Top News - February - 2003 Published February 17, 2003 A winning style! Lisa Odjig of Calgary shows how to wow a crowd during the World Championship Hoop Dance Contest held in Phoenix, Arizona on Feb. 1 and 2 by the Heard Museum. Odjig took top honors in the adult category. Photo by Friendship week, powwow both successful Smoking-pack it in this year Population boom for Métis This is only a partial listing of the stories featured in the February 2003 issue of Alberta Sweetgrass. If you are not receiving your own copy of Sweetgrass, then you have missed out on a lot. Friendship week, powwow both successful Shari Narine, Sweetgrass Writer, Pincher Creek It was a winning combination. The first ever Community Friendship Week across southwestern Alberta and the return of the Napi Powwow has sold organizers on a second annual event. "We had really good success, really good feedback," said Peggy Yellow Horn, who worked with Vhalle Hohn to co-ordinate the event. Community Friendship Week kicked off Jan. 12 in Pincher Creek with a potluck of cultural performances and cultural dishes and concluded Jan. 19 with the third day of the Napi Powwow on the Piikani Nation. In between, schools in Brocket, Pincher Creek, Lundbreck, the Crowsnest Pass, and Fort Macleod hosted events including performances by hoop dancer Bart Harris, the Japanese Morniji dancers and cowboy storyteller Don Brestler. There were also events for the community including a multi-cultural exhibit at the Kootenai Brown Pioneer Village in Pincher Creek, a Respect in the Work place seminar for businesses, and Elders and seniors gatherings in both Brocket and Pincher Creek. "We had more buy-in from Pincher Creek," said Carol Specht, executive director of the Napi Friendship Association, which spearheaded the week-long celebration. Community Friendship Week took the place of Napi's Cross-Cultural Days, which were held in Pincher Creek and garnered more out-of-community support than local. Community Friendship Week not only extended the boundaries of the celebrations geographically, taking in a much wider part of southwestern Alberta, but also culturally, including presentations of Native, Métis, French, Hutterite, Japanese, and a number of other cultures. As Napi's Cross Cultural Days and Powwow didn't take place last year, so the return of the powwow this year was much anticipated. "Every year I say (the powwow) was probably the best ever. You know what? This was probably the best ever," said Quinton Crow Shoe, program co-ordinator at the Napi Friendship Centre. There were 225 dancers in attendance and 19 drum groups. Joining Piikani Nation dancers were those from the nearby Kainai Nation, as well as many who traveled a much further distance, including British Columbia, Manitoba, North Carolina, Arizona, Montana, Washington, Florida and Idaho. "People were itching to go. They looked forward to this powwow," said Crow Shoe. "There will be some changes to make, but that's what the first year is all about," said Yellow Horn. Top

Smoking-pack it in this year Yvonne Irene Gladue, Sweetgrass Writer, Edmonton The Alberta Lung Association says that 85 per cent of lung cancer is caused by cigarette smoking and that smoking contributes to other cancers as well, such as cancer of the mouth and pancreas. Heart disease and stroke are also diseases that smokers have to worry about. So, as part of National Non-smoking Week, the Nechi Training Research and Health Promotions Institute worked with the community of Edmonton to celebrate Weedless Wednesday, with more than 70 people gathered in the institute's gymnasium on Jan. 22 to hear as guest speakers talk about a number of issues related to smoking, including the spiritual use of tobacco, the struggles of quitting smoking, and surviving throat cancer. Lisa Hinks, project co-ordinator at Nechi, said that this event, the first ever on the topic for the institute, was interesting and informative. "I think that it went really well and I think that people did benefit from the information and the stories that were shared. We had people ask us questions, especially after the whole event was over. They told me that they were trying to quit and [asked] what are some of the things that they could do to help them stop aside from what they heard and everything. It was interesting." Elder Emil Durocher spoke about the traditional use of tobacco in the Aboriginal community. He said that people seem to think that smoking and traditional ceremonies are the same thing, but stressed that they are not. "In the mid-1900s, Elders did not smoke the tobacco. When they did their ceremonies, they would put the tobacco on the ground. This was how the tobacco was used. It was only in the past 50 years that tobacco has been really abused. The tobacco that we use now is not the tobacco that the Elders used then. The tobacco they use now is toxic. They put so many ingredients in the cigarettes today, it is not the sacred tobacco that we used to use," he said. People are not supposed to smoke every day, said Derocher. "Actually, in the Native tradition, we are not supposed to take in anything that is harmful to our bodies. If we want to be a clean person, we have to start to clean our bodies and our mind so that our spirit can be as clean as the Creator wants it to be. Our bodies were given to us by the Creator so that we could honor our bodies in this lifetime and that we won't harm ourselves in any way so that we could give our bodies back to the Creator the same way, as clean as they were in the beginning. I think that smoking does a lot of harm," he said. "Quitting smoking is actually a good thing, because it was never meant for us to smoke the kinds of cigarettes today. I think there is going to have to be a lot of restructuring around the use of tobacco, the way it is used in ceremonial purposes," he said. Russell Auger performed a traditional tobacco ceremony in which the audience was asked to participate. Each member was given a small amount of tobacco to place over his or her heart while bowing his or her head in prayer. Auger said that at one time Aboriginal people used tobacco in this way. Top Population boom for Métis Joan Taillon, Sweetgrass Writer, Ottawa Aboriginal organizations responded quickly to the release of Statistics Canada's 2001 census results last month, which shows a 22.2 per cent increase over five years in the number of people identifying themselves as having some Aboriginal ancestry. Aboriginal people now account for 4.4 per cent of Canada's population. The census shows 976,300 people identified as a North American Indian, Métis or Inuit in 2001. Practically all Aboriginal groups stressed that all levels of government need to step up their timetable to meet the social and economic needs of Aboriginal youth under 25, in particular, which the census shows account for more than half the Aboriginal population. The median age for non-Aboriginal people in 2001 was 37.7 years, compared to 23.5 for First Nations, and 20.6 for Inuit. The city of Winnipeg reported the highest Aboriginal population, 55,760 out of a total of 661,730 residents. Edmonton was second, with 40,930 Aboriginal people in a city of 927,020. Vancouver was third, reporting 38,855 Aboriginal people in a population of 1,967,480. Inuit people, representing five per cent of the Aboriginal total, number 45,070, a 12 per cent increase from the last census in 1996. In contrast, Canada's non-Aboriginal population grew 3.4 per cent. One half of the Inuit live in Nunavut, where they represent 85 per cent of the total population. Statistics Canada attributes the significant Aboriginal population increase partly to improvements in health, a longer lifespan, and more births occurring than deaths, according to Andy Siggner, senior advisor on Aboriginal statistics for Statistics Canada. Siggner pointed out there also has been an improvement in census participation over the years. In 1986, he said, 136 reserves did not participate; in 1996 it was 77 reserves, and by 2001, only 30 of more than 1,170 inhabited reserves did not complete the census. He said Stats Canada "maybe missed 144,000" Aboriginal people. The biggest surprise was the number of Métis enumerated. That population grew by 43 per cent and represents 30 per cent of the total Aboriginal number. One-third of this group is under the age of 14 and one-third of Métis children live in single-parent families. In urban centres, where two-thirds of Métis live, 42 per cent of Métis children live with one parent. Audrey Poitras, interim president of the Métis National Council, stated in a release, "These latest numbers are beginning to present a more realistic portrait of the Métis Nation in Canada," which she said were previously under-reported. She called on provincial and federal governments to increase funds for Métis programs and services. Siggner attributes part of the increase in Métis numbers to "fertility rate," but a bigger portion he indicated is likely attributed to a rising "cultural consciousness" resulting in a significant increase in people who identify as Métis. In Ontario, he said the number of Métis increased 124 per cent in five years. Top