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The Dreamspeakers Film Festival is set to hit Edmonton and will be part of the week-long activities celebrating National Aboriginal Day.

The festival will be held June 24 to 26 at the Provincial Museum of Alberta. The line-up of films that has been announced includes many with an Alberta connection.

The Aboriginal Youth Network (AYN) will be taking part in the festival by sponsoring a day dedicated to youth and film.

Two of the films featured at Dreamspeakers are Spirit of the Game and Dreamkeeper.

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We go to press on Day 11 of the five-week federal election campaign with the talk being all about a possible Conservative Party of Canada minority government.

Candidates and party officials-and pollsters-report that the Canadian electorate is angry, angry about what has come to be known as the Adscam scandal where Liberal-friendly advertising firms in Quebec received up to $100 million in contracts for work that was never delivered or not worth the money.

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The body of 59-year-old Napoleon Wanderingspirit was pulled out of Lake Athabasca on May 11 by members of his family, 12 days after he had gone missing.

Wanderingspirit's remains were located about 300 metres from shore, said the deceased's cousin, Stanley Wigmore. Family members used boats, nets and hooks in the search effort.

Fort Chipewyan RCMP had called in an Edmonton-based dive team, Northern Underwater Systems, to search the lake for the body. The dive team was unsuccessful, ending their search after three days citing safety concerns.

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The Edmonton Native Youth Justice Committee (ENYJC) celebrated its tenth anniversary by paying tribute to all the volunteers that put their time and effort into the organization over the last decade. A dinner was held in their honor on May 8.

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Herb George is out of politics now and into governance.

The former Assembly of First Nations British Columbia vice-chief is working to establish the First Nations Governance Centre.

"It will be designed to assist in the further development of our day-to-day government operations, and it will support us as we seek to implement the inherent rights of self-government," George wrote in a discussion paper that has been used during consultation sessions.

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The Northern Alberta Institute of Technology got a big boost when it received a donation from the Suncor Energy Foudation.

The Suncor Energy Foundation donated $300,000 to NAIT's $4 million Aboriginal Educational Success Initiative, which provides program development, mobile education units, an Aboriginal students' centre and student awards.

The foundation was established by Suncor Energy Inc. to manage their community contributions through donations to charitable organizations in Canada.

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It was a night for Aboriginal women to shine at the Esquao Awards held on May 6.

Many Aboriginal women were celebrated, including this year's Circle of Honor recipient, Ethel Blondin-Andrew.

Organized by the Institute for the Advancement of Aboriginal Women (IAAW), the Esquao Awards pay tribute to the achievements of Aboriginal women in such categories as performing arts, business, community involvement, education, health and medicine, culture, leadership, literature and visual arts.

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William Big Bull of the Piikani First Nation is one of the people leading the way in terms of grassroots efforts to help keep our environment strong.

He nabbed gold in the climate change category at the Canadian Environment Awards held in Calgary on May 31. Big Bull won for his work with Weather Dancer, a wind turbine that supplies 2,960 megawatt hours of clean power per year.

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Four students from Saint Francis Xavier High School won third place in the national contest that promotes Aboriginal entrepreneurship and business skills.

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The National Day of Healing and Reconciliation (NDHR) was celebrated with events in Edmonton, as well as many other parts of the province on May 26.

NDHR is not recognized nationally officially, but organizers of the campaign at the Nechi Training, Research and Health Promotions Institute hope to collect signed petitions at each event to take to Ottawa in hopes it will be proclaimed a nationally celebrated day.

"Right now the government is not recognizing it as a national day yet. But it's going to happen," said Maggie Mercredi, one of the NDHR organizers.