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Top News - June - 2004
Published June 7, 2004
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Plans in the works for First Nations governance centre
Discovery of spearhead sets history on its ear
Service club reaches out to inner city youthThis is only a partial listing of the stories featured in the June 2004 issue of Saskatchewan Sage. If you are not receiving your own copy of Sage, then you have missed out on a lot.
Plans in the works for First Nations governance centre
Paul Barnsley, Sage Writer, Saskatoon
Herb George is out of politics now and into governance.
The former Assembly of First Nations British Columbia vice- chief who retired from politics late in 2003 is working to establish the First Nations Governance Centre.
"It will be designed to assist in the further development of our day-to-day government operations, and it will support us as we seek to implement the inherent rights of self-government," George wrote in a discussion paper that has been used during consultation sessions.
He sees a central clearing house with a wide range of expertise in four major areas: assisting in the improvement of community government services; professional development of Aboriginal leaders and bureaucrats that will allow better governance structures to be created and that will lead to better accountability and transparency; a place for academics to do research on Aboriginal legal and political matters; and a valuable tool for educating the general Canadian public and media about Aboriginal issues.
Taking advantage of the centre's services will be optional.
"The centre is not going to force itself on anybody," George said. "We're not looking for permission to do it. I wasn't appointed by anybody ... I just got the government to agree that this is important."
George has been travelling the country consulting with First Nation people since March. The final recommended business plan will be presented to the minister of Indian Affairs in late June. After that George said he expects negotiations on the final details will take from two to six weeks. Once the final agreement is hammered out, a board will be struck and the centre could be open as early as this summer.
"The commitment has been made for a national office in Ottawa and four satellite offices around the country," he said. "And Treasury Board approval has already been had. The commitment is for 10 years."
Sources say $5 million was set aside for the centre in connection with a commitment in the federal budget speech and an additional $7 or 8 million will be sought from other government sources.
"It's hard to name a figure because it's all going to be the subject of negotiations, but I figure it'll take $5 million to start and considerably more beyond that afterwards," George said.
The members of the advisory committee and the Elders advisory council spans Aboriginal groups of varying political stripes.
Advisory committee members are Métis law professor Paul Chartrand, Métis lawyer Larry Chartrand, AFN Atlantic Vice-chief Rick Simon, Congress of Aboriginal Peoples Vice-chief Patrick Brazeau, National Aboriginal Women's Association President Pam Paul, Mel Bevan, Beverly Watson, Carol Nadjiwon, Alex Wilson, Konrad Sioui and Mohawk academic Patricia Monture.
The Elders' council members are Verna Kirkness, John Knockwood and Judge Alfred Scow.
None of the board members are being paid for their efforts, Patricia Monture said.
Monture, a traditional Mohawk woman who walked away from a tenured law professor's position after deciding the Canadian justice system is not designed to serve the interests of her people, now works as an advisor on Aboriginal issues to the dean of the University of Saskatchewan. She said the committee has been able to work together very well so far.
"Everybody seems to share the same dream," she said. "The idea is that the feds can't do this. Only we can."
Since former Indian Affairs minister Robert Nault scuttled a previous attempt to start a similar institution, George's critics suggest that anything that is truly progressive will be stifled or killed off by the federal government. Monture disagrees. She said it was not-and will not be-a government institution. She gives credit to Herb George, who spent 11 years teaching public administration at the University of Victoria before turning to politics, for convincing federal officials that there's a need for the centre.
"Herb acted in a self-determining way," she said. "He said, 'Don't talk to me about self-determination if you're not going to be self-determining.'"
Discovery of spearhead sets history on its ear
John McDonald, Sage Writer, Beardy's and Okemasis First Nation
What started out as a hobby for Debra Cameron and Shelly Eyahpaise has lead to a major archaeological discovery that could change the history of North America as we know it.
Cameron and Eyahpaise, both of Beardy's, have discovered a fully intact spearhead believed to date from approximately 12,000 BCE. If so, the spearhead would be proof prehistoric hunters were present in the area thousands of years prior to when scientists believe they first arrived on the scene.
The discovery was made in a field not far from Cameron's home on the reserve, though she wishes to keep the exact location secret for now. It was discovered while Cameron and Eyahpaise were searching the field for artifacts.
"We've always looked in plowed fields and summer-fallow for arrowheads and old coins, always surface collecting and never digging."
Eyahpaise was the first to see the spearhead, Cameron said.
"She saw something that was sticking out of the path ahead of me and told me about it. From a distance, we thought it was a piece of broken beer bottle or brown glass, but didn't realize what it was at first."
The spearhead, which has no notches carved into it by which to bind it to a shaft, is believed to be a clovis point, one of the first spear points made by man. It is made of Knife River flint, which is found in Montana. It is completely intact, and surprisingly still retains a sharp cutting edge even after centuries of lying underground.
The significance of this find is monumental, said Cameron, as it is proof that people inhabited the region during a time thought to be part of the ice age, when a great mass of ice covered western Canada.
"When people think of this area and its history, they only seem to go back to 1885," Cameron said, referring to the battle of Duck Lake during the Riel Rebellion. "This takes it back even farther than that. I've found arrowheads here that date back from 400 to 1,800 years ago, and we've found fossils in my own yard that go back millions of years."
Cameron believes that the number of archaeological artifacts found in the area could eclipse those found at Wanuskewin, a national heritage site just north of Saskatoon where evidence of human habitation dating back centuries has been found.
The discovery of this spearhead in Beardy's is one of a flurry of archaeological discoveries that have taken place in the area in recent months. A similar artifact was recently discovered in the town of Davidson, approximately 200 kilometres southeast of Beardy's and Okemasis. The skeleton of a prehistoric giant bison was discovered while crews were building a new bridge in the town of St. Louis, 75 kilometres northeast of the reserve, and last month workers at the Cooke municipal golf course in Prince Albert, 57 kilometres north of Beardy's, stumbled upon what is believed to be the remains of an Aboriginal man dating back 400 to 500 years.
Cameron and Eyahpaise have a theory as to why such discoveries have taken place in this area bounded by the North and South Saskatchewan rivers.
"The old people say that this area between the two rivers has always been settled (by Aboriginal people), as it was an ideal place for our people. It is a place where the tree-line and the plains meet, and there has always been water and game to survive on," said Cameron.
"This land was thought of (by non-Aboriginal people) as useless, but we've always known that it is special," Eyahpaise added. "That's why our chiefs didn't sign treaty right away, because they didn't want to give up this land."
Cameron and Eyahpaise say their discovery has provided them with a link to their ancestors. "When I hold it, my thoughts were of those old people who lived and survived out here" said Eyahpaise. "It's amazing to think that this spear might have been used to kill a giant Bison or mammoth, here on our own reserve."
Both Cameron and Eyahpaise insist that they are not interested in financial gain from their find. "We would never sell (the artifact)" said Eyahpaise. "That would be selling our history."
The two would like to see the piece in an Aboriginal museum or perhaps an on-reserve interpretive centre-type setting similar to what's in place at Wanuskewin.
Service club reaches out to inner city youth
Jennifer Chung, Sage Writer, Regina
It all began in 1999 when a group of Aboriginal businessmen got together to talk about what they could do to help inner city kids in their neighbourhood. Since then, the Regina Aboriginal Kin Club been busy raising money for sport and recreation programs that encourage youth to become more involved in their community.
"When we first started, we were giving donations to a lot of people like individual hockey players or hockey teams or whatever from the First Nations around Regina. We found that we just simply weren't big enough to handle that," said club president Brian Sklar. "So we had to change our focus to just strictly inner city Regina. And we found we've been able to accomplish a lot more, mainly because most of the people living in the inner city in Regina are from the First Nations from around the Regina area anyway. So we are helping the people that we're supposed to be helping. And when we concentrated in the Regina inner city, well, of course, then we can have more hands-on involvement in our projects. We can see where our funds are going."
Some of the Aboriginal Kin Club's crowning achievements include launching clubs for running, wrestling and synchronized swimming for youth between the ages of eight to 20. A girls' cheerleading team was also created after a teacher from Wascana high school approached the club for funding.
"The boys have football teams, soccer teams ...but there wasn't very much for girls. So she said, 'Well , why don't we put together a cheerleading squad,'" Sklar explained. "These people that are on this squad have to attain a certain grade point average. They've got to take care of their school studies first. So these are 24 very motivated young women and whenever we do little fundraiser things like hot dog sales and things that they can be involved in, they show up and pitch in and help. It's really nice to have that youth component involved."
The club plans to partner up with St. Luke's school to develop a sport and education program. Sklar also hopes to set up a music program sometime next year.
Although the club receives some support from organizations such as the Saskatchewan Indian Gaming Authority, SaskPower and SaskEnergy, the number of requests for funding often exceed the amount of money it can provide.
"Our requests range from requests for funding for educational projects, sports projects, of course, recreation projects and we just have to look at them on a case by case basis ... Unlike other organizations like us, we have way more requests than we have money and that's the toughest part. If we could raise more money, well, we could do a whole lot more than we are. But we're small, we're poor and we just do the best we can with the funds that we have to work with," Sklar said. "That means holding raffles and that sort of thing and it's pretty hard to get up over about $10,000 to $20,000 in fundraising a year and that could be used up in two or three requests."
Sklar said the Regina Aboriginal Kin Club is unique because its members and volunteers are from the inner city, making it easier for them to relate to youth in the community.
"What we've done is gotten right down into the community. A lot of the people that belong to our club actually live in the 'hood and it gives us a little different perspective on things that may be some of the other service clubs don't have ...you're one of them, so they feel perfectly comfortable working with our people. They don't suspect anything when you walk in because they've seen you walking down the street. They've grown up with you so they trust you."