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LeGOFF - Elaine Janvier has resigned as chief of the Cold Lake First Nations Reserve.

Elected to the position March 11th in a by-election that also voted in four new councillors, Mrs. Janvier says the pressure to resign was so great by the council that she knew she would have been unable to work for them or with them in the three months remaining in the term.

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PEERLESS LAKE - On the hill above the burial site for the five youths who died after drinking methyl hydrate in this northern community are a row of "spirit houses" - low wooden structures which are meant to house the spirits of the dead for a time.

Some of the spirit houses are older and reflect generations of tradition, while others are painted light violet and covered with plastic flowers and crosses.

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LETHBRIDGE - In an effort to aid the Blackfoot people in their quest to revitalize the Blackfoot language, researchers at the University of Lethbridge have been compiling material for a Blackfoot-English Dictionary.

The project, supervised by Don Frantz, professor of Native American Studies, has received an additional one-year grant for $43,698 from the Social Services and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

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Three hungry and cold little boys huddled around their teacher as they waited for him to start a fire with flint and steel. Suddenly a spark caught in the tinderbox. This glowing ember was then carefully transferred to a loosely-rolled ball of dry grass. The boys watched him intently as he then blew the glowing ember into a ball of flame.

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HIGH LEVEL - "Building Friendship" is the theme the High Level Native Friendship Centre Society (HLNFCS) is using for its awareness program for its proposed new building.

At a fund-raising dinner hosted by the society February 13, Denzil Lobo of Weed/Lobo Architects, presented the plans for the 8,100 square foot building.

He said the two-story building will be divided into three main zones, public, semi-private and private.

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Over the past year and one-half the Alberta government, in particular the Department of Social Services, has been on the receiving end of much criticism with regards to child care. It has become an issue which today receives more attention than ever before. One of the driving forces behind this moment stems from an incident that occurred in the summer of 1984.

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Vic Cathers, a veteran journalist, publisher and educator from British Colombia, has been appointed Director of the Program in Journalism for Native People at the University of Western Ontario.

The PJNP is a project of Western's Graduate School of Journalism and is funded primarily b the Ministry of Indian and Northern affairs. It is a 12-month program leading to a diploma in journalism. From 10 to 15 Native students have been enrolled in the program annually since it started in 1980.

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FORT MCMURRAY - In the past 18 months, the Native enrollment has increased and the Native drop-out rate has decreased dramatically at Keyano College here, Balvir, Joshi, head of Keyano's counselling department, reports.

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ASSUMPTION - To help develop a new education progrtam, theDene Tha Band hired Gerry Mulligan as the education co-ordintor in Novembe.r The new education program will not only be designed to meet the needs of the students but to have more community involvedment fromt he residents.

The reserves of Assumption, Meander River and Bush River, all part of the Dene Tha Band, will be taking over the education system on July 1, 1987.

"We want to transition togo as smoothly as possible," Mulligan said.

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Alcohol and drug abuse are not limited to Native people, or to Alberta.

The self-destructive cycle of people in search of a high, of people seeking escape from a life they can't seem to tolerate, is reaching epidemic proportions in all age groups, at all economic levels, in all kinds of communities across North America and around the world.

Coverage of the Peerless Lake tragedy by the media in Edmonton might lead people to believe that this is only a Native problem, especially in isolated northern communities.