University of Saskatchewan student Kendall Netmaker from the Sweetgrass First Nation has won the 2011 Saskatchewan Student Entrepreneur Provincial Champion Award for his business venture called Moose Meat Apparel.

“Basically what this award means is that I get to move onto a different round. I get to compete against the provincial champions in BC, Alberta and Manitoba, and hopefully make it to nationals,” said an enthusiastic Netmaker.

Moose Meat Apparel was born out of a business plan competition Netmaker entered into last April.

Though she did not have much coaching experience before, Tiffany Smith was able to take part in a rather prestigious competition.

The 25-year-old Saskatoon resident was part of the Saskatchewan coaching staff for the synchronized swimming competition at the Canada Winter Games.
The Games, which were held in Halifax, ran from Feb. 12-27.

Smith is Ojibway and a member of Manitoba’s Peguis First Nation. She was able to help coach the Saskatchewan club as she was one of nine individuals taking part in a pilot project called the Aboriginal Apprentice Coach Program.

The country’s top Aboriginal curlers will once again be deciding national bragging rights in Saskatoon.

This year’s National Aboriginal Curling Championships will be held Apr. 1-3 at Saskatoon’s Granite Curling Club.

This marks the fourth consecutive year that Métis Nation - Saskatchewan, which organizes the national event, has staged the Canadian championship at the Saskatoon club.

The Canadian Aboriginal Writing and Arts Challenge is going into its seventh year, and is eagerly awaiting entries from young Canadian writers and artists aged 14 to 19 years old.

“It’s the first year that we’ve added arts to the competition. It had been strictly writing from 2005 to now,” said Jeremy Diamond, director of Development and Programming with the Canadian Aboriginal and Arts Challenge.

The challenge was born from an anthology written in 2004.

As a terminal cancer sufferer Annie spends her final days at home, smoking marijuana to cope with her physical pain, listening to Bob Marley tunes, and getting into continuous conflict with her daughter, an uptight unmarried school-teacher. Troy is a homeless young man who breaks into their house by climbing into the window with his baby. Although he hits it off with Annie, he also argues with Kerry, who labels him a thug.

The oral history, culture, and traditions of Aboriginal people were celebrated at the tenth annual Sakewewak storytelling festival in Regina.

“We believe that oral traditions are the foundations for a lot of contemporary artists,” said Elwood Jimmy, director of Sakewewak, an Indigenous artists’ collective in Regina.
The festival, which ran from Feb. 23 - 27, showcased traditional and contemporary storytellers, musicians, and dancers from across Canada, including Shirley Ida Williams from Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve on Manitoulan Island in Ontario.

Dear Editor

For many years I have known Beverly Worsley, from Fort Qu’Appelle, and have had the honour and pleasure of working with her on various projects, dealing directly and indirectly with her position as the Métis Nation Eastern Region lll Area Director.

I met Beverly through my mother and immediately, Beverly took me under her wing and promoted me with my magic entertainment; she arranged shows for me across Sask. and Alberta, came to many of the performances, and always continued to show pride and encouragement in my dream to be an entertainer.

Dear Editor

Where is the legislation?
The government of the day, through the Minister of Veterans Affairs has made several announcements and promises on Bills C-55 (New Veterans Charter), which has received first reading in the House of Commons but has not progressed to the Committee level.

Similar announcements and promises have been made on Bill-480 by the Minister of Finance (Removal of GST from poppies and wreath purchases) for which no legislation has yet been tabled.

Dear Editor

Drinking and driving is real admirable.
Quote: It is nice to see our leadership struggle because it makes them appear more human.”

Let us lower the standards and make excuses for someone who knew they had a problem with alcohol and chose to get behind a wheel. Someone who chose to run from the cops and someone who chose to refuse to take a breathalyzer test, and was lucky that he did not run over and kill someone.

In a world where on-reserve schools are funded at levels far less then off-reserve schools there is a constant state of crisis at the offices of Aboriginal education authorities.
The crisis is often mistakenly referred to as a ‘challenge’ and that challenge is to offer the same level of education for on-reserve students when the school has about twenty percent less resources than most other Canadian schools to do so.