To ask these questions, I would have to pass as an Indian.” So starts a recent article by Pierre Pelletier in The Financial Post Magazine. Pelletier prepared for going “undercover” as a Native by ... read more ››

Taking care of our own

There comes a time when each human being looks around at the community they live in and notices changes. Some of those changes are beneficial but people, being what they are, notice the negative much faster. Often you feel that those changes are irreversible or that you are powerless to ... read more ››

Walking Out Ceremony

We performed the walking out ceremonies for our children. Today, it seems that people do this ceremony during mid-summer. That wasn’t the way it was done. It was done during spring. That was when the children were always taken out. That was what I saw. A child was not taken ... read more ››

Wemindji gets new bank

The Bank of Montreal has opened up a new branch in Wemindji, its second in the Cree communities. Last year, the bank opened its first branch in Waskaganish. Bank and Cree officials were on hand at the inauguration ceremony on June 19. The Wemindji branch has four employees, two of ... read more ››

Where’s The Beef?

It was front-page news a year ago when Grand Chief Matthew Coon Come and the Cree chiefs met Premier Jacques Parizeau for the first time in Quebec City and burried the hatchet. The historical meeting gave the separatist leader something to hold up as proof of his good will toward ... read more ››