Book Review
By Christine McFarlane
Motorcycles and Sweetgrass
Author: Drew Hayden Taylor

Award-winning playwright, columnist and comedy-sketch creator, Drew Hayden Taylor from Curve Lake First Nation, Ont., is at his fast-paced, comedic best with his latest book

Motorcycles & Sweetgrass, which is set in the fictional sleepy Anishnawbe community of Otter Lake.

Dr. Peter Menzies, Clinic Head of Aboriginal Services at the Centre for Addictions and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto, received an Award of Excellence from the Kaiser Foundation for his contributions to the treatment of mental health and addictions in the Aboriginal community.

Menzies is a member of Sagamok Anishnawbek First Nation, and has spent the past 10 years building culturally congruent mental health and addictions programs in partnership with both urban, rural and First Nations communities.

The Chippewas of the Thames First Nation have partnered with the Southwest Ontario Aboriginal Health Access Centre (SOAHAC), and sanofi-aventis Canada, a pharmaceutical company, to establish a four-season community greenhouse adjacent to the SOAHAC medical clinic of Munsee, Ont.

The greenhouse will be an intergenerational community centre to facilitate diabetes education and promote healthy eating and lifestyle changes that will encourage First Nations to better self-manage their diabetes.

The First Nations Food, Nutrition, and Environment Study will document both the nutritional benefits of First Nations diets and food and water, as well as the impacts caused by exposures to environmental contaminants in Ontario, reports the Assembly of First Nations.

AFN Ontario Regional Chief Angus Toulouse believes the study “will help shed light on the concerns our citizens have here in Ontario regarding contamination of water and traditional foods and will explore the health benefits of maintaining a traditional diet.”

Trudy Yellow Fly certainly has a passion for sports.
And the 34-year-old Blackfoot, who is a member of the Siksika First Nation, is thrilled her job enables her to pass on that love and encourage as many others to be active.
Since 2009, Yellow Fly has worked as a sport development co-ordinator for the Indigenous Sports Council of Alberta. This position sees her performing a number of tasks dealing with people throughout the province.

Reno and Joshua Nash have come through some tough times in their young lives, yet the brothers continue to make a positive impression in the world around them. Both demonstrate leadership qualities in school, in sports and at home, and both are past recipients of Alberta Aboriginal Youth Achievement Awards.

A long-time University of Alberta professor has been granted an Aboriginal name in a special ceremony to mark his contributions to Indigenous communities.
“It’s wonderful. It’s the most extraordinary thing that has ever happened to me,” said Earle Waugh, director of the Centre for Cross-Cultural Health at the U of A in Edmonton.

Waugh, 73, has dedicated his career to Indigenous culture and healing practices.

“We seem to recognize Indigenous medicine from every other place in the globe except from our own people,” he said.

An administrative decision by Health Canada is not allowing expectant mothers from the Little Red River Cree Nation to choose where they have their babies, say both band officials and health workers.

Because of the distance between the communities of John D’Or, Fox Lake and Garden River and the nearest hospital, pregnant women are routinely flown to High Level or Fort Vermilion to give birth.

The saying goes that it takes a community to raise a child, but it doesn’t need to end there. It may also take a community to help adults learn.

NorQuest College and Enoch Cree Nation are taking that concept to heart with a new literacy pilot project that will help adult band members improve their literacy skills.
Those new literacy skills will in turn help prepare participants for upgrading programs, post-secondary education or the workforce.

A group of students from the University of Calgary took learning to the next level during their mid-February reading week break.

Participants in the Canadian Roots Northern Exchange program spent time at the Enoch and Sucker Creek First Nations and Gift Lake Métis Settlement, engaging Elders and community members, gaining an understanding into the diversity of Aboriginal communities in northern Alberta.