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Established in 1983 to serve the needs of northern Alberta, Windspeaker became a national newspaper on its 10th anniversary in 1993.
WOLF SONGS & FIRE CHATS
I turned 57 years old in October. There’s a lot of dust from a lot of roads on these boots and it sometimes feels as though I’ve been around an awful long time. I suppose when you’ve been around long enough to assemble a ton of recollections that it feels the same for everybody. But I’m always so busy that I seldom take the time to reflect on where I’ve been…
THE URBANE INDIAN
Paraphrasing a fellow playwright, “Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious by this son of…” I think it’s supposed to be the son of York, but many Native people in the Idle No More movement believe it actually refers to a different ‘son of a…” Fill in the Prime Ministerial blank yourself.
The ongoing protests against Bill C-45, which culminated in…
OCAD University is getting set to launch a program that is the first of its kind in Ontario, according to Bonnie Devine, founding chair of the Aboriginal Visual Culture Program.
Starting in September, students will be able to get a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a major in Aboriginal Visual Culture.
Devine was hired in 2008 to develop the program. She assembled an Aboriginal…
Blackfoot artist Adrian Stimson premiered Holding Our Breath, an exhibition based on his first-hand experiences and observations at a military base in Afghanistan, at the Grunt Gallery in Vancouver Jan. 4.
Stimson received a grant through the Canadian Forces Artist Program that allowed him to spend three weeks on a military base in Kandahar.
“For me it was an opportunity as an…
Métis actor PJ Prudat delivers a brilliant performance in Café Daughter, a play by Cree playwright Kenneth T. Williams and directed by Yvette Nolan.
Café Daughter tells the story of Yvette Wong, a girl of mixed heritage growing up in Saskatchewan in the 1950s. Her father is Chinese and he runs a small town café. Her mother is Cree.
When Yvette is 10, her mother extracts a promise…
Aliya Howard was just six years old when she was first mesmerized by speed skating while watching the 2006 Winter Olympics on television.
At the time, her mother Melanie didn’t think too much of her daughter’s comments of how she’d like to take up the sport.
“Then, in the fall of that year when September came, we started looking for activities for her to do,” the elder Howard said…
A survey conducted of the Dene Nation in the Northwest Territories reveals that 90 per cent of respondents indicated that at some point they or their family have gone hungry. The survey was conducted from 2008 to 2010 and involved Aboriginal workers in 17 communities going door-to-door and speaking with people of all ages in their language.
Other highlights of the survey indicate that…
Empathy, dignity, and respect: Creating cultural safety for Aboriginal people in urban health care, a report recently released by the Health Council of Canada, highlights some of the reasons many Aboriginal people do not seek care in mainstream health care settings and describes key practices that are working towards positive change. The report is based on a series of meetings held across…
An Aboriginal Patient Navigator and a Regional Aboriginal Cancer Lead offered by the Regional Cancer Care Northwest and Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre will help improve cancer care among First Nation, Inuit and Métis communities in Northwestern Ontario. The two services are identified in Cancer Care Ontario’s three-year Aboriginal Cancer Strategy II as vital components for helping…
The NunatuKavut Community Health Needs Assessment was recently unveiled by the NunatuKavut Community Council. The assessment provides a comprehensive and thorough review of the health of NunatuKavut residents on the south coast of Labrador. It identifies factors that influence health, determines gaps in health-related services and the appropriate ways to address them. The assessment began in…
By Sam Laskaris
Boxer makes list
Ojibwe boxer Mary Spencer, who represented Canada at the 2012 London Olympics, has once again made a prestigious list.
Spencer was one of the 20 individuals or teams named to the Most Influential Women in Sport and Physical Activity List for 2012.
The list, which has been announced for the past 11 years, is annually…
The need for a national Public Commission of Inquiry on Violence against Indigenous Women and Girls was one of eight issues raised with the Prime Minister when delegates from the Assembly of First Nations met with Stephen Harper on Jan. 11. In December, the AFN unanimously passed a resolution at the Special Chiefs Assembly calling for action if the government continues to refuse to move…
The future of Kapyong Barracks, a 160-acre property in Winnipeg that has sat empty since 2004, remains in limbo as the federal government takes steps to appeal a court ruling that ordered consultation with area First Nations over the development of the land. First Nations want to develop it for their own purposes, including the creation of an urban reserve with mixed housing and commercial…
A small First Nation on Vancouver Island has filed documents in federal court to stop the ratification of the Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Act. Hupacasath band councillor Brenda Sayers said the federal government did not consult with First Nations despite the fact that Chinese investors would control resources and other assets on 232,000 hectares of unceded…
The release of Wally Oppal’s scathing final report from B.C.’s missing women inquiry was met with sobbing, drumming, and anger on Dec. 17 as families and friends began the next stage of grieving for their lost ones, and rights groups rallied around the call for a Canada-wide investigation.
The commissioner concluded more than a year of testimony, reports and controversy, ruling that “…