CFWE News - May 27, 2015

A park planned for the Quarters Downtown now has a name: Kinistinâw (ki-nist-in-ow) Park. The name means “us three” in Plains Cree. At 1-1/2 city blocks wide, it will connect to Louise McKinney Park and the river valley.

In the last 24 hours there have been thirty three new wildfires. Currently, Alberta has sixty three wildfires: thirteen are out of control, fourteen are being held, thirty five are under control and one has been turned over to the responsible party.

All evacuation orders have now been lifted.

Alberta Health Services issued a Precautionary Air Quality Advisory for the entire North Zone and
Edmonton Areas. The Cold Lake specific advisory remains in place.

Alberta Fire officials are monitoring a fire that entered Alberta from Saskatchewan. The fire is south of Garson Lake, about three thousand one hundred hectares on the Alberta side and has reached Kimowin Lake.

At 2:15 am on May 26 Cenovus voluntarily removed workers from its Narrows Lake and Birch Mountain projects as a precaution. Narrows Lake currently has no production. Two workers were removed from the Birch Mountain natural gas site which produces about 2.5 million cubic feet per day of natural gas.

West of Chard there is an out of control, 1400 hectare fire burning between Pony Creek and Wadell Creek. There are numerous pipelines and well sites in the area, as well as a power line, rail line, and a major Telus facility.

Over the next two days the University of Lethbridge will celebrate the achievements of one
thousand and forty two students. They will cross the stage at the 2015 Spring Convocation Ceremony which takes place Thursday May 28th and Friday May 29 in the 1st Choice Savings Centre for Sports and Wellness. For complete Spring 2015
Convocation information, please visit: http://www.uleth.ca/convocation/spring-2015-information.

A collection of Metis artifacts was destroyed when the Metis Heritage Hall in Churchill, Manitoba burned down early Tuesday morning. The single-story hall was used for Cree language classes, public events, and was also used for cultural and tourist presentations. No injuries were reported and the cause of the fire is under investigations.

Are you an Aboriginal Filmmaker or actor? Do you want to create a film? Join the Aboriginal
Filmmaker collective every month at the Winnipeg Film Group hosted by Roger Boyer and Ben Williams. The next meet up is Wednesday June 3, from six to nine on the third floor of the Artspace Building in Winnipeg. Please contact Ben Williams for more information ben@winnipegfilmgroup.com  (204) 925-3456 ext 109

Tonight, the Edmonton Arts Council will host a three day symposium for indigenous artists. Channeling Connections brings together representatives from various artistic mediums such as visual arts, theatre, dance, customary arts and new media as a way to expand artistic frontiers and understandings of contemporary Indigenous arts practices. The event takes place in Salon 4 at the Shaw Conference Centre, starting at eight p.m. the show kicks off with speeches from Mayor Don Iveson and Edmonton Arts Council Board Chair Brian Webb.

The Conservative government has fallen short on its promise to build twenty five thousand new privately owned dwellings by 2018.

The promise stems from a three hundred million dollar
initiative to help solve the housing crisis on First Nations reserves.

The money would be used to backstop bank mortgage loans, allowing eligible applicants to build and own their own dwellings and someday sell their houses in a thriving housing market.

Currently only ninety-nine homes have been built.