NAIG says Colorado
will host next Indigenous games
Sam Laskaris, Sweetgrass Writer, Uncasville, Conn.
First Denver, Colorado in 2006, then Cowichan Valley on Vancouver
Island in 2008. That's the line-up for the next two North American
Indigenous Games (NAIG).
British Columbia officials are thrilled Cowichan Valley, with
a population of 75,000 people found in 11 small communities,
has been selected to host. The official announcement was made
Oct. 22 following a NAIG council meeting in Connecticut.
"We're very excited about this both from a community and
provincial level," said Graham Bruce, B.C.'s Minister of
Skills Development and Labour who was also a co-chair of the
Cowichan Valley bid. "It's created quite a buzz here."
Cowichan Valley beat out Regina, Sask., the only other bid for
the 2008 games.
"We have a smaller community than where the games have been
held in the past," said Bruce, who is MLA for the Cowichan-Ladysmith
provincial riding. "But our team just put together an excellent
bid."
The same day Cowichan Valley was awarded its games, it was announced
that Denver and Colorado Springs would co-host the games in 2006.
The next games had originally been awarded to Buffalo in 2005,
but last March the NAIG council rescinded the right to host when
the Buffalo Sports Society failed to provide sufficient documentation
in regard to its progress in organizing and funding the event.
After the NAIG council opted to put the '05 games on hold for
a year, it re-opened its bid process.
But just the joint Denver/Colorado Springs bid was submitted.
That bid was made by the Native American Sports Council (NASC),
a group that has its headquarters in Colorado Springs. The council's
mission is to promote athletic excellence and wellness within
Native American communities through sports programs.
The games have been held five times since their inception in
1990. The inaugural games were held in Edmonton. They went to
Prince Albert, Sask. in 1993, to Blaine, Minnesota in 1995, to
Victoria, B.C. in 1997 and to Winnipeg in 2002.
The 1999 games, which were scheduled for Fargo, N.D., were cancelled.
It's no secret the games have had their best success while in
Canada. Mo Smith, NASC's executive director, believes his group
will be successful in staging the 2006 games, but he's not interested
in comparing his group's efforts to any previous games.
"I never compare apples with oranges," he said, adding
NASC has a solid reputation in staging multi-sport events.
NASC is a member of the U.S. Olympic Committee and is affiliated
with several Olympic sports federations.
"Everyone is confident those games (in 2006) will be a success,"
said NAIG council president Harold Joseph.
Traditionally, the Indigenous games are held over a period ranging
from seven to 10 days. Dates for the 2006 games have yet to be
finalized, but the event will in all likelihood begin in mid-to-late
July.
As for the 2008 games, Harold Joseph, one of six NAIG council
members who were part of the bid selection committee, said he
was impressed with both the Regina and Cowichan Valley bids.
Though he had met political figures from both bid groups during
visits to the sites earlier in the year, Joseph was surprised
the Cowichan Valley representatives travelled to Connecticut
for the final bid presentation on Oct. 22.
"They had their political people there to do their presentation,"
Joseph said. "Regina didn't do that."
Besides Graham Bruce, the Cowichan Valley contingent in Connecticut
included Chief Harvey Alphonse of the Cowichan Tribes.
The Cowichan Valley bid had tremendous support from both the
Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities.
The 2008 games are expected to feature more than 7,000 athletes
competing in 16 sports. The games are also expected to bring
in an estimated $30 million to the area economy.
With NAIG's 2008 announcement, Bruce added he's pleased another
major sporting event is coming to B.C. The biggest one, of course,
is the 2010 Winter Olympics.
Bruce is hoping officials from both can share some organizational
tips to ensure the best chances of success for both events.
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Tantoo Cardinal
launches new history book
Debora Steel, Sweetgrass Writer, Calgary
The story of Louis Riel and the resistance he led in the 1880s
against government encroachment on Métis lands and settlements
is a well-known tale.
This turbulent time in Canadian history is taught in high schools
across the country. But not much is said about what happened
to those same Métis people in the 50 years after their
defeat at Batoche, after Riel was hanged for his "treasonous"
ways, after the European settlers flooded into the West.
It's the fallout from that glorious stand the Métis made
to protect their interests on the prairies that storyteller Tantoo
Cardinal was interested in. When the Dominion Institute asked
her to contribute to a new book looking at Canadian history from
an Aboriginal perspective, she knew which story she would tell.
The Dominion Institute is a non-profit organization founded by
a group of young people who wanted to change the perception that
Canadian history is boring. The institute put together a list
of Aboriginal writers and invited each to contribute a fictionalized
account of a moment in history that was personally important
to them.
What results is Our Story: Aboriginal Voices on Canada's Past,
a book of stories from nine Aboriginal writers, and a note from
each explaining why the writer chose their particular topic.
Cardinal, the Dominion Institute and Enbridge-sponsor of the
work-launched the book in Calgary on Oct. 20 with a visit to
Forest Lawn high school. Cardinal, an actress famous for her
work in major Hollywood motion pictures, including Dances With
Wolves and Legends of the Fall, spoke to 200 students about her
participation in the project. She talked about Aboriginal voice,
the importance of looking at history from multiple perspectives,
and her feeling through much of her life that history wasn't
being told properly.
Cardinal's work in Our Story is called "There Is
a Place," and it zeros in on what life had become for Métis
during the period of 1915 to 1928, before the Métis Settlements
Act of Alberta was negotiated.
The actress described it as a time of hopelessness. Métis
industry was replaced with non-Native industry. The Métis
lifestyle was usurped by the European way of life. Fish stocks
were depleted; trap-line profits were taxed. There was no land
the Métis could call their own, and disease was decimating
their population.
"We were obsolete," Cardinal writes in her contributor's
note.
The work in Our Story varies widely, from the creation
story of the Iroquois by Brian Maracle, to Thomas King's story
about the Japanese internment in Canada.
"Each [author] really specifically and quickly picked a
story, which was interesting," said Alison Faulknor, managing
director of the Dominion Institute. "These were stories
at the back of their minds they felt were important to tell.
I think each author felt very strongly and felt a commitment
to making sure that Canadians learned about this moment in history.
It might be a moment that we know about well, like Oka, but just
looking at it from an Aboriginal perspective. Or it might be
about a specific community or an individual that isn't necessarily
a period in history that we learn about in history textbooks.
So I think they each felt very personally committed to the story
that they told and felt it was important that it reached a greater
audience."
In the case of King, (Green Grass, Running Water; Dead
Dog Cafe) the subject matter seemed curious. Why on earth would
an Aboriginal author choose another people's history to wade
in on?
In the contributor's note he explains:
"[W]henever I hear the story, I think about Indians, for
the treatment the Canadian government afforded Japanese people
during the Second World War is strikingly similar to the treatment
that the Canadian government has always afforded Native people
..."
Lee Maracle writes about the land in Vancouver now known as False
Creek, and a settlement negotiated for that land reluctantly
accepted by her people.
"Goodbye, Snauq" is about the emotional conflict of
coming to terms with the past in order to fully participate in
the future. As in the other stories, it is a fictionalized account
about a very real, and in this case very recent, part of history
that many of us might never be aware of except for her work in
the book.
Maracle said she hopes the stories in the book will help people
face themselves and the past.
"If you are Aboriginal you'll face what has happened to
you and find some way to reconcile yourself to it, and if you
are not Native you will face what was done to us and find some
way to reconcile yourself to it personally. I think that's what
story does anyway. That's what my hope is," she said.
Faulknor wants readers to stop and consider history from a new
perspective and she quotes from the foreward of Our Story
written by Gov. Gen. Adrienne Clarkson.
"When we read a work of literary art, it should never be
a purely didactic exercise, a moralizing lesson. It is something
that pleases us and helps us to understand what we haven't experienced,
what we might not have known that we didn't know." That's
the impact Faulknor hopes the book will have.
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