Posts By: First Nations Drum

Manitoba Gang Members’ Trial Moving at a Snail Pace

David Roberts

In legal parlance it is known as the Queen v. Pangman et al: the joint federal-provincial prosecution of 35 alleged members of the Manitoba Warriors gang – the first major test of Canada’s 1997 gang law. To critics what has transpired over the past 20 months in an ultrasecure Winnipeg court house amounts to a gross abuse of human rights.

The accused, 32 aboriginal men and one aboriginal woman, one Caucasian man and one black man – all alleged members of the Manitoba Warriors gang – were rounded up in October of 1998 and charged jointly by direct indictment under 1997 federal gang legislation designed to cripple organized crime.

For months, the accused have been transported from downtown jail to the specially built court-house, where armour-clad guards stand vigil over video cameras and the accused sit chained to the floor in plastic cages. The facility was constructed inside an old feed warehouse in an industrial neighbourhood of south Winnipeg. The actual trial – which could ultimately cost as much as $20-million to prosecute – is still waiting to proceed. Most of the accused have languished in detention, having been denied bail on charges their lawyers say would have netted most offenders a maximum six to nine months in custody.

Thirteen of the original 35 continue to await trial. Their case, if it doesn’t end in a negotiated settlement this week, could continue for at least another year. After spending about $7-million to date, the Crown has so far secured 20 convictions and has offered two stays in exchange for testimony.

Those who pleaded guilty were jailed for periods of six months to six years, although not all were convicted under the gang law. Most of the remaining accused would have been out of jail by now if they had just pleaded guilty, their lawyers say.

Phil Fontaine, former National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, complains that the landmark case is discriminatory because the accused face reverse onus to qualify for bail, and since the majority of them are impoverished they cannot post a surety. He has suggested that he will make a human-rights argument to Amnesty International and the United Nations.

“They [the province] have constructed this super courthouse, there’s super security, the accused are shackled to the floor and in my view, it’s all completely unnecessary,” Mr. Fontaine said. “Where has this been done to anyone before? We have to take this beyond Manitoba.”

He plans to enlist the aid of civil rights heavyweights Rubin (Hurricane Carter) and Rev. Jesse Jackson to draw attention to the case.

Winnipeg lawyer David Phillips, whose office is defending five of the accused, said the Crown and defence are engaged in delicate negotiations over questions of the court’s jurisdiction. Depending on those talks, the case is set to resume – with just eight accused – tomorrow.

There is a chance a deal of some sort may result in the matter being concluded this week. If not, jury selection won’t take place until autumn and jurors should be prepared to strap themselves into their seats for nine to 18 months – taking the case through to 2001 or 2002.

“This case will never get to verdict,” Mr. Phillip said.

“The Crown can barely justify this, given the expense. The allegations are that the Manitoba Warriors were trafficking in cocaine at the street level in various hotels in Winnipeg, at the one-quarter-gram or $20 level. It’s not alleged they were importing or trafficking in kilos.”

At one time, there were a dozen prosecutors and more than 30 defence lawyers appearing before the trial judge, Madam Justice Ruth Krindle of the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench.

“There is a huge qualitative difference between a street gang and an organized-crime syndicate,” Mr. Phillips contended. “The alleged president of the gang was driving a 1982 Chevy Malibu, for heaven’s sake. Of the 35 arrested, no one had more than $100 on them. There is no application to seize the proceeds of crime. Some of these guys are charged with welfare fraud. If you weren’t a Manitoba Warrior you’d looking at six to nine months on these charges.”

Under the 1997 law, an offender is sentenced both for the crime and for participating in organized-crime activity. The sentences are served consecutively. The law applies to “any or all of the members of which engage in or have, within the preceding five years, engaged in the commission of a series of such offences.”

An accused found guilty of participating in a criminal organization could receive a maximum of 14 years in prison. Participation in a criminal organization would involve the commission of or conspiracy to commit any offence “for the benefit of, at the direction of or in association with a criminal organization, for which the maximum punishment is imprisonment for five years or more.”

Some of those who have pleaded guilty have received sentences of as little as six months. Others have been jailed for as long as six years (most were sentenced to between 18 months and four years).

“One guy was in four days [after pleading guilty and languishing 19 months in remand],” Mr. Phillips said. “A lot of people who pleaded guilty earlier and got sentences of four to six years are out now. The denial of bail creates an unequal bargaining position. Three of those denied bail had no criminal record whatsoever, and they were denied bail on the basis of a couple of street-level sales. When you charge a bunch of guys with Grade 8 education and who are living on welfare under this legislation, it’s very unfair.”

Spokesmen for the prosecution refused to be interviewed last week noting that the trial judge has warned the lawyers to curtail public comments about the case. And lawyers for the accused, including those for William Pangman, the 24-year-old alleged president of the Manitoba Warriors, said their clients could not be interviewed, given the “delicate” state of the present negotiations.

Earlier this month, Judge Krindle dismissed a defence motion that alleged that police conducted illegal searches and unlawfully questioned the accused during their lengthy undercover investigation.

But the judge has also ruled that a jury could not reasonably handle a trial of 13, and forced the Crown to break the group into two smaller trials.

“This whole prosecution happened for political reasons,” Mr. Phillips suggested. “There was an election coming and the previous government wanted to appear tough on gangs, gangs were perceived to be a problem in the city, and so the decision was made to prosecute.”

While the number of those being prosecuted has dwindle, and while the 35 were off the street, Winnipeg gangs continued to flourish. The New Democratic Party, when it was in Opposition, said 1,800 people in Winnipeg and another 500 in other parts of Manitoba belong to gangs. Last summer, police estimated that Winnipeg street gangs had 1,375 members.

Bee In The Bonnet – Sorry I’m Late … I’m On Indian Time

Are you always late for appointments? Have you ever been on time to pick someone up? And are you always the last one to show up for your procrastination Anonymous meetings? … Do what I do, I tell ’em I’m running on “Indian Time”!

So why do native people have this trait? I blame it on our lazy laid back ancestors. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree! They didn’t have to cope with a five o’clock dead line. As long as it was done by sometime in the fall, that was okay with Chief Runs With Deer. They didn’t have some big boss with bad breath hollering at them … “Do this, do that!” No, not our ancestors! Their Chiefs didn’t rant and rave or put on the pressure. If they didn’t, there’d soon be a newer easier going Chief. Today we clip coupons, search ads for bargains all this and more just to make a living. But not Runs with Deer and his merry gang. They turned survival into what we today call hobbies and sport. They didn’t scramble around for groceries… they lazily “gardened” in the sun picking berries and such. They didn’t cheat. lie and steal to track down the best deal. They had themselves a “Hunting Party!”

Can you imagine living like that? It’s no wonder they were so laid back. To them “time,” was the passing seasons. You wouldn’t catch ol’ Runs with Deer checking out the sun on the horizon and exclaiming “Holy beaver pelt, it’s almost quarter to winter!” No, not these lazy laid back easy going people. Why should they stress themselves over a changing season. Before the movie Gone with the Wind made it a famous line, “For tomorrow is another day,” it was a native’s motto.

Some of you may be mad at me for calling our ancestors “lazy,” but I don’t mean it in a bad way. They lived life like it was one long, long Sunday morning. You know how good that feels … “lazy.” And who wouldn’t want to live like that. “No more rat race, no more Mondays!” Just peaceful Sunday’s forever and ever. A clock, what’s that? So it’s no wonder that natives of today are sometimes late (according to the invention of the clock). There in part is why we do the “9-5.” It would be bliss to live like our ancestors… a full tummy, a warm Wig Wom at night with Little Beaver. But have you checked out the prices of Wig Wom’s lately? Food? And now, Little Beaver wants a new car! It’s never ending … Bills!Bills!Bills! … Bills for everything from apples to zippers. I’m sure Runs with Deer would laugh his tail feathers off, at the idea of one of his descendants paying a “light” bill. He would probably say, something like … “You’em want’em light’em? Wake’em up’em early’em and’em go’em to ’em bed’em late’em!” Ha’em, Ha’em, Ha’em. Two hundred years ago, he never would’ve dreamt of the invention of the light bulb. Hell when I was growing up, I never would’ve thought that one day they’d be selling “water!” You have to ask yourself where does it end … canned air? It’s all about inventions the clock, the light bulb everything right down to the flush of the toilet … ahh! Yes great, great, great, great Granddad, we have to pay to do what the bear does in the woods for free! We should live more like Mr. Deer, but the idea of sharing a washroom with a bear doesn’t appeal to this little brown bottomed boy. Like it or not we live in a fast paced society. We all depend on someone else to do their job, so we can flush that can. We’re all part of one big tribe, everyone doing their part.

I just wish we didn’t have to be slaves to the tick, tick, tick of the clock. With our (native) ancestry we should be allowed a grace period, a half hours time should do it. If the rest of the world understood us and accepted our “Late Trait,” we would never be late again. People (non native) could look at their watches and say … “wasn’t he supposed to be here at four o’clock? Oh, he’s native … four thirty!” All a native would have to do is show his or her Status card and just like that they would be forgiven for their tardiness. Wouldn’t that be great? Even if the world came to an end at midnight eastern standard time, three o’clock on the coast … three thirty “Indian time!”

Bee In The Bonnet – Smart Pills

Give me a 1,2,3,A,B,C! Let’s hear it for “Education” Rah! Rah! Rah! If I may, I’d like to quote a brilliant insight by B.H. Bates – “Hopefully this is the generation that finally gets it … Never bring bows and arrows to Smart Pillsa gun fight!” Referring to the important roll education plays in the native struggle. After all, if the native that sold Manhattan had had a realtor’s license … Well!

We’ve all heard of people who’ve made it “Big,” without the benefit of an education. If you take these people, pull down their pants and bend them over, you should see a horse shoe protruding! Because “luck” probably had a lot to do with their success. Have you ever heard of Mr. Many Feathers? Chances are you haven’t. How about Geronimo? Of course, everybody has heard of Geronimo. I’ve used use these names to make a point, “that for every Geronimo there’s a lot of feathers that don’t make it!”

I’d like to get serious for a paragraph or so, of you don’t mind. I have to be an “Honest Injun,” I only have a grade eight education myself. Actually I think I dropped out long before then. I couldn’t read, let alone write (some still think so). I tried to read, I wanted to read, but I just didn’t get it. And when I didn’t get it, it made me feel stupid. Feeling stupid lead to frustration, frustration lead to acting up. When the teachers put a stop to that, I learned how to get around reading. I’d fake it, I’d cheat, anything to hide the truth. At the time, even I didn’t know the truth. To me reading was like a trick, a trick everyone got, except me.

For years and years I was a prisoner. An impostor, dreading the day when I’d be discovered. Everyone at some point in their life has read a Birthday card, aloud, right? … Not me! I kept trying though, I’d always pick up a newspaper, to read on transit to work. I’d sometimes have to read a paragraph three or four times before I’d get the jest. Then one day my sunglasses broke, so I picked up a cheap pair of amber colored shades. I sat down and read my horoscope … “HOLY S___!” I exclaimed to myself, when I realized how fast I had read it! And more importantly I understood it! I finally “Got it!” I almost screamed out loud “I CAN READ!” … It felt like an orgasm and thanks to these cheap sunglasses, I “read” my brains out.

I didn’t know how or why they helped my read, until I watched a documentary on T.V., it dealt with the reading disorder Dyslexia (Dyslexia – “Flips” letters and sometimes whole words are seen backwards). It went on to explain that in some cases, simply reading through certain colored lens, tricks the dyslexic mind into seeing the letters in their proper positions. Until I put on those sunglasses, I had to concentrate on every letter of every word, memorize that word then move on to the next. (Indulge me if you will in a mini experiment. Read the following “sentences.” But as you do, concentrate on each letter for one full second, memorize that word, do this until you can recite all three sentences). “Pretty tough way to read, wouldn’t you say? Can you imagine living most of your life like that? That’s why I take education very seriously!”

Who knows what could have been … I could’ve been a contender, I could’ve been a somebody! (For the uneducated, I’m back to acting up). Speaking of “Acting up,” my sincerest apologies, to all my past teachers. As I reflect back on all the crap that I put them through and all they wanted to do was help me. Talk about biting the hand that feeds. If I were “Chief of the World” … Teachers would be paid like professional athletes and vice versa. Athletes are always saying how they’d do it for the love of the game anyways. Teachers would be more famous than any wrestler … Hell, what am I talking about … If I were heap big Chief, I’d condemn TV wrestling to the Isle of Idiots, along with the criminally insane and give them nothing but bread, water and pointy sticks. “Yeah!… It’s good to be the Chief!”

An Elder once told me, “You can use your back or you can use your head!” He also told me about the old Indian and the “Smart Pill” … Many, many moons ago a European from a big city, came to hunt the mighty beasts of the new country. He hired the wisest native tracker in the village to help him on his quest. But the city man was loud and clumsy. He crashed through the forest and scared away all the animals. Then he cursed the old Indian when he didn’t get to shoot anything. On the way back to camp the city slicker said, … “All day I’ve noticed these little piles of brown pellets on the ground … ‘vas is it, Mr. Indian man?” The old Indian smiled and said … “They’re a gift from nature, they’re smart pills!” The fool quickly popped a “pill” in his mouth and just as quickly he spit it out … He hollered at the old Indian, “You let me eat deer shit, just because I was mean to you!” The old Indian replied, “They worked didn’t they, see how smart you are!”

Bee In The Bonnet – Splapp

The legend of Splapp is an old Indian story, that is told to native children on the night of the spirits. Better known today as Halloween!

SplappThe first thing I want to know is that our ancestors didn’t tell their children scary stories. They only told them the truth… and the truth is good children with good spirits don’t have to worry about the dark. Good children can walk into a dark room without any fear. Because the spirit they call Splapp lives in the darkness, and he doesn’t care about good kids. They can come and go as they please, he wants nothing to do with them. He only wants one kind of kid. He wants a bad kid, a mean spirited kid, a child that shows no respect to elders. That’s the kind of kid Splapp wants! He wants to grab them and trade spirits with them, so his spirit can be a little child again. And the spirit of the bad kid has to go and live in the darkness forever and ever and a day …

Splapp is not a monster or a beast with claws. Splapp is the angry spirit of an old Indian. Splapp is a native word that literally means “Dirty Bum!”… You must understand that native language doesn’t have swear words. Back in the olden days the worst insult you could tell another native, was to say that they were “Unclean!” You see back in the days of bows and arrows, it was not a good thing for a hunter to have a strong body odor, that the animals could smell. That’s why the North American Native looked for campsites close to clean water. They discovered the healthy hot springs, and they even built sweat lodges. One elder even told me how she would perfume her body with the juice from the Juniper berry before she went to hunt for a husband. So never let anyone ever tell you that your ancestors were dirty savages.

As the legend goes one dark Halloween night many moons ago, a bad child threw a rock at an elders home. “BANG!” … The loud sound scared the poor old Indian to death ,,, But just as he was about to change from his human form into his spirit form, he heard the bad child call him a “SPLAPP.” This name angered him and his spirit. So when he got to the Happy Hunting Grounds, the Creator stopped him and told him angry spirits weren’t welcome there. He told him he could only live in the dark shadows of old abandon houses. So that’s why that every reservation since then, has at least one old abandon house. A house the good children don’t go into. Splapp’s house!

An elder told me about one bad little boy who went into Splapp’s house. And Splapp grabbed him! …. But people say that’s not true at all. They say that the truth is Little Billy went into that abandon house, on a dare. He tripped and fell, the sound woke up some animal, it jumped out of the shadows and it bushed against Billy as it ran away.

But Billy thought it was Splapp trying to get him. And that scared him silly. He was so scared he made peanut butter in his pants. That’s what people say really happened.

Billy said it really was Splapp. He said Splapp jumped out of the shadows and grabbed him. He said Splapp tried to steal his spirit. But Billy said he put a thumb in each ear and finger in each nose hole. He then closed his eyes real tight. Then he prayed really loud to the Great Spirit. He promised to be a good little boy forever and ever and a day … Then just like magic Splapp was gone.

Little Billy grew up to be a good man. Bill grew old and became the elder called William. And it was William that told me … Splapp would have stolen his spirit that night, if it wasn’t for the promise he made to the Great Spirit.

It was the Great Spirit that saved his splapp!

Bee In The Bonnet – Elders Know Which Way The Wind Blows

By B.H. Bates

“Aging!”… It’s as sure as the wind blows and the water flows. Every single moment of your life, every “tic” of the clock. Even as you read this, you got older and older. I don’t know about you, but I find that very depressing. Sooo, seeing how I’m a humourist and a native … let’s take a look at the lighter side of being a “Native Elder.”

EldersWhen they first coined the phrase “Been there, done that!” there had already been an old native there … Honest! I’m not kidding … they found arrowheads and everything. So just what makes an Elder, an Elder? Well let me think, all the elders I’ve known, have all “Known better!” This fact, was usually accompanied by a finger being shaken in my face. Another thing I’ve noticed is that all their stories begin the same way … “Remember when!” Again, accompanied by the shaking of the finger. Hmm, what else sets an Elder apart? Apart from the usual signs, such as snow on the roof, a flock of crows feet and of course the inevitable shrinkage. Yep, some Elders I know have shrank by as much as fifty percent. Even the “finger” gets smaller and bonier, with each passing moon!

So what have we got so far … a person that can remember back to the days when they didn’t know any better … a person with white hair and a face that looks like an aerial view of a cowpie … Oh, yeah, all this while they shake the “Bony Finger” at the world! Does that sound like anyone you know?

Now, before you go and get a “Bee in your Bonnet” … at me for poking a little fun at the Elders. I would like you to know, I’ve got nothing but total undying respect for those who’ve earned the title “Elder!” That said, let’s get back to roasting the old farts! “Wisdom, Wise, Wily, Foxy, Clever, All knowing!” These are only a few words attributed to the “youthfully challenged.” So, if you’re (ELDER) is so smart, why may I ask were your good old days so tough? I’m sure we’ve all had an older person say … “I remember when I was your age, I didn’t have this or that and I had to do it in four foot snow drift, during one of the hottest summers in history. Bla, Bla, Bla.” Then in the next breath, they look skyward, smile knowingly and say … “Tickety boo, Cats pajamas, those were the days wipper snapper!” (or something like that, they talked funny back in the olden days). So tell us O’wise ones, inform the mass’, let all be known. Pray tell us the answer to the age old question … “What the hell is a cat doing with pajamas anyways?”

I would like to end with a wise old Injun proverb and a poem. First about the poem, it’s about a young man who had access to wisdom. But sadly he didn’t realize his good fortune, until he had already spent his youth.

OLD INJUN PROVERB:
“IF YOU SEEK THE TRUTH .. LISTEN TO OLD FARTS. THEY’LL HONESTLY LET YOU KNOW WHICH WAY THE WIND BLOWS!”

Edith Josie: Here Are The News

One hundred twenty miles south of the Arctic Ocean and eighty miles north of the Arctic Circle, the Yukon village of Old Crow straggles along a bluff above the Porcupine River. The 200-plus people who live there are mainly Loucheaux Indians of the Vuntut Gwich’in tribe – the “People of the Lakes.” For the past 38 years, the story of their doings has been told by Edith Josie in a regular column in the Whitehorse Star.

Miss Josie’s unique style (English words, but Loucheaux tensing and phrasing) has won her fans and fame around the world. She is this year’s recipient of a National Aboriginal Achievement Award in the Heritage and Spirituality category. In Vancouver last month to accept her prize, she displayed her trademark spunk and spirit when she joined the after-Awards dancing. Just a’stompin’ and a’jumpin’ and a’jiggin’.

HERE ARE THE NEWS OLD CROW.

ALBERT ABEL WENT UP RIVER SET TRAP AROUND DRIFT WOOD. HE CAME BACK. HE CAUGHT 9 MARTINS, 1 WEASEL. GEE, HE’S LUCKY MAN.

Old Crow is a village in transition these days but access is still only possible by air and, in summer, a riverboat named Brainstorm. At times, some of the men will leave the village to work in a mining camp but the life of the Loucheaux people has been much the same as it was a century or more ago. They pick berries. They hunt caribou for food, trap muskrats and martens and wolves for pelts to sell; in winter they put nets under the ice of the Porcupine River to catch the fish which feed the dogs which pull the sleds which take them to hunting and trapping grounds.

In summer, Old Crow is the hottest place in the Yukon, often reaching temperatures in the mid-30s C and infested with black fly. In winter the temperature can drop to -50 C before windchill. The sun does not rise at all for three weeks in winter; it does not set for two months in summer.

Edith began writing for the Star in late 1962, when Reverend James Simon and his wife came to town. His wife Sarah has been asked by Harry Boyle, then editor of the Star, to look for someone who would handle the job of “Old Crow correspondent.” Sarah Simon asked Edith Josie, because “most of the ladies had someone to look after them. Edith Josie didn’t have a husband to look after her, so I gave Edith the job.”

The editors of the Star, after a startled double-take at the items scrawled diary-style on white stationary, decided that to edit Edith Josie at all would be to destroy her journalistic charm. The column runs whenever an airplane brings it into Whitehorse from the hinterlands. Its appearance is highly dependent upon the weather in the territory.

One of her first newsletters reported on the arrival of an Anglican Bishop and his wife to hold Easter services in Old Crow. Edith writes just as she talks.

AT 1:30 THE SERVICE WAS ON AND SURE GLAD TO HEAR EVERYTHING ABOUT JESUS, WHAT THEY DID TO HIM ON GOOD FRIDAY.

Shortly thereafter she reported on the state of things at the “ratting” (muskrat trapping) grounds at Crow Flats, in muskeg country 50 miles upriver (south) form Old Crow.

JOHN JOE KAY AND HIS FAMILY AND DICK NUKON AND FAMILY CAME INTO TOWN FROM THEIR RATTING CAMP. THEY REPORTED NO RATS AROUND THERE BUT THEY SAY TOO MANY MOSQUITO. TOO BAD NO PRIZE ON MOSQUITO.

Edith lives in a two-room uninsulated log cabin at the east end of the village. The cabin is starkly furnished with a table, a couple of chairs and three beds pushed up against the rough wooden walls. It is heated by a wood stove that also is used for cooking, “and in winter it gets as cold inside as it does outside most of the time.”

Edith never married but she has raised three children. For many years she shared her cabin with her two sons and daughter, her blind mother Mrs. Elizabeth Josie, her brother and his wife and their two children.

Like the other women in the village, Edith butchers and cooks the meat brought home by the men, dries spring meat for the summer, gathers berries, and tans skins for sewing. She carries up water from the river and gathers willow branches for kindling. She is a faithful member of the Anglican Church and is active in the Women’s Auxiliary which plays an important role in the community. She writes her “News” at a huge plywood table.

But times can be tough. Sometimes there was neither food nor money enough to make ends meet.

AT 8:30PM I HAD BABY BOY AND HE’S 6LB. MISS EDITH JOSIE HAD BABY BOY AND I GIVE IT TO MRS. ELLEN ABEL TO HAVE HIM FOR HIS LITTLE BOY. SHE WAS VERY GLAD TO HAVE HIM CAUSE HE’S BOY. I WAS IN NURSE STATION AND MISS YOUNGS SURE TREAT ME VERY NICE. MYSELF AND BABY I REALLY THANKS HER VERY MUCH FOR HER GOOD KINDNESS TO ME.

HELICOPTER BEEN TO OLD CROW AND WENT DOWN RIVER TO CAMP.

SINCE LAST WEEK ALL THE LEAVES ARE GETTING YELLOW. THAT MEAN AUTUMN IS COMING. WHEN THE LEAVES GROW GREEN SURE NICE BUT AT FALL TIME IT’S TURN TO YELLOW – MORE BEAUTIFUL.

Eighteen months later, Edith was solvent enough to reclaim her baby son Kevin, from Mrs. Abel.

Edith’s English evokes the stark stuff of life in the Far North, and in her hands the chronicle of Old Crow becomes a sort of elemental soap opera, people with crises and characters as real as those next door – and twice as exciting.

MORNING AROUND 11 A.M. PETER BENJAMIN THE FIRE CATCH HIM ACROSS THE RIVER. THOSE POLICE THEY TIE THEIR DOGS OTHER SIDE OF RIVER AND THEY ALWAYS COOK DOGS FEED. SO IT IS RAIN ALL NIGHT AND THE WOOD IS WET SO PETER BENJAMIN PUT GAS ON WOOD AND HE LIGHT THE FIRE AND FIRE CATCHES HIS CLOTHES AND HE RUN TO RIVER AND HE JUST GOT INTO WATER AND FIRE IS OUT.

WHEN FIRST THING FIRE CATCH HIM HE WAS HALLER AND SOMEONE HEARD HIS VOICE AND FEW MOTOR BOAT WENT TO HIM. SO AFTER AROUND NOON THE DOCTOR CAME FROM INUVIK AND THEY TOOK HIM TO HOSPITAL.

Sometimes the villagers fly out to larger centres for medical treatment or to visit relatives. Or just for the fun of the trip. What often results is a mild form of culture shock.

ANOTHER AIRCRAFT CAME FROM DAWSON CREEK AND MR. REV. JAMES AND MRS. SIMON RETURNED. AS SOON AS SHE GETS OUT OF PLANE, MRS. SIMON TOLD THOSE WOMEN SHE REALLY HUNGRY FOR DRY MEAT OR EITHER CARIBOU MEAT. MUST BE SHE GOT LOST AWAY FROM DRY MEAT.

FROM ARCTIC RED RIVER I WENT TO FORT MCPHERSON AND SEE ALL MY RELATION THEY WERE HAPPY TO SEE. AND THEY ALL GIVE ME STRENGTH AND HAPPY.

I GOT TO MCPHERSON ON FRIDAY AND WENT BACK TO INUVIK SUNDAY AFTERNOON. WHEN I WAS THERE I WENT TO VISIT MY AUNTIE SARAH SIMON SHE WAS HAPPY TO SEE ME AND ALSO MYSELF TOO.

EVERYBODY ARE WORK TOGETHER AND FRIENDLY I JUST WISH THAT OLD CROW IS LIKE THAT.

MISS JOSIE REALLY HAD A NICE TRIP TO INUVIK. BEEN TO HOSPITAL, THE STORE AND ALSO GLAD TO MEET EVERYONE AT INUVIK. SURE NICE PEOPLE AT INUVIK AND EVERYONE ARE KIND.

MISS JOSIE SEE HAMSTER AT INUVIK. SURE LOOK BUG DIFFERENT, THAT SMALL MOUSE.

In the mid-60’s, Miss Josie travelled to Whitehorse to visit the newspaper.

AFTER THE DISHES ARE DONE AND STARTED OFF TOWARD WHITEHORSE STAR FOR THE CHECK. TO GET SOMETHING WHAT IS GOOD INTERESTED TO BUY. THEN MR. HAROLD TOOK US FOR RIDE TOWARD CARCROSS AND HALFWAY IS THE FARM AND THE CAR STOP FOR WHILE AND MRS. MARSH WANT ME TO TAKE PICTURE OF ME WITH THE COWS BUT I REALLY TO SCARE TO STAND BY THE COWS.

Punctuation, correct grammar and spelling be damned. Away with such frills and frippery. The story is the thing. The disarming honesty with which Miss Edith Josie writes about her friends and neighbours produces prose that is both poignant and amusing. Yet behind her tales of the tribulations and joys of daily life a second story is being told. Inadvertently, Edith reveals herself as a woman of warmth and compassion, she of the loving heart.

MR. PETER MOSES HAS BEEN DOING LOTS OF WORK WHEN HE ALIVE ON THIS EARTH. HE WAS HAPPY OLD MAN AND FRIENDLY WITH ANYBODY, EVEN WITH THE WHITE PEOPLE. SO I KNOW EVERYBODY WILL MISS HIM BUT HOPE HE WILL HAVE A GOOD REST. HE WAS VERY KIND TO THE KIDS MOST AND ALL THE KIDS LIKED HIM. WHEN HE SEES THE BOYS AND GIRLS, HE TALKS SILLY AND LAUGH. WHEN SOMEONE MAKE FEAST HE MAKE SPEECH EVERYONE LIKE BECAUSE HE MAKE EVERYONE LAUGH.

AND WHEN THE DANCE IS ON, HE ALWAYS MAKE JIG WITH HIS WIFE. HE ALWAYS MAKE DOUBLE JIG WITH THE GIRLS. HE WAS BORN ON THE AMERICAN SIDE (Alaska) AND THE YEAR HE WAS BORN IN 1882. I HEAR HE MARRIED IN 1901. HE CAME BACK FROM UPRIVER BECAUSE HE SPIT BLOOD BUT HE WAS VERY GOOD AND HE’S NOT SICK. SO NO ONE KNOW HE WAS GOING TO DIE. WHILE THAT HE PASS AWAY SURE EVERYBODY SURPRISE FOR HIM.

HOPE EVERYONE PRAYS FOR MRS. MOSES AND ROY MOSES. NOT TOO WORRIED TOO MUCH FOR OLD PETER MOSES. HE HAD A GOOD HOUSE AND HE HAD SIX DOGS AND THEY GIVE ONE OF HIS DOGS TO JOHN MOSES. SO HIS WIFE WILL HAVE FIVE OF HIS DOGS. HE HAD A GOOD THING AND ALSO HE HAD GOOD STOVE SO MRS. MYRA MOSES WILL HAVE EVERYTHING GOOD FOR A LITTLE WHILE. THEY WILL MAKE FEAST FOR HIM TOMORROW. EVERYONE GOING TO WORK HARD FOR HIM.

Edith Josie is as “down-to-earth” a person as one could wish for. Her feet are most definitely on the ground. In 1963 scientists from around the world mobbed Old Crow to observe an eclipse of the sun. Miss Josie put the event on its proper rung on the ladder of importance.

MR. REV. J. SIMON MAKING FEAST WITH ONE MOOSE. EVERYBODY HAD A NICE SUPPER. THEY BEEN COOKING FOR HIM AND LATER THAT THEY SET THE TABLE FOR WHITE PEOPLE AND THE INDIANS WERE EATING ON THE GROUND BY MISSION. SURE EVERYBODY ENJOY TO EAT OUT DOOR. WHILE THEY COOK FOR JAMES THE SUN IS ECLIPSE AROUND 11 A.M.

While Miss Josie and her people may share an enviable sense of community, a thing not found with frequency in larger urban environments – people are people are people. And Old Crow has not escaped the shadow side of the human psyche.

THIS LIQUOR IS OPEN AND EVERYONE ARE GLAD BUT WHEN TROUBLE AND FIGHT GOES ON IT DOESN’T LOOK VERY NICE. WHEN DRUNK MAN DON’T KNOW NOTHING AND GET MAD FOR LITTLE THING AND START FIGHT. AND AFTERWARDS THEIR COURT IS OPEN THEY SURE SCARE AND STAY OUT OF TOWN.

WE HAD A VERY SAD THING HAPPEN IN OUR VILLAGE ON THE EVENING OF 17TH THIS MONTH (October 1965) AT 8:30 P.M.

EVERYONE IN THE VILLAGE HEARD TWO GUN SHOT AND FEW MINUTES LATER ANOTHER TWO SHOT IS HEARD. THEN THE NEWS COME THROUGH THE VILLAGE THAT NORMAN MCDONALD IS SHOT.

HE LIVE ONLY 20 MINUTES AFTER HE IS SHOT. HIS BODY FLOWN OUT OCT. 20TH TO BE EXAMINE.

EVERYONE IN OLD CROW FELT VERY BAD AND SORRY FOR THE DEATH OF NORMAN MCDONALD. THE PEOPLE REALLY MUST NORMAN CAUSE HE IS NICE BOY AND REALLY FRIENDLY TO EVERYONE.

HE IS ALSO ENGAGE TO CHARLIE PETER DAUGHTER. HE EXPECT TO GET MARRIED AROUND CHRISTMAS. NOW HE IS GONE. HIS GIRL FRIEND AND HER PARENT REALLY FEEL SORRY FOR NORMAN. SO PLEASE I WISH EVERYONE PRAYER FOR THEM.

The Whitehorse Star of Monday, March 14, 1996: “Mr. Justice John Parker sentenced Ronald Linklater of Old Crow to ten years in the penitentiary, Friday morning.

The 19 year-old-youth was found guilty by a jury of the manslaughter of Norman McDonald.

Judge Parker said that the facts of the present case were fairly simple. “Ronald Linklater became very drunk. He was upset, cross and in a bad mood. Without thought, he turned and shot his friend and cousin twice, and killed them. It was as simple as that.”

EVERYBODY BUSY WORKING ALL DAY, MEN AND WOMEN BEFORE DEAD BODY OF NORMAN MCDONALD RETURN BACK TO OLD CROW. SO ALL MEN DIG GROUND AND WOMAN THEY COOK AT CHARLIE PETER’S HOUSE. EVERYBODY HAD A NICE SUPPER. ALL THE NATIVE AND WHITE PEOPLE EAT AND HAD A NICE MEAL. ALL THE PEOPLE COLLECT GRUB AND MEAT TO COOK. WHEN SOMEONE PASS AWAY AND EVERYONE DO THEIR BEST JUST TO MAKE ALL THE RELATIVES HAPPY AND ALSO SHOW THEIR KIND TO GOD AND DEAD PERSON. WE ALL PRAY FOR THOSE WHO WORK GOOD FOR US AND SHOW US HOW KIND THEY ARE TO THEIR NEIGHBOURS AND WE HOPE GOD WILL GIVE THEM GOOD STRENGTH AND KEEP THEM WELL. THIS IS WHAT GOD IS LOOKING TO PEOPLE ON EARTH.

Miss Josie’s people speak the Gwich’in language; many of them are not fluent in English. This can create both drawbacks and amusement for the villagers as they deal with the dominant culture.

NO CARIBOU IN OLD CROW BUT WHEN RIVER BREAK UP IF CARIBOU COME THEY SAID NOBODY SHOOT CARIBOU IN TOWN OR OUT OF TOWN. WELL HOW ABOUT IN CROW FLAT THEY SHOOT DUCKS, CARIBOU, MOOSE, AND HERE THEY GO AFTER PEOPLE IN TOWN. THE PEOPLE THEY HAVE GOOD CHANCE TO TALK FOR THEMSELF BUT THEY DON’T TALK ENGLISH VERY WELL AND HARD FOR THEM TO TALK WHEN POLICE TALK TO THEM.

DICK NUKON WENT UP TO MOUNTAIN TO HUNT. HE SHOT ONE CARIBOU AND HE SAID ONE CARIBOU GOT TWO HEAD. A BIG SURPRISE FOR THE PEOPLE. DICK NUKON HUNT ON MOUNTAIN AND HE SHOT ONE CARIBOU AND HE DON’T EVEN LOOK AT IT GOOD SO WHEN HE CAME INTO TOWN HE SAID HE SHOT ONE CARIBOU GOT TWO HEADS SO I PUT IT IN MY NEWS BECAUSE IT IS BIG IMPORTANT NEWS. SO MOUNTED POLICE GO UP TO SEE THE CARIBOU. HE SHOT ONE AND TWO CARIBOUS HORN STUCK TOGETHER. THESE IS WHAT HE MEAN. WHEN HE SAID THIS EVERYBODY SURE WANT TO SEE BUT HE SURE MAKE UP WORDS FOR NOTHING.

Born in 1921 in Eagle, Alaska, Miss Josie left school at age 14, having completed Grade 5. She was assisted in further learning and literacy by her older brother Suzi Paul. The family moved to Old Crow in 1940.

Her column was syndicated to papers in Toronto, Edmonton, Fairbanks and California. Many other papers clipped it without paying; she became known across the United States. In 1965 LIFE magazine did a four page feature on her, titled “Everyone Sure Glad.”

Such exposure brought her world-wide recognition; her work has been translated into German, Italian, Spanish and Finnish. And her fan mail just keeps rolling in, from places as diverse as New Zealand, Texas, Florida and the Philippines.

POOR MISS JOSIE NEVER REST AND WORK FOR HIS HOUSE INSIDE AND OUTDOOR WORK BOTH. AND WRITE THE NEWS AND ANSWER ALL THE LETTER SHE GET. SHE LIKE TO WRITE SO SHE DON’T MIND TO WRITE. SURE NICE TO HAVE FRIEND AND WRITE LETTER TO WHO WE NEVER SEE BEFORE.

NOT VERY LONG TO CHRISTMAS AND WE KNOW OLD SANTA IS READY TO TRAVEL LONG WAY WHILE THE WEATHER IS COLD. I HOPE SANTA DON’T GET FREEZE WHEN HE TRAVEL TO THE NORTH.

Her prowess with the written word has won Miss Josie much honour. She received the Canadian Centennial Award in 1967, the Yukon Historical Museums Award in 1994, and the Order of Canada in 1995. In 1957 she was appointed Justice of the Peace for Old Crow and served for seven years.

I WRITE MY BIG NEWS. THAT’S HOW ALL OF THE PEOPLE KNOW WHERE IS OLD CROW. BEFORE THE NEWS GO OUT NOBODY KNOW WHERE IS OLD CROW. JUST WHEN I SEND MY NEWS PEOPLE KNOW WHERE IS OLD CROW.

JUST WHEN I PASS AWAY, THAT’S THE TIME MY NEWS WILL CUT OFF.

Margo Kane: “I Have A Voice That Wants To Say Something”

Margo Kane, Metis born but raised by an adoptive working-class white father and three different step-mothers, was brought up with a white value system and way of looking at the world. She was the only native child among seven.
Despite being an honour student, her cultural schizophrenia led to a suicidal teenage depression. An abusive and overly strict step-mother traumatized her badly. By the time she finished high school, Margo was totally alienated from her family. She ran away from home.
By the time Margo was 20, she was living on skid row, on welfare; she was dependent on drugs and alcohol; she was the mother of an illegitimate child that she had to give up for adoption.
Yet this despairing young woman saved herself with an 11th-hour reserve of spirit and an obstinate talent for dance she had refused to let die. It was, she says, “the only thing I knew I could do.”
And do it she did, literally dancing herself away from the demons of drugs and drink into an internationally acclaimed career as a storyteller, singer, animator, choreographer, video and installation artist, director, producer , writer and dancer.
In Grade Seven before her father told her she was Indian, she had already figured it out. When Indian students were bused into her school from a residential school, she recalled: “We just stared at each other like cows in the field. Just looking wide-eyed, wondering who was going to make the first move.”
“I had borne the brunt of enough prejudice as a young girl to really empathize with other native students I met in high school,” Kane said. “But it wasn’t until graduation from high school that I really had an inferiority complex.”
“I fell apart. I was suicidal. There was a mechanism in me that wanted to destroy myself.”
Although Kane was never in government foster care, her early years were pocked with great gaps in parenting.
“When I was a baby,” she said, “I was adopted by my aunt and her husband, a white man. We lived in Edmonton. About a year later, my aunt was killed in a car accident and my step-father married a Metis woman. After a while, he got married again, to a non-native. She had children and she died. She was in my life for nine years. Then, my step-father married again, to another woman with children. So, although I didn’t grow up in foster care, it felt like it. It has taken a long time to overcome my low self-esteem. All my life I’ve feared that I wouldn’t make it, that I wasn’t worthy enough to realize my dreams. I was always in the trauma mode… my step-father was a laborer and a heavy machine operator. I know he loved me; he was a good man, he just didn’t know what to do.”
With the help of some astute psychological counseling, Kane got off the booze, got off the drugs, got off the skids. She enrolled in Edmonton’s Grant McEwan College for Performing Arts. Here she excelled in dance, acting and singing. She won scholarships to the Banff School of Fine Arts and Circle in the Square theatre school in New York City.
Yet her journey towards self-worth was an uphill struggle over a shale-slide of self-doubt. Often she felt inadequate with only her Grade 12 diploma. “It’s been a continuing frustration to me that I’ve never taken creative writing or English literature courses, because I’m always working with people who have and they automatically assume I have, too,” she said. Kane qualifies this remark: “All the education in the world doesn’t mean you’ll be able to speak from the heart and that you’re really going to be able to move people. Ultimately, to me, that’s most important.

SEEKING SPIRIT
Dance. The core that Kane’s life revives around is dance.
“I’ve had some very profound dancing experiences. When I asked myself what in my life was really worth living for, the only answer I came up with was this incredible feeling I experienced when I danced. I was bound and determined to be happy, live well and figure out what I needed to figure out. If there are problems, I need to deal with them. I’m tenacious, I just don’t give up.”
Taking charge of her life has given Margo Kane focus and led her on a spiritual path. “I realized there was something beyond my life that I needed to understand and touch again, and my spiritual path came at the forefront of who I was. When I trained as a dancer, an image came to mind of what it was that I was seeking, to be a whole person, physically well and intellectually developed. Emotionally, I needed to be well and spiritually I wanted to be connected to that incredible power.”
The woman who is the dancer has succeeded in making that connection. 48-year-old Margo Kane is, indeed, a strikingly handsome woman. Yet, in performance, she exudes a spiritual strength and beauty that far outshines the mundane allure of merely structural good looks.
At certain points in performance, she will erupt with an uncanny, eerie cry/moan/singing noise that is another-dimensioned touch point. The timbre and resonance of her voice vibrate within the listener. One can sense an almost tangible presence of spirit around her and coming through her.
And this sound brings to mind the Irish Banshee, the female faerie whose wail is a harbringer of a death in the house. Or, as in the poem Kubla Khan by Coleridge, of a sudden the stage becomes:
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

ACTING AND TEACHING

Kane first came to national attention with George Ryga’s play, The Ecstasy of Rita Joe, in which she performed at the Citadel Theatre in her native Edmonton in the late 70s and later, in 1982, on a national tour with Prairie Theatre Exchange. She has also appeared in films and on television. For much of the 1980s she was involved with community work with the National Native Role Model Program – going to prisons, recovery centres and group homes.
She has toured with a national youth caravan, bringing theatre to small native communities across the country. When she mentions the children in some of the northern Ontario reserves, her eyes fill with tears. “I hated to leave them there. But you hoped, somehow, you know that when they reached 18, maybe they’d think, they might remember our theatre caravan and remember Margo and the others and maybe see some way out, instead of becoming suicides.”
Kane (Cree-Saulteaux) was the first Native artistic director of Spirit Song Native Theatre School in the 1980s.
“After a while, I realized I was teaching performance, and I realized I wasn’t really practicing it as much as I’d like. This was what I was trained for, but I wasn’t doing it. I realized there weren’t a whole lot of roles for me out there – particularly since I was too old to be an ingenue and too young to be an interesting old lady,” she said.
“So I decided to create my own parts, and I used the experience I’ve had as a cultural worker in my performances. There were things I needed to share. I had to speak out and speak up. I found, as I went through a lot of the healing I had to go through in my own life, that I have a voice that wants to say something, and I have to honour that voice.”
Much of Kane’s work is autobiographical, and always about reconnecting herself to her native past.
Since 1992, Kane has been artistic director of her own company, Full Circle: First Nations Performance, which is an attempt to embody First Nations traditions in a way of working together, creatively and artistically. She strives to be a successful interdisciplinary artist. It has taken her years of research and training, and it reflects her desire to be a whole person and to express that to the world.
“I am integrating everything I know about becoming more available as a human being, freeing yourself up to create. Its thrilling to work with people who don’t believe themselves to be creative.”
The ensemble members are dancers, singers, actors, clowns, writers and musicians. Kane employs a collaborative approach through workshops and studio performances that become research and training projects for all involved. Integral to Full Circle’s mandate is networking and collaborating with performing artists and arts organizations within Canada and internationally.
Margo Kane would like to see more collaboration between native and non-native groups. “People are not aware of Canada’s complex history. I want to honour that history. We have many cultural streams running through our blood, we owe it to ourselves to tell stories. As artists, we have the opportunity to create inspiring works that celebrate diversity. Collaborations have always happened when people come together. It’s time to celebrate that.”

Matthew Coon Come

Matthew Coon Come was elected the new national chief of the Assembly of First Nations yesterday, heralding a new age of confrontational politics between Canada’s natives and the federal government.

Mr. Coon Come, 44 ran a campaign attacking incumbent Phil Fontaine for his comfortable relationship with the governing Liberals, saying he had become too cozy with Ottawa. It was a charge that resonated with chiefs, who gave Mr. Coon Come 50 per cent of the vote on the first ballot and 58 per cent on the second, forcing Mr. Fontaine to concede the race.

The changes should come soon. After a period of relative calm in the relationship between Ottawa and the AFN, Mr. Coon Come won by promising to force native issues onto the government’s agenda.

He has said the federal government’s apology over the treatment of natives at residential schools didn’t go far enough, and that he will push for a system of investigation of abuses that would be along the lines of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He would like a national revenue sharing agreement – such as the one he signed as Grand Chief of the Northern Quebec Cree – for all natural resources projects on native lands.

He has promised to embarrass the federal government before the United Nations if it fails to deal with the brutal social and economic conditions on reserves.

Yesterday, clad in a buckskin-trimmed jacket over a golf shirt emblazoned with his campaign logo, he promised in his acceptance speech to take Ottawa to task immediately over the treaty rights.

“We are denied our proper voice in our own land,” he said.

“I want Canada to respect the rule of law. I want Canada to respect its own laws. I want Canada to respect the treaties it has signed with us, for they are also the rule of law.”

However, Mr. Coon Come rejected suggestions that he would turn the AFN into a radical group.

“I think I know when to fight, and I think I know when to negotiate, and I think I know when to sign agreements. We need some good cops and bad cops. I’m willing to be a bad cop sometimes.”

Observers say the AFN will be a very different political organization with Mr. Coon Come as national chief than it was under Mr. Fontaine.

“It will be more like the Ovide Mercredi days. More blockade-type scenarios. It’ll be a different dynamic,” said Bernd Christmas, an observer from Cape Breton’s Membertou band. “It’ll be an in-your-face attitude with government.”

During his term as AFN leader Mr. Fontaine obtained a long-awaited apology from the federal government for the treatment of natives at residential schools as well as a $350-million healing fund.

Mr. Coon Come’s victory was effectively sealed about 15 hours before the vote results were announced, at about 2:30a.m. yesterday.

Mr. Mecredi, a former national chief and a long-time rival of Mr. Fontaine, delivered a impassioned speech to a roomful of chiefs gathered at the Delta Hotel in downtown Ottawa. He told them it was Mr. Coon Come’s destiny to succeed Mr. Fontaine as national chief, and that it was important to the future of Canada’s native bands that he be allowed to fulfill that destiny.

When Mr. Mecredi finished speaking, a procession of previously undeclared chiefs entered the room from the back. One by one, they publicly avowed their support for Mr. Coon Come.

“It was a powerful moment,” said Armand McKenzie, a member of the Innu of Northern Quebec. “The chiefs were moved.”

Instead of the narrow win for Mr. Fontaine most observers had expected, the shift in support allowed Mr. Coon Come to become the first Eastern chief elected to the top post at Canada’s largest native organization.

A member of the Mistissini Cree Nation in Northern Quebec , the combative Mr. Coon Come rose to national prominence during the 1990s by fighting the multibillion-dollar Great Whale hydroelectric project to a standstill. He eventually secured a revenue-sharing deal with the province for all future natural resources projects on Cree land.

He has also long been a thorn in the side of Premier Lucien Bouchard, holding a Cree referendum in which 98 per cent voted to stay in Canada if Quebec separated. He later intervened in the federal government’s Supreme Court of Canada reference on the separation issue, ensuring natives would have a say in any post-referendum negotiations.

In a debate Tuesday night, he promised to be a more outspoken advocate than Mr. Fontaine has been.

“There is an impression that is given that all is well,” he said. “Well, not all is well … Since when did we agree to be silent?”

He also promised to make an international issue of Canada’s treatment of natives, and to take court fights to the UN if the Supreme Court of Canada ruled unfavourably.

Mr. Fontaine had said the election was about “maintaining the momentum or starting over.” After the second ballot results showed his defeat to be inevitable, he huddled with his advisers. He could be overheard asking whether he should force a third ballot – 60 per cent is the required threshold for victory – then deciding against it.

“We gave the chiefs of Canada a very clear choice. They made their decision. We have to accept that decision,” he told the circle around him before crossing the convention room floor with his supporters and embracing Mr. Coon Come.

Lawrence Martin, an Ontario chief and Juno-award winning musician, finished third on the first ballot and was eliminated, while Marilyn Buffalo, a past president of the Native Women’s Association of Canada, finished fourth with only 13 votes.

After the first ballot, she complained that Mr. Fontaine and Mr. Coon Come had polarized the campaign and ignored the issues. However, she later threw her support behind Mr. Coon Come.

“He’s not going to be afraid to speak out,” she said.

Mr. Martin remained neutral after the first ballot.

A WORKING GIRL’S NIGHTMARE The Murdered and Missing Women of Skid Row

Sean Devlin

The driver of the giant compactor disposal truck was tired and yawning. It was 7:30 a.m. and his shift was nearly over. In a downtown eastside Vancouver alley he slid the forks of his behemoth into a dumpster filled with construction waste and raised it high. Something fell off the container, landing with a thud beside the truck. The driver yawned again, hugely, and jumped down from his cab. He was expecting to scoop up a chunk of drywall or two-by-four. What he did find was a small duffel bag, stuffed and crammed with the body of a young native woman, chin crushed into her knees, wrapped in a cotton comforter, her hair pulled up in a ponytail.

Lisa Marie Graveline’s short life had been as tragic as her death.

The 20-year-old woman’s body was found on May 1. Police confirmed her identity and said she had been a prostitute and a drug user and a drug dealer, roughly in that order. Also known as Lisa Marie Bear, she had been addicted to heroin and crack cocaine. When found, her body was intact, fully clothed, with no signs of sexual assault.

Lisa Marie’s childhood was troubled. One month before her 13th birthday, she was arrested for theft under $5,000. Before she was 14, she was arrested twice more, for theft and possession of a weapon. At the age of 16, she was put on probation after being convicted of robbery and assault. In November 1998, Graveline was first charged as an adult, for trafficking in cocaine. She was a known prostitute, according to police, but had lately been involved exclusively in the drug trade.

The founder of one drug rehabilitation facility Lisa Marie had resorted to said: “You could see a little girl inside her who was desperately crying out for help. But the window of opportunity is so small. They do want the help. Yet the minute they see the drug they run right back to it.”

Lisa Marie’s family had come to Vancouver about eight years ago from a Manitoba reserve. Their lives on the streets of the most impoverished postal code in Canada were not happy. In the fall of 1998, Lisa Marie’s two brothers and her mother overdosed in separate locations in the city. They all wound up in St. Paul’s hospital at the same time. Her brother Oswald died.

Then in June 1999, her mother was found dead of an overdose behind a strip joint, the No. 5 Orange at Powell and Main. Her father had died four years previously from addiction related problems.

“They all loved each other, you could see that,” said Jean-Claude, a close friend of the family. “But it was just so sad to see them on the street.”

A worker in an east-end social agency, who didn’t want to be named, said Lisa Marie’s story is familiar.

“This happens to a lot of native families down here,” he said. “You get whole families who are in an addictive cycle.”

On the wall of a drop-in centre for drug-dependent women in the downtown eaastside, a poem in blue marker on a large sheet of white drawing paper says good-bye to Lisa Marie:

MY FRIEND, THE TIMES YOU SET MY TEMPER AFIRE

ARE LESS THAN THE SHINE OF YOUR GENEROUS SMILE!

YOU WERE TOO GOOD TO GO OUT GANGLAND STYLE!

The death of Lisa Marie Graveline had one unexpected consequence. Police rapidly caught up with her alleged killer. On June 15 Thong Thanh Huynh, 34, was arrested in a car in the 2800 block east Hastings Street on an outstanding Immigration warrant concerning deportation proceedings. On June 19, Thong was charged with Second Degree murder. The alleged killer is a resident of Vancouver, well-known to police and loosely associated with the drug trade. He came to Canada in 1980 from Vietnam; he holds Landed Immigrant status. He has been in Vancouver for three years and is unemployed.

Graveline is believed to have been stabbed to death at a drug house. Her body was then put in the duffel bag and placed in the dumpster.

UNSOLVED MURDERS

The thing that makes Graveline’s murder unusual is that the police arrested a suspect very quickly.. This in contrast to the 40plus known murders of Vancouver area prostitutes, whose bodies have been found in the past 15 years. Most of these murders are still unsolved.

The statistics of violence against the working women of the Downtown Eastside are horrendous. No one knows more about this than John Lowman, professor of criminology at Simon Fraser University ; he is Canada’s leading expert on prostitution. His research shows that prostitutes are 60 to 120 times more likely to be murdered than other Canadian women. a fierce critic of current policy toward prostitution, Lowman accuses the Vancouver police and fearful civic politicians of complicity, through inaction, in the murders and, more frightening, the unexplained disappearances of 31 skid-row area women – all prostitutes, all drug addicts, all almost certainly murdered, most in the past five years.

Most of the missing women are native people.

Professor John : “The police and the politicians actively created the problem they are now trying to fix. The rhetoric of the ’80s and early’90s was: ‘We’ll get rid of the prostitutes.’ The idea of eliminating prostitution in Vancouver has translated tragically into REALLY getting rid of prostitutes. We chase them from one area to another. They find themselves in dark streets in defenceless situations. They get into strangers’ cars. There are no eyes there. But there ARE men who get off on violence. They see the women’s vulnerability.”

Lowman suspects, based on the number of deaths and recent disappearances, that there are three or four serial killers who have been operating in Vancouver over the past 15 years. And lately, they have become very good at hiding the bodies.

A SISTERHOOD IN FEAR

For the devastated women of the Downtown Eastside, desperate and driven by the demon of drug abuse, there is a have they can go to – the Womens’ Information and Safe House (WISH). They come by Skytrain from as far away as New Westminster and Surrey, seeking a temporary refuge. At WISH they can share a meal and gossip; exchange information and warn one another about the “bad dates” they have had.

Program Director Karen Duddy: “Our women are very worried about their missing sisters. There is a great sense of fear out there.”

Seventy per cent of the women in the Downtown Eastside are native. More than 60 per cent of the participants at WISH are First Nations people. The sense of menace and the fear that stalks these women has encouraged them to seek both solace and help in sisterhood. The number of them participating in WISH has doubled in the past year; there are now between 70 and 90 women in attendance each evening.

Karen Duddy: “Both Lisa Marie Graveline and her mother were participants in our program. Both of them were victims of drug abuse and were emotionally disturbed as a result.

“The majority of our women suffer fro Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, especially native women. They are women who come from situations of extreme incestual and sexual abuse. The tragedy of the residential schools also plays a role in the situation of these women. They are multi-barriered, really in a difficult spot.”

Duddy explained that native women become “urbanized” after they have spent time in the city. Their rural reserves no longer want to have anything to do with them. Roughly 80 per cent of them suffer from Hepatitis C; roughly 35 per cent are HIV positive and a great proportion of that number suffer from AIDS.

“These women speak openly about feeling like the ‘throwaways’ of society,” said Duddy. “Nobody gives a damn about them. They genuinely feel terror around the issue of the missing women. But they are caught up in the extreme addiction problem.”

While the estimated 500 “hookers” in the skid-row area may have boyfriends with whom they share money and/or drugs, they are not Pimped” in the traditional sense. John Lowman: “once the price of a habit-forming, mind-altering substance is driven up by criminal prohibition, a drug like heroin or cocaine can be as demanding a pimp as any man.”

Because of their addiction, women on the Downtown Eastside are generally not as discriminating about clients as their higher-priced, non-addicted counterparts. This makes them even more vulnerable to the continuum of misogynist violence inherent in our culture.

As one 31 year veteran of the Vancouver Police put it, the maliciousness and viciousness of some of the sexual assaults and murders is “beyond belief.” He described the behaviour of many of the men who assault prostitutes as “very physical…very intimate…and designed to hurt.”

POLICE INACTION

John Lowman believes that police have waited far too long to react to the ever-growing number of vanished women, dismissing the appeals of friends and families of the prostitutes by saying, in effect: “They’re drug addicts. They’re transients. They’ll come back.” Yet 40some deaths, 31 missing women – the pattern surely cannot be random. The situation can be compared to the famous unsolved case of 49 Seattle-area prostitutes who went missing or whose bodies were found along Washington State’s Green River in the early ’80s. No other Canadian city has a similar pattern of disappearances. Yet it is known that ten American cities are facing the same diabolical problem.

Police Media Liaison officer Anne Drennan defends her force against accusations that they were slow to react and often insensitive to complaints. She points out that if 31 university coeds were to go missing, their friends and relatives would report it immediately and the details of their recent whereabouts would be known. With street prostitutes…Drennan lets her hands fall open, upward and empty.

In many cases, police often only have access to the body dump site, not the murder scene, which one homicide detective said yields an estimated 75 per cent of useful evidence. Police also cited the anonymity of the suspect and victim. People tend to notice what is out of place but street prostitutes are not noticed when they climb into a vehicle. The most common crime scene is a vehicle, but in very few cases are witnesses able to identify it. The offender has total control of the crime scene and he takes it with him, usually without much trace, after he has dumped the body.

FEDS AND CITY AT FAULT

The quasi-legal status of prostitution also hampers police effectiveness. Prostitution is not illegal. However, it is unlawful to communicate with another person for the purpose of buying or selling sexual services. This alienates prostitutes from the protective powers of the police. For a prostitute to report an assault or robbery might entail that they were committing an offence (communicating), or violating a bail or probation area restriction. Why have anything at all to do with the police?

Criminal law sanctions institutionalize an adversarial relationship between prostitutes and police. This can lead to a mind-set in which police brutality or negligence is “acceptable.” Karen Duddy tells of a young native woman being “taken down” in the WISH safe house parking lot because she was wanted under two warrants for solicitation. “It took seven cops and a police dog in her face to arrest one small woman. It was just the most unreasonable use of force.”

In another case, a native woman was held down and raped by two men, nearly strangled by the chain they wrapped around her throat. She managed to escape and flee to the police to report the incident, only to be arrested on an outstanding warrant for solicitation. Nobody would listen to her complaint. Only when she threw herself at the feet of a WISH worker in the jail and begged for help, was anything done. The two men were later arrested.

“This was no joke,” Karen Duddy said. “Women do not fantasize about being raped. Yet she was completely ignored. It happens time and time again.”

Only after the well-known “America’s Most Wanted” TV show came to town and did a program on the missing women were the city of Vancouver and the province shamed into posting a $100,000 reward.

John Lowman has labeled the city as the “biggest pimp on the street.” The 1985 communication law and police harassment forced prostitutes into darker and more dangerous places to do their business.

That made them targets for misogynistic and predatory men.

The City of Vancouver makes a great deal of money licencing the 100 or so high-end body-rub parlours and escort agencies while, at the same time, hounding street prostitutes.

The city licence fee for body-rub parlours can be nearly $7,000, compared to $175 for a therapeutic massage parlour.

“They are up to their necks in facilitating prostitution on the one hand while condemning it on the other,” Lowman said. “They are a bunch of hypocrites.”

Vancouver’s bylaw defines a body rub as “the manipulating, touching or stimulating, by any means, of a person’s body or part thereof but does not include medical, therapeutic or cosmetic massage treatment.”
“It’s the only thing they’re allowed to do, according to the city’s own bylaw,” Lowman said. “Body-rub parlours are by definition brothels.”

Registration To Redress Racist Dirty Tricks

Fifty years of political chicanery and racist shenanigans have deprived Newfoundland native people of their rights within Canada. Now Flat Bay Micmacs are moving to make things right with a special registration designed to identify everyone who qualifies as native.

Band Council Chief Calvin White is a veteran of the infighting and nastiness that has been the hallmark of the struggle for native rights on the island: “Fifty years ago, Newfoundland joined Canada. Let’s finally get things right by concluding our unfinished business.”

In the 1970’s, White was band chief for a time as well as president of the Federation of Newfoundland Indians (FNI). It was then that he first learned about the provincial government’s reluctance to have natives recognized and registered by the federal government.

“It goes back to the Confederation; in 1949 there was no specific provision made
concerning Indians in the province,” said White.

“Native people were caught up in the strategies for vote-getting during referendum campaigns prior to Confederation.”

“Despite obvious evidence to the contrary, Joey Smallwood’s stated position at the time was that there were no Indians in Newfoundland at all.”

According to White, Ottawa did not want to take responsibility for the island’s Micmacs so a special ‘arrangement was made under which the province was given full authority to identify or designate native communities in any way it wanted.

This led to some strange decisions and situations.

The province was entitled to bill Ottawa for 90 cents of every dollar spent on Indians, so they designated communities at will, whether they were native or not – but only in Labrador. St. John’s simply saw the ‘arrangement’ as a clever way to get Ottawa to pay most of its expenses in Labrador, whether native people were receiving any of the benefits or not.

By the early 1970’s, Micmacs on the Island, frustrated by their exclusion from federal benefits, challenged Ottawa and began negotiations for equal status with other First Nations peoples.

The FNI accepted a compromise at the time in which only Conne River was designated a native community, with its residents becoming ‘registered’ Indians, entitled to the full range of programs and services offered by the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs.

“I wanted a blanket agreement for all Indians on the island but the province was totally opposed,” said Chief White. “Conne River was meant to be a pilot project before looking to the rest of the island.”

With a written commitment from Ottawa, negotiations for the rest of the island’s natives proceeded and had nearly reached conclusion in the late 1970’s. Then the federal government was defeated in a general election. That stopped the process.

“Somebody in the new federal cabinet killed it,” said Chief White. “I have no evidence but my strong gut feeling is that it was John Crosbie. The premier (fellow Conservative Brian Peckford) was totally opposed to registration. Why would any of the other federal ministers care about blocking few hundred Indians in Newfoundland from getting registered?”

After an unsuccessful court challenge, Chief White decided that, for the sake of the FNI, he should withdraw from the native movement because of the enemies he’d made in the provincial government.

And that was that. For twenty more years, the status quo of Joey Smallwood, THERE ARE NO INDIANS IN NEWFOUNDLAND, remained in place, Welcome to Canada.
In 1998, however, Calvin White figured the time was ripe for him to get involved again. Re-elected chief, he moved towards registration for his own community of Flat Bay all over again, “from the ground up.”

This time around, Chief White believes that a 1945 census done in Newfoundland should make the special registration in process simple and straightforward. The census identified Indian people; he feels the vast majority of Micmacs were covered by it.

All that anyone has to do in the current registration is show that they were identified in that census, or their parents or grandparents were. Birth certificate are often sufficient as supporting documentation. In other cases, court records can be produced that indicate an individual was identified and recognized as Indian.

Chief White, who is a commercial fisherman and hunting guide , hopes the process will be concluded by end of summer. He plans to hand deliver the documents in a formal presentation to the federal minister in Ottawa when parliament is in session this fall. Because the documentation is so solid, he expects no more than a three month wait before the request for registration is granted.

“It’s an ideal time to do it. Attitudes toward native people have changed over the years, even though some people still fear ideas such as Indian self-government.”
Chief Calvin White: “These things are not threats. This is a process to unite us and bring us closer, not divide us. I welcome the integration of our people into the mainstream of development; but I want to see integration without assimilation – such as Chinese Canadians have achieved for instance.

“My ambition is that all communities in the Bay St. George region can support each other’s efforts. I see our registration as part of that.”

So far 350 residents have had their documentation confirmed. Anyone with direct ties to Flat Bay who would like to be included should contact the band office in writing (PO Box 375, St George’s).