Volume 9, Issue 22

‘Removal NOW’ Only a public inquiry will clear the air over the murder of Dudley George

The man who killed native protestor Dudley George gave up his attempt to get back his job in the Ontario Provincial Police last week. But those still working for some sort of justice for the first person in Canada to be killed in over a century of aboriginal protest against ... read more ››

A Taste of Smoked White Fish

Maybe it was a trip down memory lane in a place I’ve never been before. Isn’t that what they call déjà vu? Anyhow it was a stopover on the way to the Moose River. You have to go trough Waskaganish and the stopover is long. It’s a four hour layover. I ... read more ››

An Interview with Mistissini Chief John Longchap

Mistissini Chief John Longchap entered his second term winning over challenger Thomas Neeposh. In an exclusive interview with the Nation Longchap outlined his hopes and dreams for Mistissini. The Nation: You been re-elected. How did that feel? Chief John Longchap: I was very proud to be re-elected to be chief again. I ... read more ››

Beluga Blues

In Kuujjuuarapik (or Whapmagoostui), whale hunting is a tradition still practiced by our Inuit brethren. When the whale is sighted out amongst the rolling waves of the Hudson’s Bay, people anxiously await the return of the favored muktuk, or raw whale skin, a delicacy that may go the way of ... read more ››

Chibougamau, Fight City

We’ve always known the streets of Chibougamau were tough. But the night of Saturday, Sept. 21 might go down in the annals of rowdiness. Police made 10 arrests after several incidents, beginning with a fight among a group of women that began on downtown streets after 3 am. Chibougamau SQ officer ... read more ››

Falling through the cracks

As much as we all try to make things happen right, people still fall through the cracks in our system. Raymond Duff is one of those people. There is no blame attached to any organization that Duff dealt with. It was just a series of events that show us all ... read more ››

Former residential school under Native control

Between 1912 and 1970, the St. Eugene Mission near Cranbrook, B.C., ran a residential school for Indian children. Now, reports the Globe and Mail, that school is the centre of the $42-million Delta St. Eugene Mission Resort, which includes a 125-room hotel and a golf course. The resort also features a ... read more ››

Haida to bring home ancestors’ wandering spirits

For more than 100 years, reports the Globe and Mail, the bones of 48 Haida have languished in the storage vaults of New York’s American Museum of Natural History, taken from their graves by explorers, anthropologists and amateur collectors who said they were preserving remnants of a dying indigenous race ... read more ››

Hydro dams destroy forests

Canada wants the Kyoto accord on climate change to be structured so as to give Canada credits for “clean” energy exports of hydroelectricity (and natural gas) to the U.S. But according to a joint statement of the Sierra Club of Canada and Pimicikamak Cree Nation of northern Manitoba, this plan ... read more ››

Interesting times and all that

Ever since the 1995 Quebec Referendum I’ve been very careful about how I fill out my ballot. I’ve marked my X with extreme precision, staying inside the box and probably paying more attention to that than who or what I was voting for. Luckily, the last presidential election in the ... read more ››

Lubicons to Jean: keep your promise

The Lubicon Lake Indian Nation in Alberta wants outgoing Prime Minister Jean Chretien to keep his word. Before Chretien became Prime Minister in 1993, he wrote to the Friends of the Lubicon expressing his support for a settlement of Lubicon land rights. He wrote that “time is wasting” and that ... read more ››

MoCreebec calls for new election Case closed, responds returning officer

The MoCreebec Council of the Cree Nation is demanding a new Grand Council election, based on the failure to provide voting stations in northern Ontario for the estimated 500-700 eligible Quebec Cree beneficiaries living there. In a letter to Chief Returning Officer John Henry Wapachee signed by seven members of the ... read more ››

MoCreebec: Just who are they?

Like many other James Bay Crees, I went to residential «school in Moose Factory, Ontario. I have returned there only once since I left the school 26 years ago, until this past week. There are mixed feelings about the place; because of the exile and the problems a residential school ... read more ››

One in three bands miss audit deadline

The Canadian Press reports that nearly a third of Indian-band and related agency audits, required to track $5-billion in federal funds, are incomplete well past a July 31 deadline. The Indian Affairs Department says the number of late or unfinished annual reports is nearly 50 per cent in Ontario, where 64 ... read more ››

Rez notes

I’ve been very busy with the intrepid crew of Rezolution Pictures, as we capture moments of history on 8mm of high quality digital video tape. The saga of Eyasho, an incredible hero who fought off witches with sharp and deadly elbows and killed his evil father, the one who had ... read more ››

Sask natives stop uranium mine

A small interfaith group including Mennonites and aboriginals has won its battle to quash the operating licence of a Saskatchewan uranium mine, leaving the future of the facility and its 178 employees in doubt. A federal court judge yesterday ruled in favour of the Inter-Church Uranium Committee Educational Cooperative and compelled ... read more ››

Smokes on the water High taxis revive the Mohawk cigarette trade

“The only reason people are making a big deal out of it is because the government ‘aint gettin’ their cut,” the Mohawk teenager says bluntly, referring to the shelves of cheap, aboriginally-produced cigarettes for sale in his Kahnawake smoke-shack. The teenager – who won’t give his name, nor allow pictures in ... read more ››

the Dogs Ear

Arrivals: Stories from the History of Ontario, is a book most people didn’t know needed to be written. Many people probably couldn’t imagine anything more boring. But John Bentley Mays, a well-known Toronto newspaper columnist and author, has a different perspective. Originally from one of the American South’s largest plantation ... read more ››

the Dogs Ear

The Pursuit of Oblivion: A Global History of Narcotics 1500-2000 By Richard Davenport-Hines 466pp, Weidenfeld and Nicolson Cocaine: An Unauthorized Biography By Dominic Streatfield 510 pp, St Martin’s Press The Pursuit of Oblivion is British freelance scholar Richard Davenport-Hines’ prodigious approach to what is probably, after sex and war, humankind’s ... read more ››

There’s a new deputy in town Paul Gull wakes up to find himself a winner

Paul Gull was sleeping when the returning officer for the Grand Council elections, John Henry Wapachee, telephoned him at home late in the evening Aug. 29. “My son woke me up, saying the returning officer called,” Gull recounted. “I didn’t know what to think. He gave me Losty’s numbers first. ... read more ››

They call me Cheech

Johnathon Cheechoo: San Jose’s next Shark? He is the son of Mervin and Caroline Cheechoo of Moose Factory and by October 10 he could very well be the next left-winger for the San Jose Sharks in the NHL. At 22 years of age, six feet tall and weighing 200 pounds, Jonathan ... read more ››

Titus Channer: Point Guard for Team Canada

We all know that Lacrosse is a Canadian sport, but it’s almost hard to believe that basketball is a sport that originated in Canada too, only because the US has taken the ball, so to speak, and run away with it, turning b-ball into the huge phenomenon that it is. ... read more ››

Under THe Northern Sky Sleeping Under The Stars

It is September 1992 and we are on the open waters of the great James Bay on a freighter canoe heading south to Attawapiskat. We have just wrapped up a moose hunting trip along the Opinigau River about 200 kilometres north of Attawapiskat along the James Bay coast. I am ... read more ››

Under The Northern Sky The first day of school

The beginning of a new school year is an event that involves everyone in a small remote First Nation community. Parents and Elders in First Nation communities believe in teaching and exposing children to our people’s traditional and cultural practices. They also understand that youth need a good education in the ... read more ››

US eco-group targets Staples for using Canadian old growth

A San Francisco-based environmental group is accusing the Staples office supply chain of misleading customers about its sale of paper products from old-growth forests. Associated Press reports that ForestEthics claims that fibre from old growth trees in Indonesia and Canada is regularly provided to the company by suppliers. Staples has told ... read more ››

Voices of the Land

Voices of the Land is an unusual compilation. It is neither music, nor poetry, nor spoken word and teaching. It is the combination of all these that takes you on a journey. It is the journey of the people of Chisasibi and it is a beautiful one. It contains anger, ... read more ››