By Lloyd Dolha

The Ktunaxa people of the east Kootenay region expressed their deep disappointment at the announcement of the approval of the Jumbo Glacier Resort by the province in late March. The resort is to be built on the Jumbo Mountain Glacier in the Purcell Range west of Invermere, at the site of an old sawmill. “We offered a great deal of evidence to the decision-makers on the cultural value of this area to the Ktunaxa,” said Kathryn Teneese, chair of the Ktunaxa Nation Council. “We made it very clear that any development in this area would cause serious and irreversible harm to the Ktunaxa Nation, to our culture, to grizzly bears, and to the many other wildlife and environmental values [of the region].”
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By Richard Wagamese

Soon I will be fifty-five years old. That means a lot to me. There times in my younger life living through desperate times that were largely self-inflicted, that I doubted that I would ever see thirty. So a full quarter century beyond that speculation is a nice place to be. This age feels good. I can look back and see the experience of living with the framework of six decades on this planet. It doesn’t make me feel old. Just experienced.

The comforting thing about a niche in time like this is clarity. I can see where I’ve been, who I’ve been and what I’ve accomplished or failed to do with equal sharp-sightedness.
For instance, when I first met my people I was twenty-four. I’d been taken away as a toddler and placed in foster care and later, when I was nine, I was adopted by a white family who lived a thousand miles away from where I was born. I moved from the bush to the pavement of a Toronto suburb and it was a colossal change.
But in that home and the schools I went to I learned nothing about who I was as a Native person. Instead, I was made to behave and act and walk and talk as though I were white. I wasn’t, of course, but great effort was made to allow me to become a reasonable brown facsimile. As I’ve said before, it’s not the pounding in of the round peg in the square hole that hurts so much; it’s the scraping away that occurs.
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By Lloyd Dolha

Almost four years after the Beaver Lake Cree Nation commenced their civil lawsuit against expansion of tar sands in northern Alberta, the First Nation has finally moved to a pretrial hearing on the matter. Madame Justice B.A. Browne rejected Alberta and Canada’s attempts to have the case dismissed. In a historic precedent-setting ruling, the Alberta Court of the Queen’s Bench has upheld the right of the Beaver Lake Cree to challenge widespread industrial activities of tar sands exploration and extraction based on cumulative effects these activities have had on their constitutionally protected treaty rights.
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By Danny Beaton Turtle, Clan Mohawk

Wednesday June 11, 2008: “Mr. Speaker, I stand before you today to offer an apology to former students of Indian Residential Schools,” Harper said in Ottawa, surrounded by a small group of Aboriginal leaders and former students, some of whom wept as Harper spoke. “The treatment of children in Indian residential schools is a sad chapter in our history. Today we recognize that policy of assimilation was wrong, has caused great harm and has no place in our country,” Harper said to applause. Also in the audience were Chief Phil Fontaine, Liberal Leader Stephane Dion, NDP Leader Jack Layton, and Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe.
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