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Xats'ull Heritage Village is located on a sunny shelf above the mighty Fraser River deep in the heart of the Cariboo, 37 km north of Williams Lake on Highway 97. Xats'ull, (pronounced hats'ull) is the Secwepemc or Shuswap word meaning "on the cliff". It fittingly describes the area that has been occupied by the Secwepemc (Shuswap) Nation for generations.

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Matt Thorpe is one of those people who demands 110 per cent from himself on a regular basis and thrives on it. He's constantly thinking two or three steps ahead; yet engage him in conversation, and he can make you feel that there is nobody more important to him than the person he's talking to right now.

Thorpe calls his ability to focus intently on just what is being said to him or what is happening at the moment "being in my world."

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Following years of population decline, the northern tip of Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands) will experience growth led by the return of First Nations people.

A new sub-division will be added to the Old Massett reserve, where 293 homes will be constructed during the next decade for about 1,000 Haida who are expected to return home. The 163-hectare parcel of land being added will double the reserve's size, and the subdivision will use half of that.

The first 20 homes will be completed by the end of summer.

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Even during nights when the hardiest of mainlanders would have stayed indoors, there continues to be a stream of customers flowing into the ice cream shop in Old Massett.

"We don't stop for nothing around here and the wind isn't (even) blowing sideways yet," the owner of Sweet Treats, Brandie Hill, said. "Even if it's like this, it's usually busy."

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The very busy 20-member Thunderbirds firefighting team is the only sustained action crew in the Port Alberni area, meaning they can fight most fires from start to finish, and they have the ability to break into smaller initial attack crews for greater maneuverability in fighting multiple small fires.

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She took five years to complete her degree in nursing and become the first Aboriginal student to graduate from Trinity Western University's nursing program in Langley last year. For 34-year-old Kathleen Lounsbury, graduating with a B average from the nursing program with a bachelor of science degree, although both fulfilling and exciting, was not easy.

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Thirty years of progress was celebrated at the Rotary Peace Park in Whitehorse this year. Hosted by the Gathering of Traditions Potlatch Society, hundreds of visitors marked the anniversary of an historic meeting in Ottawa in 1973 that resulted in the first comprehensive land-claim negotiations in Canadian history. The celebration was held on June 21, National Aboriginal Day.

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On a scorching summer Saturday, friends and family of Edgar Charlie gathered at the Thunderbird Hall to witness his seating as the head chief of Kelthsmaht. Kelthsmaht traditional territory is on Vargas Island, in view of Tofino. It is one of the several nations that amalgamated to form modern-day Ahousaht.

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Nuu-chah-nulth leaders and fishermen took to the waters of the Alberni Inlet last month to support the protests of the Area G Trollers Association.

The trollers were protesting against a Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) decision to prevent them from accessing valuable Somass River sockeye salmon runs because of a "bureaucratic accounting error."

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Dear Editor: