Parks Canada officials have decided to stop using the word ‘siege’ in describing their annual re-enactment of 1885 events at Fort Battleford.

“Parks Canada and I have made a mutual commitment to pursue a collaborative approach to retelling the events of 1885 at North Battleford,” stated Poundmaker band member Tyrone Tootoosis, who originally voiced protest against the term he deemed offensive to First Nations.
This wording implied that a group of Cree led by Poundmaker went to take over the fort, which is historically inaccurate, Tootoosis said.

Either way you look at it, if you’re First Nations, live in Saskatchewan, and use tobacco, you are going to pay more.

According to the provincial government, they imposed
new restrictions on the amount of tax-free tobacco available to status Indians in an attempt to recover millions of dollars lost due to illegal smuggling and black marketing of tobacco.

The move came into effect on July 1 of this year and will limit the number of the previous three tax-free cartons of cigarettes to one carton per week per First Nation individual.

Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations (FSIN) Chief Guy Lonechild is demanding First Nations people get a piece of Saskatchewan’s pink-gold.

“First Nations deserve a share in the revenue of potash,” he said. “The treaties are alive and well and natural resources need to be shared.”

Northern First Nations agree to oil exploration

Four northern Saskatchewan First Nations signed a Memorandum of Understanding in November that allows them to partake in new opportunities within the oil sector.

Chiefs of the Buffalo River Dene Nation, Canoe Lake Cree, Cold Lake First Nation, and Waterhen Lake First Nation have all agreed to a business venture that will see oil extracted from the Primrose Air Weapons Range. The area stretches across the Alberta and Saskatchewan borders, with the value and amount of oil resources currently unknown.

A grand opening on Nov. 5 celebrated the creation of a new 25,000 square foot facility by the Saskatoon airport that houses aircraft programs for the Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technologies (SIIT) and Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Sciences and Technologies (SIAST).

The diamond in the rough became a polished gem of a man

When Billy Diamond was a skinny, seventeen-year-old he watched young Cree leader Robert Kanatewat tell bureaucrats that English would be the language used in the new community school to teach students, not French.
The government officials agreed with him, and the visiting Kanatewat flew out of the reserve, then known as Rupert House, but not before he’d left a lasting impression on the politician-to-be.

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research has taken strides to ensure that the health of Canada’s Indigenous population is not only one of the major focuses of the CIHR, but that the Indigenous population is “part of the health research that affects their own health,” said Dr. Malcolm King, scientific director of the CIHR- Institute of Aboriginal Peoples’ Health.

TIM HORTONS WILL OPEN

Ontario First Nations are once again battling it out with industry and the activity that takes place near their homes.

This time the issue is with Canada’s nuclear power energy company Bruce Power. The business of the company is set in the areas of the Great Lakes, and First Nations are concerned with a possible threat to the environment.

Bruce Power is set to refurbish its nuclear units and plans to ship radioactive waste through Canada’s waterways to be recycled.

An education bundle was created at the Whitecap Dakota First Nation community school to commemorate an agreement that is the first of its kind in Saskatchewan.