Sweetgrass and CFWE news - March 4, 2016

Trudeau, Bellegarde recognized in bonnet transfer ceremony

March 4, 2016. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde will be participating in a Bonnet Transfer Ceremony at Tsuut'ina First Nation Friday afternoon. The ceremony, by invitation only, begins at 1 p.m. at the Grey Eagle Resort and Casino. The headdress symbolizes courage, accomplishment, bravery and peace. “Having those foundations allows a community to grow, allows a nation to grow in prosperity,” said Kevin Littlelight, spokesperson for Tsuut’ina Chief and council. He said Trudeau’s visit “monumental” for his First Nation.

“Indian Group of Seven” on display

March 4, 2016. The Art Gallery of Alberta, in Edmonton, opens 7: Professional Native Indian Artists Inc. on Saturday. Gallery-goers will get the opportunity to see work by one of Canada’s most important early artist alliances. This influential group and ground-breaking cultural and political entity demanded recognition as professional, contemporary artists and stimulated a new way of thinking about contemporary First Nations people, their lives and art. The “Indian Group of Seven” consists of Jackson Beardy, Eddy Cobiness, Alex Janvier, Norval Morrisseau, Daphne Odjig, Carl Ray, and Joseph Sanchez. Because of their intervention in the history of Canadian art (which had chronically excluded Indigenous artists and artworks), and by referencing a cornerstone of the 20th century Canadian art narrative (the landscape painters known as the Group of Seven), these seven artists represented the fundamental importance of engaging in conversation about Indigenous art, as well as the critical role First Nations artists play in Canadian culture, past, present and future. The exhibition 7: Professional Native Indian Artists Inc. draws on both private and public art collections to bring together over 80 paintings and drawings from the 1970s, the crucial decade during which the seven artists were active as a group. The exhibit runs until July 3.

Northern athletes compete in Arctic Winter Games

March 4, 2016. Team Alberta North, consisting of 240 athletes, coaches, cultural participants and mission staff, will be participating in the 2016 Arctic Winter Games, which run March 5-12 in Nuuk, Greenland. Participants of Team Alberta North live north of the 55^th parallel. They will be competing in 13 different sports and cultural events.  Participants in the Dene Games are Tyrah Brewster (High Level); Starr Twin (Slave Lake); Riley Whiteknife (Fort McMurray); Ryton Meneen (Fort Vermilion), Kayla-Louise Campbell, Dawson Castor-Mercredi, and Peter Marcel, from Fort Chipewyan; and Alice Ladoucer and Mikeela Cooper, from Fort McKay; coached by Darrel Laboucan (Slave Lake) and Stefany Guillen (Fort McMurray). Competing in Arctic Sports are Tyler Camarneiro, Erik Labrie, and Cruz McGregor, all from Slave Lake, coached by Timothy Horsman (Slave Lake) and Elizabeth Gustafson (Woking). Other sports include hockey, cross country skiing, alpine skiing, snowboard, biathlon, snowshoe, badminton, volleyball, table tennis, and futsal. Team Alberta North participants earned the right to represent Alberta through qualifying events held for each sport.

Second session of Legislature to begin

March 4, 2016. The second session of Alberta’s 29th Legislature opens March 8 at 3 p.m. with Lieutenant Governor Lois Mitchell delivering the Speech from the Throne. Opening Day festivities will begin with a 15-gun salute from the saluting base on the west Legislature grounds, followed by an inspection of a Quarter Guard in the Legislature rotunda. The event will also feature performances by local tenor Robert Clark and the Royal Canadian Legion Band. Regular House business will start on March 9.

Climate change meeting disappoints Alberta Chiefs

March 3, 2016. Treaty 6 Grand Chief Tony Alexis was part of Indigenous Relations Richard Feehan’s delegation to the First Ministers’ meeting in Vancouver this week. Alexis said he was disappointed that elected Chiefs did not have a more direct role. “That meeting was a lot of Chiefs who went out with the spirit of their people to find out that we were not going to be allowed to speak,” said Alexis. The climate meetings this past week in Vancouver were a follow up on the Paris COP21 meetings, in which Canada pushed for full participation in the creation of a climate change strategy by Indigenous peoples. In addition to a lack of participation, Athabasca Chipewyan Chief Allan Adam walked out of the meeting with Trudeau because of its emphasis on economic solutions to the climate problem and lack of “discussions of tangible agreements.” Neither Congress of Aboriginal Peoples National Chief Dwight Dorey nor Native Women’s Association of Canada President Dawn Lavell Harvard were invited, although the leaders of the Assembly of First Nations, Metis National Council and Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami attended.