Staff members at the friendship centre in Whitehorse are abuzz these days, as they await the release of a film that will tell the life story of the centre's namesake. Skookum Jim Mason, A Man in Two Worlds is a 52-minute video that chronicles the life of Skookum Jim, a Tagish Indian from the Yukon, and the gold discovery that made him famous.

Imagine walking down a path and entering a small clearing by a creek. You sit down to a meal of buffalo, bannock, berries and other Native traditional dishes. After your meal you walk down another trail and come to a clearing. Dotting the horizon are tipis. You take a seat and for the next few hours you travel back centuries to when the buffalo roamed and Indians rode bareback.

The designs are her own, the palette full of rich striking colors.

In Mary Littlewolf's warm, cozy kitchen stands a work table loaded with the tools of her trade. Beads, thread, needles, sinew and smoked leather used to make intricate craft pieces of a kind seldom seen outside of a museum collection. Elaborate yokes, collars and short-top moccasins echo Plains Cree styles from the deep past.

There are a lot of mysteries hidden in the mists and shallows of Frog Lake, some ancient, some historical and some the stuff of legends. There are stories told of huge snakes and serpents battling it out in sky and water with the thunderbirds, colorful tales of a mysterious race of Little People, and strange legends that tell of moving rocks - huge boulders that move up and down the shoreline on their own.

Modern stone carvers, using sophisticated hand or electronic tools, spend long hours carving pieces of stone into sculpture or markers. So imagine the time and effort it must have taken for the early Aboriginal people of the prairies to carve stone, using only another piece of stone.

For tourists tired of the rampant commercialism plaguing most tourist destinations, Shawenequanape Kipichewin camp, located at Lake Katherine in Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba, is a guaranteed antidote.

Developed by the West Region Tribal Council's seven member first nations, this traditional Ojibway camp opened in 1995 in an attempt to create a sustainable eco-tourism industry for the tribal council and to broaden awareness of Aboriginal culture, heritage and history.

#And in four short years they seem to have more than met those two objectives.

Currently on exhibit at the Southwest Museum's new satellite space in Los Angeles, is an extravaganza of Pueblo and Navajo loom-woven textiles.

Common Threads brings together 93 of the most culturally significant and aesthetically captivating weavings - a collection that spans a 150-year period.

Rare ponchos, pictorial tapestries, chief-style blankets and mantas (many of which have never been publicly displayed before) adorn the museum's walls, creating a visually stunning mosaic of color and design.

Sometimes you get a lucky break in life, fate kicks in, and all of a sudden you find yourself thrown into the deep end of the pool, over your head, swimming with the big boys. The next day you wake up and find out that you've gone from being a kid who fooled around with the mic at Sunday afternoon rodeos to being a respected powwow commentator ready to take on the circuit.

"That how I got my start back in '78," explained Raymond Whitstone.

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The Supreme Court verified on May 20 what anyone with even the most basic understanding of Canadian constitutional law already knew: bands that prevent members from voting in band elections because of where they live are discriminating against their own members and denying those members one of their most basic constitutional rights.

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The people's right to self-determination is directly compromised by the large numbers of governments that keep secrets - secrets designed to simply protect some official from being embarrassed or found out, or secrets which shield government employees from rightful prosecution for criminal activity.

First Nations people, African-Americans, and all other North Americans suffer directly from the withholding of data about the CIA's involvement in the drug trade, or secrecy about the Interior Department's misuse of Native trust funds.