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Dear Editor:

I, Chief Arvol Looking Horse, of the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota Nation, ask you to understand an Indigenous perspective on what has happened in America, what we call "Turtle Island."

Patrick Brazeau, the leader of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples (CAP), touched off a war of words this month that might not de-escalate any time soon. "There's too many chiefs," he told the Globe and Mail, starting a somewhat disrespectful expression that ends "and not enough Indians."

We guess Brazeau can get away with that, because he's Aboriginal.

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CHUM Limited has launched a national multi-platform campaign to solicit nominations for the 2007 Top 20 Under 20, honoring young Canadians who have demonstrated a significant level of achievement, leadership and innovation. The call for entries closes Jan. 22, 2007.

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The arrival of students for the new school year at Grande Prairie Regional College (GPRC) was celebrated on Sept. 20. The Circle of Aboriginal Students (CAS) organized the day's events that began with a morning pipe ceremony in a new 19-foot tipi adjacent to the school. Nearby, geese on the fog-covered reservoir sang about leaving.

Pipe carrier, Elder Helen Piper of Grimshaw, welcomed 33 people into the tipi that had been erected on campus the previous week by CAS members.

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Amisk Community School (ACS) believes that traditional Cree values, traditions and customs can offer unique solutions to the educational problems that plague all schools.

Mark Rota is a member of the management team at the school located 10 miles south of Lac la Biche on the Beaver Lake Cree Nation.

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More than 300 Metis students were recognized at the Belcourt Brosseau Metis Awards Celebration of Educational Achievement in Edmonton on Sept. 30. Investing In Our Future Together was the theme of the gathering, celebrating the five-year anniversary of the awards. It brought together the award recipients and the award founders, Dr. Herb Belcourt, Orval Belcourt and Geroges Brosseau.

The awards give Metis Albertans the opportunity to get a post-secondary education and achieve career goals through a fund that has disbursed more than $1.3 million.

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George McGeough would like to see more Aboriginal families in the Edmonton area become foster parents.

McGeough is manager of the foster care program at the Ben Calf Robe Society, an Edmonton-based organization that provides a variety of programs to the local Aboriginal community, including an Aboriginal Head Start program, a traditional parenting program, home and family support services and a group home.

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Through sheer determination and encouragement from family and friends, Floyd Grossetete has been successful in his mission to improve his literacy. He was recently recognized at a celebration in Edmonton on Sept. 8 as one of 13 Canadians selected to receive an Individual Achievement Award in the 2006 Canada Post Literacy Awards.

"It was a real struggle for me, but I just kept on striving," said the father of three boys.

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The Woodpeckers Association of Alberta is planning a dinner, dance and entertainment fundraiser with an arts and crafts giveaway on Nov. 18.

The money raised will go toward land claim education activities planned by the group, said President Shirley Gladue.

Members of the Woodpeckers Association are the descendents of the hereditary chiefs line of the Papaschase, a Cree community in what is now known as Edmonton, disbanded by the federal government in 1888, its lands surrendered.

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Alberta's Aboriginal Affairs Minister Pearl Calahasen listened silently as Driftpile First Nation Chief Rose Laboucan read a resolution rejecting Alberta's plan for consulting First Nations about resource harvesting on their traditional territories. Then the minister got up and left the room.

All parties agree that's what happened. They disagree on other details though.

It was Sept. 14, the second and final day of the Alberta Treaty Chiefs Gathering in Edmonton.