ARTICLES BY
Will Nicholls
During the gala I had a chance to talk to the two contenders for the position of chairperson of the Cree School Board. There will be a run-off election to see whether Daisy Herodier or Kenny Blacksmith will become the first CSB Chairperson to have been elected by all the ...
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Well, this will be my last editorial for a while. I am transferring over to the sales side of the business. It’s a natural progression in life to change, especially when change is required. I’ve enjoyed writing over the years but I’ve always felt that editorial copy and sales didn’t ...
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It isn’t only the Crees complaining about the Quebec government’s way of managing forests in Quebec. Singer Richard Desjardins, Quebec environmental groups and the Grand Council of the Crees gathered in Montreal on February 15 to ask for a moratorium on the approval of new forest-management plans.
The coalition pointed out ...
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The Anglican Church is talking about residential schools more and more these days. Most recently it produced a 40-page Ministry Matters Winter 2000 edition talking about the church’s past and present involvement in residential schools.
The church operated 24 residential schools for Canada until 1969 – a past that has come ...
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My mother was attending a workshop called Dream Catching. It was about teaching First Nations children. She called me to say I should meet a man she met. She was quite excited about it. I agreed and met an extraordinary man. Elmer Ghostkeeper is a Metis who holds a Masters ...
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Every now and then you come across something that sums up the dreams and hopes you have in such a way that you know you can’t say it any plainer than that. The following passage is from Leonard Peltier’s book My Life is My Sundance. It is remarkable that after ...
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The governments of Canada and Quebec and the forestry companies have asked that Judge Jean-Jacques Crouteau be replaced as the presiding judge in all the proceedings relating to the Cree forestry cases.
The judge was requested to do step down in December of his own free will, but Crouteau said no. ...
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One always gets an “Oh, cool” attitude when visiting the Montreal International Auto Show. Of course the “Oh, cool” attitude wasn’t the same as last year’s when the Olympic Stadium’s roof fell in, totaling some cars. This year the 2000 show was different, but it still contained the excitement of ...
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What do you do when someone talks to you about what happened to them? Every now and then people phone us to talk about things happening in the communities. They tend to ask us to do something. It’s a little hard to come up with concrete solutions or simply just ...
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A boycott that hurt multinational forestry corporation Daishowa was ended when Daishowa agreed not to cut on Lubicon Cree lands in western Canada as long as the Cree land claims were outstanding.
Daishowa went so far as to give up cutting rights to the land. Why then, ask the Friends of ...
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When I first read Abel Jolly’s affidavit in the Mario Lord forestry court case, I was a little stunned to realize something that has always stared me in the face.
You might say I couldn’t see the forest for the lack of trees. I realized what is happening to the Crees ...
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Well, the holidays are over and a new millennium has started. The holidays for me, as with most people, were a time of sharing and gathering together with family and friends. It was a time of rest and celebration.
I would like to say the feast put on in Mistissini was ...
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Displacement and loss of land have hurt the health of Crees in Quebec and Manitoba, says a report tabled at an assembly of the World Health Organization.
Cross Lake, a Cree community of 4,500 people in Manitoba, has had 120 suicide attempts and seven suicides this year alone, says the report, ...
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Crees will be taking a serious look at a Cree justice system in January, according to Henry Mianscum, former chief of Mistissini. A justice workshop is all set to happen mid-January in Chisasibi. We spoke with Henry Mianscum, who is one of the coordinators of the workshop, to find out ...
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It’s been six long years since The Nation was first in the communities, and this is the seventh volume of the paper, it’s the volume that will start the new millenium, I am proud to say.
It was and still is a long hard road we’re travelling. When we started out ...
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Elected as the new Grand Chief of the Crees of Iyiyuuschii, it is Ted Moses’s job to bring Crees into the next millennium. He is not a man without experience. Moses was a former Grand Chief and the Crees’ ambassador to the United Nations. He met the Pope when then-Grand ...
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It’s a dirty crime when the state starts to legislate ignorant and ethnocentric laws. In short, I feel that Bill 65 is nothing short of a racist policy designed to take Native self-determination back into the dark ages. The bill is intended to centralize all Quebec government decisions involving First ...
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The CBC owns transmitters in two Cree communities, not six as reported in an article in the October 22 issue of The Nation. We’d also like to make a clarification.
Those two communities, Waskaganish and Waswanipi, are planning to buy their own transmitters, with some assistance from the James Bay Cree ...
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Did you hear about Quebec Native Affairs Minister Guy Chevrette’s latest little gift to First Nations in Quebec? Seems this lad is trying to gather the reins of power ever closer to himself.
He has introduced a little bill in Quebec’s legislature. Let me give you the low-down on that little ...
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The federal government has decided not to fund research into a rare fatal disease whose victims are mostly Cree children in Quebec.
The scientific name for the disease is Cree Leucoencephalopathy, a disease that means Cree white brain sickness. In Cree, it is known as Was Aksuun Kaka Chiwich Takinwich.
Doctors don’t ...
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You really have to wonder sometimes. My most recent source of confusion arises from the recent Marshall decision by the Supreme Court of Canada. Here’s this poor guy, Donald Marshall, Jr., getting his life back together after spending years upon years in jail for a crime he didn’t commit, getting ...
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On Thursday, September 30, two canoes left Moose Factory to go on the traditional goose hunt. The canoes carried 11 people toward Hannah Bay, some 40 miles from Moose Factory.
The trip wasn’t an unusual one for the Moose Factory Crees, said Norm Wesley. But this time, one of the boats ...
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Every time I hear about a suicide or attempted suicide I cringe. It’s hard to do an article about this subject. I know a little of what people who contemplate suicide may be feeling but I could never really know what the person is going through.
I remember one year when ...
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It is perhaps fitting that the real, fake Grey Owl was referred to as “the New Hiawatha.” After all, Hiawatha was written by Longfellow, another non-Native.
Grey Owl was an Englishman who posed as an Indian and gained fame as a writer and a visionary of environmental protection. He claimed to ...
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Loss of habitat because of clear-cutting and increased access via forestry roads nearly wiped out the moose during the late 1980’s and early 1990’s in Iyiyuuschii, says the Hunting, Fishing and Trapping Coordinating Committee.
The moose population is still at low levels and needs more protection, according to a recent report ...
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It seems like the election hasn’t ended for me just yet. I’m still getting condolences but the most interesting one came from Waskaganish via fax. I thought I would Include it for everyone to see. I hope that winners and losers in the recent spate of elections read this and ...
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