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The second annual Caring for the Caregivers conference in Williams Lake was held on Feb. 17 to 19 at the Nenqayni Treatment Centre.

This year's conference was hosted by the centre and by Punky Lake Wilderness Camp Society's Eagle HEART program. Thirty-six front-line workers were present as Cpl. Mike Legault from the RCMP North District Drug Awareness Service gave an opening presentation entitled Substance Abuse Symptomology.

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'Namgis House, formerly known as St. Michael's Residential School, is being restored by the 'Namgis band. The 75-year-old building is the largest on Cormorant Island,

A project steering committee of 12 people including government, community members and former students is planning the restoration. The committee also includes former students who are not 'Namgis band members, but who are "part of the residential school survivor society," said Barb Cranmer, a 'Namgis band councillor and the project committee chairwoman.

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More than a dozen people from up and down the coast came to an abalone recovery action plan workshop in Port Alberni last month.

The five-year, $1.5 million Fisheries and Oceans study on ways to rebuild decimated abalone populations is being presented in a number of west coast communities.

"The purpose of the meeting was to report on what the abalone recovery program is," said Nuu-Chah-Nulth southern region biologist Jim Lane. "Are they any closer to getting more abalone in the water? I don't think so."

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The ink hasn't even hit the pages of the Snuneymuxw treaty yet, but already the Nanaimo area Snuneymuxw are proposing a public-private partnership with the city and private industry to build a $30 million-plus conference centre on the waterfront. The treaty, when it is signed, will be the first urban treaty in British Columbia. Some of the land that is on the treaty table is adjacent to the proposed site of the new conference centre and may be incorporated into the design.

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Walter Harris, a hereditary Gitxsan chief, is one of seven who will receive this year's Governor General's Award in visual and media arts.

Harris, now 72, was born and raised in the Kispiox area. He worked as a miner, sawmill owner and operator, carpenter and commercial fisherman before he enrolled in the Gitanmaax School of Northwest Coast Indian Art in 1969. Later he worked there as a senior art instructor.

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In 1998, a Tahsis resident called the RCMP upon his discovery of a skeleton inside a cave. The body was exhumed and transported to Simon Fraser University for tests to determine the identity and age. The skeleton turned out to be that of a 200-year-old adult male of native ancestry.

The question became, "Where should the remains be buried?" Should they be buried at Gold River, be returned to their original site of discovery, or be brought to Yuquot?

The Elders and chiefs of Mowachaht/Muchalaht had decided to have the remains placed at Yuquot.

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Fish farm owners, operators and workers from across Vancouver Island gathered in Nanaimo Feb. 8 to protest against alleged "misinformation campaigns" from anti-fish farm activists.

Not wanting to be left out of the protest spotlight, the fish farmers were essentially protesting the anti-fish farm protests, and to make things even more confusing, there was a protester in Nanaimo protesting the fish farmer's protest organized to protest against anti-fish farm protesters.

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EGERIA BAY-The Tseycum First Nation, Tsartlip and Hul'qumi'num Treaty Group have got a stop work order issued against the Victoria-based consortium Poets Cove Seaside Resort at Bedwell Harbour Ltd., as of Feb. 11. The First Nations have complained about disturbance of a provincial heritage site at Eberia Bay, otherwise known as Poets' Cove on South Pender Island, which they say has turned up shell midden piles that include evidence of human remains.

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Fears of America's impending war with Iraq are a constant worry to Gail McNab. Her daughter Alexis Dustyhorn is in the United States Navy, the first Aboriginal woman with the Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 74, known as Charlie Company, which provides responsive military construction to navy, marine corps and other military operations.

"She will be a construction engineer when she gets out," explained McNab, who was concerned when her daughter decided this career path.

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The "Golden Girls" will be among 13 students graduating this spring from Brandon University's First Nations Aboriginal Counselling program.

This year, Matilda Lathlin, 53, Judy Stevenson, 54, and Tina Fox, 62, will be among those graduating from the four-year undergraduate program that blends Western education with traditional philosophy.

Students take courses in traditional teachings and spirituality, as well as courses in psychology and other social sciences to provide a Western-style education with Aboriginal cultural underpinnings.