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Alberta Sustainable Resources Development offered a Junior Forest Ranger program this summer for the first time in three Aboriginal communities in the province-High Level, Lac La Biche and Fort Chipewyan.

The eight-week course gave young people ages 16 to 20 a chance to experience a career in forestry with hands-on experience.

In the program participants received information about Alberta Sustainable Resources, the forest protection it does, and the types of employment available in forestry.

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In the early hours of March 2, 40-year-old Claude Delorme was awakened by his cousin who said smoke surrounded Delorme's brother's place.

"I figured that it might be a fire or something like that, so I ran over there and sure enough the house was on fire," he said.

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He proposes that street signs should read in both Cree and English. He says that his community should have a Cree library. He wants to conduct home visits to promote the importance of keeping the Cree language alive.

He is Ray G. Cardinal and he is devoting a lot of his time to a number of Cree projects in Saddle Lake Cree Nation in northeastern Alberta.

"I would like to see the people enthusiastic about the language, and I would like to also instill some pride in them about it," said Cardinal who runs Cree language classes on Tuesdays and Thursday.

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More than 300 young people and their 100 chaperones gathered at the Gathering Strength for a Healthy Future Conference in Hobbema on Aug. 18 to 20 to discuss issues surrounding such things as tobacco use, dating, sexual harassment, drug and alcohol addictions, and truth in media and advertising.

The conference, organized by the National Native Alcohol & Drug Abuse Program (NAADAP), hopes the participants will be able to bring the lessons they learned back to their communities and work along-side NNADAP workers with other young people.

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During the annual general assembly of the Metis Nation of Alberta held Aug. 20 to 25, participants celebrated the organization's diamond jubilee with the Metis Nation Legacy Gala Banquet and Dance.

The gala, held on the evening of Aug. 23, included dinner, speeches, award ceremonies, and a host of entertainment.

Lt.-Gov. Lois Hole and Pearl Calahasen, Alberta's Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, were in attendance.

"It is great to be among you this evening with everyone celebrating this event. It is nice to see everyone enjoying themselves," said Hole.

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Very little is known about the Beothuk, the Native people who once lived in what is now the province of Newfoundland.

When European explorers, and then fishermen, traders and settlers, came to the island, the Beothuk people avoided contact with them believing they were bad spirits; that making peace with them would keep the Beothuk out of the country of the good spirit after they died.

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Two environmental groups-EarthWild International and Wildcanada.net-released a report in July naming Canada's 10 most endangered rivers.

Rivers were assessed according to two main criteria, said Stephen Legault, executive director of Wildcanada.net, based in Canmore, Alta. The level of threat and the "national significance" of the river.

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Future leaders from across the country will be gathering in Winnipeg next spring to take part in a unique and exciting hands-on learning experience.

Participants drawn from business, labor, government, academia and communities from across the country will come together to take part in the Governor General's Canadian Leadership Conference, which will begin on May 7, 2004, and wrap up in Ottawa-Gatineau on May 21.

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Dear Buffalo Spirit:

I live in Alabama and am Native American by descent. I want so badly to learn the old ways of my people, but it is hard discovering just who my people were.

I was told by my grandmother that we are Cherokee, and I am also some Native American on my father's side.

You know, when we are young and crazy, we do not care who we are or where we come from. By the time that we are much older, many of the Elders are already gone.

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Mathew King-Chief Noble Red Man-was a long-time spokesman for the traditional chiefs of the Lakota Nation and official interpreter for Frank Fools Crow, the Lakota high ceremonial chief. King was also one of the leaders of the great Indian Reawakening that began in the late 1960s.

He provided political and spiritual counsel to the activist of the American Indian Movement during the occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973 and helped negotiate with federal officials to end that historic standoff.