Artist—Desiree Dorion
Song—For The Music
Album—Small Town Stories
Year—2013

The Legacy Pole is considered by the Haida Nation as a significant creation, but it is personal for carver Jaalen Edenshaw and Haida Nation President Peter Lantin.

Edenshaw, whose design and story was chosen by a committee to commemorate 20 years of the Haida Nation and Canada working together, recalled attending meetings with his father leading up to the Lyell Island logging blockades of 1985.

“But also in my design I was recognizing those who stood on the line for Gwaii Hanaas back in 1985. That was really important to me,” he said.

His dream of a “hub” or healing centre for Aboriginal people impacted by the infamous Sixties Scoop is Robert Commanda’s driving force.

Commanda, along with Marcia Brown Martel, chief of Beaverhouse First Nation in Ontario, are representative plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit. They are claiming that loss of cultural identity was suffered by Aboriginal children fostered or adopted to non-Aboriginal homes during the Sixties Scoop.

Goldcorp Inc. and Lac Seul First Nation in Ontario have signed the Obishikokaang Collaboration Agreement setting a framework for ongoing consultation and support for current and future operations of Red Lake Gold Mines. The agreement, signed in ceremony Aug. 16, also redefines the benefits of the mine operation for the First Nation, including training and employment opportunities, business and contracting opportunities, and Goldcorp’s future financial contributions in support of community development. Lac Seul Nation has 3,200 band members.

Nishnawbe Aski Development Fund will receive $4.4 million over the next three years and representatives of the fund say 105 jobs will be created with the money. Greg Rickford, minister of state for Science and Technology, and FedNor (Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario), and minister responsible for the Ring of Fire, announced the funding on Aug. 14 in Thunder Bay. The funding will focus on helping nine Matawa communities develop business opportunities and derive long-term economic benefit from mining-related developments.

Elections for the Chief and Council of Ginoogaming First Nation were held on Aug. 21 and Celia Echum was given her fourth straight two-year term, defeating Joanne Towegishig 194 to 60. The six councillors elected are Gabriel Echum, Sheri Taylor, Maurice Waboose, David Charles, Kelly Fortier and April Dore. For the next term Chief Echum promises to address infrastructure needs and housing to accommodate young families in the community and single parents living in overcrowded conditions.

Violence has come to a dispute over seismic work underway near where some are saying is sacred ground on the Thunderchild First Nation in Saskatchewan.

Band lawyer Chris Boychuk said four men wearing balaclavas attacked a security guard in the area. The incident comes only one day after an interim injunction was granted by the Court of Queen’s Bench in Saskatoon ordering protestors to vacate the area in which 30 live undetonated charges have been placed as part of a seismic program. The injunction was issued on Aug. 16. The alleged assault took place Aug. 17.

A spate of disturbing police incidents across Canada has re-ignited calls for law enforcement reform, in a summer that saw Alberta police shoot an Aboriginal star from the reality TV show Mantracker, and Québec police under fire for the beating of an Innu man, captured on video.

Only days after the widely criticized Toronto police killing of 18-year-old Syrian-Canadian Sammy Yatim on an abandoned streetcar, Alberta police were forced to launch internal investigations into three separate incidents in the province.

The Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation has yet to have a conversation with, or even been invited to, a meeting by OmniTRAX, Inc., despite the American company’s plans to ship crude oil through the First Nation’s territory near Nelson House, Man.

NCN Councillor D’Arcy Linklater said he found out through media reports that OmniTRAX had entered into negotiations with 25 Alberta oil companies to ship oil on the former CN railroad line to the Port of Churchill, Man. That oil would then head to refineries on either the east coast of Canada or Europe.

Another pipeline has been announced. This one is to be built by TransCanada Corp., heading west from Alberta to Quebec, and then to the eastern coast of New Brunswick where a deep water marine terminal is to be constructed by Irving Oil.

The Assembly of First Nations Chiefs of New Brunswick has already made its concerns and conditions known to both the provincial government and the companies involved.