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.
Gifts From the Elders, a 60-minute film, documents a project that focused on the transfer of traditional knowledge from Elders to youth.
Five young people between the ages of 20 and 30 spent their summer vacation in 2011 interviewing Elders in their home communities, Batchewana First Nation of Ojibways near Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., and Ojibways of Pic River First Nation in the Thunder…
Métis statesman Eugene (Gene) Rheaume grew up on the edge of European and First Nation communities – unable to live in either – and spent a distinguished life trying to level the playing field for Aboriginal people.
When Rheaume’s father moved the family of nine children from Alberta to God’s Lake, Man., where gold was discovered, they were prohibited from living on the mining company’s…
Disinherited Generations: Our Struggle to Reclaim Treaty Rights for First Nations Women and their Descendants
Authors: Nellie Carlson and Kathleen Steinhauer as told to Linda Goyette
Published by The University of Alberta Press
Review by Shari Narine
It is only fitting to hear that strong women in Alberta…
Stories in a New Skin: Approaches to Inuit Literature
Author: Keavy Martin
(Published by The University of Manitoba Press)
Review by Shari Narine
Keavy Martin presents a circular argument in her academically-heavy Stories in a New Skin: Approaches to Inuit Literature.
Martin holds that Inuit…
Aboriginal Rights are Not Human Rights
In Defence of Indigenous Struggles
Author: Peter Kulchyski
Review by David P. Ball
When hundreds of police raided a Mi’kmaq anti-fracking blockade near Elsipogtog First Nation only days after the United Nations Indigenous rights envoy left the country, many…
On Nov. 12, the City of Toronto, together with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), proclaimed the year to Nov. 12, 2014 the Year of Truth and Reconciliation.
About 150 people were at City Hall to celebrate the Proclamation that acknowledges the impact of residential schools on Aboriginal peoples and on all Canadians.
City Councillor Mike Layton in his statement to the…
Idle No More Toronto organizer Wanda Nanibush delivered a lecture to an overflowing house at the University of Toronto’s George Ignatieff Theatre on Nov. 12.
She delivered the 16th Annual Dame Nita Barrow Lecture on the subject of Idle No More: Histories of Indigenous Women’s Resistance. Writer, media creator, community animator and arts consultant, Nanibush is also Curator-in-Residence…
The chief of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations (FSIN)
said the decision to extend the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is a positive thing. “I welcome the extension,” said FSIN Grand Chief Perry Bellegarde. The TRC was to release its final report in June 2014, but the Commission is only part way through its work. Calls for an extension came from a variety of…
A billion litres of coal waste-water from the Obed mine
spilled into the Athabasca River Oct. 31 after a storage pond leaked. The Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation said this is exactly the type of environmental issue they’re worried about when considering the construction of new coal mines. The Alberta Energy Regulator is investigating the cause of the incident. Ten municipalities were warned…
Members of the Mi’kmaq First Nation Assembly of Newfoundland is seeking legal advice on a challenge to the way Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada is handling the enrolment process for applications to the Qalipu Mi’kmaq First Nation Band. It is believed that applications are being rejected unjustly and for insignificant concerns. Adding to the frustration is the lack of an…
Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt said the federal government is working to make it easier for First Nations to received help after a natural disaster. The plan comes in the long shadow of flood evacuations in Manitoba that have been costly and prolonged. Ottawa is streamlining disaster relief so First Nations communities get funding more quickly. There is also a commitment of $19…
For children who died at residential schools, commemorative markers will serve as memorials.
“This is a very important project,” said Kathy Kettler, policy analyst with the Assembly of First Nations (AFN). “These monuments will be memorials for people who died in these schools. Not everybody who went to residential school came home.”
The AFN and Aboriginal Healing Foundation (AHF…
Despite failing two environmental assessments in a row over its controversial Prosperity mine near Williams Lake, B.C., Taseko Mines Ltd. raised eyebrows when it fired a rare shot at the federal regulator, claiming its decision was flawed. Taseko said it planned to challenge the ruling through its legal counsel.
For the member bands in the Tsilhqot’in National Government (TNG), however…
THE URBANE INDIAN
Why is it always the Lakota? Personally I have nothing against the Lakota. I have met many in my travels and they all seem cool and great people. Was it that memorable showdown with Custer back in 1876 that made them so popular, or the more recent movie “Dances With Wolves” perhaps? It seems they have a better publicist than most nations.
Before I continue my…
WOLF SONGS & FIRE CHATS
Life has a way of bringing you the answers you seek in the most unexpected ways. It has a way of presenting things that you didn’t even know you were searching for.
It has a way of leading you to discoveries in the simplest, most mundane, most every day kinds of things. I suppose if there’s magic to the unfurling of a life, that’s where it lies – in…