Slam poetry performer Zaccheus Jackson Nyce (fourth from left backrow) was struck and killed by a train in Toronto on Aug. 27. A member of the Piikani Nation, Nyce, 36, was in the midst of a solo tour of Canada. Nyce ended up living in East Vancouver, battling a drug addiction. He found a way to overcome when he hit it big entering a slam poetry competition in 2005 and going on to win a spot on the Vancouver Poetry Slam Team that would compete nationally. He turned that success and his experience into working with youth. His death has been ruled accidental.

A Royal Conservatory of Music program that has dramatically increased academic engagement and success of First Nation, Métis and Inuit students is being expanded.

For the past six years Learning Through the Arts Youth Empowerment Program has been operating in numerous Fort McMurray schools. Developed by The Royal Conservatory in 1994, it uses arts-based activities to help engage students as they learn key subjects in their curriculum.

Elek Himer finally managed to bring home some hardware from a prestigious lacrosse competition.

Himer, a 15-year-old who has Cree and Mohawk ancestry, was a member of the Alberta entry that captured the bronze medal at the national boys’ under-16 field lacrosse tournament.

The six-team event, which was called the Alumni Cup, concluded on Aug. 31 in Edmonton.

Himer, who lives in Innisfail, was the only Aboriginal player on the Alberta entry. His squad defeated Saskatchewan 19-5 in the bronze-medal match.

After taking a year off in 2013, the organizers of the 5thAnnual Turtle Awards came back fully excited to recognize Aboriginal achievement in Central Alberta.

“It’s really important to me to acknowledge the support of the community. It really is a celebration of Aboriginal people by the community, and this year was all about looking forward,” said Tanya Schur, executive director of the Red Deer Native Friendship Society.

Over 20 First Nations and non-Aboriginal performers, dancers, musicians and poets are featured in the World Premiere of Making Treaty 7.

Making Treaty 7 world premiere

“The difficult was easy, the impossible took a little longer,” said Father Paul Hefferenan in his 1995 eulogy to Canada’s First Female Indian Act Chief, Elsie Marie Knott of the Curve Lake First Nation in southeastern Ontario. Chief Knott, elected in 1952, who served for eight years in this pioneering role, is the touchstone of Cora Voyageur’s groundbreaking study of First Nations Women Chiefs, Firekeepers of the Twenty-First Century.

Dance, dance, dance

Dancers were among the offerings from the Aboriginal Pavilion hosted by the Canadian Native Friendship Centre at this year’s Heritage Festival. Visitors to the annual event were able to steep themselves in culture and Native food, which included bannock, bison bannock burgers, buffalo skewers and mint tea.  

Homeless count scheduled for October

Old Earth Productions, an Aboriginal dramatic collective, is producing plays about social issues, featuring Aboriginal themes and actors.

“Old Earth Productions utilizes theatre as a tool for creating social change,” said Executive Director Darlene Auger. “We are interested in gathering and telling the stories of local Native people, to create public awareness on pressing issues.”

More than half of the First Nations in Alberta will not be meeting with the provincial government to discuss the new Aboriginal consultation policy.

Les Cardinal, of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, wrote “Enough is enough” as his contribution to a mural that has travelled along with a totem pole that was erected at the Beaver Lake Cree Nation in September. The Lummi people, based in Washington State, gifted the totem pole as a symbol of shared responsibility to BLCN on the front lines of the expansion of the Canadian tar sands. Cardinal was among a handful of people at the Alberta Legislature on Sept. 5, when the group stopped in Edmonton. “There’s a  lot of truth in this mural when you actually look at it.