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This year the BC Festival of the Arts was held May 23 to June 3 in Nelson, which has been called the "best small arts town in Canada."

Every year the festival attracts 900 participants to take part in workshops, conference sessions, and master classes given by more than 70 professional artists. This year, 40 Indigenous artists from across the province participated in the Indigenous Arts Service Organization Showcase 2000, the final festival event and was aired live on CBC radio.

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Last month I began to discuss how we could begin to reclaim our youth. We can begin this process by teaching our youth about personal accountability and responsibility by cultivating four characteristics that are needed for every human being: belonging, mastery, independence and generosity.

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Last month I began to discuss how we could begin to reclaim our youth. We can begin this process by teaching our youth about personal accountability and responsibility by cultivating four characteristics that are needed for every human being: belonging, mastery, independence and generosity.

To:ske - It's true

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Cultural conflicts created by the legacy of colonialism, and the ways Indigenous peoples are seeking to resolve those conflicts without giving up their traditional beliefs, were examined in a series of 19 workshops at the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs' Protecting Knowledge, Traditional Resource Rights in the New Millennium conference from Feb. 24 to 26.

The workshops were hosted at the University of British Columbia's First Nations House of Learning and the UBC's Museum of Anthropology.

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The Tsow-Tun Le Lum Society's Substance Abuse Treatment Centre in Lantzville received funding to the tune of $450,000 from the Aboriginal Healing Foundation in Ottawa. The funding is to be used towards a five-week residential program for Aboriginal adults who are living with the residual effects of trauma from their experiences in residential schools.

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This column is dedicated to showing how those who have been affected by addictions can help overcome this "dis-ease" or to help them understand what an addicted loved one may be going through. One can begin to comprehend our people's present day battle with chemical dependency when one begins to understand what effect the residential schools had on those who attended, as well as, the inter-generational effects of that system.

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No Storm Too Fierce, a documentary about Chief Charlie Cootes and the Uchucklesaht First Nation's efforts to restore its sockeye salmon runs in Henderson Lake, premiered this past weekend at the Courtenay Community Film Festival to a very appreciative and emotionally overwhelmed audience.

The film chronicles the battle waged by Cootes, the Uchucklesaht people and Henderson Lake Hatchery Manager Bruce Hepburn to convince the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to follow through on its promise to fund this valuable sockeye restoration project.

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BC Hydro announced the winners of its Role Model Challenge contest for Grade 4 students as part of its sponsorship of the 7th annual National Aboriginal Achievement Awards in Vancouver on March 10.

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Some people spend weeks psyching themselves up to take part in one of the West Coast's annual Polar Bear Swims held in Vancouver on New Year's Day and in Nanaimo on Boxing Day.