Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nation has dropped a treaty land entitlement claim because the process is taking too long. The land claim process began following the arrest and incarceration of six KI leaders, including Chief Donny Morris, in 2008 as they protested Platinex Mining company claims near Big Trout Lake in KI traditional territory.

The Save Our Seas and Shores coalition wants the issuance of license extensions to Corridor Resources Inc. for its exploration site in the Gulf of St. Lawrence halted. The coalition told the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board it supports the Innu, Maliseet and Mi’gmaq Alliance in their call for a 12-year moratorium on offshore oil and gas development in the gulf.

A woman from eastern Ontario was in court on Oct. 20 challenging the federal government after being denied Indian status in 1995 because she doesn’t know the identity of one of her grandfathers. Lynn Gehl’s grandmother and father have status, but she was denied.

“They made the assumption that this unknown grandfather was a non-Indian man, and through the process of that assumption I was denied Indian status registration.”

Toronto-based Mohawk artist Greg Staats launched his three-month term as Artist-in-Residence at the Art Gallery of Ontario on Oct. 14 with an evening of reflection about the Haudenosaunee worldview.

Fifty-one-year old Staats works in photography, performance, video installation and sculpture. Born and raised on Six Nations, he’s lived and practiced his art in Toronto for the last 25 years or so. A recipient of the Duke and Duchess of York Prize in Photography and a past faculty member of the Banff Centre, Staat’s work has been exhibited throughout North America.

The Blackfoot Confederacy is experiencing a rebirth in their culture. Action undertaken by the Elders has led to the first treaty signed in more than 200 years between First Nations in Canada and Tribes in the United States. This one on buffalo restoration.

“I think it’s kind of a like a rebirth of the old Indian way of doing things,” said Dr. Leroy Little Bear, talking about both the influence of the Elders in guiding the process and the restoration of the buffalo to the Northern Great Plains.

“Our people are coming together to find a common cause to work on.”

Aboriginal leaders and the families of missing and murdered Indigenous women repeated their calls for a national inquiry into the crisis on the steps of Parliament Hill during a National Day of Remembrance on Oct. 4, but the rally’s first speaker, Cree elder Irene Lindsay, insisted that the vigil was about more than grief.

“Today we need to celebrate their spirits,” she said, “and to honour these beautiful women.”

AFN pushes for independent inquiry

Tales drawn from 5,000 years of existence are woven together through audio, visual and modern technology to breathe life into the colorful history of the Musqueam First Nation community.

The Musqueam, Museum of Vancouver and the Museum of Anthropology have partnered on a series of three distinct exhibitions, opening simultaneously this coming January known as c–YsnaîYm The City Before the City.

It has taken the tragic and seemingly preventable death of a beloved Skidegate Band councillor to shed light on what critics say is chronically unreliable ambulance service in B.C.’s remote communities.

Godfrey Williams (Didi), 48, died of a heart attack Aug. 2, following a series of blunders that caused what should have been a 10-minute ambulance trip to take nearly one hour.

It was something remote communities have been warning about for years: staffing shortages and significant coverage gaps causing undependable first response to emergencies.

Though the spotlight is not shining on her as it was a couple of years ago, Mary Spencer’s main athletic goal remains the same.

Spencer, a 29-year-old Ojibwe boxer who lives in Windsor, Ont., would love to win a medal, preferably gold, at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Spencer had been considered one of Canada’s best medal hopefuls heading into the 2012 London Olympics, where women’s boxing made its Olympic debut.