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The Burnaby Red Cross received a special donation for the Indian Ocean tsunami victims on Dec. 29, 2004, when Lily Whonnock, an Elder from the Mount Currie reserve, and Bill Chu of Canadians For Reconciliation (CFR), presented them with a cheque for $2,200. These funds were a gift from the Mount Currie Indian Band, who graciously donated monies earmarked to help them rebuild their own homes after severe flood damage.

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The first principal of Canada's first urban Aboriginal high school formally resigned her position in January. Phyllis Cardinal, known as Dr. Cardinal to the students at Amiskwaciy Academy in Edmonton, leaves big shoes to fill.

"I said that when I was going to do this it would be for four or five years. You can bring things as far as you can with your knowledge, and then there needs to be new ideas. There are younger people out there with some new ideas for the school. I'm the kind of person who likes to affect change and move on," said Cardinal.

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A group of First Nations students from in and around Calgary made history this month as they participated in the 2005 ConocoPhillips World Schools Debating Championship.

Often referred to as the Olympics of high school debate, the annual event is held to encourage debate and promote an understanding of the impact issues can have on a global scale.

This is the seventeenth year the championship has been held, and the first year any country has been allowed to enter more than one team.

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Portage and Northern Lakes colleges have joined forces to get a message to the provincial government that First Nation students in Alberta need access to the same funding opportunities enjoyed by non-Native residents.

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Louise Halfe is a wife, mother and grandmother. She has a bachelor of social work from the University of Regina and has completed addictions training at the Nechi Training, Research and Health Promotions Institute. She is a respected writer with two books of poetry to her credit. Now she is adding another credit to her list of accomplishments. She has been named Saskatchewan's new poet laureate.

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The Assembly of First Nations is working to develop a national system to track prescription drug use among First Nations people.

Regional Chief Bill Erasmus, who chairs the AFN Secretariat on Health and Social Development, said such a system would be designed to protect the personal privacy of the people included in the system database while working to prevent abuse of prescription drugs.

Part of the challenge to putting together such a program is the number of jurisdctions that have to be involved, Erasmus said.

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The National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation (NAAF) has announced the recipients of this year's National Aboriginal Achievement Awards, and a number of them have an Alberta connection.

This year's business and commerce award winner is Douglas Golosky. The Golosky Group of Companies has its headquarters in Fort McMurray, Alta. Golosky is Metis and his companies provide a wide variety of industrial products and services to clients in the oil and gas, pulp and paper and construction industries.

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Expect to see a very different National Aboriginal Achievement Awards show than what you've grown accustom to in the past.

Roman Bittman, the new executive producer of the gala show, to be held this year in Saskatoon on March 31, says the elaborate sets of years gone by are out, but that's not to say the audience can't expect something "quite spectacular" to replace them.

Bittman is in close collaboration with the current set designer of the Cirque de Soliel for this year's show and the thunderbird and dreamcatcher legends feature large.

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Hank Williams First Nation, Directed by Aaron James Sorensen, Starring Gordon Tootoosis, Jimmy Herman and Stacy Da Silva

It may have been an unusual place to premiere a movie-500 kilometres north of Edmonton at Peace River's Cinema 72 on Feb. 4-but it was the most appropriate, said Aaron James Sorensen, the writer/director/producer of Hank Williams First Nation.

And the locals agreed by attending in droves the opening night of a movie in which the beautiful Peace Country looms large and the Native people there even larger.

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Aaron Sorensen was at a cross-roads. He had gone back to school to work on his master's degree in education, but came to the realization that it just "wasn't turning my crank at all."

And though he had been a musician in his earlier days, "I just hadn't really made it as a singer/songwriter and was getting too old to try again."