Saskatchewan Environment and Resource Management Minister, Lorne Scott, announced on Jan. 3 his approval under The Environmental Assessment Act for the Department of Highways and Transportation to proceed with the development of a seasonal road from Points North Landing to Black Lake, in the Lake Athabasca region.
The Canadian Coast Guard, which is part of the Federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, has decided to discontinue dredging and aids to navigation on the Athabasca River in Alberta, and aids to navigation on Lake Athabasca. This decision has the potential to make the current barging service which supplies the communities in the Lake Athabasca region unreliable. Saskatchewan Highways and Transportation requested approval from the minister to construct the road to provide an alternative means of supply to the region.
Under The Environmental Assessment Act, the minister is required to review proposed developments to determine whether the potential environmental impacts are acceptable. After a careful review of the public submissions on the project's environmental impact statement as well as the government's technical review, the minister announced he is approving the development subject to terms and conditions.
This process will be developed and sustained by local First Nations, northern municipalities, the office of Northern Affairs, the environment department and other stakeholders.
The minister's decision deals only with the environmental issues related to the seasonal road, which is located entirely within Saskatchewan. The provincial assessment process was co-ordinated with the federal environmental assessment process which encompassed the review of the Coast Guard's decision to discontinue dredging and aids to navigation services as well as the review of potential impacts from the seasonal road.
Northern Affairs Minister Keith Goulet and Chief Harry Cook of the Lac La Ronge Indian Band today announced plans for the first Northern Saskatchewan Business Opportunities Forum.
Kitsaki Development Corporation, which operates the La Ronge Band's business enterprises, and Saskatchewan Northern Affairs are co-hosting the forum being held in La Ronge Feb. 6 to 8. The conference is intended to highlight northern business opportunities associated with the mining and forestry industries in Northern Saskatchewan.
"To ensure northern residents achieve the full benefit of resource
development, it is important that northern-owned enterprises are aware of opportunities to participate in these two major components of the North's developing economy," Goulet said. "Northern employment and business participation in resource development have been steadily growing. The February forum is another initiative to maintain that momentum."
Chief Cook said the forum will give northerners an opportunity to learn from the experience of others.
"This conference will provide a chance to hear of success stories and to discuss the challenges of establishing and operating northern companies that do business with the mining and forestry industry," Cook said.
Subtitled Breaking New Ground in Mining and Forestry, the forum will
also discuss new ways in which northern businesses can provide services
and supplies to the two industries.
Health Minister Eric Cline and Northern Affairs Minister Keith Goulet today announced in December the formation of two new health districts to deliver health services to residents of Northern Saskatchewan.
It is anticipated the northern district health boards will be in place by February 1997.
The two districts, in addition to the Athabasca Health Authority, will be responsible for the planning and delivery of provincial health services to northern residents. The Athabasca Health Authority will operate a full range of health services in the Athabasca Basin, but unlike a district health board, it will receive funding from federal, First Nations and provincial sources.
The establishment of district health boards is an essential step in the structural reform and renewal of Saskatchewan's health system.
Evading ditches and huge trucks in -40 C weather isn't my idea of fun, especially when the highway is disappearing under a creeping snow drift driven by 100 km winds.
That was how my first attempt to drive from Saskatoon to Regina went last month. I'd been in white-outs before but had never experienced anything like this in my driving career. It more like a wall of blowing snow than a white-out. The Jeep would've become an instant igloo if I stopped or stalled.
I suddenly remembered that woman from North Dakota or Montana who got stuck for 40 hours in her Jeep in a blizzard. Four wheel drive or not, I wasn't about to let that happen to me.
Figuring discretion was the better part of valor, I plotted my retreat for Saskatoon. There was a tiny hitch in my plans as I couldn't locate an intersection on the highway because the blowing snow made the ditch level with the road. I wasn't sure if there'd be road underneath me or 3 m of snow.
Of course, I managed to cross the road safely and crawl my way back to Saskatoon, otherwise I wouldn't be writing this now.
It's not that I didn't want to fight a blizzard to get to Regina, but I did have other things on my mind. I learned just before my trip that Native Earth Performing Arts will be producing my play, Project 7, next year in Toronto. The anticipated date is February or March 1998. All I could think about was "Playwright perishes in blizzard: Promising writer entombed in Jeep."
Who knows, that might increase interest in the play. But being famous after I'm dead does not appeal to me.
You're all invited to come and see it, but you'll have to find your own way there and buy your own ticket. Hey, playwrights don't make a lot of money.
I'll be sure to remember you all in my speech when I'm receiving the Governor General's award for Drama.
*****
For those who thought I was incapable of cracking a smile, proof to the contrary is just left of you. That picture was taken while I was touring the RCMP Depot training centre. Const. Lloyd Goodwill, in charge of diversity recruiting for "F" Division snapped that shot while I weakly attempted part of the Physical Abilities Requirement Evaluation. I can't really remember if I was smiling or grimacing.
I was sadly reminded as to how out of shape I am.
I have a lot of people to thank for that tour, including Const. Goodwill,
Insp. George Watson and Sgt. Mike Seleski. I was lucky to get off Depot
without being signed up.
By Pamela Green
Sage Writer
THUNDERCHILD FIRST NATION
"There are many good things to enjoy in life" said Norman Sunchild.
"I really like to sing and play the drum when I'm all by myself, because no one wants to listen to me," he explained, with a laugh. "What they do really like to hear about is my name, Sunchild, which is Pesim-awasis in Cree."
"I go to a lot of feasts, ceremonies and grand openings and people always ask me about it and where it came from," he continued. "My father earned it in the old way and it got translated into English when he went to Residential School in Battleford."
At the age of eighty-three, Sunchild is a highly respected Elder on his own reserve and across western Canada.
He born on December 12th, 1913 on the Thunderchild First Nation and has lived there most of his life with his wife Ina and their seven daughters.
"I've been married to old kokum for 63 years," he said with smile. "I should be honored."
"We've never been apart. The wife and I saw hard times but we raised our family and our love grew more because of it. It appears the longer you spend with your mate the more the love grows between the two of you," he continued.
He worked at various jobs over the years to help support his family that included hunting, trapping, farming, and working with horses. He also built his own log cabin which still sits on the edge of his property and is used as a summer house by the family.
He has plans to build a sweatlodge this spring, he explained, in order to keep in touch with the old ways.
"We can't forget the importance of the sweatlodge," he said. "It's our church and it's where we go to be humble and pray."
In the early days Sunchild had asked his father which road he should follow, the Christian religion or the ways of his ancestors.
His father told him that it was very important to respect other religions, keep our own traditions and know in our hearts who we are.
He also stressed that no one person was better than another and it's important to always be humble.
"It's like our sacred tobacco", said Sunchild. "It isn't the amount that's important, a pinch will do as an offering to the Mother Earth. It is the spirit in which it is done, with respect, humbleness and understanding."
Although Sunchild was a pipe man in his youth and a member of the White Buffalo Lodge he doesn't claim to be a shaman.
"Most of the real shamans who have passed on were a living link with the supernatural world," said Sunchild. "It very important to learn from them and other elders in order to keep sacred traditions alive. Sacred objects like this old leather rattle must be keep sacred, away from negative energy and bad thoughts. Negativity can really hurt other people and make them sick."
"It's better to think good thoughts about other people and remember to live your life to the fullest," he continued. "There's nothing to be afraid of. I have learned in my 83 years that life is very precious; one shouldn't play with this life, one should respect it. We can't lose that respect, not everything can be told, you have to keep the mystery."
Sunchild has served as an advisor to his Band and is a member of the Council of Elders for the FSIN.
An Elder like him is "a Grandfather to us all and he has a lot to
share," said translator and adopted grandson Norman Moyah.
By Kelly Roulette
Sage Writer
TORONTO
Like the character he played on stage in Toronto last fall, actor Kennetch Charlette is charismatic and has a laid back approach to life. Another similarity to the fictional Tonto, from the play Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth, is that he is also on a spiritual quest - one that includes sweat lodges, sun dances and a traditional way of thinking.
But that's where the resemblance ends. Unlike Tonto, Charlette's quest includes a goal to see First Nations people realistically depicted on stage, film and television. A goal, he says, that would help heal the Native spirit.
"Not that we should ignore the ugliness of our past, but embrace it and deal with it - that's healthy," he said. "We can do that by starting to depict ourselves, tell our own stories, which is something I hope to do through my work. Most of the stuff we see toady is still Hollywood stereotypical. The movie Dances With Wolves was probably the first time Natives were portrayed as real people."
Charlette, a Cree born on the Sandy Bay reserve in Saskatchewan, began his acting career in 1986, when he got a small speaking part in the National Film Board miniseries Daughters of our Country, which aired on television across Canada.
"Of course, I had to lie my way through it," he recalled, jokingly, of his first acting audition. "I had absolutely no acting experience, but I told the directors I took drama in high school."
The role landed him another part in the series, which, in turn, got him more acquainted with the Native acting community in Winnipeg, where he lived at the time.
After some pressure from acting friends and seeing the money he could make as an actor, Charlette decided to quit his six-year job with CN Rail and move to Toronto to take theater school.
On his first night there, he met Gary Farmer and Graham Greene, both of whom are now famous for roles in movies such as Powwow Highway and Dances With Wolves. Later, he would meet award-winning Cree-Ojibway playwright Tomson Highway. Charlette would get cast as the character Dickie Bird Halked in Highway's play Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing. It seemed as though Charlette was traveling the right professional and spiritual path.
In addition to having a say on what's being written about Native people and issues, Charlette says the workshops provide a cathartic outlet for him to deal his own past of alcohol abuse.
"There are broken circles we need to mend, and vicious circles we need to break," he said, of self-destructive behavior. "The thing is to figure out which is which. And I think Native spirituality, in the long run, is going to help."
This spring, he's scheduled to perform in the Native Earth Performing Arts production of Sixty Below, by Leonard Linklater and Patti Flather. The show runs from April 3 to the 20th, at the Native Canadian Centre in Toronto.
Drew Hayden Taylor, artistic director of Native Earth and author of Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth, wasn't surprised that Charlette's portrayal of Tonto earned him a nomination at last year's Dora Mavor Moore awards for best actor.
"Most interesting was the female attention the character received, both from anonymous audience members and people in professional theatre community," said Taylor. "Native Earth received a lot of fan mail on the play, but one constant factor was the response to Tonto. Now Kennetch is bugging me to write a one-man Tonto show. Maybe."
The Dora Mavor Moore awards are given to productions by theatres which
are members of the Toronto Theatre Alliance.
| Top of This Page | AMMSA Home Page |
[ Windspeaker
| CFWE-FM | Alberta
Sweetgrass | Saskatchewan Sage | Raven's
Eye | Aboriginal Media Services ]
[ Mission & History | AMMSA
Marketing | Advertising | Merchandise
| Subscriptions | Contest
]
Comments: e-mail: edsage@ammsa.com