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Developers working on Lubicon-claimed territory this summer "will certainly know we're still alive," says the chief of the Lubicon Lake Indian band.

Winter in Little Buffalo, 360 km northwest of Edmonton, has been quiet, but Bernard Ominayak stressed "it'll be an interesting summer, we have not given up yet." Ominayak said a plan to end development work in the area is in place but he refused to discuss details.

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Lubicon-claimed land still logged for Daishowa

A logging company which had its equipment torched last November has fled Little Buffalo fearing additional sabotage attempts, says the chief of the Lubicon Lake Indian band.

"They are clearly worried," said Bernard Ominayak. Thirteen Lubicon Lake band members were charged in connection with the Nov. 24 torching of equipment used by Buchanan Logging Company.

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Russel Plante was raised in the Rocky Mountains. In fact he comes from a breed of rugged mountain people who have trapped and hunted in the mountain ranges and valleys near Hinton, Alta. Since the early 1800s.

He was born at a place called Entrance, appropriately named because it is the gateway to the Western Rocky Mountains - the Grande Cache and Jasper regions.

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There's a national tragedy simmering beneath the headlines about the Roman Catholic Church's apology to Canada's Native peoples.

Everyone, of course, knows about the flagrant abuses Aboriginal people suffered at the hands of residential school clergy. And while apologies are necessary and overdue, the reasons for that abysmal treatment have never been explored. Therein lies the tragedy.

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The latest figures on AIDS in the Native community are chilling.

They're scary even if you're in monogamous relationship and you're faithful to your partner since they mean AIDS could claim the life of someone you care about.

The figures underscore the importance of learning what you can about this deadly disease and doing what you can to prevent it.

Official Health and Welfare Canada figures tell us 24 Native people in Canada with AIDS to 960.

And as many as 1,500 more people carry the HIV infection, according to Health and Welfare.

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Metis women in Alberta will have a voice courtesy of the federal government.

The Women of the Metis nation received $41,000 to get the organization off the ground. St. Alberta MP Walter Van De Walle presented a cheque for $16,000 to the group's treasurer Rachelle Langton April 5 at his Spruce Grove office.

The rest of the money will be given to the organization at the end of the month, he said.

President Marge Friedel said the money will be used to "organize Metis women province-wide because Metis women are not represented."

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The Alexander Indian Band is joining forces with two nearby communities in a bid for a woman's prison.

Morinville, the Minicipal District of Sturgeon and the band submitted a proposal to Corrections Canada to have the 40-bed facility located in their area northwest of Edmonton.

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A Canadian Native Friendship Centre van will soon be hitting the streets of Edmonton with free needles and condoms for those in need.

The federal government gave the National Association of Friendship Centres $197,000 for the development of a national HIV/AIDS prevention program.

The Edmonton friendship centre, as the starting point for the initiative, received a good chunk of the funds to put the condoms and needles' exchange van on the road.

Page 2

Police are trying to use old solutions to cure new problems, says Edmonton's chief of police.

"In the past we have used incident-based policing. The emphasis has been on responding quickly and on treating each incident individually," Doug McNally told delegates to the Alberta Correctional Education Association's eighth annual conference.

McNally says the trend has swung to community-based policing. "We see the same problems recurring at the same addresses, especially in the high-crime areas of our city and we need to work on what is happening there.

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The hereditary chiefs of the Gitksan-Wet'suwet'en are appealing a recent B.C. court decision quashing their land claim.

The appeal was filed April 2 in B.C. Court of Appeal. In their lawsuit the chiefs asked for a declaration from the courts they still hold Aboriginal title to 57,000-square kilometres of land they consider their traditional territory.