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The setting was the Museum of Civilization in Hull, Quebec, across the river from Ottawa's Parliament Buildings.

It seemed a fitting venue for one of the most intense brainstorming sessions in Canadian history, which was destined to have major implications for the country's aboriginal people.

But the ironic twist came when the 11 first ministers emerged from the week-long meetings held to pound out the constitutional deadlock without crediting the country's founding first nations.

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Well, after doing quite the job on Native people in the last federal budget, Ottawa almost pulled another dirty deed on Native people.

And it would have been pulled off if it wasn't for Elijah Harper, the Manitoba MLA, who's been single-handedly blocking passage of the Meech Lake accord.

He's succeeding where white politicians like Premiers Clyde Wells and Gary Filmon failed.

They couldn't stand the stong-arm tactics of Mulroney and decided to bring Meech back to their provinces for ratification.

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It is sad Native elders had to trek hundreds of miles from their homes in Browning , Montana and southern Alberta to try to recapture lost Native artifacts from the Provincial Museum of Alberta.

What's even sadder is they've gone away empty-handed.

And it's sad their families and reserves have suffered for decades the loss of these artifacts, which include sacred medicine bundles and pipes.

These Native people are reduced to viewing their artifacts in glass-enclosed exhibits, which are alarmed so the items aren't stolen.

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The Sawridge Indian band is looking at exporting Canadian water to Santa Barbara, Calif. The Slave Lake band has submitted one of eight proposals the city is considering in search of an alternative source of fresh water for three to 10 years, starting in the spring of 1991. Mike McKinney, executive director of Slave Lakes's Sawridge Group, said a British Columbia company that's majority-owned by the band has been talking to Santa Barbars. The band's company, Glacier Bay Exploration, has a bottling operation and a license to export water.

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A Native Calgary police officer has won the right to wear braids on the job. The Calgary police commission announced June 15 that Const. Norman Manyfingers, an eight-year veteran of the force, can wear braids. Prior to the commission meeting, Calgary's police chief Gerry Borbridge had expressed concern the force was having little success recruiting visible minorities. Commission chairman Darryl Raymaker said the decision was a pioneering move for Calgary. Manyfingers, a member of the Blood Indian tribe, made his official request to wear braids in March.

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Alberta Indians have unanimously rejected the Meech Lake accord.

And they let Prime Minister Brian Mulroney know it.

The Indian Association of Alberta at its annual assembly June 5-7 sent Mulroney a telex expressing "total rejection of your government's effort to pass Meech Lake without due consideration of the First Nations of the Country."

The IAA, representing Alberta's 65,000 status Indians, called the first minister's Meech Lake marathon in Ottawa an "embarrassing and a total abrogation" of Canada's responsibility to Indians.

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Manitoba Native leaders who've slapped down their approval of the Meech Lake constitutional accord, are teaching the federal government a history lesson it can't afford to ignore, says Bob Hawkesworth, Native affairs' critical for Alberta New Democrats.

If the accord fails, he said, it's because Native concerns weren't addressed.

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Metis self-government and self-sufficiency is a step closer to reality with the second reading of legislative bills aimed at giving Alberta's eight northern Metis homelands greater autonomy and a 17-year funding package.

Once becoming law the four bills will provide a special form of Metis local government, a finance package worth $310 million and protection of Metis lands in the Canadian Constitution. It will also see a special quasi-judicial body known as the Metis appeals' tribunal established.