Manitoba's teen fiddling sensation Sierra Noble had a very busy year in 2005, recording her first CD, Spirit of the Strings, performing during the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards and travelling to Belgium and France with the Aboriginal veterans for the Aboriginal Spiritual Journey and Calling Home ceremony. Noble, who will turn 16 on Feb. 20, spends much of her time promoting Metis music, dance and culture, and also volunteers her time to efforts to have the use of landmines banned around the world.

Windspeaker: What one quality do you most value in a friend?

Artist-The Wolfpack
Album-Family Thang
Song-Keep It Fair
Label-Independent
Producer-The Wolfpack

The members of The Wolfpack are still singing the blues, despite taking home an award from the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards held in Toronto in November.

The third annual First Nations Cup was staged Dec. 16 to 18, 2005 in this northern city, and following on another successful year of men's hockey, organizers have voiced their lofty aspirations for the tournament.
"Our goal is to grow on a national scale," said Greg Hopf, a First Nations Cup director. "Our goal in three to five years is to be one of the biggest tournaments in Canada."

With the Liberals in opposition and Prime Minister Paul Martin about to hand over power and then step aside as party leader, the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) faces the prospect of having to construct a new relationship with the Prime Minister's Office and the federal government.

The leader of the Manitoba Metis Federation (MMF), David Chartrand, received an e-mail from a Member of Parliament on Jan. 12.

"I am disappointed that you would take a partisan position in this federal election, as you have in the last one," wrote Inky Mark, the Conservative Party of Canada member for Dauphin-Swan River. "Speaking to Metis people in my riding, I am told that the MMF constitution demands that MMF stay neutral politically. As you know, taking sides will hurt you and your organization, sooner or later."

Prime Minister-elect Stephen Harper will soon get to sit at the big desk. What that will mean for Aboriginal people is still very much a mystery. But given the history of the Reform Party's approach to Aboriginal issues and the influence enjoyed in Harper's Conservative party by former Reformers, Aboriginal leaders are worried.

If things work out just right, grassroots people could, for the very first time, cast their vote for national chief this July.

"That's what we're hoping is going to happen," said Assembly of First Nations (AFN) renewal commission co-chair Wendy Grant-John at a press conference held in Ottawa shortly after the report was presented to the chiefs in December.

The last judgement rendered by Federal Court Justice Max Teitelbaum will not be remembered fondly in Hobbema.

Two First Nations located around the central Alberta town - Samson Cree and Ermineskin Cree - filed suit in 1989 in what has become a gigantic legal action. The band councils are suing the federal government for approximately $1.5 billion in oil and gas revenue that they allege was lost due to Crown mismanagement, discriminatory policy and breaches of Treaty 6.

Dear Editor:
In this time of renewed call for new treaties, treaty negotiations, and narrower interpretations of existing treaties, we, the First Nations peoples and First Nations leaders, should always remain mindful of the fact that the overall intent of the whole process has been and continues to be the acquisition of additional concessions to Aboriginal lands and resources and protection of the best interests of the non-Aboriginal population.

I am a citizen of the Metis Nation of Ontario and there are about 500 other citizens within our local region, which is mostly of the Algoma area in Ontario, represented by our President Mr. Tony Belcourt and I want to know how the president of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples supports the Conservative platform when it doesn't reflect the progress made and gives nothing tangible to the very people [Dwight Dorey] claims to represent? CAP does not represent all Aboriginals living off-reserve as they do not represent myself or any of my fellow Metis.