Posts By: First Nations Drum

By Trevor Greyeyes

Gerry “The Big Bear” Barrett is a comic who’s made a lot of people laugh and smile while talking about harsh topics like residential school, racial discrimination and his experiences with the sixties scoop.

He is in his early 40’s hailing from Saugeen First Nation in southern Ontario and is proud of his Ojibwe heritage.

Nothing has slowed down his career that sees him work in radio, on stage, TV and movies.

“I want to share my story with people,” said Barrett. “I basically kick off my comedy set with this is where I’m at and this is what happened.”

That includes the sixties scoop (where aboriginal children were adopted out to white families), adoption, facing discrimination and growing up as a minority.”

Barrett remembers being adopted by a non-aboriginal family as a young boy. These days he works hard to keep himself in shape since he was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes.

It is sometimes said that from pathos comes comedy. If that were the case with Barrett, there’d be a comedy mountain out there with his name on it.

Indeed, most aboriginal people would have several mountains named after family members.

However, Barrett was recently asked to perform at a residential school survivors conference in Winnipeg.

“They needed some humour at the end of it,” said Barrett. “As they say, laughter heals, and you could really see it there.”
These days, Barrett wakes up at four in the morning to get ready for his gig as the morning man from six ‘til 10 for the Native Communications Incorporated (NCI) radio network in Manitoba. The network covers a large geographic area and his voice can be heard from the Hudson Bay to the US border.

“I don’t consider it a job,” said Barrett. “It’s a good time.”
Even though he’s been on NCI for over six years, Barrett said he doesn’t consider himself the full time host. He’s just another “keeper of the flame” in a long line of morning hosts on NCI.
Prior to that Barrett has an extensive career in radio. Barrett is an Honours graduate from the Niagra College of Applied Arts and Technology, radio/ television/ film program. He’s worked for many different radio stations in Winnipeg doing a variety of jobs.
Barrett said that as a child he dreamed of working in radio and followed an education plan that led him to his current career.
Barrett said “If you have a dream, follow it. And education is a very important to your goals. I’ve never stopped learning.”
And he’s never stopped dreaming either. He took up the challenge of doing stand-up comedy more than 15 years ago.
He names Big Daddy Tazz as an early inspiration and as one his mentors. Barrett said he’s proud of the fact some people call him a touring comedian.

He said he played anywhere at anytime paying his dues before drunk people but relishes the opportunity to play before people receptive for a comedy show at the corporate gigs he does these days.

For much of his formative years as a comedian, Barrett talked about getting to know what material works best for you, playing for mainstream audiences and performing for aboriginal audiences.

“I respect my audience,” said Barrett. “Aboriginal people are educated and well read at a conference.

“I have an Elijah Harper song in my act and at that last conference there he was sitting front and centre.”

Barrett said there is blue material he uses for the clubs and bars, mainstream material for non-aboriginal audiences but that he prefers his “clean, clever and well-written material” that he saves for his aboriginal audiences. His aboriginal corporate shows run for about an hour but sometimes for fun he’ll do an improv at the end of the show by hosting a talk show.

“It’s great,” said Barrett. “I just pull somebody from the audience and treat them like they’re on a talk show.”

He also offered some advice for any young person interested in pursuing a career in stand-up comedy.

Barrett pointed out that in large urban centers there are open mike nights at comedy clubs and bars that have comics. In the rural areas, he suggested asking to use the microphone at pow wows, treaty days or gatherings.

“The MC’s at pow wows are always telling jokes in-between dances and when there’s a lull. These people don’t realize they’re doing stand-up,” said Barrett.

He said get up on stage and always remembers what made people laugh right away and work on other stuff that didn’t once or twice before dropping it.

Another thing he said is to not to be afraid when it doesn’t work out. Barrett said, “Stand-up comedy is the ability to bomb gracefully.”

His sideline career as a stand-up comedian has also led to other opportunities.

For instance, Barret made television history by performing on North America’s first all aboriginal stand-up comedy special produced for CBC Television called “Welcome to Turtle Island.”

In addition, you can also catch him on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) starring in The Big Bear Comedy Show.

And this summer, The Big Bear as he likes to be called is going to be one busy bear.

He’s performing with the Bionic Bannock Boys when they appear in Winnipeg. Barrett called them an up and coming improv troupe that is getting the buzz as they say out there in the entertainment industry.

Then Barrett flies to the land of California, specifically Los Angeles, for a meeting with Hollywood producers to pitch a movie idea he’s been working on. Ironically, the whole event is called PitchFest. Barrett describes it as a sort of speed dating thing except your trying to hook up scripts with producers.
After that, he’s back in Winnipeg to perform at the internationally known Winnipeg Fringe Festival with five other local comics. The show is called “I Don’t Want to Grow Up.”
It will be held at the Press Club in late July that he says is air conditioned thankfully. He gets to reconnect with his mentor, Tazz, at the show.

Being that he’s the only aboriginal in the group of five, he said his material might be based on his aboriginal experiences.
In the fall, you’ll be able to see him host APTN’s Rez Blues.
“I’ve been asked to go to APTN and lighten the show up,” said Barrett. “I’m not afraid to put myself out there.”

Barrett then talks about breaking down stereotypes of aboriginal people from the drunk native on skid row across the country to the stoic noble savage.

“It’s our time to tell our stories,” said Barrett.

He grows quieter and talked about being adopted out from his community. He said, “There were two sisters I had reunited with and they told me about a brother I never met.”

On a tour that took him to Toronto, he finally got a chance to meet his brother. He said Billy Joe Green, a Juno nominated blues player from Winnipeg, took the picture when he first met his brother.

“We’re similar,” notes Barrett. “He likes country music and I work at a country music station. He sings professionally and I’m an entertainer.”

Barrett then talks about growing up. From an early age, he’s always been a writer.

“Even as a teenager on Friday evenings, I’d write short stories,” said Barrett. “Me and my buddy, like a couple of nerds, we’d be working out these short stories.”

You can check out Barrett’s comedy stylings on YouTube.
Barrett looks comfortable on stage. “When I was younger I was kidnapped by aliens.” Pause. “No wait. I was adopted by white people.”

Laughter. The healing sound of laughter.

By Bernie Bates

With age comes wisdom – or so you would think. We’ve all met an Elder, whom you’d think would have had experienced enough in life, that he or she could tell you which path to walk. But, instead, just by looking into their eyes, you can tell that the campfire is burning, but the tepee is empty.

Why are some Elders as sharp as the point of an arrow while others are as dull as a politician’s speech on sewage, in other words: a bullshiter, talking shit, about crap? Is it genetic, environmental, instinctual, behavioral or education based? I believe all of these factors, factor into the character of the character.

GENETICS; The old saying that the nut doesn’t fall far from the tree, is not an old saying for nothing. For proof of this look no further than your parents: do you consider one or both of them to be ‘clever?’ If so, chances are, you too, will be able to assemble a barbeque, right out of the box, without looking at the instructions. If not, sadly, you and your family will be eating a lot of big Mac’s … would you like fries with that?

ENVIRONMENTAL; The same old saying that the nut doesn’t fall far from the tree – can also be applied to how dumb or un-dumb you are. I’m a huge believer in things like; You are what you eat. Stupid is as stupid does. And, if you crap in your own back yard, you have no one to blame but yourself, when you step in it. In other words: if you grew up in squalor, chances are you’re reading this column, wearing the same underwear as you wore yesterday. Did your parent’s home have a lawn or a rusted old car? Do you have a ‘fix-er-upper’ in your back yard or a green patch of good ol’ mother Earth?

INSTINCTUAL; Fear is one of the things that is bred into our nature. We’re hard-wired to avoid things like snakes, fire and poisonous plants. But everyday another idiot dies from things like: meth, crack cocain or alcohol. Just how stupid do you have to be to ingest poison? Would you kiss a rattle snake? Would you pour gas on your ass and light it on fire? Yet, day in and day out, I hear of another fool who’s trying to start a fire by rubbing two snakes together.

BEHAVIORAL; “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” Some parents practice this quotation, while others believe in talking softly to little Johnny, and asking him about his inner feelings. I personally, would rather sit in a restaurant next to family who believed in ‘behavioral modification,’ rather than listen to little Johnny vent his displeasure about the special of the day. If there are no consequences to your actions – then what motivation does a person have to behave appropriately?

When I was a young and dumb: I had a friend, Arnold, who was a bad influence on me. One day we were setting in a tree, and my Mom overheard me swearing. She said, what did you say? Thinking that I was far enough up the tree, I repeated to her: “F**** you!” That was my first mistake, the second was – I wasn’t far enough up the tree! WHACK, BOOM, BANG!
EDUCATION; Getting a good education is one of the most important things you can do with your youth. It can change every disadvantage you might have. It can help you realize your potential; what kind of person you’ll become, who you’ll marry, how much money you’ll earn – even determine the future of your children. It can make your dreams come true: not only financially, but intellectually and emotionally as well. It can give you what everyone on this planet is wishing for; Peace of mind, joy of the heart and wampum up the whazoo!

Let’s see how dumb or un-dumb you really are. After reading the next paragraph – can you decipher the ingenious indiginous rationality?

Four men are sitting in a dark room playing poker. The first man has a pair of jacks: he leans to his right and asks the man to lend him something to bet with. He then lays down one thousand dollars worth of gold beads and trinkets. The second man has three sixes: and he raises the pot with a promise of a well paying government job. The third man has a straight: nine through to the king. He raises the pot with a deed to his ranch. The fourth man folds his four aces. Which one of these men is a Native?

The answer is: the fourth man. And his reasoning is; He knows through experience not to put his ‘aces’ on the line, when gambling with a man who has beads and trinkets, a man who promises government help and a man who is betting with stolen property!

THE END

Dear reader: Please feel free to contact, B. H. Bates at: beeinthebonnet@shaw.ca

The Harper plan involves discussions over the course of the summer with First Nations and provincial and territorial governments with the goal of bringing forward legislation to implement the specific claims action plan in the fall.

The move comes in the days and weeks of growing apprehension unfolding across the nation over the AFN’s call for a national day of action among First Nations on June 29th, the leading national body put out following a special conference in Gatineau, Quebec in late May.

Fontaine raised the eyebrows of business across the country in a speech to the Canada Club of Ottawa where he warned of a summer of protests and the need for the government to move quickly to address land claims and poverty in aboriginal communities.

The most troubling aspect of the call for a national day of action for Canadians was perhaps the AFN’s call to the national railways to voluntarily shut down operations nationally in a show of support for First Nations.

Chief Terrance Nelson of the Roseau River Anishinabe First Nation of Manitoba said he would blockade CN rail lines running through his reserve for a 24-hour period on the national day of action. His fiery rhetoric has cost him some measure of credibility among his own people who have called for his resignation.

In an interview on CTV Newnet’s Mike Duffy Live, Nelson told the nation, “… there are only two ways of dealing with the white man. One, either you pick up a gun, or you stand between the white man and his money.”

It was Nelson’s resolution at the special AFN conference in Gatineau, that called for the voluntary shutdown of national rail lines.

Nelson also applauded the federal announcement on specific claims, but said he could not call off his blockade because of “the simple promise of another white man.”
The Anishinabe chief sent a letter to Canadian National, offering a five-year truce with the company in exchange for CN’s agreement to voluntarily halt train traffic on June 29th and a promise on behalf of the company to pressure Ottawa on land claims.

The First Nations Leadership Council of British Columbia extended cautious optimism regarding the federal government’s announcement of a new independent body to make binding decisions on specific claims.

“An independent panel on specific claims is long overdue,” said AFN BC regional chief Shawn Atleo. “Given this body will possess the necessary mandate with full decision-making authority and an appropriate level of financial and human resources, e expect they ensure that specific claims are fairly considered and equitably resolved in a timely manner.”
The AFN has called for peaceful marches across the country on the “Day of Action.”

By Danny Beaton

Everywhere in the Haida Culture is the honour to the Spiritual world we live with in harmony and respect.

The Haida Nation are one of the most artistic people on the planet, their creativity thoughout their traditional culture have brought museums alive throughout Canada and USA. The Canadian Museum of Civilization hosts giant 50 foot Totem Poles carved by the late Bill Reid and his student Guujaaw. Everywhere in Haida Culture is the honour to the Spiritual world they live with in harmony and respect, evolved over countless generations and with it is the various clans of the Haida. The Elders of the great Haida Nation passed the teachings, songs, dances, language and way of life onto their children and their children became Elders and passed the way of life onto their children and so forth. The Haida Sacred way of life is still thriving on the shores and inland of Haida Gwaii surrounded by the Pacific Ocean, mountains and between the great cedar forest of old growth. The student of the late Bill Reid is Guujaaw, he is the leader of the Haida Nation. He is the political and spiritual leader who has been chosen to lead his people in this history of the Earth, Guujaaw is a keeper of traditional knowledge and songs. He shares the Spirit, Force and Peace when he is asked to lead a song or dance in community social gatherings. He has insights into the problems society faces pertaining to justice, peace and environmental protection and spirit of creation, animals, fish, birds, and insects.

Clan Mother, Audrey Shenandoah, explains that we are told from the beginning of our time here on Mother Earth that we must treat this Mother Earth respectfully and not to abuse her but to use the gifts in the right way and be thankful, I have to repeat because it is so very simple that people can not understand it for people are used to living a very sophisticated unreal kind of lifestyle.

Our messages from our people are the messages from our Creator have been very explicated in explaining what could become of this Earth if it is not used the right way. That the abuse of the waters, water is life and if we do not take care and clean up the waters there can be no life here on this Earth. We are told in the messages to our people that in order for this to go on, all of these things that we depend on so much everyday that we might live, that we as humans here on this Earth must be sure to tell this to our Grand Children. For it is for our grand children that we are protecting Mother Earth. Working to save Mother Earth and to save all the gifts that our Creator gives us so that they might have a good life also. Within every one of the messages that is brought to our people. At the very end, it always states that all of this will last for as long as the people will keep it. That all of this will be bountiful and will give us life, will give our grand children life for as long as we will take care of it and it is up to us, the people, how long it will be. And so then in so many words our same message the Earth is Sacred. Every spot on Earth is Sacred, not just certain places that is regarded as Sacred sites because something happened there. Something happened all over this earth, people, our grand fathers and our great grand fathers have worked hard to preserve this. Because this kind of life, this kind of belief, this kind of living has been under persecution for all time. People who believed in Mother Earth, who believed that all the goodness that comes from the Earth is our livelihood, is our life, have been persecuted.
We have not been worshipping the Earth, we have not been worshipping the Sun, we have not been worshipping the Elements. We have been giving thanks for Mother Earth, we have been giving thanks for the Sun, we have been giving thanks to the Moon and thanks to our grand fathers who bring the rains and the winds. That is much different than from worshipping them, we do not worship in that way the elements of the Creation. We are ever mindful that it is from all of the Creation that we can maintain our lives, that our children can maintain their lives and their children. So we have a duty to look after the Earth and what we have here and not think of ourselves and what we can do with the Earth here and now.

It is now evident to all that we are not progressing in the right way. Changes must be made in the way we look after the Earth. The way we look at all the life giving elements of the Earth. We have to make sure that we are doing this in the right way. We cannot force people to do this, but we must give the message over and over again so that people will begin to understand and very simple and fact full, truthful way that we are guardians of this Earth all our lives for the generations of people who are coming for the faces yet unborn.

That is our prophecy. It is in every message that we have received from the Creator. That it is up to us how long we will have this, and how long all of this will last. So by telling one another by spreading this message and hoping people will hear it and understand it. We know that it must be heard over and over again. Just as all of our messages would tell us how to live and how to move about on this Earth. We have heard time and time again, I have heard all of my life since I was a child, I heard the same messages, and then finally if you hear it enough times, hopefully it will begin to take meaning and we will be doing a duty that is given to us when we were given life.

Chief Oren Lyons says “today we have children killing children, we have a dysfunctional nation, we have a dysfunctional global world. What can we expect when we have as the major economic force in the world the sale of arms and the second major force the sale of drugs. Between the two of them you’re going to get a dysfunctional society.

So, what do we talk about then, what do we say to our young people. What do we say to our nations, to our people, to the mothers and fathers? What do we say to those people who are responsible for communities and responsible for families? What do the leaders say? Who are the leaders? These are all questions that need to be answered. I think that people have a common sense, a sense of understanding, a sense to be able to do things that’s not being dictated to us by large corporate forces of money exchanging hands every day. Common sense has to prevail. I think that our common sense will prevail or the result will be that this natural world is going to take care of things itself, in its own way and if that happens and when that happens, then we’ll be suffering out loud. Because there is a law, and the law is consistent and its constant and you cannot challenge it, the natural law of life. If you try to challenge it, your simply going to fail and you are going to suffer in the mean time.

The question of whether we as a species, a human species on this Earth is going to survive is pretty much up to us at this time. So I think the message that should be coming from all of us is that we have to have responsible leadership who have vision, who have compassion for the future, who have compassion for those seven generations that are waiting under this earth. Each generation looking is waiting its turn. We have to have a balance, we have to bring balance back to everything. We have to bring balance between families, between male and female, man and woman, wife and husband, father and mother. We need this balance and we need this common sense and we need leaders with vision who are selfless, who have compassion and who have courage and conviction.

Its really up to us. If we put people up there who are negative and who don’t do right, that’s our own problem and not only will we suffer the consequences but our children will and even further, our grand children will and their children along with all the other life.

I see the equation as relatively simple… Common sense, what advice would you give to everybody . If I had a general advice, I’d say to share, share what you have, share your knowledge, share your abilities. Do what you were suppose to do in the beginning. It’s a simple thing. Divest all you major corporations, all you people with all the money, divest and so something positive. Its not complicated, difficult probably for some, but nevertheless, there it is.

So with that, I think this particular part of the discussion is, as far as I’m concerned, is coming to a close and I just wish us all well and lets look for those leaders. Lets have the courage to put them there and keep them there. Thank you for listening.”

The Hopi prophecies warn of the problems to come if humans do not seek spiritural and environmental lifestyles in which to blend into Mother Eartth and celebrate life in a way that creates peace, respect, fertility and harmony everywhere. For nearly a century the elders of Hotevilla, a tiny village on a remote Hopi reservation in Arizona have been guarding the secrets and prophecies of a thousand year old covenant that was created to ensure the well being of the earth and its creatures. Manuel Hoyungowas’ voice is one with his spirit and the spirits of his ancestors. He is a Hopi man willing to share his ancestors instructions and warning as to how us humans can survive the crisis that is now upon us physically, mentally and spiritually.
I was born in Fort Yukon, Alaska because that is where the hospital was. I grew up part of the time in fort Yukon and Salmon River, but most of the time in Arctic Village, Alaska where I now live.

About the only good thing that came out of the tragedy of the Exxon Valdez was that Congress decided against drilling in the Arctic Refuge. It was terrible. The Gwitch’in way of life continues yet the people of Prince William Sound their way of life has been devastated.

Gwitch’in elder Sarah James spent two decades fighting proposed oil drilling in her Alaskan homeland. Sarah James, 61, of Arctic Village, has been trying to inform the public of her native land since 1988 when proposed refuge drilling first threatened the Porcupine Caribou herd and the Gwitch’in way of life. The Gwitch’in, or Caribou People’s of Alaska depend on hunting, particularly of the 130,000 strong Porcupine (river) caribou herd, for approximately 75 percent of their protein and calories as well as clothes, tools and other life sustaining materials. For at least 10,000 years, the Gwitch’in have lived by hunting and conserving on a coastal plain bordering the Arctic Ocean, home to polar bears, rare birds and musk ox, where caribou give birth to their young

Judy Swamp is a respected elder of the Mohawk nation, her husband is Jake Swamp a leader in the Mohawk Longhouse of Akwesasne, New York territory. Together they have worked towards goals of creating peace throughout the world, planting the Sacred Pine, the Tree of Peace wherever they are invited to do so.

Mohawk people have been known to be organizers for a long time now, holders of the Eastern door and one of the Six Nations of the Haudenausanee Iroquois Confederacy. Mohawk people originated from New York area by the great St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes area. In the old days the Mohawk joined the British in their struggle to defeat the United States Military during the war of 1812. It is common knowledge iron workers, known as sky walkers built the tall skyscrapers in New York and have been hired to travel all over the world to build skyscrapers. Before the arrival of the first non natives to North America, the Iroquois were one of the oldest native governments in existence created for unity, peace, righteousness , equality and harmony. Clan Mothers, Faithkeepers and Chiefs govern the communities throughout Iroquois territories and solved problems by consensus.

By Morgan O’Neal

Richard Wagamese, a 51 year-old Ojibway writer from the Wabasseemoong First Nation in northwestern Ontario now living outside Kamloops, has been recognized once again for his clean clear prose and storytelling skill. He has received the Canadian Author’s Association Award for Fiction for 2007 for his most recent novel, Dream Wheels. This is a huge honor, and as Wagamese himself put it, “interestingly, the 2nd year in a row the award has been won by a First Nations writer.” Last year the award was given to Joseph Boyden for his novel Three Day Road.

Wagamese earlier had a distinguished journalism career as ‘Native Life’ columnist for the Calgary Herald during which he was also recognized for his talent. He became the first Native Canadian to win the National Newspaper Award for Column Writing. The award-winning result of his move to fiction was his first novel, the bestseller Keeper’n Me published in 1994 by Doubleday Canada Ltd. By turns funny, poignant and mystical, Keeper’n Me presents a positive view of Native community and philosophy–as well as casting fresh light on the redemptive power of tradition. “A fascinating read.” Tantoo Cardinal.said of the novel. “I loved the revelations of a child taken away from the love of his family and put out to where his spirit was lost. Wagamese’s book is about healing the lost soul”

The fact that the issue of Aboriginal Foster Children remains in the news, and is an increasingly alienating fact of life for so many Native adults makes this novel an important and informative book. It also proves that Richard Wagamese was ahead of his time in treating this issue in fiction. When the main character of the novel, Garnet Raven was three years old, he was taken from his home on an Ojibway Indian reserve and placed in a series of foster homes. Having reached his mid-teens, he escapes at the first available opportunity, only to find himself cast adrift on the streets of the big city. Skirting the urban underbelly once too often by age 20, he finds himself thrown in jail.
While there, he gets a surprise letter from his long-forgotten native family. The sudden communication from his past spurs him to return to the reserve following his release from jail. Deciding to stay awhile, his life is changed completely as he comes to discover his sense of place, and of self. While on the reserve, Garnet is initiated into the ways of the Ojibway–both ancient and modern–by Keeper, a friend of his grandfather, and last fount of history about his people’s ways.

Understood in the context of recent statements by Assembly of First Nations Chief Phil Fontaine about the disastrous consequences of the Foster System, the novel will contnue to be extremely relevant until the problem is dealt with properly. Only recently British Columbia’s new representative for Children and Youth, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, pledged to dismantle or at least substantially alter a decrepit piece of federal legislation that is clearly responsible for the staggeringly high number of native children at present in government care.

Because the issue is under federal jurisdiction her statements have relevance for Native communities across the country, as does Wagamese’s novel. But Turpel-Lafond’s criticism of the law may in fact be the first time a provincial official has been so blatant in blaming the bureaucracy for what is indeed a national disgrace. She went so far as to explicitly describe the guilty federal Directive 20.1 as “perverse.” The directive in question stipulates that federal government money will be made available to look after troubled aboriginal kids “only if they are taken away from their families and placed in government care.” This is the language of kidnap and ransom. Wagamese’s first novel should be required reading.

In offering an alternative to the perversity of the present situation, Turpel-Lafond emphasized that native kids and their communities would obviously be better served “by strengthening their family and cultural ties” in order to help families deal with such issues as addiction and domestic violence and all the other negative effects that characterize the national scourge of the “residential school syndrome.” There are at present approximately 9,500 children in the care of the B.C. government, and more than half of these are of aboriginal ancestry. Compare this number to the fact that First Nations people make up less than four percent of the provincial population. Richard Wagamese ‘s Keeper’n Me is a socially relevant book that tells the truth about an issue people are still having difficulty being honest about.

This first book of fiction was followed two years later by an anthology of his award-winning newspaper columns The Terrible Summer (Warwick Press, 1996). (Wagamese continues to write quality columns in the clean clear prose tradition of the oral tale. Check out, for instance, the last few issues of the First Nations Drum, itself! His second novel, A Quality of Light, was released in 1997 by Doubleday. A memoir entitled For Joshua: an Ojibway Father Teaches His Son arrived in October 2002. His third novel, Dream Wheels, was published by Doubleday in 2006, and a fourth, Ragged Company to be published later this year (2007) is eagerly awaited by loyal readers. It is Dreamw Wheels that earned him the Canadian Author’s Association Award for Fiction for 2007.

Wagamese is now listed in Canada’s Who’s Who. He has been a lecturer in Creative Writing with the University of Regina’s Saskatchewan Indian Federated College, a writer for the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, a faculty advisor on Journalism for Grant MacEwen Community College and the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) and a scriptwriter for the CBC-Alliance production North of 60. Recognized for his free flowing style, Richard has been a book, film and music reviewer, general reporter and feature writer for numerous newspapers and journals across Canada. He has also worked extensively in both radio and television news and documentary. He now lives outside Kamloops, British Columbia.

In his latest novel, Dream Wheels, published by Doubleday (a division of Random House Canada), Wagamese tackles the concept of finding your way home from a number of different characters’ perspectives. Coming home has been a common theme since the beginning of literary culture. And home is not just the physical place you were born or where your family lives, it also involves a psychological and spiritual journey to find that place inside that allows you to be comfortable in your skin. Although each of the character’s in the novel has their own journey to make, their destination is the same.

In Dream Wheels, the destination is the Wolfchild ranch, home to three generations of rodeo Indian/cowboys. Now an Indian cowboy might sound like an oxymoron to some people who get locked into stereotypes, but in the 20th century anybody who can ride well and has a way with animals is appreciated on a ranch. It’s only logical then that some of those people are going to be people of native descent, and some of them are going to get involved on the rodeo circuit. But the Indian Cowboy is also a powerfully symbolic strategic way for Wagamese to invite readefrs to think about the cultural contradiction s that result.
The Wolfchilds have sent three generations of men into the rings to fight the broncos, hogtie the calves, and most dangerously ride the bulls. It’s a bull that’s caused the youngest of the Wolfchilds, Joe Willie, – the one who was considered the sure thing – to have to make his long trip home from inside the prison of the hurt and pain of being injured too badly to ever ride again. By contrast, Claire Hartley and her 15-year-old son Aiden have never had a home. Claire was the daughter of a junkie who died when she was young, and hasn’t found a place for herself in the world yet. She travels from man to man, looking for a home in the false promises of support they give her, until she feels like she is trapped with no way out.

When a friend of Aiden’s botches a robbery and takes Aiden down with him, Claire knows she has to do something to save her son. With the aid of the lead detective on Aiden’s case, it is set up for them to travel to the Wolfchild ranch to see if the work and the life will help them both.Wagamese enters the dangerous territory here of cliché. The angry urban black youth meets the angry rural Indian cowboy; after confrontation they find common ground and end up helping each other recover through their respective knowledge. What saves this relationship, and the dynamic involved, is the authenticity Wagamese is able to bring to each of his characters and the unsentimental manner in which he treats them.

These fictional characters become real people in this author’s hands, and everything they do or say is justified in terms of how he has had them thinking from the beginning. The plot turns make sense; for instance when Joe Willie and Aiden are able to help each other because both of them come from the same place emotionally whether they know it or not they are both looking to find a way to fit into the world. Wagamese has written on these themes before; it is a theme indigenous to indigenous people by nature of the colonial past, But this time he has shown how easy it is for anyone to become lost, even if they have the solid backing of family and tradition. You still have to choose to be a part of it, because no one can force you to join in.

One of the truly amazing aspects of this book is the way in which Wagamese takes us inside the head of the people who are still cowboys, who ride the bulls. He is able to maintain the romance that most of us associate with the way of life, while at the same time making it real. We come to know and respect these people and their attitudes towards life and each other, not just because they are cowboys but because they are complete human beings.

Dream Wheels is a great story about finding your way in an increasingly difficult world. While family and tradition are sure to help you, they can only offer you what you choose to accept. The toughest ride any of us can take is the ride along the path to self-awareness. Wagamese dispels the myths of there being any magic tricks or easy way of doing this, but at the same time he shows us what a liberating experience it can be.

Richard Wagamese will continue to write novels of universal appeal although his perspective is that of an authentic indigenous person. And his writing will no doubt continue to be socially relevant because he has lived a socially relevant life. A fourth novel, Ragged Company, is promised for publication later this year (2007), and eagerly awaited. by loyal readers.

Associated Press

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has been welcomed to British Columbia with an aboriginal ceremony of drumming singing and dancing.

Schwarzenegger was given three gifts from B.C. First Nations – a colourful blanket that was wrapped around him, framed native art representing a wolf and an elaborately decorated canoe paddle. The former bodybuilder and actor says First Nations are the original environmentalists and he says it’s important for California to work with its native Americans.

He says everyone should have equal opportunity to prosper.
Schwarzenegger says he’d been to Vancouver many times during his movie career and now he’s on a trade mission.
B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell was also on hand to welcome the governor, who has a full day of events on the West Coast.

By Lloyd Dolha

An Ojibway First Nations woman from northern Manitoba who spent years fighting to protect the boreal forests of her traditional territory is this year’s North American recipient of the prestigious international Goldman Environmental Prize – the largest prize of its kind.

Sophia Rabliaukas, 47 yr.s, of the 12,00 member Poplar River First Nation, is the only aboriginal Canadian woman to receive the award in its 17 year history and one of the few Canadians to ever receive the award.

A leader of the Poplar River First Nation, Rabliauskas has worked for several years with her people to secure the interim protection of their two million acres of undisturbed forest land on the eastern side of Lake Winnipeg.

In 2004, she and several members of her community led Poplar River in the development of a comprehensive land protection and management plan for their traditional territory which forms a significant part of Canada’s boreal forest.

Led by Rabliauskas under the guidance of her elders, she and other community members developed a full-scale blueprint of how they intended to document, protect and sustainably manage the forests, wildlife and other natural resources in a precedent-setting accomplishment among the first Nations of the boreal region.

“In Sophia’s way of day-to-day living, she embodies the spirit of our culture,” said Vera Mitchell, director of education and former chief. “This includes a sense of rightful ownership of the land. She isn’t one to just talk about something – she goes out and gets it done.”

The land use plan outlines the following core components: respecting traditional knowledge; benefiting from environmental analysis; developing economic development activities, including the protection of traditional hunting, trapping and fishing activities; and creating sustainable tourism opportunities.
One year before the plan’s completion in 2004, Rabliauskas helped secure five more years of “interim protection status” for the Poplar River territory, which continues to prohibit any logging, hydro, gas or mining development within the two million acres.

Rabliauskas and Poplar River’s current efforts are focused on securing permanent protection of their traditional territories from the Manitoba government.

The Manitoba government has announced its intention to grant permanent protection to the Poplar River lands, though have not done so as of yet.

With that victory, the Poplar River First Nation and a half dozen other Ojibway First Nations from Manitoba and Ontario will develop a draft submission proposing the area to be declared a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Canada’s vast boreal forest, which includes the Poplar River lands, plays a vital role in mitigating the negative impacts of climate change. As its intact forests and wetlands store massive amounts of carbon.

Threats to the health of Canada’s boreal forest are numerous: less than ten percent of the boreal is strictly protected from development, and despite growing awareness of the area’s global importance, about one half of Canada’s annual wood harvest comes from the boreal.

Canada’s boreal forest comprises 25 percent of the world’s and more than 90 percent of the country’s remaining large intact forests. They cover nearly 1.4 billion acres – some 58 percent of Canada’s land mass – the boreal forms a massive green belt across the centre of the country, stretching from Newfoundland to the Yukon.

The area is also home to some of the world’s largest populations of woodland Cariboo, wolves and bears, and more than 75 percent of North America’s waterfowl.

Winners of the environmental prize are selected by an international jury from confidential nominations submitted by a worldwide network of environmental organizations and individuals.

Each year, six recipients are selected from the six inhabited continents of the world and receive $125,000 U.S. from the Goldman Foundation to continue their work.

Only three other Canadians have won the award, including former AFN national chief Matthew Coon Come, who led the Quebec Cree in their battle against hydro development in northern Quebec.

By Clint Buehler

EDMONTON – Wilton (Willie) Littlechild says the international community has a responsibility to protect indigenous rights.
He’s spent much of his career fighting to achieve that goal.
And that was the theme of his lecture at the ninth annual Visiting Lectureship in Human Rights at the University of Alberta, recognizing outstanding contributions to human rights, following such acknowledged human rights advocates as Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former Canadian Forces General Romeo Dallaire.

Littlechild, a much achieving and honored Cree from Alberta’s Ermineskin First Nation, is a longtime delegate to the United Nation’s Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

Littlechild told the supportive audience at the university’s Horowitz Theatre that much of the effort must go to improving the wellbeing of Aboriginal children because they are the most common victims of rights violations, with lower life expectancies, racial discrimination by police, unsanitary living conditions and denial of education as abuses that indigenous boys and girls suffer daily across the globe.

“Imagine a child being born and being expected to live 20 years less than others, experience Third World diseases, live in overcrowded houses, receive poor education, routinely be made to feel ashamed for who they are, and be harassed by police. This is an indigenous child.

“They live in both dev eloped and developing countries, but their plight is the same,” Littlechild said, calling on Canada to officially adopt the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples which he helped draft and negotiate.

He said he was frustrated at Canada’s, and Alberta’s, failure to take that important step—a step already taken by most other nations and political bodies including, as recently as last month, the State of Arizona.

“Canada was one of only two countries to vote against the Declaration,” Littlechild said. “We could look to our neighbours to the south for leadership.”

He said that be refusing to accept this Declaration, Canada has created two sets of laws, with indigenous peoples on the bottom end.

He emphasized that the road to justice was a long one, citing, for example, the first ever delegation by indigenous people to the League of Nations in 1926, when members of the Iroquois Six Nations went to the League’s headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland and, as with a Maori delegation from New Zealand, weren’t even received by the Assembly there.

By the 1950s and 1960s, Littlechild said, the international indigenous peoples’ movement had begun to gain momentum, as groups from across the planet joined forces with similar complaints ranging from the banning of indigenous culture and language to outright genocide.

It was no better in 1977, Littlechild said, when he headed an international indigenous delegation to the United Nations and they were not allowed in United Nations headquarters in New York City.

“In 1977, we couldn’t even get into the building,” Littlechild recalled. “With Elders with four pipes leading the way, we locked elbows, four-by-four, and marched.”

Soon after that rejection, he said, things began to move rather quickly for the indigenous peoples’ movement, capped in 1993 by the United Nations declaration of “The Year of the Indigenous People,” and the establishment in 2002 of the UN’s Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, to which Littlechild was appointed North Americas representative.

He found that involvement ironic in that he only studied international law to fill his course schedule while studying for his law degree. “Why would someone like me study international law?” he recalled asking himself at the time. “I’m never going to use it.” In fact, his efforts on behalf of indigenous peoples has occupied a large part of his life.

Littlechild also cited the International Decades of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, the second of which began in 2005 with the theme of Partnership for Action and Dignity as another example of the successes that indigenous peoples have found in the international arena.

“Most indigenous peoples movements emerged in response to experiences of grave violations of their basic human rights and fundamental freedoms,” he said. “Their main demands are non-discrimination, equality and self-determination, and the right to subsistence. These are all the basic principles upon which international human rights law is based.”

The result has been that indigenous peoples’ involvement with the UN Commission on Human Rights “has immeasurably enriched the world’s discussions about human rights in general.
“The contributions of indigenous peoples in elaborating further discourse on self-determination, collective rights, rights to land, territories and resources, rights to culture, knowledge and identity cannot be underestimated,” he said.

Littlechild said he was particularly proud of how Aboriginal peoples have insisted on integrating the rights of women and children into all human rights discussions, cutting across previous divisions in law and diplomacy.

However, he ended his lecture on a positive note, saying that over the past 30 years, indigenous peoples world wide have achieved great successes in their efforts to achieve respect, recognition and justice.

His presentation was not without humor. Saying he owed much to the university, he told of the time he earned a zero on an English assignment.

“I went to the dean and told him I should get at least one mark for spelling my name right.”

The dean refused to change the mark, but told him to keep working.

“I have to thank him for not letting me take the easy way out.”
Following the lecture, Littlechild took questions from the audience, with several asking how the Alberta and Canadian governments could be persuaded to deal with Aboriginal treaties in the spirit of international law.

“The Maskwacis Cree wanted to, and continue to, promote partnerships among our peoples, using the international forum,” he responded. “As one stated, ‘It’s like the two wings of an eagle that it takes to fly. On one wing is treaty, and on the other wing is the UN Declaration [on the Rights of Aboriginal Peoples]. These are solutions, and they both go hand in hand to fight for the future.’”

A woman in the audience noted that, traditionally, Littlechild would have been given blankets and horses in recognition of his leadership whereupon, on behalf of the University of Alberta, Students Union President Samantha Power and Aboriginal Student Council President Derek Thunder presented him with a ceremonial blanket chosen by Elder and advisor Jerry Wood.
Littlechild said he had been in the audience for three of the previous human rights lectures, but had never anticipated that he would be chosen as a guest lecturer.

“Each of you out there also has a story,” he said. “Little did I think that some day I would be up here, so it has truly been an honour. Keep up the work that you do, and I look forward to the day when you get up here to tell your story.”

By Morgan O’Neal

Almost four months into the trial of Robert Willie’ Pickton for first degree murder, the focus of the sensational hearing in New Westminster has settled on the six women he is accused of killing after they disappeared from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. As coincidence would have it, the weekend of May 1 deposited me on those same Mean Streets when four packed cruise ships–the first of the year–docked in the Vancouver harbour below Hastings and Main. The number of tourists disembarking was beyond the capacity of private taxis; there were none available. Stranded visitors stood in line for up to two hours before venturing out on their own to get a look at the most beautiful city in Canada. But it is next to impossible to get from where those boats are docked to where beauty is hiding somewhere west of Granville, without wandering through or stumbling into the worst Skid Row in all of North America. I had a chance to observe some of these travellers as they were welcomed as guests to Vancouver by crack dealers leaning in the doorways of boarded up pawn shops and rooming houses.
This rotten core of the Downtown Eastside where once hard-working hard-drinking long-shoreman walked the streets north of Hastings is now a breeding ground for maggots fattening up on the dying meat; this is where the psychopaths come when they feel the urge to exploit human weakness. The life story of the population of this place is the dark legacy of colonialism, residential school abuse and foster home alienation: the deadly plunge into drug addiction and prostitution supported by the skewed legislation in the City of Vancouver that creates a last resort sex trade whose broken bodies are supplied by the impoverished community exploding in the downtown core. These meanest streets in North America serve as a backdrop for the lead story on the local evening television news when voyeuristic camera crews and reporters catch up with a few of the tourists who have at least made it into China town where they are absorbed safely into the smells and sounds of open air fresh produce and spice markets. Still trembling in their boots they are barely able to answer the reporters’ first question. “Will you be coming back to Vancouver again?”

News that about half of Canada’s Aboriginal population now lives in cities and towns would not surprise anyone familiar with the derelict streets of the poorest postal code in Canada. Canada’s fastest growing Aboriginal communities are in the urban centers of Vancouver, Prince George, Edmonton, Calgary, Lethbridge, Regina, Saskatoon, Prince Albert, Winnipeg, Thompson, Thunder Bay and Toronto. In Edmonton, for example, family and friends of missing women recently held a rally to raise awareness in relation to unsolved disappearances there. Organizers of the Stolen Sisters Awareness March staged the event to remind people of the grim realities far too many aboriginal women face, in particular those who live on the streets, are addicted to drugs or work in the sex trade. Like Pickton’s victims these women have disappeared without their families knowing what happened to them. April Eve Wiberg, one of the organizers of the march, said that over the last 20 years, more than 500 aboriginal women in Canada have been murdered or they’ve just disappeared. “I’m hoping to raise awareness,” she said. “I’m hoping by everyone coming out and supporting us that the authorities will take these cases more seriously and treat them equally. “And as an aboriginal community, I don’t think that our ancestors would have put up with this and remained silent, so why should we?”
In Edmonton Connie Benwell hopes that breaking the silence about the root causes of this shameful epidemic will help her find her daughter, 27-year-old Leanne Benwell, who has been missing since March 12. She had been living on the streets for the last five years. “It’s terrifying,” Benwell said. “I have no clue where she is. My worst fear is that she’ll show up dead.” And there is a clear justification for such fear. The Vancouver Province newspaper reported only last month the death by overdose of a young native woman who was instrumental in bringing down David Ramsay, infamous BC provincial court judge from Prince George who pleaded guilty in 2004 and was sentenced to seven years in federal prison for sexual exploitation, violence against underage prostitutes, mostly aboriginal girls, and breach of trust. The young woman was a teenager in the sex trade at the time and cannot be named. She was 22 years old when she died of a drug overdose on April 1, only a few weeks after completing a drug rehabilitation program. Statistical evidence long ago verified the high percentage of aboriginal women haunting the streets and alleys of the Downtown Eastside. A decade ago, Drum writer Sean Devlin began reporting on the missing and murdered women now thought to be among the many victims of the Coquitlam pig farmer Robert ‘Willie’ Picton. At the time it was no secret that seventy percent of the women in the Downtown Eastside were native. Professor of criminology at Simon Fraser University, John Lowman, perhaps Canada’s leading expert on prostitution had already shown that women involved in the sex trade would be 60 to 120 times more likely to be murdered than other Canadian women. Lowman went so far as to accuse the Vancouver police and city politicians of complicity through inaction in the murders and disappearances of these women, describing the situation in the following way: “The police and the politicians actively created the problem they are now trying to fix. The rhetoric of the 80’s and 90’s 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 defenseless 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.’”

These women are chased in fact from poverty ridden rural reserves to drug infested inner city dead zones like the Downtown Eastside where psychopaths are waiting to pounce. Lowman suspected a serial killer long before law enforcement made that leap of logic. A 1997 Drum article told the tragic story of Lisa Marie Graveline, whose family had come to Vancouver from a Manitoba reserve and whose mother and father and brother all died from addiction related problems. Entire native families are stuck in this addictive cycle. Lisa Marie’s body was found stuffed into a duffel bag in a Downtown Eastside dumpster. She was known by frontline workers to have used the services of WISH (Women’s Information and Safe House) where 60 % of participants are Native. Program Director in the late 90’s Karen Duddy told the Drum at the time that the overwhelming atmosphere was one of menace. “Our women are very worried about their missing sisters. There is a great sense of fear out there.” That fear has only increased in recent years as in the case of Pilasi Kingfisher who upon arriving at the Bus station on Main and Terminal in Vancouver went missing for two weeks. Who could blame family and friends and indeed the public at large for just assuming that she would never be seen again; that she had become just one more victim of the horror story of life on or adjacent to the Downtown Eastside Thankfully this young native woman finally contacted her family from Saskatchewan where she was reported to have been living for two weeks by her own choice.

Chief Phil Fontaine of The Assembly of First Nations is forced by this scourge to file a human-rights complaint against the federal government in order to begin to put an end to the “systemic discrimination” resulting from the perpetual under-funding of aboriginal child-welfare services. “Our children need action now, so I am announcing today that we are putting governments on notice that a lack of action should be viewed as putting children at risk,” Fontaine said to the International Congress on Ethics in Gatineau, Quebec. The stark truth is that one in 10 aboriginal children in Canada is in foster care, as opposed to one in 200 non-aboriginal children. Child-welfare agencies for First Nations get 22 per cent less money than those that deal with non-aboriginal children. The logic is clear, according to Fontaine. Because child-services agencies lack adequate financing, these agencies are forced to spend what money they do have on taking children away from their parents. The reason 27,000 aboriginal children are in foster homes is the lack of funding and support at every level. “Such systemic discrimination must end,” Fontaine said. Meanwhile, in her first official meeting with British Columbia’s aboriginal leaders, the province’s new representative for Children and Youth, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, pledged to dismantle or at least substantially alter a decrepit piece of federal legislation that is clearly responsible for the staggeringly high number of native children at present in government care. Because it is under federal jurisdiction her statements have relevance for Native communities across the country. But Turpel-Lafond’s criticism of the law may in fact be the first time a provincial official has been so blatant in blaming the bureaucracy for what is indeed a national disgrace. She went so far as to explicitly describe the guilty federal Directive 20.1 as “perverse.” The directive in question stipulates that federal government money will be made available to look after troubled aboriginal kids “only if they are taken away from their families and placed in government care.” This is the language of kidnap and ransom.

In a speech to aboriginal leaders, chiefs, councilors and child-welfare advocates at a recent First Nations Summit in North Vancouver, Turpel-Lafond stated clearly that there were few more wrong-headed pieces of bureaucratic bungling in the history of relations between the government and First Nations. “Very clearly federal funding for child welfare is based on a perverse performance measure, which is that funds are based on taking kids into (government) care, which only encourages them to take more kids into care.” Again, in any other language these stipulations would be denounced as bounty hunting, a price on the head of every native kid. Needless to say, the new B.C. Rep. for Children and Youth was applauded for her frankness and received in general a very warm reception from the Native leaders in attendance. In offering an alternative to the perversity of the present situation, Turpel-Lafond emphasized that native kids and their communities would obviously be better served “by strengthening their family and cultural ties” in order to help families deal with such issues as addiction and domestic violence and all the other negative effects that characterize the national scourge of the “residential school syndrome.”

There are at present approximately 9,500 children in the care of the B.C. government, and more than half of these are of aboriginal ancestry. Compare this number to the fact that First Nations people make up less than four percent of the provincial population. And just to make certain you get the picture, check out the disproportionate number of aboriginal adults who are incarcerated in the penal institutions of the province. The path trodden by native prison inmates doubtless begins in the horrid childhoods spent in residential schools sanctioned by malevolent government policy. The provincial government, for its part, has recently agreed with First Nations to begin a gradual transfer of the care of native children to aboriginal agencies and authorities. These changes are necessary and welcome, but children no matter where they come from will never be truly safe and secure without the wholesale admission of guilt by the colonial institutions that started the problems in the first place. The cultural genocide that was historically perpetrated against the First Nations of this continent continues to this day in myriad more subtle forms to thwart the efforts of Aboriginal communities to rebuild their dignity. There is one simple phrase that must remain in the language of the struggle for First Nations self-determination. Systemic racism is at the bottom of each and every obstacle facing native communities

The life stories of the women missing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside in the days, weeks and months leading up to their disappearances are carbon copies of those going missing now in Winnipeg and Edmonton. The six women Robert Pickton is accused of murdering had already dropped out of sight some time before Picton came along. They disappeared because of a lack of services designed to address the problems caused by chronic poverty and dysfunction, and in the case of Native women esepcially, vicious cycles of addiction stemming from displacement and emotional breakdown. In the days before their files were closed, the last people to have contact with these women were usually doctors, pharmacists, police officers and community support workers. That is to say the files on these women were shut down some time before they died because there was no money available to keep them alive. Sereena Abotsway, Marnie Frey, Andrea Joesbury, Georgina Papin, Mona Wilson and Brenda Wolfe are all tragic examples of a system proven miserably inadequate to the task of rescuing members of a community at risk. These women were homeless and hungry and some were trying to protect children of their own. They were all known to the police and in many cases had recently reported having been assaulted both sexually and physically by predatory men in the Downtown East-side. In all six cases Medical Services Plan and Pharmanet records indicate that they were entirely dependent upon prescription drugs to function at the most miserable level of existence. The system had a responsibility to get them off the street and into treatment of some kind, before Robert Pickton crawled out from under his rock and butchered them.

By Morgan O’Neal

At the Red Earth First Nation about 300 kilometres northeast of Saskatoon the Carrot River as well as rivers originating in the Pasquia Hills peaked on Sunday, water levels dropping more than five centimetres, but with almost 700 Red Earth residents in Saskatoon or Prince Albert, the streets of the First Nation were deserted Monday afternoon. While river water did not reach homes or any other building on Red Earth, some were still at risk. Water saturated the muskeg and could still seep into basements from underground, says Dearld Whitecap, a co-ordinator for emergency operations.

Red Earth vice-chief Elton Head had been cautious about deciding when to return, but said it could be as early as Wednesday, and as it turned out everything is in place for the nearly 700 residents of the Red Earth First Nation displaced by flood waters to return home this morning, Wednesday, April 25. “They will be heading home (today) barring any unforeseen circumstances,” said Richard Kent, spokesperson for the Prince Albert Grand Council. The decision to go back was made by Red Earth First Nation Chief Miller Nawayakas, and was based on recommendations from a number of groups, including the Saskatchewan Watershed Authority.

Although water levels are dropping at Red Earth, Kent said some dikes are beginning to thaw, allowing water to spurt through. He said 21 homes took on water during the flood, and residents at the First Nation continue to pump water and sandbag affected areas.Last year during a flood, evacuees from the reserve were away from home for 12 days. A return today would mark six days away this time.

Meanwhile, the Yellow Quill First Nation is cleaning up debris after flood waters caused some problems in the community. But the damage this year is nothing compared to last year, says Hector Whitehead, housing and public works director for the First Nation, located about 250 kilometres east of Saskatoon. “There were 34 units that were affected last spring,” said Whitehead. Snow in the bush was removed this winter so when it melted, it wouldn’t affect the community as severely, he said.
Whitehead said was told by Indian and Northern Affairs Canada officials that the flood at Yellow Quill last year was worse than the one at Red Earth. The First Nation didn’t publicize it, though, he said. “We just kind of did what we thought should be taking place to try to resolve the problem without any outside help,” he said. Whitehead said only three or four houses were affected in this year’s runoff.

This week, an assessment is expected to be released from the Environment and Agriculture departments on soil quality in the areas of Waldsea Lake, Deadmoose Lake and Hougton Lake Area farmers are concerned the water spilling from these three alkaline lakes will contaminate agricultural land.

Waters in the Rosthern area are under control, although the RM of Rosthern declared a state of emergency Monday. “Quite honestly it has dropped off our radar,” Johnson said. The same is true for Beardy’s Okemasis First Nation. Jackfish Lake, north of North Battleford, is expected to rise another 30 centimetres but will not reach its record high despite earlier flood advisories indicating it may do so. “We will have to check the safety of the situation before we can confirm this,” he said.

Red Earth’s second evacuation in as many years should be seen as a “wake-up call” for the government to seriously look at the living conditions of First Nations people in Canada, says Head. “As a community leader, I am frustrated with the land that was given to us. It’s not suitable for development, it’s not good for hunting,” he said. “The federal government has been sending us memos that they will be there for us, but we are more or less still waiting.”

In December, Red Earth residents told community leaders to talk to the government about acquiring better quality land. Another assembly will likely be called once everyone returns, according to Head. And he’s hoping his people won’t be forced to evacuate for the third year in a row. If lack of money is the excuse then some suggest that the federal Conservative government’s fixation on Quebec is keeping it from living up to its campaign promise on equalization, provincial Finance Minister Andrew Thomson said Monday. The fiscal imbalance between provincial and federal governments tops the agenda at a two-day meeting between provincial finance ministers and their federal counterpart, Jim Flaherty, which began Monday in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.

Saskatchewan’s NDP government wants the Tory government to keep its campaign promise to exclude nonrenewable resource revenues from the equalization formula, which would mean around $900 million in extra federal cash for the province annually. While Flaherty at one point gave assurances that exclusion would happen, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has several times said it was simply a “preference” of the government and no decision had been made.

Thomson chalks up the change to concern in Quebec about how the promise on non-renewable resources would impact that province’s share of the equalization pot. “The problem we have is that the Conservatives are still in campaign mode. They believe they own the West and they’re trying to court Quebec and that is what’s complicating this,” he said in a telephone interview from Ontario. Flaherty said over the weekend there would be no significant increase in federal money going to the provinces to deal with the fiscal imbalance, pointing out that eight of the 10 provinces are running surpluses.

While Thomson said it won’t take great deal more money to fix the fiscal imbalance, he didn’t like the suggestion that provinces have more leeway because of the GST cut. “The last time we heard anything as ridiculous as that was from the Trudeau government in the ‘70s where they transferred so-called tax points. If Stephen Harper actually believes that’s what should happen, that we should go around and increase provincial sales taxes, I would encourage him to come to any community in Saskatchewan and say it,” he said.

Meanwhile, late Tuesday afternoon, Sask Power cut the umbilical cord to several customers in the flood-ravaged region. Dozens of cabin owners have been sandbagging feverishly to hold back water from Fishing Lake, but the loss of electricity is likely to force many people to higher ground. “We can no longer be selective and take metres out (at individual cabins),” said Sask Power spokesperson Larry Christie. Although Christie could not estimate how many people would be affected, he said Tuesday’s action involved a significant portion of line. Access roads to many areas of Fishing Lake are impassable, which helped force SaskPower’s hand.

“We can’t get into those places because the roads are so bad, so we’re cutting the line,” said Christie. At Ottmann Beach, ducks and even a muskrat swam over what used to be an access road. Murray Beach, just up the road, is also swamped. If power poles start falling, a live line would cause serious problems, said Christie. Cabin owners at Waldsea Lake, north of Humboldt, have also lost electrical service. Some customers outside of the flooded areas will likewise be affected because they are served by the same line.

Prior to Tuesday, SaskPower officials had been making daily inspections of properties. Any cabins surrounded by water had their electricity cut. “Even if a guy’s got a pump going or meat in the deep freeze, it didn’t matter. You were shut off,” said Harold Sandberg, mayor of Chorney Beach on the south end of the lake. While some cabin owners imported diesel sump pumps, Sandberg estimated Tuesday afternoon that about 20 pumps on Chorney Beach were still using electricity.

The local golf course now has more water hazards than fairways. The adjacent road also sits under water, further isolating the hardest-hit cabins on Chorney Beach. Even areas that seem high and dry aren’t safe, cautioned Sandberg. “A week ago, we knew we had to sand bag. But didn’t hink would be pouring over the banks.” Th Saskatchewan Watershed Authority reported a three-centimetre rise on Fishing Lake, Tuesday. However, rising water isn’t the only concern. Thick layers of ice continue to blanket the lake.

“With all of this work that we’re doing,” said Sandberg, “if we get one chunk of ice through a dike, that’ll be it for everybody because it’ll come through here whoosh!”A little farther east at Leslie Beach, cabin owner Edward Chasky expressed similar concerns about the ice. When the lake flooded several years ago, he watched a piece of ice that “went up the main beach at walking speed and pushed a cabin off its foundation.”

Street signs at Leslie Beach now mark a canal system. Chasky ploughed into the water on his all-terrain vehicle with a trailer in tow. He salvaged a small load — including a fridge and two mattresses — from his cabin. The71 year-old been coming to Fishing Lake since he was eight years old, but he doesn’t expect to be back any time soon. I’d be surprised if we’re back within two years.”

By Rick Littlechild

Based on a true story, Luna an Orca whale arrived in the Nootka Sound area in 2001 after being separated from his pod in the Juan de Fuca Straight. The Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation who live near Gold River adopted the whale believing that the spirit of their former chief who had prophesized before his death that he would return as a kakawin (orca whale). Luna appeared a few days after the chief’s death fulfilling the prophesy and the traditional belief that the ancestors could join with animals.
The drama that unfold within the Native community when the chief’s son Mike Maquinna returns home to attend his father’s funeral and Luna arrives in the village harbour is the main premise of the movie. Mike’s separation from his band and their traditions has made him question the validity of their beliefs. He is a hereditary chief and must take on the mantle of leadership now that his father is dead. Mike feels he is ill suited for the position since his spiritual base seems at odds with the traditions of his own people.

Life sometimes motivates the right decision in crucial situations. When the Government announces its plans to return Luna to his Pod, Mike who is slowly convinced by his mother that Luna truly embodies his father’s spirit and was sent to be his son’s spiritual guide, decides to take up the fight against the government to keep the whale in Nootka Sound. His decision not only renews his faith in his own traditions but spurs a spiritual revival that gives him the strength to unite his community in a David and Goliath battle against government bureaucracy.

Adam Beach plays the troubled Mike Maquinna was touched by the story, ‘’I heard of the whale out on the West Coast, but that was it, then I signed on and I learned a lot more about the whale and the people he affected. It really woke up the younger generation there and got them to look at their traditions, because of Luna they are learning and reconnecting with traditions, grassroots stuff. It was awesome to see; I saw it every day we were there.’’

The movie has a stellar cast, Graham Greene gives a wizened performance as Bill Louis the elder who is more deserving of the chief’s role than the young Maquinna. The mother of the young chief played by Tantoo Cardinal is nothing less than spellbinding. Jason Priestly in an uncharacteristic bad guy role as Ted Jefferies the self righteous government official, portrays with great accuracy the petty autocratic attitude many government administrators still have towards Native people. There is no shortage of talent in LUNA: SPIRIT OF THE WHALE and Adam Beach demonstrates again why his star keeps rising in the uncertain world of cinema.

The pride of the Dog Creek band situated just north of Winnipeg, Adam went back to his reserve last year to run for chief, he failed to get elected but he promised he would try again. A surprising move considering how is career has flourished in the last five years, how he would fit in the time to be chief when he is the hardest working native actor alive.
Adam appeared in North of 60 early in his career and became more familiar with TV audiences as a regular in The Rez. His film credits include Dance Me Outside and the acclaimed Smoke Signals but his breakthrough performance came in

WINDTALKERS with Nicolas Cage in 2002. Adam has caught the attention of Hollywood directors including Clint Eastwood who cast him as Ira Hayes in Flags Of Our Fathers. ‘’ You only get one take with Clint, so it’s got to be a good one.’’