News Briefs

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Internal strife on the board of directors for the Aboriginal Trappers Federation of Canada has forced the organization to recently appoint an interim board and new responsibilities for their executive and membership.

According to a press release issued by the national organization, the chairman of the board, Saskatchewan's Sterling Brass, allegedly disrupted operations so a new board had to be appointed.

News Briefs

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The grand chief of Quebec's Cree charges that the federal government intends to break the James Bay agreement because of plans to build two new hydroelectric projects.

Chief Matthew Coon-come was responding to an announcement by Ottawa to unilaterally impose a settlement on the Cree after talks on implementation of the agreement broke down.

The government has decided that the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement is to be broken as of March 31, 1989," he declared at a special assembly of Quebec's Cree.

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Canada's Indian families desperately need more Native-run day care for their children, the national inquiry into First Nations child care heard last week.

Myrtle Bush, a Mohawk from Kahnawake and chairman of the inquiry, said there is a growing sense of frustration among Native parents, many of whom have applied for federal

funding for day care and been rejected.

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The federal government acted too swiftly when it called for the testing of pulp mills in Alberta after last year's forced closure of a similar operation in British Columbia, according to an Oceans and Fisheries official.

The results were inconclusive so more intense testing will have to be conducted this spring.

Director of oceanography and contaminants, Jean Piuze, says his department analyzed fish samples taken from 15 test sights in Canada last year after toxic chemical were found in shellfish near a prince Rupert pulp mill.

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The same toxic effluents that caused the closure of a pulp mill in British Columbia were found in the Wapiti River south of Grand Prairie last year.

An Environment Canada report conducted in May 1988 revealed levels of toxic furans were found in four samples of white sucker fish taken form the Wapiti River in May 1988.

An official with Alberta Environment said the amounts found were in "ultra trace amounts" and pose no threat to human safety.

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A gift horse and a promise to call the prime minister was given to Chief Bernard Ominayak by Premier Don Getty March 9 at the Legislature building.

Majestic Probe, a thoroughbred and former race horse of Getty's, was presented to the chief after Getty held a news conference announcing that he would make a call to the Prime Minister Mulroney.

The presentation was made outside the doors of the legislative building located in the city's downtown area.

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One of the two men charged with the March 27, 1988 killing of Blood Indian Bernard Tallman Jr. Was given a life sentence with no chance of parole for 15 years Feb. 24 at Court of Queen's bench in Lethbridge.

Darcy Lee Watmough, 21, of Fort Macleod, changed his earlier plea of not guilty to guilty of first degree murder.

Crown prosecutor Jim Langston told Court of Queen's Bench Justice Clarence Janosik it was Watmough who shot and killed Tallman with a single bullet from a .22 caliber rifle.

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Assembly of First Nations has declared that all First Nations are facing a crisis in education and will be holding a special chiefs assembly on March 21-22 in Ottawa.

New policies being proposed by the federal government will make it even harder for Native students to succeed.

Proposed new guidelines and capping of funding for post-secondary education, formula funding for band-operated schools, new space accommodation standards and policy for provision of education facilities are all new policies First Nations are concerned about.

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A change in the way consultation funding is distributed by the regional office of Indian and Northern Affairs could spell the end of the political organization for Treaty Indians in Alberta.

It could mean the end of the Indian Association of Alberta, said Treaty 8 vice-president Bill Sewepagaham.

The recent decision by the Indian Affairs regional director general allowing Alberta bands to choose their own Indian political organization smacks of conspiracy, said Sewepagaham.

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Years before the gold rush brought thousands of people into their quiet, peaceful country, Indian people living in the area near present-day Whitehorse, are believed to have met

up with a European explorer, probably from one of the Scandinavian countries.

His blond, almost white hair, coupled with his legendary "strength of a horse," caused the Native people to name him White Horse. When he drowned in the churning Yukon River, the rapids and the settlement which grew up nearby later, were named in his memory.