Web site to tell veterans' stories

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First Nations veterans from across Saskatchewan will soon have a new forum to share their stories, when the Saskatchewan Indian Cultural Centre (SICC) launches its latest Web site.

The "Remembering Our Heroes: Saskatchewan First Nation Veterans" site is expected to be up and running on Nov. 12. The Web site is being put together by a team of four students - Darwin Gardypie, Chris Braun, Ron McHugh and Vanessa Hyggen. The project was spearheaded by Donna Ahenakew, director of the SICC library, and Duane Turner, SICC library/multimedia technician.

The Web site will include profiles of First Nations veterans, chronicling their experiences from the First World War, right up to the war in Bosnia.

The Web site team is hoping to gather the veterans' stories through a number of means. A questionnaire has been written up for the veterans to complete, and copies have been faxed to every band office in the province with a request to have the questionnaires duplicated and posted in community centres and other public buildings on reserve. The questionnaire will also be available on-line about a month before the official site launch, said Darwin Gardypie, team leader for the Web site project.

The group is also hoping to get a telephone list from the Saskatchewan Indian Veterans Association so they can contact veteran's by phone.

While plans are being made to gather information by mail, over the phone and on-line, the Web site team also hopes to gather as much information as possible in person.

"We'd like to use audio on our Web site as well - them telling stories - and photographs," Gardypie said.

"The one-on-one interviews will be best for actually listening, because we have a tape recorder, we have a digital camera ready to go at any time somebody is willing to come in here, or gives us a call and we can go to their home. We can actually go visit them, bring them some tobacco, listen to their stories. That's actually what we really would appreciate, getting their stories."

In another section being planned for the site, each of the students will research and write an essay on a different aspect of First Nation veterans' history.

The first essay will examine what the government policy has been toward benefits - or more precisely, lack of benefits - for First Nations' veterans returning from the war.

"They were denied the rights that non-Aboriginal veterans were given, and they just had to go through so much red tape. So we wanted to write about that," Gardypie said.

"There's another person going to be writing specifically about those benefits and how they came to be not given out to the Native people and to basically be skimmed away by government agencies.

"The third topic we're going to be talking about is the reserve conditions and how the community was affected by the Native soldiers leaving - the fathers and also the mothers, how they coped - and the conditions after they came back from the wars, what happened there," Gardypie said.

"And the fourth topic is going to be the treaties and the Indian Act and how they affected the Native soldiers upon leaving and upon returning."

In addition to the profiles and essay sections, the Web site will also include a link page, with links to the site's sponsors, as well as to other veterans' sites and relevant government sites.

"I kind of hope that this Web site will provide information for a generation who otherwise wouldn't know about these issues," Gardypie said. "Even myself, right now, I'm learning a lot about what's happening, and there's actually still a court proceeding pending to get this compensation back to these men. I'm hoping that this Web site will help them accomplish their goals. If not, just to inform and education people on their plight."

Development of the veterans Web site is being funded through a grant from Canada's Digital Collection, an Industry Canada initiative designed to give Canadians aged 15 to 30 experience developing multi-media Web sites.The resulting sites, with all Canadian content, are then added to the Canada's Digital Collection Web site at http://collections.ic.gc.ca.

Once the site is developed and launched, funding for the project will come to an end, but Gardypie hopes to be able to continue working on the site from home on a volunteer basis, responding to e-mail, and updating the site with any new profile information that comes in.

Any First Nations veterans who wants to have a questionnaire mailed out to them, or who would like to share their experiences for inclusion on the Web site can contact the Web development team at 244-1146, or by e-mail at saskveteran@hotmail.com. Completed questionnaires can be mailed to the Saskatchewan Indian Cultural Centre, 120 33rd Street East, Saskatoon, SK S7K 0S2. The on-line questionnaire should be available mid-October, and will be accessible via a link to be included on the SICC Web site at http://www.sicc.sk.ca.