The Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation marked the 30th anniversary of the fight against logging on Meares Island in the Clayoquot Sound at a gathering in Tofino April 20.

On April 21, 1984, Tla-o-qui-aht declared Meares Island a tribal park, and that began the push back against forestry giant MacMillan Bloedel’s plans to clearcut 90 per cent of the timber—old-growth forest with trees as old as 1,500 years—on the island.

It also was the start of a Native, non-Native alliance that would spark worldwide attention, rallying against undesirable resource development in the area.

The fear of unexploded munitions has forced Enoch Cree Nation to immediately close its golf course and historic cultural grounds indefinitely.

The Alberta First Nation is the latest First Nation to find its land had been used for war exercises, says legal counsel for Enoch, Will Willier.

Reserve land was regularly used for training exercises in the First and Second World Wars and the Cold War.

Shira Leuchter and Chris Hanratty of Unspun Theatre have brought to light a long-forgotten 200-year-old story of a murdering fur trader, Chippewa Indian brothers and a sunken ship. They’ve turned the story into a performance piece that will be staged May 15 to May 18 at the Enwave Theatre located at Toronto’s Harbourfront.

Both the Métis National Council and the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples (CAP) are lauding the Federal Court of Appeal’s decision upholding a lower court ruling that the federal government has jurisdiction over Métis and non-status Indians.

However, in making its unanimous ruling that both groups were covered under section 91(24) of the Constitution Act, the Court of Appeal said that non-status Indians were not a distinct group of peoples and that their rights were already included with their existing bands.

Guest Column

On behalf of the Métis Nation, I applaud the April 17 decision of the Federal Court of Appeal in the Daniels case. It reinforces our longstanding position that the federal government has constitutional responsibility to deal with the Métis.

Ottawa’s non-recognition of Métis for jurisdiction purposes never made sense. Logic dictates that it should be Canada’s national government that has a special relationship with the Métis, one of the three Aboriginal peoples in the Constitution and one of Canada’s founding nations.

Despite winning the National Energy Board’s support last year, Enbridge Northern Gateway took a hit on April 12 after the town of Kitimat, B.C. voted 58.4 per cent against the controversial project, despite being the job-rich terminus for the pipeline.

A spokeswoman for the Yinka Dene Alliance applauded the referendum results, but said that regardless of the outcome it wouldn’t have changed the minds of the more than 130 First Nations, which signed the alliance’s anti-pipeline Save the Fraser Declaration.

The Urbane Indian

It’s been said we live in kinder, gentler times, that overt and aggressive stupidity by some people, especially towards other people, is gradually being weaned out of our society.

Witness all the zero tolerance messages being enforced in grammar, middle and high schools these days. I heard of one seven year old being sent home for pointing his fingers like a gun at a fellow student and going ‘bang”.

Dear Editor:

My name is Francine. I have worked in the Pacheedaht First Nations community of Port Renfrew for almost six years. We are a small community of 300 First Nations and non-Native community members.

I have been a grateful member of Alcoholics Anonymous for 16 years. We have a small meeting every Monday and Thursday. We have five members. I am contacting you because my heart breaks for the hold alcohol has on this community.

The Christy Clark government of British Columbia has really stepped in it this time, going behind the backs of First Nations in its haste to develop the Liquified Natural Gas industry in the province, poisoning relationships and endangering the $78 billion development that the BC Liberals have pinned so much hope on.

Chief worked hard to retain Mi’gmaq identity

Though she wasn’t allowed to speak Mi’gmaq in residential school, Chief Margaret Pictou Labillois of Eel River Bar First Nation preserved her language because her mother and sister pressed her to speak it.

“When I was away at school I forgot certain words to make a sentence … I spoke only English and when I came home I was lost for words,” she told Judy Bowman in an interview for a New Brunswick seniors’ project several years before her death last year on April 19.