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A boxing training camp may not be the place most people expect to be during the holidays, but for Jesse Derocher, a member of Team Saskatchewan, it was part of his journey to the 1999 Canada Winter Games.

Derocher, 16, and his six teammates will be in Cornerbrook, Nfld. on Feb. 27 to compete in the intermediate boxing events. In the meantime, it will be training camps and a dedicated workout schedule for Derocher who is from the Flying Dust First Nation in Saskatchewan.

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In a quiet ceremony in a community hall in Prince Albert's west end recently, there were seven handshakes, seven smiles and seven certificates given out as Vicky Ducharme looked on with pride.

It was her seven students she was watching during the graduation ceremony for the Youth Futures Self Discovery Program. And it was seven lives that have become very important to her that she was watching change.

"I know the students have gone through a lot in the classroom," Ducharme told the crowd. "But I notice we're all stronger than we were in September."

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From the first week of July to the middle of August, Aboriginal men and woman who dream of military life can attend a program called 'Bold Eagle.' The program designed for Aboriginal youth is open to male or female applicants from 17 to 26 years of age who are First Nations members. The program consists of a one week cultural camp before the training program actually begins.

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The last hurdle may have been cleared to changing the way outstanding land claims are settled in Canada.

Lawrence Joseph, vice-chief of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, said meetings in December between the Chiefs' National Committee on Claims and the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs has produced a consensus on how to move ahead with a new commission and tribunal to address historic land claims.

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It was a time to say "thank you" and give credit where credit was due at a historic meeting which took place on a mock battlefield at the Lloydminster exhibition grounds in front of 9,000 people in early June.

It was also time - many Aboriginal people would say high time and long over-due - when, during an historic reenactment, a large column of North West Mounted Police rode into "a Cree tipi village" and formally asked permission from the Native leaders to enter their ancestral territory and set up camp.

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More than two dozen young Aboriginal men and women have completed the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Aboriginal Youth Training Program (AYTP) this year, and are now posted throughout Canada as temporary members of Canada's national police force.

Initiated in 1993 by the RCMP and the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations (FSIN), the program was modeled on the Bold Eagle program run jointly by the Canadian Armed Forces and the FSIN.

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Imagine what it would be like to wake up one day and suddenly discover that you have Native blood flowing through your veins.

For two women - both were adopted by non-Native families when they were infants - that's exactly what happened.

On most weekday evenings, Kristy Snell can be found co-anchoring CBC Television News in Saskatchewan.

The Snell family from Moose Jaw adopted Kristy when she was just a toddler. About five years ago Kristy's efforts to contact her biological mother paid off.

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The list of dignitaries who made a point of attending the official opening of Wapawekka Lumber, Ltd. on June 24 at a site adjacent to the Weyerhaeuser Canada plant outside Prince Albert, was long and impressive.

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Darrell Taypotat wants to spread the joy of what he likes doing most - competing in rodeos.

The Broadview cowboy is one of the top steer rodeo performers in Saskatchewan. He's been a runner up for the World Indian National Finals in calf roping, was the 1992 champion steer wrestler in the Indian Professional Rodeo Association and in 1988 was the Canadian Cowboys Association calf roping champion.

Taypotat recently instructed at a rodeo school in Duck Lake with his brothers Curtis, who calf ropes and is a bareback rider, and Sam, who is a bull rider.

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When Nelson Bird once joked about someday hosting a Saskatchewan-based television program, little did he know he would have the last laugh.

On the day Bird made the comment, he was a long way from Saskatchewan. In the spring of 1997, he finished journalism school at the University of Regina. Shortly after that, he headed west to Victoria in search of a job. During journalism school Bird completed his semester-long internship with CHEK-TV in Victoria. Bird says he thought this would give him a shot at a job but, unfortunately, cut-backs were happening at the time.