Take care of Mother Earth, she's suffering

Page 4

People and Places

Oki. It's finally spring! With all the events Mother Earth has been involved in, flooding, freak weather changes and so on, we should think more about why she is doing this? I watched The Nature of Things when CBC aired its show on the Boreal forest and it blew me away. What we do as human beings can be harmful. Mother Earth has been showing us the balance of good and bad. We are the bad and she is the good. I don't usually talk about these kinds of things, but they sure make me wonder if the great advancement of human kind caused these problems.

I was talking with a cousin of mine who lives in Fort McMurray and he was giving me the scoop on what he has been doing. He is the president of the Cree Burns Lake Preservation Society. He too has fear for Mother Earth, but he walks alone in this crusade of getting the word out. I told him I would try to help him in anyway I can. If you want more information on what he stands for, write him at Cree Burn Lake Preservation Society, 185 Eymundson Road, Fort McMurray, Alberta T9H 4N1.

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Pretty soon powwows will be held all over Indian Country. That reminds me, if you know when your community is holding a summer event, give me a call. This year I volunteered to get a list of all the powwows and other summer events for our up and coming powwow calendar. Speaking of powwows, there is a few happening this month of May. Of course, Ben Calf Robe is having their annual in a short time from now. To tell you the truth, I haven't gone to this powwow for quite a long time. So this year I'm determined to go and visit with my old friends in the powwow circle. If you are going on the powwow trail a bit early this year, Tsuu T'ina Nation is holding a powwow on May 17 and 18. They had to postpone because there was a death on the reserve.

Check out the powwows held out of the province. There is Cathedral Lakes annual powwow in southern British Columbia the weekend after the Tsuu T'ina powwow. I visited that powwow. . . hmmm. . . about three years ago. Boy, did we ever have a great trip. Full of surprises and jokes on the people who I went down with.

Sometime in June, a powwow is happening in Morley. I would give you details, but these people are so hard to get a hold of.

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Sometimes when you question people on why they do what they do, you can create opportunities for yourself. Students from Grant MacEwan's Native Communications Program asked one question and that was 'Why are European people so interested in Native culture?' And now, four of those students have the opportunity to go to Germany and Austria to find out why. The lucky students are as follows: Maggie Deranger, Cree from Fort McMurray area, Caleb Hughes, Cree from Sawridge Band in northern Alberta, Erik Christophersen from Ermineskin Tribe and Elaine Ross, Ojibway from Northwest Angle, Ont. The two ladies are going to Austria to lecture and put on workshops for the university there. The gentlemen are going to Germany to teach students at high schools. They will be there for two weeks, leaving on the May 24 and coming back on June 8. Their hosts are paying for the airfare and accommodation for the two weeks.

I was talking with Elaine about the trip and she asked me to ask you to help them out with information about the Native people. I suppose they know about the culture, but they would like more information to teach the right way to the people. If you would like to help them out with that information, call me and I can relay the message to them.

Maybe, I should ask questions and get the opportunity to go out to find out why. You gals and guys have a great time out there and take care!

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The other week, Bert Crowfoot and I went to Hobbema to a career fair. We sat there, handed out papers and, of course, I handed out my bingo cards. People would come over to say hi or ask a few questions. But these two girls were hanging around like bees to flowers. Bert took a picture of them and they told him 'we wat to be in the paper.' The two bees are Kaylynn Buffalo (left) and Melissa Cutknife (right).