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.
Page 7
Non-Natives see it as a fight for long overdue justice. But B.C. Indians see it as more than that. It's a fight for survival.
Without land and title, say the Indians, the province's aboriginal people will eventually cease to exist.
And that's why, for the past month, bands across the province have been staging a series of roadblocks.
It's the only way they…
Page 4
"We were not terrorists," ex-Felquiste Paul Rose told writer Ann Charney in an interview published in Saturday Night in 1984.
"We wanted to avoid terrorizing the population," explained Rose, who served 12 years of a life term for the October 1970 "execution" of Quebec Labor Minister Pierre Laporte - a murder official inquiries later suggested he didn't commit.
Out…
Page 4
There's not much humor to come out of the terribly serious confrontations at Oka and Kahnawake. But Oka's mayor, Jean Ouellette, provides the closest thing to a smile.
Mr. Ouellette has chutzpah. In abundance.
It's sometimes said the best example of a person with chutzpah is the fellow who killed both his parents with an axe and then asked the judge for leniency on…
Page 4
The Canadian government is up to its old tricks.
And it's doing a masterful job.
But then it has decades of experience in deception to draw on.
In the heat of the standoffs in Quebec, a high-ranking Indian affairs' official accused Mohawk Warriors of being nothing less than a "gang of criminals."
Harry Swain (he's referred to rather unlovingly by some…
Page 3
Elijah Harper doesn't want Mohawk Warriors at Oka to put down their guns.
Once they do, he warned, the police will move in and arrest them.
Although he doesn't personally support violence as an instrument of change, he asks: Who's pointing the guns?"
The only reason police haven't invaded Kanesatake Territory is because the Mohawks are "sticking to their…
Page 3
An environmental study, sponsored by the provincial government, misjudges the effects of contaminated fish on northern Alberta Native people, according to a leading Alberta ecologist.
David Schindler said a recent report issued by Finish consulting group Jaako Poyry is weak in determining that fish in the Athabasca-Peace River river systems is harmful to the people who…
Page 3
A fence erected at Lac Ste Anne to control an alleged drug and alcohol problem fed to an angry confrontation between pilgrims and security guards.
A crowd of angry people tried to prevent the gate from being locked at the annual pilgrimage July 22-26.
Drug dealers were believed to be plying their trade and using children as runners to pass between privately-owned by…
Page 2
Metis Fred House has been on the campaign trail for the last couple of months seeking the job as president of the MAA.
He's been as far north as Grande Prairie, his home riding, and Fort McMurray and as far south as Calgary.
House recently registered his name as a candidate with the electoral office of the Metis Association of Alberta.
With MAA elections…
Page 1
Blood Chief Roy Fox said his band has categorically rejected suggestions of reprisals against French advocated in a memorandum recently received at the Blood tribe office.
The memorandum received the week of July 20 encourages aboriginal people to take action against French people in Western Canada if Quebec moves against the Mohawks again.
The transcribed memo read…
Page 1
The Goodstoney Nation of Morley has strongly condemned the federal government for lack of leadership in resolving the standoff between Mohawk Indians and police officers in Quebec.
In a prepared statement Chief John Snow said he strongly supported "our Mohawk brothers and sisters in their fight for aboriginal and treaty rights."
"We are extremely concerned with the…
Page 7
Alberta AIDS officials are worried Natives could be the next high risk group to be attacked by the killer disease.
There are signs it has already started.
AIDS groups in Calgary say they're treating a still small, but ever increasing number of Natives who have tested HIV positive and area in the early stages of the disease.
It's the same in B.C., where the…
Page 7
Indians used to be comfortable with their own sexuality, says a leading American sex educator.
But that was before the arrival of the white man, says Billy Rogers of the University of Oklahoma.
Now it's a different story, he says. Indians are confused about their sexuality, caught in the middle of their traditional values and those of the dominant society.
…
Page 7
The federal government has unveiled a strategy to fight AIDS in the 1990s that includes spending $6 million on a computerized information system for victims seeking treatment and $7 million on education.
But a spokesman for Gays and Lesbians of the First Nations says it doesn't go far enough to battle the disease at the community level.
Claude Charles says Ottawa…
Page 4
The Department of Economic Development and Tourism has once again embarked on an ambitious scheme to help northern artists. This time they have singled out the carving industry and will try to help by importing 132.5 metric tonnes into 23 N.W.T communities.
The Stone, which will come from North Vancouver, Virginia and Montana, was picked from a number of samples sent to 34…
Page 4
From the outside, the massive police assault on the Mohawk blockade of a rural Quebec road seem like a complete blunder. The Quebec government now has two tasks: to assess responsibility for the assault and to begin to restore relations between government and Mohawks to something better than a state of war.
The extent of the government's role in authorizing the military-…