Posts By: First Nations Drum

By Morgan O’Neal

Don Freed was born in New Westminster, B.C. in 1949, and raised in Saskatoon where he began writing at age seven, performing original songs in coffeehouses in 1966. These numbers add up to forty years in the business of making music. If the recently deceased Rita Joe is the poet-laureate of the Mi’kmaq Nation, then Freed can rightly lay claim to the same title in relation to the Metis Nation. He is, after all, by any definition, first and foremost a poet. Peter Mansbridge of CBC Newsworld called him “a real-life Pied Piper.” Anyone who has seen him in the workshops with children that are now his passion would be hard put to deny it.

The January 24, 1970 New York Times review of the documentary “Johnny Cash: The Man, His World and His Music,” verified just how early in Freed’s career his unique talents were recognized in the industry. Roger Greenspun described his brief appearance and performance in the film: “The best sequence . . . doesn’t feature Cash, or June Carter or even Mother Maybelle, or the Tennessee Three. Rather it introduces a young man not mentioned in the film’s credits. His name is Don Freed and he auditions two songs for Cash. I think he is extraordinary, and if there were no other attraction [there are many], he would be reason enough for seeing the movie.” This is high praise for a young man from the sticks in a city known for critics cutting to shreds the least little lost chord.

freed 2After a couple of years in New York City, Freed was “laying in bed every night in my west village apartment with the feeling gnawing at me that I was supposed to be doing my work in northern.Saskatchewan, a place I had never been. I actually told people that I was going home to be a bush pilot.” He did go home. You can take the boy out of the Valley of Green and Blue but you can’t take the Valley of Green and Blue out of the boy. Back in Canada Freed moved around a lot, living in a number of locales and performing at clubs and festivals throughout North America. But what was really emerging during this period were the seeds of the creative educational project that has kept him busy for the past decades: the universally praised song-writing workshops with children of isolated communities all over the north of Western Canada.

One of my tasks at the Drum is to profile persons of Native ancestry who, often against great odds, have succeeded in getting themselves a life based in their own cultural histories by managing to reconcile contradictions inherent in being outcasts in their own traditional territories. There is, of course, many such individuals roaming around this continent, although they get precious little coverage in the mainstream press. When it came time to decide upon a profile subject for this issue, I recalled a conversation I’d had with Don Freed years ago, when we were both looking for something more substantial than what was happening at the time: shopping malls, parking lots and the horrid noise of commercial music blaring from the stereo speakers of new two-door hard-tops rolling off the assembly lines in Detroit and Windsor.

At the time, Freed had already begun to research his family past in the Archives at St. Boniface, where he was able to confirm that Gabriel Dumont was actually his own Great Great Uncle. His roots, therefore, were firmly planted in the rich soil of the Red River Valley. Since he began his quest for authentic Metis identity, amassing a wealth of knowledge about Metis history in the process, his work has been focused on making this history accessible to the widest possible audience. This is the primary reason for the children’s song-writing workshops in which the singer and the songs are the vehicle by which Freed transmits information of crucial importance for the development of Metis community. As Freed himself reports with visible delight, “children not yet born when many of these songs were written can now sing them by heart. Over a vast area the songs have been absorbed by a new generation.”

I have yet to muster Freed’s energy in order to research my family’s pedigree, but I do know that I am a Bird and hail from the same Red River Settlement. I can remember going every summer to celebrate near Bird’s Hill where the first Winnipeg Folk Festivals were later held. I’ve known Don for thirty years, so I can make no claim to objective reporting here. I like the person. I respect the artist. But there is much more at stake in Freed’s work now than there was back in the late seventies. We went our separate ways and came into contact only sporadically over the years. When I decided that he would be the perfect subject for a profile, I went to his website and was amazed at what the man had been up to since I had last run across him. After a bit of procrastination, I finally managed to telephone Don in Winnipeg. He was surprised to hear from me. I told him what I wanted to do, and he was agreeable. The interesting thing about the phone call, however, was that he was at that very moment packing in preparation to fly to Vancouver for an audition with the Artstarts Program, a provincial initiative that would allow him to continue his work with children in scattered communities around British Columbia when he makes a permanent move out here in a few months. Manitoba’s loss, in this case, is clearly our gain.

Coincidentally, Freed was also committed to meet with a group of young children–“Les Petits Danseurs Michif” led by Mooshum Bob Kelly’s Dance and Cultural Society–to work his song-writing magic with them on the night of his arrival. I was invited along to the first meeting. Everyone in the room got right down to business. A white board was set up in front of the group of kids gathered around Don; a few different story lines were suggested; words, phrases and rhyming lines were bandied about. Slowly, but surely, a song began to take shape. One of the older girls began to transcribe lyrics in bright jiffy marker colours on the board. The plan was to practice the song in order to give a live performance before Elders organized for the following evening at the Friendship Centre on East Hasting Street. Not a lot of time for fine-tuning, but everything came off without a hitch.

The lyrics and music of this song grew organically, helped along by deft direction from Freed. Out of the confusion of individual thoughts and group discussion, a finely crafted poetic expression of a typically warm relationship between Metis men and women appeared as if by spiritual intervention. And it was largely quite literally written by the kids. A jig was added to follow the first two verses and accelerate the tempo for the final chorus. “Mooshum and Kookum” is the joyful result, and although it may (as Don later noted) need one more verse to be complete, it works mighty well in its present form.

Mooshum’s Moosehide Moccasins wake him up in the morning.

The smokey sweet aroma makes him dance on the hardwood floor.

Kookum puts the kettle on, and then she makes some bannock.
That’s why Mooshum didn’t want to be a bachelor.

Didn’t want to be, didn’t want to be, he didn’t want to be a bachelor!

Mooshum takes her in his arm and then they both start dancing.
He’s so tall, that her feet so small are lifted off the floor.

Though many year’s have come and gone, for her he still is handsome.

And that is why she didn’t want to be a maiden any more.

A maiden anymore, a maiden anymore, she didn’t want to be a maiden any more!

The following evening everyone arrived on time dressed in their best, complete with traditional sashes. After a few trial runs Don and the kids joined the Elders and others seated proudly around the room in which a meal had earlier been enjoyed in anticipation of the performance. The Elders immediately joined in and began to sing and clap and stomp their feet to the beat of Freed’s guitar and harmonica and the excited voices of proud children. The feeling in the room was a desire to continue all night. But there was school the next day, and the Centre had to be cleaned. But the result of the event was a jolt of joy I have not felt in quite a while, a lightning bolt of human energy created by a group of kids led by a proud and passionate Metis troubadour.
I realized after I had witnessed this impressive phenomenon that at least one thing had remained consistent over the years: Don Freed continues to compose intelligent lyrics and perform them either solo acoustically or in groups made up of some of the best musicians in Canada. I can still remember the first time Colin James appeared on stage, long before he made it ‘big’ in the business. It was with Don and a small local group of musicians in a basement venue in Saskatoon. I doubt if Colin was old enough to have a driver’s license at the time. Over the last three decades Don Freed has performed at all of Canada’s major folk music festivals and has been featured on many radio and television programs. He’s toured with such diverse performers as Lightnin’ Hopkins and Jane Siberry, was the first to hire Colin James as a recording side man, and co-wrote “Crazy Cries of Love” with Joni Mitchell on her “Taming the Tiger” CD.

Now, however, Freed’s skill and talent, to which working with kids has added the quality of patience, are directed at children, many of whom are in dire need of ways to express their sometimes confused emotions in order to release both the joys and the fears of being a child of Aboriginal ancestry in today’s society. In 1993 he began conducting workshops with Native elementary school children in Northern Saskatchewan. “It seemed that any time you heard about Northern youth there was always tragedy attached to the stories,” he says, “so, I’ve got them to express themselves and their cultures and brought out a positive story.” This ‘positive story’ was seen by the entire country in a documentary produced on his work with First Nations youth that aired on CBC Newsworld in 2001. The film and the project itself were later the subject of a feature article in Billboard Magazine.

Since beginning his work with children Don has accomplished much. In 1990 the lyric to Don’s song, “Mr. Ford and the Petty Thieves” was included in the ACCELERATE Destinations, Prentice-Hall High School curriculum. In 1993, Freed recorded “Young Northern Voices,” songs written in workshops with children in the Northern Lights School Division in Saskatchewan. These songs were performed at the 1993 World Indigenous Peoples Conference on Education in Woolongong, Australia. For 18 months from 1994 to 1996, Don was Writer-in-Residence in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, during which time he initiated the production of a St. Michael School’s student musical, “The West Flat Can,” where students looked at various social problems arising from growing up in the West Flat.
In 1996, “Singing About the Métis” was produced on both cassette and CD. These songs of Métis history and culture were written with the Prince Albert elementary students Don worked with during his residency. In 1997, he produced the “Métis Historical and Cultural Pageant” in St.Louis, Saskatchewan, with Grade 1 – 12 students from St.Louis School. During the month of January spent there, teachers in this small town made the hard decision to cancel hockey in order to facilitate rehearsals (and to everyone’s surprise and relief no one even complained). In 1998, Don started the Inner City Harmony Project, a series of song-writing workshops with nine Saskatoon Community Schools resulting in the recording “A Class Act.” All of the albums recorded with children have been produced by Don and have proven to significantly increase self-esteem in children who have few opportunities to participate in the arts.

In 1999, The Gabriel Dumont Institute produced “Sasquatch Exterminator,” an illustrated children’s book written by Don and students from Cumberland House. A CD of the same name accompanies the book and both are now being widely used for Aboriginal language development and retention with adult and child learners. That same year Saskatchewan Social Services contracted Don to work with young offenders for a month on site at the North Battleford Youth Centre. “Mystery Boyz” features ten songs written by these incarcerated youth. He also produced a show for the Northern Saskatchewan International Children’s Festival that featured the young singers from two of Saskatoon’s Community Schools, and Cumberland House and St. Louis.

Freed finished off eight years of song-writing workshops by producing “Our Very Own Songs,” a double CD of original compositions representing the youth of 28 communities in northern Saskatchewan nominated for Best Children’s Recording at the Prairie Music Awards. A website and songbook were also produced (www.ourveryownsongs.ca). In 2003, Don was contracted by the Edmonton Folk Music Festival to conduct two weeks of workshops in an inner city school. And in the same year performed at the Folk Festivals in Regina, Edmonton and Winnipeg. The fall of 2003 found Don in Deline, Tulita, and Yellowknife in the North West Territories, conducting workshops on behalf of the NWT Literacy Council. And in 2004, Don did a two-week tour of the Yukon as part of Culture Quest, New Music by First Nations Artists, and a concert in Winnipeg celebrating Metis culture which was recorded by the CBC and broadcast nationally.

In 2005, Freed was featured performer at Winnipeg’s Festival Du Voyageur and completed recording the much anticipated “The Valley of Green and Blue – A Metis Saga” which was released in September of the same year.. Included in this CD is the now famous “When This Valley,” a song considered at the grassroots level to be the Metis National Anthem. A film is now in the works documenting the live recording of this song by a Metis choir on June 21 of 2005 in the church at the National Historical Site of Batoche, Saskatchewan. Freed is now preparing to move to British Columbia where he will continue his important contribution to the building of the Metis nation in song. After that he has plans to do the same thing in the East and in Nunavut.

The ultimate objective of this work “is an illustrated song book and recording for use in elementary schools from coast to coast to coast.” .In the meantime, three important future dates deserve attention. In May, he performs with a school choir from North Battleford, Sask. at an international gathering of arts teachers at the University of Regina. At the end of June, he is keynote speaker at a symposium on health concerns and youth in northern communities. And in August he will perform with children from Saskatchewan at the Edmonton Folk Festival. I can think of no better way to end this profile than with the first verse of the Anthem:

When this valley’s no longer a wound that won’t heal
When its story is well understood
May infinity fly where the blue of the sky
Meets the green of the river and gold of the straw
In the valley of old St. Laurent.

By Michelle Oleman

Labeled as simply “First Nations Activist” in mainstream publications, Elder and Matriarch, Harriet Nahanee (71) of the Squamish Nation, has passed on following a 14-day jail sentence.

Nahanee was a long time respected elder here on the west coast, her actions inspired young and old alike to take a stand for what she referred to as a sacred cause that needs an “aboriginal Malcolm X” to restore their pride. Also a great-grandmother and leader for the cause Betty Krawczyk had expressed her concern for Mrs. Nahanee to Justice Brown in written form. “Mrs. Nahanee is not well…”, citing asthma, and a recent bout with influenza had already weakened the elder’s immunity.
Ignoring these warnings from friend and ally to Mrs. Nahanee, Justice Brown ordered that she be held at Surrey Women’s Pre-Trial Center in January. One short week after her release, Mrs. Nahanee died of “pneumonia and complications”.

Hundreds gathered for her memorial in late February, among them First Nations Leaders Bernice Williams (neice to the late Harriet Nahanee), Kat Norris of the Indigenous Action Group, David Dennis of the United Native Nations, and Chief Stewart Philip of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, who are organizing a call to police forces for an inquiry into Mrs. Nahanee’s death. Asked when would be an appropriate time to begin organizing this movement one of the family members replied “as long as you wait for 4 days after we’ve (held her final services), you can (go ahead).”

Harriet Nahanee was a beautiful woman who sacrificed herself for a cause that many of us feel more than worthy, and her passing has brought to National attention need for us as peoples in solidarity and for the sovereignty of Canada to recognize indigenous rights to land ownership, development, and use. Her family has expressed concern that media representation of this story will misinterpret Harriet’s life work in expressing indigenous sovereignty in a positive way.

First Nations Drum has learned that Mrs. Nahanee had been involved in several community projects concerning helping young women and in memorial of those who have gone missing or have been found murdered. A more recent endeavor is with the Spirits Rising Memorial Society who quotes on their website:
“One of the most tragic and horrendous crimes against women has happened in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside with the murder of over 60 women during the last two decades. Spirits Rising Memorial Society was formed to assist the community in its journey towards healing through the creation of a memorial totem pole honoring these women. Haida carver Skundaal (Bernice Williams) will apprentice women and youth at risk as carvers for this project; providing them with opportunities for cross cultural education and empowerment through skills training. “

Mrs. Nahanee had chosen the tree to be used for this project and named the tree “Eve”, the first cut ceremony will be held at the end of this month, projected date for raising this pole is in the fall of 2007, at Wendy Poole Park in Vancouver, B.C.

Her life and death have inspired many to take notice, and take action. Shortly after her demise young men of the Native Warriors Society had “stolen” the Olympic flag from the display at Vancouver’s City Hall. In an act of ultimate protest these warriors have claimed the heart of the story behind why Mrs. Nahanee had so passionately stood up for the cause “No Olympics on Stolen Land”. One of the group stating that “Our elder was given a death sentence by the B.C. courts for her courageous stand in defence of Mother Earth.”

An ironic twist of fate, in her own words, Mrs. Harriet Nahanee had already brought a similar and all to familiar truth light; as quoted of a former Residential School survivor’s plight with a priest she had said:
“He kicked the little girl and she fell down the stairs and died. That’s Murder. There were other kids in the infirmary who had their appendix burst. That’s Murder. Other children were beaten so badly they died. That’s Murder. No one bothered to take them to the hospital.”.

Justice Brown had received written concern on Mrs. Nahanee’s health status, albeit not from a doctor but from someone very close to the protestor. Had she failed to heed this warning?- Or had she simply chose to ignore it? Let’s pray that a proper inquiry be held into this matter and that Justice will prevail in this land.

By Clint Buehler

ALEXANDER FIRST NATION, AB – The Alexander First Nation (AFN) wants to carve out a piece of the burgeoning on-line gaming action for itself.

To achieve that goal, the Alexander Band Council has established the Alexander Gaming Commission (AGC), set up a website to promote the initiative and has completely renovated an old hockey rink to create a 2,300-square-metre business and state-of-the-art data centre on reserve to host the websites of internet gambling operators.

The group wants to charge up to $40,000 a year. Plus start up fees, to offshore companies which set up computer servers on the new data centre.

The AGC promises on its website and in a media release that it has established rules to ensure “a safe, high quality environment for on-line gamers.”

The Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission (AGLC) contends that what the AFN is proposing is illegal under the Criminal Code, and that the AGLC has the sole authority over gambling in the province.

While admitting that as far as he knows the AGC has only established a website to solicit potential customers who are on-line casino operators, Norm Peterson, the CEO of the AGLC, says the regulatory body would take action to shut down the operation as it would any other “illegal” gambling activity.
That stand has been echoed by Alberta Solicitor General Fred Lindsay, the minister responsible for the AGLC, who said of the Alexander initiative, “being illegal . . . we will take every action to ensure that it doesn’t happen in Alberta.”
(The AGLC reported $1.4 billion in revenue from gambling last year.)

But the AFN counters that because the operation is located on sovereign Indian land, it is not subject to the restrictions of Alberta and Canada.

“We’re establishing that concept under the Indian Act,” says Alexander Chief Raymond Arcand. “We’re on federal land, we’re under the federal responsibility, and under the Indian Act it gives us authority to make our own laws pertaining to this issue.”

However, Kelly Payn, a spokeswoman for the federal Department of Indian Affairs, which oversees the Indian Act, told the Edmonton Journal the department agrees with the AGLC position.

There is a precedent, although it has never been tested by the courts.The Mohawk Territory of Kahnawake in Quebec has one of the largest hosts for online gambling in the world. It has operated the Kahnawake Gaming Commission since 1996, and now hosts hundreds of mostly offshore licensed casino and poker websites, earning millions of dollars in profits in the process.

Although Loto-Quebec and Quebec’s attorney general have said in the past the Kahnawake-based on-line gambling is illegal, charges have never been laid. There is far from agreement on this issue in the legal community, with some legal experts arguing the Kahnawake has found a loophole and its gambling activities are a right protected by the Canadian Constitution, while others says it’s a violation of the Criminal Code.
Internet gambling is not regulated by the federal government, except for Criminal Code provisions requiring that all computerized gambling is operated under provincial gambling authorities.

With the United States Congress coming down hard on U.S.-based on-line gambling sites, Alexander is looking to operators in Asia, Europe and elsewhere to become their customers, and estimate the venture can provide as many as 40 jobs, and generate millions of dollars in profit annually.

It affirms on its website that casino operators it hosts must abide by the tough new American laws banning the processing of payments for gambling websites, and cannot accept bets from Canadian residents.

Alexander’s best defense may lie in the history and culture of its people, by proving that gambling was an inherent part of their pre-contact culture.

It falls under the same justifications that have enabled Aboriginal groups to establish self-governing rights to logging, fishing and hunting. Therefore, if Alexander can show gambling was integral to the history and culture of their people, it could get approval to host off-shore gaming websites.

Alexander could cite the instances where Aboriginal groups have established constitutional self-governing rights to logging, fishing and hunting as precedents that also apply to gambling.
Several bands have had their arguments that gambling is an ancestral tradition and inherent right rejected by lower courts, and even the Supreme Court. The high court, in a decision in 1996 ruling against Ontario bands, provides some guidelines as to how Alexander and other bands might establish sovereignty over gambling.

As gaming industry lawyer Michael Lipton told the Edmonton Journal, “if the facts exist to demonstrate that a rudimentary—very rudimentary—form of gambling exists, be it in the form of stones and sticks or beads or whatever the case may be, the law says that if they’ve got the facts, this is the law, they have to follow it.”

In a recent article in the Gaming Law Review journal regarding the Kahnawake online casino venture, Morden C. Lazarus writes that although authorities have never cracked down on the Kahnawake scheme even though they think it is illegal, the Mohawk have centuries-old traditional gaming practices they can proves should they ever be hauled into court. He says “it’s the entitlement test. If they can survive the entitlement test the Supreme Court of Canada set out, then they would have the ability to succeed.”

Chief Ron Morin of the Enoch Cree Nation, which opened the $182 million River Cree Resort and Casino on its reserve on the western outskirts of Edmonton last fall, and which has longtime cultural links to Alexander, says the region’s Aboriginal people organized wagering games long before contact with European colonizers.

By Lloyd Dolha

At the north end of the picturesque Harrison Lake, the Douglas First Nation is developing a state-of-the art run-of-river hydro project bringing reliable clean energy and much needed jobs for the 213-member community.

“Right now there is a 10 and 25 man camp set up on reserve to facilitate the workers for the 200 man camp,” said Chief Darryl Peters. “Construction may be starting around the end of April at the latest.”

Working with Vancouver-based Cloudworks Energy Inc. the Douglas First Nation will take part in the development of five run-of-river hydro-electric power plant facilities on the Upper Harrison and Stave River watersheds.

Peters has worked for seven years to get the isolated community hooked up to the BC Hydro power grid and rid the community of the diesel generators that provided unclean and unsafe power to the community since the 1970’s.

When BC Hydro constructed the transmissions lines for the grid in the 1950’s, the Douglas First Nation lost many, homes, hay fields, as well as traditional hunting and fishing grounds just to make room for the lines.

The proposed $300 million project is expected to create 400 person years of employment during the four-year construction phase and 20 permanent positions during operations, providing electricity to 40,000 homes.

The Douglas First Nation will have ownership of the Douglas and Tipella Creek hydro projects and realize millions in annual royalties from the project that will benefit future generations and allow the Douglas First Nation to implement economic development opportunities in other areas for their own purposes.
The project will provide green, renewable energy with minimal impact on the local environment. These include measures to mitigate the project’s impact on fish and wildlife habitat and the protection of areas of cultural significance.

“We’re mobilizing and preparing the site for construction,” said Nick Andrews, principal and director of Cloudworks Energy Inc. “In the long-term, the project will be of substantial benefit to the Douglas First Nation.”

By Morgan O’Neal

The Highway of Tears (Highway 16 West between Prince Rupert and Prince George) is one desolate stretch of road at the best of times, but it is even more forbidding in the winter. Nevertheless, it can also be exceptionally beautiful in places, especially during the day when the sun manages to break through the clouds, and the rays play for a while on the frozen lakes and creeks. Sometimes late in the day the snow on the mountain peaks glows bright neon pink. But more often than not there is nothing but absolute wilderness for miles, interrupted only by the occasional isolated homestead with smoke trailing from the chimney of house. There are signs warning: “Caution: Moose Next 20 km.”

There are many side-roads off this highway, leading to remote logging sites, lakes and other rural recreational spots. It’s the kind of sparsely populated rural countryside that attracts tourists and sports fishermen from Europe and the U.S., including, apparently, late-night talk show host David Letterman. According to Gordon Elmore, owner of the Trout Creek General Store, located on Highway 16 about 25 kilometres west of Smithers, Letterman bought a fishing licence here one day. The word is that he has purchased some property in the vicinity.

Tamara Chipman, a beautiful young mother with a big smile and a small freckle beneath her left eye went missing at the Prince Rupert end of this highway. She was 22 years old when she was last seen on September 21, 2005, hitchhiking eastbound near the town’s industrial park around 4:30 p.m., heading toward her home in Terrace. But she never arrived at her destination. She never saw her young child again. Since that day neither her bank account nor her credit card has been used. Because she was not reported missing for almost three weeks, the investigation into the case has been difficult from the outset. Those first few days so obviously crucial in terms of evidence and witnesses were lost.

It was Tamara Chipman’s disappearance that prompted a Prince George businessman, Tony Romeyn (concerned that yet another young woman had gone missing along the Highway) to launch a website in order to raise public awareness about the young women who have disappeared or been murdered since 1990. As Romeyn said in an interview, “This is not just a small thing happening. Whether it’s a single predator, it’s difficult to say. But I thought this is something we need to explore further.” When Romeyn read the news story about Tamara Chipman, he immediately checked to see if the term ‘Highway of Tears’ had been taken as a website domain name. When he found it was still available, he registered the name and launched the website (www.highwayoftears.ca/).
Ironically Tamara went missing just four days after the 2005 Take Back the Highway March was held in her hometown of Terrace. About 70 people — native and non-native — marched along the infamous highway to draw attention to the many other young women who had previously been murdered or had disappeared along this dangerous stretch of road. Christine Welsh, who teaches women’s studies at the University of Victoria, was in Terrace at the time making a National Film Board documentary about those young women who had gone missing along Highway 16. She sees “what’s happening on the highway as a manifestation of . . . the violence against women in this country” According to Welsh, a Metis living on Saltspring Island, “It’s the everyday systemic violence.”

Tamara Chipman’s family and friends have been searching that highway and the adjacent logging roads ever since. During the daily ground search that followed upon the official recognition that she was missing, searchers “pretty well covered every side road between Terrace and [Prince] Rupert,” according to Tom Chipman, her father. He has also walked along Highway 16, looking in culverts for any sign of his daughter. “It’s scary looking into a culvert,” said Chipman, who makes his living as a gillnet fisherman. “It’s not a nice thing to go through. “Every day we don’t find a body is a good day.”

Tom Chipman had returned to Terrace from fishing that first week of November, expecting to find a phone message from his daughter, who was close to her dad. “It’s definitely out of character for her,” he had said of her not calling. During the last few weeks of the initial search for Tamara, rumours began swirling around about the case in the community — rumours first that she had been spotted alive and well and then later on that her body had been found. “We had to have the police go on the radio and put an end to these rumours,” said Tom Chipman. The father recalls his daughter, since she was a baby, spent a lot of time on his fishing boat. “She was pretty spunky,” her father said. “She took judo lessons for years, so she knew how to look after herself pretty good.”

According to Amnesty International Canada, Tamara Chipman’s disappearance brought to 33 the number of women gone missing or murdered along this now infamous Highway of Tears — all but one of these women were aboriginal. Shelby Raymond, an Amnesty International representative in Terrace who works at Northwest Community College, said she couldn’t provide an entire list of names of the women that Amnesty claims are missing or murdered. “It’s what’s called a soft statistic,” she said. “Much of it was anecdotal, gathered during the Stolen Sisters report Amnesty released its report Stolen Sisters: Discrimination and Violence Against Indigenous Women in Canada, in October of 2004.

This report cited a shocking 1996 federal government statistic that native women between 25 and 44 are five times more likely to die as the result of violence than other women in the same age group. The report also included a figure gathered by the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC), which estimates that more than 500 native women may have been murdered or gone missing over a 20-year period prior to 2004 — again, the figure was based on anecdotal evidence. NWAC says it is difficult to do a statistical analysis of violence involving native women because some police reports did not record whether the victim was a native woman.
The Amnesty International report also cited nine other cases of violence against native woman, including the murder of Helen Betty Osborne, a 19-year-old Cree student from northern Manitoba who dreamed of becoming a teacher but was abducted by four men and killed on Nov. 12, 1971. It took more than 15 years to bring one of the four men to justice. A judicial inquiry that followed found the police investigation was sloppy and racially biased. The inquiry, for example, found that police had long been aware of white men sexually preying on native women and girls in the town of The Pas but “did not feel that the practice necessitated any particular vigilance.”

Warren Goulding in his 2001 book, Just Another Indian: A Serial Killer and Canada’s Indifference, concluded that some lives seem to be worth more than others. Quoted in the book is Justine English, whose sister Mary Jane Serlion was killed in 1981 in Lethbridge by Saskatoon serial killer John Martin Crawford. “It seems that any time a native is murdered, it isn’t a major case. It’s just another dead Indian,” English said. Crawford was convicted in 1996 of killing three native women and was suspected in the death of at least one and possibly other native women whose murders remain unsolved.

Goulding questioned why Crawford’s trial received such scant attention from the national media, noting it took place at almost the same time as the trial of Paul Bernardo, which transfixed the national media. Bernardo was convicted of killing two teenage white girls, who were innocent, girl-next-door types the media could identify with, Goulding suggests in his book. “The Canadian public’s awareness of this case is virtually non-existent, even in Saskatoon where the crimes occurred,” Goulding wrote of Crawford’s serial killing spree.

Melissa Munn, who teaches criminology at Northwest Community College in Terrace and University of Ottawa, has looked closely at the Highway 16 cases and although she remains uncertain whether a serial killer is responsible, she knows something is very wrong.. “If it’s one person, that’s one thing, but if it’s multiple people — seven or eight killers — that’s much more scary to me,” she says. “I think these cases speak to the vulnerability of first nations girls.” She said hitchhiking is a risky behavior, but it’s also a way of life for many poor native women living in remote communities who can’t afford a vehicle or bus fare to town.

Tamara’s disappearance renewed the grief of the families of the other girls and young women who were Highway 16 victims.”Every time we hear of someone else missing, it just brings us so much sorrow because we know what the families are going through,” said Matilda Wilson of Smithers, whose 15-year-old daughter Ramona went missing 10 years ago.

Police have repeatedly stated that while they cannot rule out the possibility of a serial killer operating along Highway 16, there is no evidence to suggest a link between the murders and mysterious disappearances. But retired RCMP officer Fred Maile, who helped crack the Clifford Olson serial killer case in B.C. by getting Olson to confess to 11 murders, is convinced a serial killer is working along Highway 16. “I am 100-per-cent certain that there’s a serial killer there,” he said in an interview after Tamara’s disappearance. “I went up there twice to look at the cases of Delphine Nikal and Ramona Wilson. We felt the same individual had grabbed them.”
Maile was asked by the Calgary-based Missing Children Society to investigate the cases and found too many similarities. “They were both native, both about the same age and they were hitchhiking in opposite directions,” Maile recalls. “The whole situation smacks of someone driving that highway and living there.”The unusual thing about serial killers, he said, is that they can sometimes go years between murders. “They look for an opportunity,” he explains. “There’s usually not two or three individuals in the same area that do this.” He also points out that a serial killer can appear normal and go undetected. “They don’t stand out as monsters. They blend in with the rest of us. Look at the Green River killer.”The Green River killer, Gary Leon Ridgway, operated for more than 20 years in the Seattle area before he was caught in 2001, when investigators linked his DNA to four murders. On Nov. 5, 2003, the truck painter pleaded guilty to murdering 48 women between 1982 and 1998.

Highway 16 also runs east to Edmonton, where police believe a serial killer might be connected to the bodies of 12 women found around that city over the last 16 years. RCMP have offered a $100,000 reward and released a profile that suggests the killer or killers drive a truck or SUV which is cleaned at unusual hours, may be a hunter, fisherman or camper, is comfortable driving on country roads, and is likely connected to towns south of Edmonton. Edmonton RCMP have admitted investigators have learned from the mistakes made during the investigation of accused B.C. serial killer Robert (Willy) Pickton, who is now on trial in New Westminster. The number of missing women being investigated in that case now stands at 68, plus three unidentified DNA profiles found at the Pickton farm in Port Coquitlam.

By Morgan O’Neal

From her balcony at the Vancouver Native housing complex directly across the street from the International Village Mall, Tamara Chipman’s aunt, Gladys Radek, a Vancouver -based Carrier grandmother with one leg, had a perfect view of Tinseltown. While she sat on her deck doing beadwork, Radek observed the goings on at the mall and she began to notice some disturbing trends. She witnessed several incidents of security guard intimidation and outright harassment of Native patrons. The mall had opened its doors in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside in December 1999. Its owners, Henderson Development Ltd, had envisioned a high-end fashion and entertainment complex serving a clientele with disposable income. But the low-income residents from the neighborhood also visited the mall to purchase cups of coffee, groceries and fast food. The locals were not welcome, however.

On May 10, 2001, Radek and a friend discovered for themselves just how fanatically discriminatory the Security regime at Tinseltown could be. They were on their way to have a coffee at Starbucks when the two of them were accosted, verbally harassed, and physically evicted from the premises by a uniformed mall cop. Insulted and humiliated, Radek demanded to see the policy that allowed the guards to evict her. They didn’t show it, and Radek called police on her cell phone. The police sided with Security. Radek took her case to the British Columbia Human Rights Commision. She complained that Mall Security’s actions “offended her dignity as an Aboriginal woman”.

She alleged that the discrimination she suffered was part of a larger pattern of systemic discrimination practiced by security guards on behalf of Tinseltown /International Village Shopping Mall against Aboriginal and disabled people. Radek who was 49 years old when the incidents took place, testified she was treated as an undesirable person because of her looks – that she was, simply, Aboriginal. Other people testified about similar experiences. Indeed, in the 209 page decision that was later published, Human Rights Tribunal member Lindsay M. Lyster reprinted some elements of the Mall’s horrifying policy for evicting people. It required security workers to remove people with ‘ripped clothing,’ ‘dirty clothing,’ ‘attitudes when approached,’ ‘talking to themselves,’ ‘open sores,’ ‘red eyes,’ and ‘having bad body odour,’ among other things. The decision cited one security report where the reason for eviction was ‘missing teeth/native male unco-operative.’

Four years after her disgusting mistreatment, Radek won a favorable decision from the BC Human Rights Tribunal. A 13 day hearing took place in 2004, and the decision was made on July 13, 2005. The Tribunal ordered International Village to replace policy, which still allowed evictions of ‘suspicious’ people, with a policy that would focus instead on how people act, rather than how they look. Seventeen people, besides Radek, testified at the hearing about discrimination at the mall. As Radek told Turtle Island Native Network following the decision, “I am very proud of this decision on behalf of our people. I feel that we all deserve to be treated with honor and dignity, no matter where we walk in this beautiful country”.
After reviewing the sorry history of the mall in question, the numerous instances of racist behavior against Aboriginals there, the Tribunal agreed that the Mall had discriminated against Ms. Radek. The Tribunal spokesperson did not mince words: “I have found the complaint to be justified. I found that Henderson and Securiguard discriminated against Ms. Radek, both on May 10, 2001 and on a number of earlier occasions. I also found that both respondents engaged in systemic discrimination on the basis of race, colour, ancestry and disability, throughout the period of this complaint.”

According to the decision, “To be singled out for treatment of the kind described in this decision, because of one’s race or disability or a combination of those factors, constitutes a clear violation of the human dignity of all those so affected. The opportunity to walk into a shopping mall and buy a cup of coffee, go for an inexpensive meal, use a bank machine, or simply pass through on the way to public transportation, is one which the majority of Canadians take for granted. The practices of the respondents had the effect of systematically denying the Aboriginal and disabled people of the Downtown Eastside that opportunity. It made them strangers in their own community.” (BC Human Rights Tribunal)

Because of the severe emotional impact the discrimination had on her, the Tribunal awarded Gladys Radek $15,000.00, “in compensation for injury to her dignity, feelings, and self-respect”. Henderson and Securiguard also had to pay interest on the compensation, as well as the costs for the Human Rights hearings. Also, Henderson was ordered to make policy changes at the mall to remedy the situation. “Henderson is to ensure that the site post orders, or other directions with respect to access to and appropriate behavior within International Village, in place for any security service provider it retains are non-discriminatory. In particular, they must be clear that persons entering or seeking to enter the mall are not to be discriminated against on the basis of any ground prohibited in the Code . . . Henderson must require that all security personnel employed by any security service provider at the International Village, including any on-site supervisors or managers, as well as any Henderson management responsible for day-to-day operations at the mall, receive appropriate anti-discrimination training, such training to include both anti-racism and disability awareness components.”
When Radek was originally barred from the International Village (Tinseltown) for life for protesting this racist policy against Aboriginal people and people of color, she never imagined that they would one day be held accountable for their actions. For once the system worked. A very persistent Aboriginal woman, Gladys Radek, took International Village to the Human Rights Commission for discriminating against herself and other Aboriginal and disabled people, and she won. The $15,000 award was the highest ever awarded in BC for injury to dignity.
As well, International Village hasdto stop discriminating on the basis of race, colour, ancestry and disability against people who enter their premises, and had to provide anti-discrimination training to all security workers. International Village must also ensure that anyone wanting a copy of the Human Rights Commission decision can get one, and must make sure that all employees are aware that there is a public right of way through the International Village Mall. This was a major victory for under-privileged and marginalized people in general. But Radek would not be able to celebrate her victory for long.

Just two months after Gladys Radek won her landmark case against the Mall, her niece, Tamara Chipman, went missing on the Highway of Tears in northern British Columbia. She has spent every waking hour since trying to keep Tamara’s memory alive. She has traveled widely and at every possible opportunity reminded those to whom she speaks of the tragedy of the young women murdered and missing along that infamous highway. As a member of various Native activist organizations she has used her influence to keep the spirit of those still missing alive and the issue of systemic violence against Aboriginal women in the forefront.

Radek is a governing member of the Board of the Highway of Tears Symposium, having contributed to the recommendations that resulted from that effort in 2006. She is also an alternate director (Zone 7) with the United Native Nations and on the Board of the Downtown Eastside Women’s Center. She is a member of the Native Women’s Association of Canada, whose ‘Sisters in Spirit’ project focuses on the issue of violence against Aboriginal women at a federal level. She is also involved in the Spirits Rising Memorial Project the mandate of which is to construct Totem Poles in honour of those women who have been murdered or have gone missing both in Vancouver and in Northern British Columbia.

By Clint Buehler

EDMONTON – A challenge to Bill C-31 by northern Alberta’s Sawridge First Nation that began a dozen years ago will be tested again in Federal Court here this year.
Tsuu T’ina First Nation, on the outskirts of Calgary, is pursuing the same challenge, which will be heard at the same time. The Ermineskin band at Hobbema was also a plaintiff in the first case.

Recognized interveners in the case include the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, the Non-Status Indian Association, the Native Women’s Association of Canada and the Alberta branch of the Native Council of Canada.

The court has penciled in 134 court days for the case.
The bill allows female former band members to regain the Indian status and band membership they lost by marrying off reserve. The decision in this case would not only affect Sawridge enfranchised women, but other Aboriginal women across Canada.

According to the Native Council of Canada, prior to Bill C-31, under the Indian Act, those who lost their Indian status included:
• Indian women who married non-Indian men (Native men who married non-Indian women did not lose their status and their wives and the children of their union were allowed to live on reserve and became status Indians.
• Indians who took scrip (which gave them $200 and a quarter section of land in return for their Indian status and the Indian status of their descendants.).
• Indians who were “enfranchised,” or stripped of their status for any reason, including wanting to vote, to drink alcohol, to own property, to live in another country, or to become a lawyer or clergyman.
• Indians who served in the Armed Forces.

This is the third court challenge for the Sawridge First Nation.
The initial hearing was launched by Sawridge Chief Walter Twinn in 1985. By then, under his leadership, Twinn had built a band-owned business empire estimated at $14 to $75 million, depending on who was doing the estimating. (Current estimates put the value of Sawridge assets as high as $250 million, making it one of the wealthiest First Nations in Canada, with a variety of assets that includes hotels in Slave Lake, Jasper and Fort McMurray.)

After Bill C-31 was passed in 1985, Sawridge received about 400 applications for membership from that Chief Twinn labeled as from “opportunists.”

Sawridge then had—and still has—less than 50 members.
The Sawridge challenge argued the 1999’s Treaty 8 and the v1982 Canadian Constitution grant it the right to say who can be Sawridge members, and contend that before Treaty 8 it had a “woman follows man” tradition for establishing where a couple lived after marrying.

The case, heard in Edmonton and Ottawa over eight months, heard testimony from women who had lost their status, Elders and other witnesses. Twinn and his co-plaintiffs contended that their challenge was not racist or sexist, but about who controls band membership and was an effort to protect their communities.
They also emphasized that they were not challenging the right of enfranchised Indians to regain Indian status through Bill C-31, but just their right to regain band membership.
(Walter Twinn was later appointed to the Senate of Canada by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.)

Sawridge and its co-plaintiffs lost the first challenge in 1995, but were given the right to a second trial when they successfully argued that the original judge had “reasonable apprehension of bias.”

Chief Twinn called Federal Court Justice Francis Muldoon’s judgment “insulting, degrading, without legal merit and amounting to a judge’s personal statement of political beliefs rather than a reasoned determination of legal issues” and “the most anti-Indian pronouncement of recent judicial history.

“It means that band members who live on or off reserve have no say in who is or who is not a member,” Twinn said.
Catherine Twinn, Walter’s wife—and now his widow—who was legal counsel for the plaintiffs in the first case, said “it’s not just where you draw the line, but who draws the line. Who has the powers.”

She warned that accepting people in the communities who may have never lived on the reserve could be dangerous. Those band members would have the power to vote and could and could possibly unite and, if they outnumbered the long-term community members, could vote liquidate band assets and sell the land.

(Interestingly, Catherine Twinn, who was born Metis, herself gained Indian status under the old rule, first by marrying Eric Shirt of the Saddle Lake Cree Nation, who she later divorced, then marrying Walter Twinn.)

After the second trial in 2003, however, Sawridge was ordered to add 11 women to their membership list who had lost their entitlement by marrying off-reserve.

“From a political and legal perspective,” Congress of Aboriginal Peoples lawyer Janet Hutchinson told the Edmonton Journal, “this case is certainly a very significant issue and one that should set precedents that affect other bands and other First Nations, other C-31 individuals across Canada.

“I am certain that here are still many, many Bill C-31 individuals in Canada whose membership status is still up in the air.”
According to the Native Council of Canada (NCC), when Bill C-31 passed, of the more than 600 bands in Canada, a total of 79, or 13 per cent, faced a population increase of more than 100 per cent. The majority, 379 bands or 62 per cent faced membership increases of between 10 and 30 per cent.

But not all, or even most, of those reinstated band members want to live on the reserves.

The NCC conducted a random survey of Indians affected by Bill C-31, and less than one-half of those surveys wanted to return to their band. Of those, about 70 per cent wanted band membership so they could regain some of their culture, not to go home to live on the reserve.

By Morgan O’Neal

A ground breaking Orca Spirit publication, Dances with Dependency: Indigenous Success through Self-Reliance is being hailed as possibly the most important book ever written on how to improve the lives of impoverished indigenous people. The book is printed in full color, with a beautifully embossed dust jacket, and features over twenty dazzling full-page art works by internationally renowned northwest coast artist Bill Helin. The book’s author, Calvin Helin, is a member of the Tsimshian Nation from the northern B.C. community of Lax Kwalaams (Port Simpson), and the son of hereditary Chief, Smoogyit Nees Nuugan Noos (Barry Helin), of the Royal House of Gitlan, and Sigyidmhanaa Su Dalx (Verna Helin), matron of the Royal House of Gitachngeek. His credentials on all levels are therefore in order, and it is no surprise that relative to the problem at issue he should offer a solution that has clearly worked well for him. He is a success.
Calvin Helin is President of the Native Investment and Trade Association, former Vice President of the National Aboriginal Business Association, and Founding Director of newly formed B.C. Oil & Gas Association. He was chosen as one of the top 40 Under 40 entrepreneurs in British Columbia by both Business in Vancouver and the Financial Post. In his capacity as a business leader he has fronted international trade missions to China and New Zealand. As a practicing lawyer, he has authored several articles on legal matters, Aboriginal business, and related issues. Add to these achievements the fact that he is also an instructor of Goju-Ryu karate and that he has pledged partial proceeds from sales of his book to a youth martial-arts school, and the result is more than the sum of parts. As a supremely positive role model for a new generation, Helin is apparently living proof of the effectiveness of his philosophy.
The book energetically promotes a business-oriented solution to the ongoing problem of impoverished aboriginal communities. In response to criticisms that such economic integration will result in a corresponding loss of culture, Helin argues that the lack of an economy is just as dangerous. “What culture is there in picking up a welfare check?” he asked during an interview with the Vancouver Sun. “Are Japanese, because they have an economy, less Japanese? The answer is straightforward: it shouldn’t be an issue.” His argument can be summed up in the following manner: “the Canadian government’s mismanagement of aboriginal affairs is a welfare trap that has enslaved much of the aboriginal population of this part of the planet, stripping it of pride, ambition, and achievement…[with]…the only solution…[being]…to walk away from the soul-destroying grip and return to the self-sufficiency that marked first nations before they had contact with European colonizers, about 400 years ago.” (The Vancouver Sun)
According to Helin, he wrote the book “with the simple interest of seeking to make the lives of ordinary indigenous people better. The toll that the current system is taking on indigenous people (particularly children and youth) is horrendous and unacceptable.” As the author puts it, “The bottom line for Canada is that this is not an Aboriginal problem, it is a Canadian problem. The impending demographic tsunami will ensure the change of the status quo-rather than a crisis, this can be the biggest opportunity ever presented to move indigenous people forward.” Helin stresses that the issues are the result of a history of systemic violence that can apply to any group, regardless of ethnic background. Helin’s analysis therefore applies to other marginalized groups around the world, from North American inner-city communities to indigenous groups in developing nations. According to helin, “At the end of the day, it’s not an aboriginal problem, or even a Canadian problem—it’s a world problem.”
The book’s overall goal is nothing less than a paradigm shift. Its subtitle, Indigenous Success Through Self-Reliance, neatly summarizes this conviction. Beginning with a history of pre-contact Native communities, Helin outlines how these groups developed sophisticated economies, cultures, and sociopolitical structures long before Europeans arrived in North America. “The answers to our present and our future lie in our past,” Helin said. “We created beautiful arts, language, and culture, and had a vibrant economy. How did this come about? Not from laying on the couch, eating potato chips and cashing welfare cheques.” According to Kelly A. MacDonald, Aboriginal Lawyer and Senior Adjudicator Indian Residential Schools Adjudications, Helin has indeed “been guided by the Raven” in his honest portrayal of the problems faced by Aboriginal communities. “In the book, I’ve pulled back the shower curtain to show the naked problems,” Helin says. “Some of what I’ve talked about will make some people feel uncomfortable.” Even in this context, he has been guided by “the teachings of his ancestors.” As Kathy Louis, respected elder, reminds us, we must “Remember what the Elders tell us—this time in life is a time of truth telling in order to meet the challenges that face us as Aboriginal people.”
Renowned Maori Leader Te Taru White comments further that Dances with Dependency “is beautifully written with a unique and intuitive analysis that should prove invaluable to indigenous people and developing nation populations.” Helin argues that entrenched reliance on externally provided programs—from housing to social assistance—has blocked the development of an independent Native economy. The time for reform is ripe due to two colliding trends: the aging of Canada’s population and the growing Native population. If the status quo remains when this “demographic tsunami” hits from 2011 onward, these two groups threaten to put a strain on the Canadian economy it won’t be able to sustain. Given Helin’s views on the government’s role in creating the current problems, he doesn’t have kind words for the state—or the band councils created by and accountable to the federal government. Native communities must take ownership of their problems, although this will not be easy from: a thriving industry of entrenched vested interests will do everything possible to keep the system in place. However, with huge resource development occurring across Canada, especially in the North and the West, Helin thinks that Native groups are well-positioned to participate and use that capital to move forward.
But only a very fine line separates the political slogan from the advertising jingle. When offered as a new solution to a complex problem, a densely packed and pithy phrase can be received by some as an urgent and efficient call to action, but just as easily it may be taken by others as a trite one-liner and opportunistic over-simplification. In reducing to three one syllable words the results of hours of thoughtful reflection, mountains of detailed research, and an intelligent synthesis of historical facts, Helin runs the risk of destroying the credibility he surely deserves. No matter what those 3 words are—“I’m Lovin’ It” or “Just Say No” or “Just Do It”—they contain at once too much and too little.
The Tsimshian expression wai wah (meaning “just do it”), although it does fit on a bumper sticker or a t-shirt or a dust jacket, is frankly, at least in translation, inadequate, even if it did take Helin 30 years to articulate. The problem is that the personal success of a specific individual, whether Calvin Helin or Horatio Alger, cannot be generalized as a probable result for the population at large. This I the lie at the center of the myth of the American Dream. If everyone would just pull themselves up by their bootstraps, the fruits of their labors will be wealth and power rather than debt and exhaustion. Dependency is a problem at the base; one particular person’s financial success is always dependent upon another’s financial failure, one man’s profit comes at the expense of another man’s loss, corporate economic power is entirely dependent upon the exploitation of someone else’s labor.
If the logic of the book’s philosophical line is inherently flawed however, this flaw and the author’s honest expression of everything which flows from it, is also the reason the book is worth reading so closely and the reason the author is to be congratulated for his attempt. The book is clearly written. The research is broad and meticulous. The argument is intelligently articulated. And Helin’s emotional engagement with the issue is honestly expressed. As Joy Kogawa (renowned writer whose novel Obasan was named as one of the most important books in Canadian history by the Literary Review of Canada) said after reading Helin’s book: “Dances with Dependency offers a compelling portrayal and analysis of poverty among Canada’s indigenous people. His message of self-reliance as a way forward rests on thoughtful and creative economic strategies and offers hope in cynical times.”

By B.H. Bates

Ignorance, is the only thing that’s standing between mankind’s future and mankind’s demise. And I have proof that will convince you to bend over and kiss your holy – goodbye!
History will repeat itself, for a very simple, and may I say an avoidable, reason. And that reason is organized religion – plain and simple! Religion makes sense of that stupid saying: “Stupid is, as stupid does.” Individually, in general, people are reasonably peaceful, intelligent and rational creatures. But, if you take a group of these fine people, who’s collective IQ’s would normally reach well into the thousands, and you put a cross waving lunatic or a crazed Cleric in front of them, they become mindless robots capable of atrocities beyond comprehension.

“My God, is bigger than your god damned God!” Fighting amongst religions, is nothing more than a big pissing contest. They all claim to be the ‘one’ true path to things like salvation, divinity and morality. Even going so far as to offer the mindless masses outrageous things like, immortality and virgins, if they’ll only kill or be killed in the name of their particular God. In this day and age – can you believe it?

Can you believe that this sort of thing has plagued mankind since biblical times? Well, as I mentioned: history will repeat itself …again! There is however one thing that will save this planet and all of it’s inhabitants and that thing is: “My God!”

Yes, it’s true! You too can be saved by simply picking up your phone and calling; 1-800-GREAT SPIRIT! Or by logging onto our website; www.sendmeallofyourwampum.twit. For a small monthly fee the Great Spirit will tell you; How to live your life. Which person to vote for. Whom to love and as an added bonus, if you call right now, we’ll promise that you’ll get fewer cavities as well!

In the past the North American Natives, were thought to be nothing more than ignorant heathens. In the future, history will prove that Natives were the ones who had it right all along. Natives lived a relatively peaceful existence: other than a few trespassing disputes, they happily ate, slept, pooped and reproduced: just as mother nature had intended. The Great Spirit, wasn’t, and isn’t, like any of the manmade gods. First, it’s not a god, in the biblical sense of the word, the Great Spirit, has no long flowing beard nor a face to put it on. It’s in everything; your spirit, my spirit, a flower’s spirit, from the rocks you stand on to the stars you stand in awe of … it’s all encompassing!
The Great Spirit wouldn’t send you to ‘hell’ if you were to rape and kill someone. Going to some imaginary place, would be much preferred, considering what your own tribe would do to you for such an offence. Think more along the lines of: An eye for an eye. The only real laws were the laws of nature. An example of this would be: If you crap in your own backyard, you have no one to blame but yourself when you step in it.
Natives had no priests, dressed in black, to tell them scary holy ghost stories. No nuns, none, zip, nada, only their own sense of right and wrong. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that we should completely eradicate the word ‘god.’ After all, what would women scream, just prior to an orgasm? What would men curse, after they’ve whacked their thumb with a hammer? We could use it for educational purposes too; “Little Johnny, stop playing with that, or god will strike you blind!” We could also use it to warn future generations, who may try to organize a cult of brainwashed, dehumanized fanatics. Which brings to mind the response a Native elder gave, after he was asked: “Chief, you are now an old man, who has observed the Whiteman with all of his many inventions. How have things improved for you and your people?” After a moment of silent contemplation, the old Native replied: “Before you people came to this land, we hunted and fished as we pleased, we owed nothing to no one and the woman did all the work, and you thought you could improve upon that?”

Yep! Good ol’ North America was once clean, pristine and serene – then in walked those arrogant Christians, wearing their muddy sandals, and then they unceremoniously stuck a cross right into the heart of Native culture. They claimed to have a better way. And be ‘damned’ if they weren’t going to save those heathens from all that freedom of will and wide open spaces. So what did they do? They imprisoned the Natives in strict residential schools that taught things like theology, astrology, geography and of course the missionary position.
Ironically, through traditional songs and dance, we’d already been enlightened about spirituality, the movement of the stars, stewardship of the land and of course intercourse. And therein lays the answer to all of mankind’s problems.

Mankind’s salvation will have to be earned – through the understanding of such things; Finding our own spirituality within ourselves and not in some unseen, fictional deity. Looking up to the vastness of space, will help us realize that some imagined Earth bound entity didn’t, doesn’t or can’t control our destiny. If we humans unite and care for this planet, like it has cared for us, we will find balance and harmony. And finally to the subject of sex, it should be treated like fire: Something that can warm your heart or burn your ass!

In the opening paragraph of this bit of ‘wit-literature,’ I proclaimed to have proof that would convince you to lay down the swords of fictitious faith. We’ve all seen those programs on Sunday morning television, where some religious pitchman, who’s usually dressed in white, waves the good book at you and insists that the lord needs your hard earned money. Does the evangelist ask you to make the cheque payable to: God, on Cloud # 9, Heaven City? No, of course not! He asks his (soon to be fleeced) flock to send their money to: I.M. Rich, #1, Suckersville

(To be continued in next months edition.)

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

By Danny Beaton

I was born in Flint Michigan. We moved up here with my Grandmother in 1973, my mom was Chippewa of Nawash, Cape Croker, Ontario, Canada. We moved around a lot, but we always came back to Cape Croker because of the rocks and water. You get tired of living in the city with all the noise and nowhere to stretch out. It’s nice to go out into the bush with no one to bother you, sit and be quiet. In the city it is so stressful, so many people. It is nice sitting by a big old tree and watching nature go by, mice, birds, etc. all sorts of things come to you when you are there. Nature accepts you as being part of it when you are there.

When you are stressed out or need to make decisions you can go out in the boat, while you are fishing watching an Eagle take a fish from me. Certain times of year they show up a lot, they fly by, I acknowledge them and they will find a tree by the shore and watch me. It’s a nice place to be out on the water looking at the sky, the clouds. I started fishing when I was ten years old with my Uncles. We used to go out when we didn’t have motor, we would row out to the net, lift net, bring the fish in, then I’d go up to the house, wash up, then go to school.
I’ve tried to stay close to my roots so that I do everything by hand. I don’t use machinery, I have an open steel boat even though things are very commercial today, that’s the way I learned to fish. Feeling the wind spray in the open boat, your life is in your own hands. I know I have been out there a few times when I shouldn’t have. You really feel alive when the lightening is flashing around you and there are seven or eight foot waves breaking in front of you. Your stomach is down below your knees, you feel vulnerable and alive at the same time, when you don’t know if you are going make it back. You are sitting there thinking you’ve lived a good life and you’re thinking the Creator can take me whenever he wants. If not, I’ll try to continue to make it home to my wife and kids.

In Georgian Bay the weather can change in five minutes, once you head out and it takes you one hour to lift your net by hand a lot can happen by then. A lot has happened to the water of the Oceans, that mercury in Albacore because the Albacore Tuna live longer so the mercury content is higher. Pregnant Women and nursing Women now are being warned on television not to eat more than 2.5 ounces a week. So the government has put out this limit to Women. It’s getting worse in our own waters here in Georgian Bay the changing in the algae on the shore line.

We used to have short haired algae, now it’s long and slippery that the fish can’t set their eggs into that change has happened only in the last 25 year period. I know this year I’ve been talking to people here about a foam and bubbles on the water that was never here before, it’s some form of pollution and it stretches for miles. It’s serious yet nobody has done anything to clean it up. If we start to lose species then maybe someone will take action.

We’ve let so people move onto the shore lots, years ago we didn’t have so many houses on the shore. Now all these people from the cities who are retiring, the baby boomers, who have retirement packages, are selling their three or four hundred thousand dollar homes. They are coming up here, buying places at half that cost and have almost no taxes. The shore lines are covered now, you can’t even walk on the shore lines because they are the back yards of these homes and cottages. It’s like that all over Indian Country. Years ago you could walk for miles without seeing anyone. We have sold our souls to this beautiful waterscape that we have here. Allowing people to come in, that’s got to be putting some kind of adverse effect on our water ecology. Every one of them city people have a boat, everyone pollutes a little bit and even just a little bit is a lot. Some are good and they have given up their motors, they are kayaking and canoeing.

There are some people with them cigar boats that have two to four powerful engines and speed between 70 and 100 miles an hour. Their sound carries; you can hear them from four or five miles away. When they are one mile away they overwhelm all sound. They have to be blowing away hundreds of gallons of fuel, racing just to go fast. I don’t see any fun of it, you can’t talk or hear the person next to you, and your whole body must be vibrating. All these personal water craft are everywhere during the summer months, cabin cruisers, sail boats, anglers and even lake freighters. During fall, spring and winter no one shows up and I am alone again on the water.

Our waters are full of oil slicks from all the exhausts, extra oil that isn’t burnt during combustion floats on the water. The last refuge of clean water are our Northern lakes and now we are bringing float-planes and outboards up there as tourist traps, fishing and hunting for trophy size game. These Northern lakes that had no activity are now getting more and more popular.

There is no place safe.

The Oceans are full of barges, every city that has an ocean front, New York, New Jersey, etc… They don’t have dump sites or land fills. They load up their garbage onto barges, go out 200 miles open up and drop it to the bottom of the ocean, Manhattan too. The water is being disrespected everywhere, up here there are Artesian waters so strong that they blow to the surface, we have some of the best waters of the world here in Georgian Bay. Natural springs here in Georgian Bay hold

Healing minerals.

In the old days we used to walk through the bush for hunting, now people are driving with spot lights at night to jack-light the deer. People aren’t doing enough to protect Mother Earth. People aren’t putting down tobacco for medicines that are picked, some people are harvesting plants with a shovel and don’t even put the earth back. Our Elders are leaving us with that knowledge that they have, because we are not acting like First Nations People should.

I believe that the video games and television are causing some of our problems today, our people are getting that disease that non Natives have, greed, we’re not happy with what we have. We now always want to be better than our neighbors. Our own people are setting miles of net, not yards, taking tons of fish. Our Ancestors wouldn’t have lashed fifty canoes together and have all the men lifting miles and miles of nets. Our Ancestors looked to the future and said we have to save for our kids. A lot of our people have lost that willingness to do their part and say hey this doesn’t belong to me some of this has to be continued on, not just for my children but their children and their children, its that seven generation idea again, that a lot of us have lost sight of. We’ve gotten trapped in this commercial life, this disposable life that we have. Meaning we have to have so many landfills.

We buy things in excess and we throw half of it back. We forget about the food in the refrigerator, things have to get thrown away. We went out and bought it, we thought it was a good idea. Once we had it in our possession we let it go bad, then we have to throw it away.

All the packaging is needless too, everything is canned, everything is plastic, even the fruit and vegetables we buy are wrapped. Everything has to travel from South to North and our food has been touched by many hands who seek profit, we have to start thinking about the longer terms for our children, are we going to save anything for our children? If we don’t save anything for our children they aren’t going to have much of a life. We need to protect surface springs in Georgian Bay so that our children will have clean mineral water for their future. Most of all we need to be creative and protective for our little ones, our future generations.

Pretty soon people will have to buy their water in a green bottle with a French name on it that costs three bucks, Perrier. The Great Lakes are being raped by developers too; the USA wants our water for irrigating southern crops via the Mississippi. Everything is changing fast, so much mismanagement.
We had some problems with some beavers a while back and rather than cut a few trees near power lines the people put a bounty on them. Now all the area has a shortage of willows for making Sweat Lodges because the beaver dams helped create a wetland area, now the area is not wet enough since the beaver dams are gone. Even the Sweet Grass can’t grow with the Wet Lands gone, Nature has its own cycles, and we shouldn’t be trying to play God with Natural Cycles.

The hardest thing is many of us have lost our Heritage, our Culture, only a handful of us practice our ways outright. Lots of people practice with their hearts and hide it away until its Powwow time or certain Ceremonies, but for the rest of their days they become polluters and takers, like closet Indians. We have long way to go but as long as there are few us who keep the fire alive, we still have a chance. If we all give up then we’re beat. I’ll teach my kids to fish but I only want them to take what they need.

There’s a lot more to life than non Native money. There’s got to be something we can do that’s not going to change us as people. Money can’t fix all problems; we have to be in touch with Mother Earth, it’s our job as adults to teach our children that truth, that we are First Nations, not numbers or damaged goods from residential schools. We had our culture beaten out of us. There are a lot of nice things that have to be brought back; like that smoldering coal has to be nurtured into a fire. We have poor Brothers and Sisters whose own children are killing themselves, because they see no future, no hope. They’re sniffing gas; drugs and alcohol are rampant on Reservations, even on my Reserve here. It’s a way to stop the pain we feel within our selves.

It’s not just one thing we have to change, it’s a whole way of life, we have to say we have strayed from the good path we’ve wanted to be on. We have to come back now the way our circle teachings teaches us. The way the Two Rows Wampum says, we can go together down the river in our canoes, but we don’t interfere with each other. What we have done is we are allowing our children to see too much TV. Our kids are learning that they think they only look good in a hundred and fifty dollar pair of Nikes. Our kids are bombarded with meaningless Culture and Values. We need to teach our kids to be proud of their Culture, be proud of who we are, be proud of Mother Earth, be proud of the animals, be proud of the rivers and lakes because they took care of our ancestors and they will take care of us in the future if we take care of them for the future.

When the first settlers came, our Medicine people and Shamans said there will be times when our people will forget who they are, but there will always be some who remember to keep the fire of our ways, a smoldering coal until it can be brought back to a flame, things will turn around some day.

People don’t see proud Nations who fought in many world wars where our men sacrificed themselves for this country; they treated them afterwards like they were nothing. When they back from the wars they weren’t allowed to vote. Our men could die for this country but couldn’t even vote if they came home alive. We weren’t allowed to even go into a bar and have a drink with the men we fought alongside with.

There will be a time when we break free from residential school era. What got me onto the Good Path were the sweat lodges, as long as we have the ceremonies we can heal. The hard thing is finding those teachings before they evaporate, because time evaporates our Elders away from us. The churches wiped away our Cultural teachings to the point where some old Elders won’t talk about ceremonies that they know. I respect others if they want to believe in that way but I believe that everything has a spirit, the trees, the rocks, the water, and the animals, there are spirits all around us. I am grateful for all the little things around me. There are a lot of mysteries around us every day that mean nothing to us when we look at them now in this time of our life. But I found that in my short days here that I’ve sat and watched something happen in Nature. Be it an ant moving a leaf, be it chipmunk moving around my feet while I’m sitting there.

Years later those ants and chipmunks mean something to my spirit. Just like our old teachings that our Elders show us that were passed on to them from their Elders. We think nothing of them teachings until those Elders pass on and you’ve gotten older. Later on in life we change in another phase, becoming an Elder, we see things different, our experiences become brighter. It’s a matter of keeping your eyes open as Nature has its own way for us if we listen to her and take the time to sit back and watch, She will give us the answers that we need.