Five B.C. First Nations artists were named as the recipients of the 2009 BC Creative Achievement Awards for Aboriginal Art on June 5 by Premier Gordon Campbell and Keith Mitchell, chair of the British Columbia Achievement Foundation.
This is the third year of the awards. This year's winners are Calvin Hunt, Kwakiutl, Richard Hunt, Kwakiutl, John Marston, Coast Salish, Chemainus, Noeleen
McQuary, Nadleh Whut'en, and Isabel Rorick, Haida.

Artist-The Stephanie
Harpe Band
Album-The Stephanie Harpe Band
Label- Independent

Windspeaker: What one quality do you most value in a friend?
Boyd Benjamin: Maturity; someone who can deal with life's troubles with respect and humility.
W: What is it that really makes you mad?
B.B.: When people sell themselves short and prematurely disqualify their chance for opportunity.
W: When are you at your happiest?
B.B.: Either when I play my fiddle at an old-time dance, when I'm able to see the good and positive things that sometimes don't always seem to be apparent, or, when I'm flying and I can see the world in a different way.

At 28-years-old Damian Abrahams has traded in addictions.
In his youth his drugs of choice included marijuana, methamphetamine and cocaine, but these days you wouldn't be able to recognize the bright university student, who is anxiously expecting his first child with a woman he adores, as a former drug addict.
Abrahams, whose world once revolved around some of the hardest street drugs, now resembles a model member of the community.

I swear, it happened just this way. I was at the Toronto airport on my way to the States to give yet another lecture. So there I was, standing in the line up, about to go through airport security. My shoes were off and I was just taking my buffalo horn belt off when I felt a tap on my shoulder.
It came from what appeared to be a non-Native woman of about 40. She was looking me over.

On the same day that Willie Blackwater was in Ottawa attending anniversary celebrations to mark the June 11, 2008 government apology to residential school survivors, he also participated in a ceremony recognizing the work undertaken by two former members of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Claudette Dumont-Smith and Jane Brewin Morley announced their resignations in late January to take effect June 1. A new group of commissioners will take up their duties July 1.

About 40,000 First Nations people have not been included in the latest Statistics Canada numbers that peg the country's Aboriginal population at 1.2 million.
"We question what the data is being used for," said Wahta Mohawk Chief Blaine Commandant.
The 200 people on the Wahta reserve, located 200 km north of Toronto, are among those not counted in the 2006 StatsCan census.
In total, 22 reserves across the country would not allow the federal agency on their land to conduct the census.

About 40,000 First Nations people have not been included in the latest Statistics Canada numbers that peg the country's Aboriginal population at 1.2 million.
"We question what the data is being used for," said Wahta Mohawk Chief Blaine Commandant.
The 200 people on the Wahta reserve, located 200 km north of Toronto, are among those not counted in the 2006 StatsCan census.
In total, 22 reserves across the country would not allow the federal agency on their land to conduct the census.

FORT MCMURRAY METIS LOCAL 1935
and the Nistawayou Association Friendship Centre have been accepted as members of the Cumulative Environmental Management Association (CEMA) Board. Their Membership applications received unanimous approval from the presiding members at the June 3 general meeting.
CEMA is a nonprofit association based in Fort McMurray, Alta with a mandate is to study the cumulative environmental effects of industrial development in the region. It produces recommendations, guidelines and management frameworks.

It was only two inches of hair cut from the head of a seven-year-old Aboriginal boy by a teaching assistant in Thunder Bay on April 16, but the significance of the act was so much more than just a school teacher stepping over the bounds of a student teacher relationship.
The fallout from the haircut became a lesson in cultural awareness, and the message sent was clear: Tampering with the sacred and the traditional beliefs of the first peoples in Ontario will not be tolerated.