Volume 18, Issue 7

2010 RIP, Long Live 2011

Another year has bitten the dust. Though I will miss certain moments of 2010, I’m just glad to still be here for the start of 2011. I say that because I haven’t kept 99.9 per cent of last year’s health-minded resolutions. Yes, I did join a gym. To be honest, I wanted ... read more ››

A life-changing adventure

Joshua Iserhoff had to go all the way to South Africa to find out that he is actually Superman, in the eyes of a few poor black children, at least. Iserhoff, the Grand Council’s Cree Youth Ambassador, was visiting the country in early December for an international education conference when he ... read more ››

A shout-out for support

Strapped for cash since loosing one third of their funding with the Federal Government’s decision to put an end to the Aboriginal Healing Fund, the Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal has since had no choice but to try and raise funds publicly. Fortunately, about a year ago when the shelter’s Director, ... read more ››

Algonquins outraged over clear-cutting of traditional lands

Algonquin communities in Quebec and Ontario are in a state of outrage after KNL Developments Inc. clear-cut 1,100 hectares of land within an old-growth forest in Beaver Pond so that it can build a new subdivision. The Algonquin have always stated that the forest, located 20 minutes outside of Ottawa, had ... read more ››

Cree Youth going global

While the project is still waiting for government approval, the Cree Nation Youth Council has teamed up with Canada World Youth in a project to give Cree youth an experience of a lifetime volunteering with the Indigenous people of Peru. Since 1971, Canada World Youth (CWY) has sent Canadian youth to ... read more ››

Dollars and sense

As Chief of BC’s Osoyoos First Nation, Clarence Louie may be running one of the most successful Native governments in North America, but he still thinks there is room for improvement in his community. The modesty is charming, but it was also contradicted by a prestigious honour he recently received. Louie ... read more ››

Expert quits oil sands panel over lack of Aboriginal contribution

Just days after the Alberta government announced that a new panel of experts had been formed to monitor the environmental impacts of the province’s oil sands, one of its members has already quit. While the panel was only announced at the end of January, five days after its official formation Helen ... read more ››

Feds consulting on residential school legacy project

Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission is turning to the public for suggestions on how best to commemorate the legacy of Indian Residential Schools. The TRC presently has a budget of $10 million to devote to memorials or events to honor those that were forced to attend the government and church run ... read more ››

Food for thought

On Monday, January 31, I attended the official opening of the Justice Building in Mistissini. It was impressive. The whole gang can be proud of this accomplishment. It’s another nail in the coffin of dependency. Self-governance is closer than ever and this is something that is recognized by all. But ... read more ››

Forecasting for dummies

One of the most important things about our lives is the environment around us and knowing that you can’t do anything about it. Take Mother Nature for example. Recently, news of earthquakes starting up again in Chile make me wonder just how predictable Mother Nature is, from a human standpoint, ... read more ››

Getting closer to “being healthy”

Aboriginals in the Val-d’Or area will now have the opportunity to get a leg up when it comes to starting out healthier lives as the city’s Native Friendship Centre (VDNFC) has just opened a new clinic. Dubbed the Minowe Clinic, which in Algonquin means “being healthy,” the facility, located within the ... read more ››

Giving is not always a good thing

This year, just before Christmas, while I was travelling in some bigger city centres of southern Ontario, I noticed just how crazy this holiday season has become. There were long streams of traffic going from mall to mall and every store I visited had line ups of people at the ... read more ››

Justice officially ready for business

It was a cold day but that didn’t stop people for showing up for the official opening of the Mistissini Justice Building on January 31. A proud Justice Director Donald Nicholls led people on a tour. Though the facility has the usual trappings of a courthouse complete with holding cells and ... read more ››

Misinformation campaign over uranium?

While the Cree and other nearby communities in Quebec hold their breath waiting for the ruling from the November 23 COFEX/COMEX hearing over whether Strateco Resources will be allowed to pursue a uranium exploration ramp in the Otish Mountains, tension has been building on both sides of the debate. In the ... read more ››

Not just a 'Screaming Indian on a Horse'

He has played good guys and bad guys, a famous Cree explorer and a modern-day veterinarian among many other roles but Plains Cree actor Nathaniel Arcand wants the world to know that he can do so much more. Having recently relocated to Vancouver in the hopes of getting more varied roles ... read more ››

Reaching the heart via the stomach

She has rapidly become Canada’s culinary Queen of Hearts as the host of Bitchin’ Kitchen on Food Network Canada, but Nadia Giosia was “bitchin’” long before her small-screen debut. For that matter, while she is the host of a TV cooking show, Giosia, a.k.a. Nadia G, has never actually set foot ... read more ››

Run Romeo, run

  Romeo Saganash has a bronchial infection. His breathing is laboured; his voice is almost a croak. His face is framed by a wave of longish curly hair. The clothes are expensive, stylish and businessman dark. He’s been fighting an chest infection for a week or so, made worse by a ... read more ››

Shooting the messenger

It used to be that the first targets of an authoritarian government were television and radio broadcasters. Now it’s the Net, its users and ISPs they need to communicate. Just look at the incipient revolution in Egypt: in a failed effort to cut the growing protest movement off at the knees, ... read more ››

Surviving the survivors

I would like to express something about the residential schools issue. Maybe somebody has been gone through what I have been through. I have been reading and hearing a lot about the residential school money that survivors are given for all the abuse and torture they experienced at residential school. But ... read more ››

The magic light box

Television was never a big part of my early childhood. In the early 1980s, TV was a new phenomenon that had just been introduced to our community merely a decade before. Even though mom and dad furnished our living room with a new TV set we had nothing to watch. ... read more ››

To the heart of the matter

I was listening to JBCCS early-morning radio and there was an interesting homegrown song about love, which in many ways, reflects the mood at this time of year. Holiday wise, it’s just a few days past Groundhog Day, who, incidentally, emerged on a stormy cloudy day, and the thankful forecast ... read more ››

Uproar over illegal drilling

In early January the Innu of Pessamit were shocked and dismayed to discover that the Nevado Resources Corporation had been illegally carrying out drilling on their ancestral lands known as the Nitassinan. “We have never given Nevado permission to drill on our territory. We demand that it cease all activities immediately,” ... read more ››