Hundreds of First Nations and Metis people staged a 13-kilometer walk this weekend in what they called the first annual such event protesting development of the tar sands by Alberta.
An area the size of Florida, surrounding Fort McMurray, is being developed by several multinational oil companies in an effort to extract oil from the sands.
The event, which organizers say is not a protest, was put on by Keepers of the Athabasca. Participants say the region currently occupied by Suncor and Syncrude plants used to be their prime berry-picking and hunting ground.
“Mother earth needs our help to protect and heal the land and water that is being decimated by tar sands,” said Cleo Reece, co-organizer of the walk, in a press release.
The marchers said nearby First Nations communities are suffering ill effects from the tar sands development, including high cancer rates and water pollution.
Columnist Doug Cuthand makes a strong case in this Saskatoon Star-Phoenix piece decrying changes to Canada’s census-taking methods.
Cuthand recalls the start of his career, working for the Alberta Native Communications Society in Edmonton, whose president was a former Metis politician, Jim Ducharme. Cuthand writes that Ducharme became his mentor:
He told me our organization’s purpose was to provide First Nations and Metis people with the best information possible to enable them to make sound decisions on important issues that were looming on the horizon.
“People can only make the best decisions when they have the best information,” he told me. That incisive statement has remained with me.
All of this by way of criticizing the federal government’s decision to make the long form census voluntary, because the Conservative government finds it too intrusive. The result, he says, will be a loss of information about people in general and aboriginal people in particular.
He points out that the census helps show where government services are most urgently needed, and that such information is more important for First Nations and aboriginal people.
“This is not an esoteric argument,” he writes, “but a situation that affects the poorest Canadians the most.”
Manitoba deputy premier Eric Robinson will be among those present today when for the national hearing of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, in Winnipeg.
The idea, CBC reports here, is to expose and deal with the pain and suffering caused by residential schools. Robinson has first-hand experience with that. He was a student at the Jack River School in Norway House, Manitoba, where he was sexually abused by a priest. And yet, he counts himself relatively fortunate:
“My father was a student at one of these places, went there for seven or eight years, never learned anything more than how to write his name, but he sure became a good farmhand.
“My mother went … at the age of three. She came out when she was 18 to a world of alcoholism and drug abuse and she died alone on the streets of Winnipeg at the age of 31 when I was 11 years old.”
Some 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, about 85,000 still living, were forced to attend the government- and church-run schools, the last of which closed in 1996.
Some of those survivors filed a class-action lawsuit, and the $60 million commission is the result.
Above, please enjoy Gyasi Ross’ tribute to mothers everywhere.
Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. defies eligibility question to seek third term
Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. has filed to run for a third term, making him one of 12 people seeking to lead the nation. But the question of his eligibility may end up before the Navajo Supreme Court. “Under the law, he can’t run,” said Edison Wauneka, director of the Navajo Election Administration, tells the Navajo Times here.
Diversity resolution could follow ‘white pride’ school incident
A group of parents in Fort Thompson, Lower Brule and Chamberlain are working with Chamberlain, S.D., school officials on passing a resolution establishing districtwide “cultural competence standards,” that call for schools to value diverse cultures, according to this story in the the Sioux Falls (S.D.) Argus Leader. The resolution was in the works before last week’s incident involving six white students who wore “White Pride World Wide” T-shirts to school.
Rising HIV rates termed crisis for First Nations communities
The head of the Saskatoon Tribal Council calls the rising rates of HIV in the province a “crisis” facing First Nations and Metis people, the Toronto Globe and Mail reports here. Provincial officials attributes 75 percent of the new questions to injection to drug use.
Cherokee Nation turns old jail into museum
The Cherokee Nation is restoring its former National Prison into a museum. This AP story following last week’s groundbreaking on the renovations tells the history of the jail. It was the only penitentiary building in what then was Indian Territory from its completion in 1875 until 1901, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Recession? Not in Albuquerque, where Gathering of Nations pumps millions into economy
As many as 200,000 people were expected to have attended the Gathering of Nations that ended last night in Albuquerque. TV station KOB reports here that the event, which bills itself as the world’s largest powwow, will bring in $22 million to $35 million for the local economy.
Early Inuit art commands very high prices
Inuit art from the 1950s and 1960s brings impressive prices, as Jane George of the Nunatsiaq News, who attended a recent auction of Inuit art in Toronto, writes here. A carving called “Hooded figure,” by the late John Pangnark of Arviat, went for $14,000, and a 1959 Cape Dorset print, “Polar bear and cub in ice,” by Niviaxie, who died that same year, sold for $22,800.
Art by Native inmates finds market on the outside
And speaking of art, Native inmates inside the Mike Durfee Prison in South Dakota are creating artwork that could help support them on the outside. State corrections spokesman Michael Winder says art is encouraged in the prison. And Laurie Apple tells the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, here, that she buys art from Native inmates for her art store and gallery, Osage Lakota Artworks, in Kimball.
Two novels draw inspiration from Northwest Coast tribes
Today, Bellingham (Wash.) Herald book reviewer Barbara Lloyd McMichael takes a look, here, at two novels that focus on Northwest Coast Native American culture – John Pappas’ “When Wolf Comes,” that McMichael terms an historical novel that reads like a captivity narrative. The second is a book recently brought back into print: “Raven Stole the Moon.” It’s the first novel by Garth Stein, who went on to write the bestseller, “The Art of Racing in the Rain.”
Gathering heralds First Nations, Metis and Inuit learners
A recent gathering hosted by the Edmonton Public Schools’ Board of Trustees was the first such event for First Nations Chiefs and other leaders from First Nations, Metis and Inuit communities from across three territories, the Edmonton Journal reports here. The idea was to build on the work of the board’s Aboriginal Education Task Force.
Dine soldiers home with their families after 10-month tour in Iraq
We love stories about soldiers coming home safe. Here’s one from the Navajo Times, about the 300 soldiers of the New Mexico National Guard who returned after a 10-month tour in Iraq. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson was on hand to welcome members of the 1115th and the 720th companies. “I’m very proud of our National Guard, particularly with the Navajos who are serving,” Richardson told them.
The festivities in Vancouver at the First Nations Pavilion feature more Metis fiddling tonight.
Performing will be the Métis Fiddler Quartet, the Métis Nation Jiggers, Lee Mandeville, Richard Lafferty and Wesley Hardisty, shown in the video above.
Wesley, who is Dene from Fort Simpson in the Northwest Territories, is just 16. His music is great and so is his story. Find out more about him here, or by watching the video.
Here’s the week’s schedule of events at the Pavilion
The Asham Stompers are a Metis group whose Red River jig takes its name from the original name for Winnipeg.
The group’s Web site describes their heritage thusly: “Such a cold climate demanded warm human relations and within a few brief years officers of the Hudson Bay Company were eagerly taking Native wives.”
Apparently, the two groups considered dancing the other best way to spend long winter nights. Dances like the one above were the result. Enjoy.
Gwen Florio
