Topic: Uncategorized

By Staff Writers

His massive arms and chest are a clear display of the great strength this man must possess. People take notice of this man anywhere he goes because of his enormous presence. He carries himself with great pride and appears intimidating but his soul is gentle. He is Eskasoni’s icon of natural brute force. His name is Noel (Seymour) Doucette.

Doucette is a six-time Canadian bench press champion, nine-time Nova Scotia bench press champion, two-time State of Maine bench press champion, and an Atlantic States bench press champion.

He represented Canada twice with great honors during the world championship. His best result was in 1999 when he placed 12th overall in Vaasa, Finland.

With all these accolades one would think 40-year-old Doucette has been in the power-lifting business for a long time. Believe it or not, his first competition was 10 years ago at the Nova Scotia bench press championship.

In his first appearance he took home top honors with a lift of 369 lbs. The following year Doucette won his first Canadian title with a lift of 402 lbs. From then on he has kept on the rise capturing more awards on his climb.

Why Doucette began to power lift is a story in itself. Eleven years ago, he lay in a hospital bed listening to a doctor who lectured him on drug abuse. The doctor warned Doucette that if he continued his drug abuse he would not see his 30th birthday. For 17 years of Doucette’s life all he cared about was where his was going to get his next high.

From that moment on Doucette awakened from his abusive ways to lead a healthy and drug-free life. Immediately, Doucette turned to something that came natural to him, lifting heavy weights. Weight lifting was like a new addiction for Doucette.

The adrenaline rush he gets while trying to go beyond his limit is far superior then any drug. Pushing himself more and more and getting national record results have exceeded his expectations. He never imagined his passion would show him the world.

Au naturel
Doucette has been drug free for 11 years. He takes pride in the fact that he will not take enhancement drugs to improve his strength. It’s all natural strength.

Lately Doucette has been having a hard time getting motivated. The word retirement has been creeping up. He’s injury prone lately, but it has to do mainly with his other passion – hockey. He plays for the Eskasoni Bears Senior hockey team.

He is Eskasoni’s champ and feels obligated to fulfill people’s expectations. The nationals are only a few weeks away and Doucette hasn’t had much chance to train due to his injuries.

Bring back the title champ. Heck you’re only 40! You haven’t even reached your prime yet!

Doucette will defend his title mid-March in Alberta.

By Lauren Carter

The people of Asubpeeschoseewagong (Grassy Narrows First Nation), located 80 kilometres north of Kenora, in Northern Ontario, have seen more than their share of suffering.

In the early 1960s, they were uprooted by Indian Affairs. In the 1970s, the government informed them that several tonnes of inorganic mercury from a pulp and paper mill upstream in Dryden had contaminated their water and fish.

While the band eventually received compensation from the Reed Paper Company and the Federal Government, the mercury remains, seriously affecting the health of the land, and a percentage of the 14-square-mile reserve’s residents still suffer the effects of mercury poisoning.

Add to this the ongoing flooding of their sacred sites, traditional lands and wild rice fields by Ontario Hydro, threats to dump nuclear waste on their Customary Lands, the nightmare of residential schools, sky-high unemployment, and resulting cultural and social problems and you’ve got a fair mix of misery.

And it isn’t over yet.

More trouble on the way
In the latest threat to their well-being, Montreal-based forestry giant Abitibi-Consolidated, which pulled in more than four billion dollars in 2002 and supplies Knight Ridder newspaper chain, the New York Times, and the Washington Post (among others) with newsprint, is pushing for approval of a 20-year-plan to “manage” the Whiskey Jack Forest including the last remaining stand of old-growth boreal forest on Asubpeeschoseewagong traditional lands.

The Grassy First Nations might as well be on the moon for the amount of trees and plants and animals they’ll have around them if this plan goes through.

While regeneration is seen to be the great hope, it will not assist inevitable soil erosion and the 40 percent of plant and animal species dependent on the sensitive ecosystem of the boreal forest.

Camp FireIrrevocable damage has already been done.

“Over 50 percent of our traditional land has been clear-cut. There’s reforestation but it’s all monoculture tree farming. They plant trees they’re going to harvest again. The land is turning into a tree farm,” says Joe Fobister, spokesperson for the Grassy Narrows First Nation Environmental Committee.

Abitibi’s new plan, dubbed the “Whiskey Jack Management Plan” would secure the corporation’s right to harvest the forest in five year increments from April 2004 until 2024 despite Aboriginal treaty rights set out in the Royal Proclamation of 1763, further secured by Treaty #3 and, further still, by the Canadian constitution.

The community has been battling Abitibi, the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR), and the Ontario government for years in an effort to develop selective logging practices that would sustain the ecosystem that the local First Nation’s depend on.

In 2000, Joe Fobister, Willie Keewatin and Andy Keewatin Jr. initiated a case against the Ontario government (with defense from the Sierra Legal Defence Fund) arguing that Abitibi’s operations infringed on their constitutional rights to hunt and trap in their traditional lands.

That same year, protesters lobbied when the corporation clear-cut a large area in Wahgoshig First Nations traditional territory, cutting trees that marked graves on ancestral burial sites. This cut came irregardless of on-going talks between Abitibi, the MNR, and Wahgoshig leaders.

Clear cutting continues
Despite all efforts – including raising issues in Abitibi’s public consultation sessions, a process that has proved irrelevant for many – clear cutting has continued, eliminating the forest, destroying the ecosystem, bit by bit.

“We’re seeing animals that are diseased. The Government of Ontario claims that it’s caused by parasites but we never saw these diseases up until ten years ago. It’s becoming a common thing to see animals with tumours on their lungs, white spots on their livers,” Fobister says.

And no one, it seems, will listen.

Part of the problem is that the Government of Ontario is insisting that the band’s Customary Lands – 2500 square miles surrounding the 14 square miles of their reserve – is actually Crown Land.

For the Government, the MNR, and the corporation, this belief, as false as it is according to Treaty 3 and the Canadian Constitution, means that there is nothing wrong with exiling 700 members of a land-based culture onto a tiny island in the middle of a weak and unhealthy forest, largely stripped bare by clear cuts.

“[The Province of Ontario] won’t recognize our existence,” Fobister says in frustration. “The MNR is serving the corporation. I’d say they’re in bed together.”

Indian Affairs Minister Robert Nault has refused to become involved in the issue, saying it is a matter for the MNR, and angering many.

Public support grows
In response to being ignored while the system-at-large gradually whittles away their land and their way of life – a process that suggests to many a continued cultural genocide – members of the Grassy Narrows First Nation decided to take the process into their own hands.

Last December, they issued an invitation for public consultation with Abitibi and the MNR – to take place in the middle of a clear-cutting access road, five kilometres from the Grassy Narrows community. Since then, protesters have been blocking company access into the last remaining old growth of the Whiskey Jack Forest. Solidarity – from First Nation’s communities and both Native and non-Native activist groups – has been strong.

And still, Joe Fobister says that in Abitibi’s annual work schedule, exhibited to the public in early April, it appears they plan to continue logging on the land that the protesters are occupying. It’ll be business as usual once the roads dry, and the logging trucks resume their duties.

While the corporation waits, the blockade maintains a presence with a handful of people. Two portables – out of the four used to house people and school the youth over the winter – have been taken away.

But Judy DaSilva, also from the Environmental Committee says not to worry. Plans continue for further actions including a youth gathering at the blockade in June.

And once the trucks have started moving again, near the end of May, the warriors will return to their positions en masse. For if they don’t protect the land for themselves and for their children and their children’s children, who, exactly, will?

By Staff Writers

First Nations Summit Grand Chief Ed John has sent a letter to Attorney-General Geoff Plant demanding an end to the funding impasse in the Robert Pickton murder case.

“In this case, the families deserve action. The sooner this thing gets resolved, the better,” said John, in a recent interview.

John will urge the provincial government to provide sufficient defense funding to get the case against Pickton moving through the provincial courts.

Pickton is charged with killing 15 of the 63 missing women from Vancouver’s downtown eastside. Almost half of the missing women are of aboriginal descent.

Ernie Crey, whose sister Dawn is one of the missing women, said he talked to John about the funding dispute that can possibly delay Pickton’s preliminary hearing for a second time.

“The families are getting very anxious and nervous. If it is a matter of funding, get it resolved. We are looking on. We are concerned,” said Crey.

Crey said all the legal wrangling has created much uncertainty for some of the family members.

“British Columbians are looking on and it looks like there is just this little disgraceful skirmish on the side that could derail this whole thing completely,” said Crey. “That’s what is scaring me and that is what has been scaring me all along.”

Pickton’s lawyer, Peter Richie, is continuing to negotiate with lawyers for the provincial government behind closed doors about a funding arrangement.

Port Coquitlam court judge David Stone agreed to adjourn the November 4 preliminary hearing, but only until November 12, so the funding impasse could be resolved. Stone said no further delays would be granted.

Richie said that he expects the funding issue to be resolved “one way or another.”

Pickton has been refused legal aid because of his interest in two large properties, but has applied for government funding under what is called a Rowbotham application, which is reserved for people who do not normally qualify for legal aid.

Robert “Willy” Pickton has denied any involvement of the murders, which have occurred since 1983. Charges were brought after his Port Coquitlam pig farm was raided in February this year. Since February, the investigation has focused on the suburban pig farm and gravel pit owned by the Pickton family in Port Coquitlam, where more than 100 officers and forensic scientists are still scouring the site literally inch by inch.

The search is expected to continue for at least a year.

Mr. Pickton, 52, owns the pig farm in Port Coquitlam, together with his brother Dave and his sister.

The two brothers also operated a drinking club known as “Piggy’s Palace” near the farm, a haunt for bikers and prostitutes.

All of the murder charges involve women who vanished from Vancouver’s seedy downtown eastside, an area frequented by drug addicts and prostitutes.

The 63 women have vanished from the area over the past two decades, and a massive police investigation began last year.

By Jimmy Snowshoes

I had just done some shopping at the Army & Navy and hopped on a bus that would take me out of the living hellhole that Vancouver’s east end had become.

Christmas was less than a month away now and I wondered what I could be thankful for in the coming Noel season.

As the bus crawled past the Carnegie Centre on the corner of Hastings and Main, or ‘Wastings and Pain’ as its known on the street, a lone cop from the Vancouver city police stood there looking bored.

The cops had been maintaining a constant presence for the past three weeks and the corner was clear of the usual lowlife that frequented that corner.

All of the dealers, crackheads and junkies and the like had moved one block west down the street to Columbia, making their deals or whatever they had to do to keep their pathetic little underground economy of hard drugs on the move.

At least they were away from the Carnegie where the permanent residents of the skids could find solace from the harsh reality of the street in the drug-free environment it offered.

Although the police had made over 600 drug-related arrests in the last year, the place was still a Mecca for hard drugs that were available 24 hours a day/seven days a week for Vancouver’s growing addict population who arrived from across Canada.

I had to smile. It took a permanent vigil by the police on that corner to keep it clear. Now the local old-timers in the east end’s many hotels and the poor no longer had to run the gauntlet of crack dealers and their ilk to seek comfort inside. There were clippings on the wall in the library inside quoting locals who said it was the first time in years they felt safe enough to come back to the centre.

A turn to the left
The city had just had its civic election and Coalition of Progressive Electors (C.O.P.E.), the city’s party of the far-left, had just swept into power taking the mayoralty and eight of the ten seats on city council.

In fact the whole province held civic elections and the province, on the whole, had also decidedly leaned to the left.

People on the street said it was in reaction to the policies implemented by the provincial Liberals, whose landslide provincial election popularity had since waned in light of his dramatic government programs cuts and policy directions.

It was the first time ever that the C.O.P.E. had elected a mayor and the first time in ten years that they held a majority.

Ex-cop and former city coroner Larry Campbell, the charismatic inspiration for the hit series Da Vinci’s Inquest, had pledged to implement outgoing N.P.A. Mayor Phillip Owen’s “Four Pillars” drug strategy.

The strategy comprising treatment, prevention, enforcement and harm reduction, had got him booted out of his own party and led to the total annihilation at the city polls of his successor N.P.A. mayoral hopeful Jennifer Clark.

Clark had forced out Owen over the issue of harm reduction or “safe injection” sites, which the rich West Enders saw only as legalized shooting galleries for the east end’s growing addict population.

The internal friction in the N.P.A. had Vancouverites voting against Clark and the city’s elite who ran the city for the last ten years from the West End.

At least Campbell has the legitimacy of his experience as an ex-cop and city coroner to actually deal heavy-handedly with the phenomenon of Vancouver’s drug problem. After all, he himself has no doubt buried hundreds of them.

A long way to go
But if some of the residents of the downtown eastside have a little brighter future this Christmas season, others’ near future looks a little bleaker.

The Vancouver City police recently released a follow-up study on youth in the downtown eastside. The study found that 55 per cent of youth picked up on sex trade and drug-related incidents were of aboriginal descent.

The initial study, conducted two years ago had found that 41 per cent of youth picked up on sex and drug charges were aboriginal.

The First Nations population makes up just one and a half per cent of the city’s nearly 300,000 residents making the number of aboriginal youth-at-risk (average age 15 years) extremely disproportionate.

But now that a decidedly socialist bent has returned to the province’s largest city (and many of its towns and hamlets), hopefully we’ll see some real attempts to address these problems that plague our families and children and see some new programs to help repatriate the youth-at-risk away from the downtown east side back to their home communities.

And the fifty or so homeless who braved over two months squatting around the old Woodward’s building had something to cheer about this Noel season.

Although the weather got extremely cold in the final weeks of their vigil, the new C.O.P.E. mayor Larry Campbell said that dealing with the squatters would be one his first orders of business when he and his new council was sworn in on December 2.

He made good on that promise. Campbell has pledged will be social housing in the Woodward’s building for the city’s homeless as well as other uses.

Mayor Campbell has vowed to clean up the east end’s “open drug market” by the next civic election through the implementation of the four pillars drug treatment strategy.

The new mayor appointed the former mayor Phillip Owen, co-chair of a new task force to implement the four pillars approach and even now are planning its implementation.

Critics said the building would just become a haven for the drug dealers and their clientele.

But maybe, with a little vision, planning and good luck, that old building can become the focus of real change in one of Canada’s poorest neighborhoods.

Problems growing
The skid row corner of Hastings and Main has been described as “the most active corner as a drug market in North America.” It doesn’t matter that the police have simply moved the problem one block west away from the more visible corner of Hastings and Main. The problem still exists and is growing.

We have Hispanic crack dealers that recruit teenage native girls to sell the “rock” openly on the street and more and more, you can see the weirdos – the mentally unstable. They’re spreading out from Hastings and Main, up and down Hastings and around Chinatown.

They are the harsh crack addicts with the open sores on their faces that crane their necks and make spastic gestures with their hands and arms.

Is it cocaine-induced psychosis or AIDS-related dementia or both?

Who knows, maybe there’ll be a lot more skid row survivors who’ll live to tell the tale if our new mayor is true to his word.

Those who can walk out of that living nightmare that Vancouver’s east end has really become.

By Lloyd Dolha

Perhaps the most politically damaging aspect of the fallout over Premier Gordon Campbell’s recent impaired driving charge while vacationing in Hawaii is the stupid grin he brandished in one of the four police mug shots taken on that fateful night of January 9.

What was he thinking? Of all the stupid things to do in what must have been the darkest hours of his whole political career – to smile almost mockingly into the lens of a Maui police camera.

People can forgive human failings and many already have. But that smug smirk – like a child caught with his hand caught in the cookie jar – will be his undoing.

Surely he had to realize the seriousness of his position. The premier of the province of British Columbia is pulled over in Maui just after 1 a.m. for weaving erratically in a rented SUV and accelerating in excess of a 45 mph (72 kmph) speed limit.

The premier fails the universal touch-your-nose/heel-to-toe test for sobriety to see if he can walk a straight line.

What exactly was he thinking?
He is arrested, fingerprinted, PHOTOGRAPHED and thrown into the tank with six other drunks. In the second before that second or third frame was stamped indelibly in the public mind – what was he thinking?

Was he thinking about the 20-plus years he spent climbing to the top as a businessman, a family an, a Vancouver mayor, an opposition leader and the crowning achievement of premier?

Was he thinking about the future of the party he led for over ten years to a landslide victory capturing 77 of 79 seats in the legislature in the May 2001 election?

Was he thinking about the fact that, if convicted, Premier Campbell faces a sentence of up to five days in jail and a fine ranging from $150 to $1,000 depending on his record?

Or was he thinking about trying to salvage whatever political future he has left by putting a brave face on a really bad situation – hoping beyond hope that it would somehow simply blow over?

Calls for his resignation were swift and many on the open-line radio talk shows and in letters-to-the-editor. Louis Knox, head of the Canadian Mothers Against Drunk Drivers immediately called on Campbell to quit saying it’s impossible for him to set an example now.

“He’s laughing at a horrendous and serious crime when he commits it himself,” said Knox in an interview.

An Ipsos-Reid poll commissioned by CTV among 800 BC residents found that 50 percent want Campbell to resign as a result of the incident.

The same poll found that 74 percent of the residents polled believe that Premier Campbell is a hypocrite because if the same situation happened to any other politician, Campbell would demand resignation.

Those who live in glass houses…
Remember how Campbell demanded the resignation of former premier Mike Harcourt over the Nanaimo Commonwealth bingo scandal even though Harcourt was not even remotely involved? Campbell also demanded former Liberal leader Gordon Wilson’s resignation over his affair with Judy Tyabji.

By staying on as premier, it is clear that Campbell holds himself to a different standard of behaviour.

But it’s more than just a question of bad judgement. His tearful public apology notwithstanding, can we believe him in anything he says.

Campbell said he didn’t know what he blew on the breathalyzer, but media reports have shown that it was highly unlikely. He claimed to have only three martinis and some wine, but blew 0.149 on the breathalyzer – almost twice the legal limit. Calculations by MADD estimate that the premier may have had the equivalent of 13 drinks to reach that level of intoxication.

He claimed he only had a “short distance” to drive when it turned out to be a 20-kilometre drive down a winding highway.

And it goes on. A recall campaign is being launched in his home riding of Vancouver-Point Grey. A Vancouver resident has written the Conflict of Interest Commissioner and the Auditor General to investigate whether the premier “inappropriately used public resources to deal with the personal issue of his drunk driving offense.”

It’s a question of character. Yes, it is forgivable. “There but for the grace of God” sentiment notwithstanding, it’s hypocritical, self-serving and downright sickening that this man should demand the highest moral integrity of others and then so blatantly toss that standard aside when it applies to himself.

But back to that stupid grin. The mug shots taken that night are already on tee shirts and coffee mugs. It’s a growing cottage industry that will haunt Gordon Campbell to the end of his hopefully short political career.

Politicians can stand a lot of criticism but what they can’t stand is being laughed at as the butt of jokes for long.

By Lauren Carter

Rain falls in the first track of Cindy Scott’s impressive first album, This Northern Girl, bringing to mind an all-day autumn shower in the woods near Fort Vermilion in Northern Alberta, where Scott’s life – and career – began.

Armed at the age of eight with the instruments of voice and guitar, Scott, of Metis descent, learned early what course of life she wished to follow. As a young teenager she began composing her own songs and, eventually, through sustained efforts toward being and becoming a musician, she found herself performing with Buffy St. Marie and Tom Jackson.

Following this came the production of her first full-length album, This Northern Girl.

Scott was recently nominated for the 2002 Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards for Best Songwriter; Best Female Artist, and the album for the 2002 Prairie Music Week’s Outstanding Aboriginal Recording.

A mix of country, folk, bluegrass and blues, Scott brings her lyrics to life with a voice able to excel through a wide range – from the simple folk-like melody of Fondest Memories to the expertly-done higher notes in A Child and the clear, solid strength of the nearly acapella version Now He Can Fancy Dance.

Her lyrics are similarly diverse, recounting experiences familiar to many. In Waiting for the Pain she solemnly sits in the bar, eyeing the guy with the “rowdy way talk and your good time boy smile”while “hoping that tonight you might love me.”

Following this sweet, sad song – one that inspires memories for most women, at least for me – is the upbeat, optimistic Looking Back. In this song is the power of a woman in control of her own life.

Drumming on her guitar, Cindy sings with strength and conviction about the course of a life drawn along by learning and hope in a tune that demands either dancing or driving fast with windows rolled down, voice singing loudly along.

All told, the dozen songs, inspired by events in her own life and the lives of people around her, present a varied look at challenges and victories, all recounted through Scott’s vocals and a variety of rhythms and instruments.

In Now He Can Fancy Dance, a very powerful song about a man finding the truth of his heritage and himself after this truth was taken from him in a residential school, an idgeridoo intones in the background. Piano, bongos and background singers compliment Scott’s voice in Bird in a Cage.

With its mix of melancholy and determination, This Northern Girl is like a photo album spread from somebody’s life. Yet its overall tone is one of courage in overcoming the obstacles.

And perhaps this is how Cindy Scott has come as far as she has. Certainly, with the strength and hope that are evident in her first album, she’s going to go far. One listens to Sam’s Song – a song that addresses the fear of becoming a single mother and what it takes to overcome it – will show you that. It’s inspiration in the truest form.

By Staff Writers

British Columbia’s Liberal government recently released a revised set of consultation guidelines relating to the recognition of aboriginal “interests”, in an all-encompassing policy that applies immediately to “all applicable provincial ministries, agencies and Crown corporations.”

The new consultation guidelines, announced on November 1, incorporates the latest case law in regards to the recognition of aboriginal rights that applies consistently across all government decisions regarding provincial land and resource use.

In terms of recent case law, wherever and whenever First Nations assert their aboriginal rights and title to a given chunk or aspect of their traditional territory or its resources, those asserted rights must, according to the policy, be considered to be “potentially existing aboriginal rights and/or title.”

Notice the subtle difference between aboriginal interests and proven aboriginal rights.

Aboriginal interests are those aspects of First Nations’ traditional territories (title) or its resources (rights) or the uses that it is put to that yet have to be proven in a court of law.

It’s a highly legalistic approach to government policy-making.

Rights evolution
The consultation document goes on to trace the evolution of aboriginal rights and title from their recognition and affirmation in the Canadian constitution in 1982, to the 1990 Supreme Court of Canada decision in Sparrow, and the Supreme court’s subsequent decisions in Vanderpeet (1996) and Delgamuukw (1997).

The 1990 Sparrow decision established the aboriginal right to fish and set out a test to prove the existence of future aboriginal rights.

The Vanderpeet decision of 1996 established the nature of aboriginal rights and set out a number of factors that determine whether an aboriginal practice constitutes an aboriginal right.

In the 1997 Delgamuukw decision, the Supreme Court defined the nature of aboriginal title, describing it as a “proprietary interest” and determined that the provincial government has a duty to consult with First Nations when the actions of Crown infringe on aboriginal title.

It was that aspect of the Delgamuukw decision that gave rise to the original consultation guidelines brought in by the New Democrats in 1998.

Since that determination, the duty to consult has expanded significantly in recent case law.

In Taku River Tlingit v. Ringstad on February 1, 2002, the BC Court of Appeal ruled that the duty to consult is not dependant on a court having decided on the existence of aboriginal title as in Delgamuukw (1997).

In the circumstances of Taku River Tlingit case, it was found that the duty on the BC government to consult with the Tlingit even though no court had recognized the existence of Tlingit aboriginal title.

The judge noted that both the province and the federal government were engaged in treaty negotiations with the Tlingit based on the premise that the Tlingit did have aboriginal rights or title to their traditional territory.

In Haida Nation v. BC and Weyerhaeuser, the BC Court of Appeal extended the duty to consult to a private companies.

New rules
Now consultation, according to policy, demands that provincial officials assess the “soundness” of aboriginal interests in terms of archaeological studies, local knowledge, archival studies, existing traditional use studies and legal advice.

In the case of legal advice, the offending provincial agency should seek advice from the Ministry of the Attorney General.

The province must now “accommodate” First Nations through negotiated agreements such as treaty-related measures, interim measures, economic measures, partnerships or cooperative agreements with industry, land protection measures or direct award of tenure.

Provincial officials must now consider a number of indicators that may be subsequently proven to be aboriginal rights and/or title.

Some of these indicators include: whether the land has been continuously held in the name of the Crown; indicators of aboriginal interest in the land through consultation or evidence of First Nation use or occupation; land near or adjacent to a reserve or former settlement or village site; land in areas in traditional use or archaeological sites; and, land subject to a specific claim.

In a four step process, provincial officials must now vet “all decisions … that are likely to affect aboriginal interests” giving First Nations a virtual veto power over all government and third party activities on traditional territories.

“If resolution cannot be gained through negotiation, attempted accommodation or other methods, it will be advisable to re-evaluate the project or decision and seek legal advice before proceeding further,” states the policy paper.

And it seems exactly what provincial officials will be doing with most decisions as the policy paper frequently reminds one throughout the text of just that.

By B.H. Bates

(You can personalize this Christmas Story by writing in your childrens’ names in the blank spaces.)

Many moons ago, the people of San Nan Ta Claws’ village were fighting amongst themselves, and were very unhappy, so, San Nan Ta, and his friend, ELF, left the comfort of the home fires and traveled to the great north country. They went in search of the Great Spirit to ask for the gift of peace and happiness.

San Nan Ta and ELF finally found the secret to peace and happiness, but San Nan Ta was too old to make the long journey home, so he sent ELF to tell the people, the secret of Christmas.

ELF finally arrived home. He dreamed of this day; he thought that the people would come running to welcome him and maybe even make him the Chief of the village.

But, sadly, too many moons had passed and no one recognized the old man that called himself, ELF. Although, some of the elders had heard the legend of San Nan Ta Claws, no one really believed that ELF was San Nan Ta’s little helper.

Time had changed ELF’s small village, ELF came to accept the changes, but there was one thing that concerned him – it was the way the people had changed.

They no longer gathered around the campfires to listen to the Elders. Families no longer picked the sweet berries together. ELF noticed that family members came and went as they pleased, without saying hello or good-bye!

ELF remembered a time when everyone was like a strand in a spider’s web. When the weather grew cold, everyone gathered firewood. When there was a shortage of food, the people shared, so that no one in the village would have to go hungry.

But in this day and age, the people didn’t rely on each other; they relied on money to get what they wanted. They could buy anything they wanted, they could buy all the food and toys they wanted. Yet, they were still sad. Something was missing in their lives.

ELF tried and tried to tell the people about San Nan Ta’s message, but, sadly, no one would listen to him. No one, that is, except for (_____________). That night, ELF whispered San Nan Ta’s secret into (_____________) ear and then he left the village forever.

The next day, on, December the twenty-fourth, the weather turned very cold. Soon the roads were covered in deep, deep snow and no one could get into town to shop for Christmas.

And on Christmas day everyone woke up to find that there were no toys under their trees and very little food in the cupboards!

Then, the telephone lines snapped under the weight of the snow, leaving them without telephone service or electricity. Scared and hungry, people started to hoard their food, then they locked their doors, and sat in the dark, and wouldn’t even let in their closest friends.

(_____________) saw the way the grownups were acting, and it made (_________) so very sad. The adults had lost the spirit of Christmas!

(______________) tried to tell the grownups about San Nan Ta’s message, but, sadly, they wouldn’t listen to (_____________). They were to busy trying to hide their possessions from the other adults. Then (_____________) came up with an idea.

(_____________) went from house to house and asked for a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

At the first house, (____________) asked for only a hand full of rice. At the next, (______________) asked for a little piece of moose meat and so on and so on.

Later that day (_____________) put all the food in a large pot and started a fire. It started to cook and it smelled so very good. Soon the people of the village smelled the wonderful aroma and they started to poke their heads out of their doors.

Before very long everyone was gathered around, eating, talking and laughing. Then one of the Elders said, “Hey, where is ELF? And what did he want to tell us, anyway?”

(_____________), started to laugh. “This, is what he wanted to tell us!”

ELF said that if we ate together, laughed together and had fun together we would find the secret to peace and happiness. ELF’s secret was; when we share and give of ourselves, will we find the true meaning Christmas!

By B.H. Bates

If money, money, money makes the world go round, what do you call the fuel that pumps it? One word – GREED! As any good humorist will do … I pay close attention to the news. There’s no better place to find the four things that a jokester looks for – greed, ignorance, politics and sex!

Even though they all go hand-in-hand, I’ve chosen “greed” as the topic for this article. Because it was while I was watching the news, I got wind that some forty billion dollars in royalties from native lands are missing!

Hell, if I come up four hundred dollars short, my wife threatens me with the removal of two round body parts!

Money has the power to change a church-lady into the criminally insane-lady. It’s a sickness – they don’t call it “gold fever” for nothing.

If you were walking all alone in the woods and you found a wallet with twenty bucks in it, what would you do? How about a hundred bucks? A thousand? A hundred thousand? How about a really, really fat wallet with a MILLION in it?

If you just asked, “Does the wallet have a name in it?” If a name in the wallet would make any difference in your actions, then you too are susceptible to the “fever”!

Gold fever, like any good disease worth an “ah, ah, ah-chuewww”, knows no boundaries. Neither age, gender nor heritage is immune. Neither doctor, lawyer or Indian Chief. Which brings me to the real focus of this “hot potato” of a subject.

But, before I start throwing buffalo pies at the heap big Chief and his cronies (the elected ones), I have a few barbs for the politicians at the headwaters from where the cash flows and the bull blows.

Every year five billion loonies come from the great white father in Ottawa. You read it right, Bro, FIVE BILLION BUCKSKINS! And there are only approximately 700,000 natives in all of Canada – you do the math.

“Hey, Ottawa! Where the hell is my Cadillac?”

So the next query that begs to be answered, is, where the hell is all this money going? If you were to ask a politician, they’d say something like, “Every penny is intended to benefit the proud and mighty First Nations People of this great, great land of ours.”

And like anything a politician says, there is a grain of truth in it. The money is intended to reach “the proud and mighty.”

But these analogies may come a little closer to the truth. “It’s like using a shot gun to hunt mosquitos!”

Or maybe you could look at it this way: “Your house is burning down and the only bucket you have has a hole in it!”

The fat cat bureaucrats with their fat pay cheques get the first bite of the golden pie. Then comes the provincial, the regional, the local level and all of their many staff members along the way. Not to mention the many, many programs intended to help us poor, poor natives.

I’ve heard it said that poverty is at the root of why we drink, do drugs etc, etc, etc. Hey, Ottawa, here’s an idea: Just divide up that five billion and send me my share … problem solved!

Statistically speaking, natives are among the poorest, yet indigenous services (Agriculture, Arts, Abuse etc, etc, etc) are among the largest employers in all of Canada.

Chief X
Then finally, any money that’s left over goes to your, hopefully, “Honest Injun’ of a Chief”. And most of us know of, or have heard stories of, corruption in the big tepee! If you haven’t, here’s one for you to ponder … I won’t mention any names, other than Chief X.

A long time ago in a Rez far, far away … Chief X (who has no other job other than his job as the Chief, which by the way only pays $150 per month) flies himself, his friend (who coincidentally is an elected councilor) and both of their families to an exotic tropical island for a two week holiday.

How is that possible, you may ask? Did he win the trip? An inheritance maybe? Or is he just a wiz at budgeting? No, sorry, none of the above.

Here’s a clue: Chief X was proud to crow that during his reign he had procured employment for twelve members in his tribe.

That’s fantastic, you may say! But here are some things he never mentions. Yes, he created twelve jobs, but only for the summer and only at minimum wage. Another thing he never mentions is the project he had them working on. He had them building twelve stupid outhouses!

Oh, Sorry! Did I forget to mention he received more than $125,000.00 from the government? That’s something else he keeps forgetting to mention! Aloha!

By Staff Writers

A team of five Mohawk translators, led by a former Oka negotiator, have completed translating three books of the Bible into their aboriginal mother tongue.

Working in the communities of Kahnasatake (a Mohawk community of about 1,500 people northeast of Montreal and the flashpoint of the 1990 Oka uprising) and Kahnawake, Quebec (south of Montreal, near Chateauguay), the project began in 1999.

With funding, technical and consulting support from The Canadian Bible Society, the team translated the biblical books of II Corinthians, Jonah and Ruth.

Commenting on the significance of the project, Hart Wiens, Director of Scripture Translations for the Canadian Bible Society said, “For scripture to find a home in peoples’ hearts, it needs to come in the language of the heart.”

Today, the Mohawk language is spoken by an estimated 10% of the 30,000 North Americans that make up the total Mohawk population. However, aggressive language maintenance programs (including Mohawk immersion in the early elementary school years) have been launched in an effort to conserve both the language and the culture.

Arlene Delaronde is in charge of the Family Violence Program in Kahnawake. Regarding the newly translated scriptures, she commented, “It is going to be a wonderful tool that is going to help maintain our language for generations to come.”

Mavis Etienne is the translation project’s founder and coordinator. She makes her living as a clinical supervisor and counsellor for a local addiction treatment centre. She was involved as a negotiator on behalf of the Mohawk people during the Oka crisis.

Etienne first recognized the need for a Mohawk translation of the Bible a number of years ago, when she searched for Mohawk scriptures to read on her weekly radio show, “Mohawk Gospel Program”. All she could find were out-dated translations.

“I discovered that all of the New Testament had been translated into Mohawk between 1787 and 1839, with the exception of the book of Second Corinthians. The only book from the Old Testament that had been translated was Isaiah,” Etienne said. “But the language used in all the translations needed some up-dating.”

Community forms group
Etienne called a community meeting on a snowy Saturday in January, 1999 to raise awareness of the need for contemporary Mohawk Scriptures, and to garner support for the project. Ten people showed up.

A translation team was formed consisting of Etienne, Harvey Gabriel (whose great-grandfather, Sose Onasakenrat translated the scriptures in the 1800s), and three retired school
teachers known as ‘the sisterhood’; Josie Horne (85), Dorris Montour (82) and Charlotte Provencher (81).

Together, they studied at The Summer Institute of Linguistics in Arizona. Translation experts were recruited to provide linguistic and theological support. A support team was put in place.

In addition to The Canadian Bible Society, The United Church of Canada, The Anglican Church of Canada and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops helped finance the venture. Clergy from Presbyterian, Pentecostal, United, Lutheran and Roman Catholic backgrounds acted as consultants.

The team’s original intent was simply to translate the apostle Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians. As the work progressed, they quickly determined the need for a complete and contemporary Mohawk Bible. Translation work now continues on the Old Testament books of Esther, Daniel, Genesis, Proverbs, Job and Lamentations.

Maureen Scott Kabwe, United Church minister in the Mohawk community of Kahnawake said of the Mohawk-language scriptures, “Each word, each part of a word is a treasure that opens up doors of understanding that we didn’t even know existed.”

The Canadian Bible Society, (headquartered in Toronto, Ontario), translates, publishes and distributes the Bible throughout Canada, and has Bibles, New Testaments and other Scriptures available in 111 foreign languages as well as 23 Canadian aboriginal languages.

First native take in 1804
The first Canadian native translation to be published by the Bible Society dates back to 1804, when the Gospel of John was translated into Mohawk. Formally founded in 1904 and chartered in 1906, the Canadian Bible Society is a member of the United Bible Societies, a fellowship of 137 national Bible societies around the world.

The societies work in partnership with churches and other Bible agencies to facilitate and support translation work around the globe. The Bible is now available – in whole or in part – in more than 2,285 different languages.

Four thousand languages have been identified into which no book of the Bible has been translated, and there is a recognized need for translation into at least 2,000 of these remaining languages.

For further information:

Hart Wiens
Director of Scripture Translation, The Canadian Bible Society
(Day) (519) 741-8285
(Night) (519) 883-7436
hwiens@biblesociety.ca
www.biblesociety.ca

Mavis Etienne
Clinical Supervisor, Onen’to:Kon Treatment Services
(Day) (450) 479-8353
(Night) (450) 479-6555
mavis.e@sympatico.ca

Rev. Georges Legault
District Director, The Canadian Bible Society
(Day) (514) 848-9777
(Night) (450) 445-4815
glegault@canbible.ca