Welcome to AMMSA.COM, the news archive website for our family of Indigenous news publications.
Established in 1983 to serve the needs of northern Alberta, Windspeaker became a national newspaper on its 10th anniversary in 1993.
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Onondaga photographer Jeff Thomas was in elementary school when he first discovered that he was invisible. Although his family lived in Buffalo, New York, for most of the year-along with a large population of other Iroquois people-he couldn't find any Native people in the official history of America's cities. He might not have known it then, but this realization was the…
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Carol Greyeyes - Performer/Writer
Recommends: The Hundred Secret Senses
By Amy Tan
Vintage Books, New York-1996
A friend gave me this book last Christmas and I only got around to reading it now. Maybe it's because I have lost loved ones recently, but I was so moved by this story about sisters, loyalty and families, love and death. The Hundred Secret…
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Across Time and Tundra: The Inuvialuit of the Western Arctic
By Ishmael Alunik, Eddie D. Kolausok and David Morrison
Raincoast Books
230 pages (hc), $65.00
For centuries the Inuvialuit people have called the Western Arctic home. Their traditional territory ran from Barter Island in the west to Franklin Bay in the east, with the Mackenzie River running…
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A Chiefs of Ontario letter shows that the fight over who votes and who doesn't at the Assembly of First Nations' twice-annual confederacy meetings will resume at the next chiefs' meeting in May.
National Chief Phil Fontaine sent a letter to all First Nation chiefs and councils on March 18, announcing that "the next Confederacy of Nations to be held at Saskatoon,…
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The decision to cancel or not to cancel the 2005 North American Indigenous Games (NAIG) was set to be made by the games' governing council on April 23, two days after Windspeaker's publication deadline.
Although the bid committee had made its recommendation to the full NAIG Council during a conference call on April 20, council President Harold Joseph said he could not…
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After proclaiming her innocence for almost a year, Grand Chief Margaret Swan changed her plea to guilty in late March.
The Southern (Manitoba) Chiefs Organization grand chief stood accused of misappropriating $61,000 from her band two years ago when she was chief of the Lake Manitoba First Nation.
When she pleaded guilty to theft over $5,000, a fraud charge was…
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A senior government official warned us a week before Indian Affairs Minister Andy Mitchell's speech at the Canada-Aboriginal Roundtable meeting in Ottawa on April 19 that it would be a "launch pad" for the Paul Martin agenda.
It was. The Indian Affairs minister laid out a number of details about what his department will be doing to further the prime minister's plan to…
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On Feb. 6, after a three-day trial, Arlo Looking Cloud, 49, was convicted of aiding and abetting in the murder of Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash.
Now there's another trial that may soon be heard in regards to her death, and a man waits in Vancouver under house arrest to see if Canada will ship him across the border to face prosecution in a United States court.
Looking…
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A senior government official warned us a week before Indian Affairs Minister Andy Mitchell's speech at the Canada-Aboriginal Roundtable meeting in Ottawa on April 19 that it would be a "launch pad" for the Paul Martin agenda.
It was. The Indian Affairs minister laid out a number of details about what his department will be doing to further the prime minister's plan to make…
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Some are optimistic, while others remain sceptical
More than 70 Aboriginal leaders spent the day with almost as many senior government officials on April 19 at the Government of Canada Conference Centre in Ottawa. The all-day "Canada-Aboriginal Roundtable" saw the leaders of the major national Aboriginal organizations sit down with more than 20 Cabinet ministers and their…
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Dear Editor:
I am very impressed with the articles presented on your Web site. I am currently studying for a BA in Native Studies, and learning Cree, and find your Web site complimentary to my learning.
I try to read and understand what is written with the deep spiritual awareness of the Native culture. I don't know if that is possible for a white woman. I do truly…
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Dear Editor:
Current scholars on the Second World War have overlooked the Aboriginal experience, both in combat and on the home front, when examining the 'national' experience. Indeed, only two publications focus on the Aboriginal population in all of Canada's wars and these are Forgotten Soldiers (Fred Gaffen,1985) and Native Soldiers: Foreign Battlefields (Janice…
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Dear Editor:
For some time I have had concerns with the justice system. It seems to me that every time an Aboriginal person comes in contact with justice officials it becomes a safety matter.
There have been harrowing stories of brutality and police initiatives known to target Aboriginals.
For the most part, I am interested to know about the quality of…
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Dear Editor:
I lived in poverty with my three babies in both The Pas and Thompson (Manitoba). I did not think of anything when I went to do laundry in the morning and had to step over a middle-aged Native man who needed somewhere warm to sleep for the night. I would just say, "Excuse me."
-Carolyn
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Dear Editor:
In the Windspeaker article "The legacy of inadequate housing" (December 2003 edition), the Siksika Nation chief and council are accused of using housing as a "political tool." Had Windspeaker performed due diligence on the subject, it would have been realized that council was only looking out for the best interest of the Harry Good Eagle family.
Siksika…