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Royal British Columbia Museum (RBCM) researchers and staff are already excited about the next central exhibit soon to be constructed in the void left by the highly successful Leonardo da Vinci exhibit.

HuupuKwanum - The Treasures of Our Chiefs, is the first exclusively Nuu-chah-nulth exhibit to ever appear in a museum or gallery, and this also marks the first time museum officials have worked almost entirely with First Nations people and Elders in developing an exhibit about their culture.

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The return of a Wet'suwet'en totem pole in the town of Smithers will mark an important breakthrough in the relationship between the Wet'suwet'en First Nation people and the non-Native people in the area.

The red cedar tree selected for the totem pole is being carved into a all clan totem pole on the school grounds of Smithers Senior Secondary School by Wet'suwet'en carver James Madam.

Madam will carve out the clan figures under the guidance of Earl Muldoe, Chief Delgamuuk.

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Former Alberni Indian Residential School dormitory supervisor and convicted pedophile Arthur Henry Plint will remain behind bars at Mountain Institute in Agassiz for another few months.

Having served the necessary two-thirds of his 11-year sentence for sexually and physically assaulting students under his care, Plint has been eligible for day parole since January, and will become eligible for full parole in July of this year.

Plint's initial parole hearing was scheduled for March 18, but he has asked that his hearing be postponed until June.

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Gordon Wilson, British Columbia's minister of Aboriginal Affairs, released a recently-commissioned independent study on March 24, claiming the settlement of outstanding treaties will bring more than four billion federal government dollars into the province.

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Penticton Indian Band members reacted angrily on March 31 to news that a land transfer agreement was about to be signed by Transport Canada and the city of Penticton which would turn over federally-controlled airport land to the city.

About 200 Native supporters demonstrated at the airport that day, forcing the cancellation of at least three local flights.

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HIV/AIDS plan unveiled

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It all started with three unemployed friends reminiscing about old times. While lamenting the by-gone days of the now defunct Dannzha newspaper (also know as the Yukon Indian News), the trio, who all share a communications background, also noticed a lack of First Nation representation in the 1998 Yukon Gold Rush celebrations and within Northern media outlets.

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Despite the heroic struggles in the 70s and 80s of such Aboriginal women as Mary Two Axe Early, Jeanette Lavell, Sandra Lovelace and the Tobique women from New Brunswick, sexist discrimination still continues under Canada's Indian Act.

These women brought the disenfranchisement issue, Section 12(1)(b) of the Indian Act, to the women's movement, to the Supreme Court of Canada and to the United Nations Human Rights Commission. [Under Section 12(1)(b), Aboriginal women lost their "status" when they married non-Native men.]

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The Aboriginal Women's Action Network (AWAN) held a training workshop on participatory research at University of British Columbia's First Nations House of Learning in mid-November. The gathering was the second phase in AWAN's research project investigating and analyzing the impact of Bill C-31 on the lives of Aboriginal women and their children.

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Al Ross Jr. wasn't as happy to see the crane come to the Tseshaht Longhouse on this second occasion.

The first time the crane came to this location, it was to lift the huge, hand-adzed beams of the new Tseshaht Longhouse into place.

That was more than 22 years ago.

In February, the crane came to tear down the longhouse that Al Ross Jr. and the late John Dick, had spent a year of their lives building by hand.