After working to find beds for Ottawa’s homeless population for 10 years, the Odawa Native Friendship Centre will close on March 31. Odawa is the latest friendship centre in Canada to be gouged by funding cuts. The centre relied heavily […]
Archive for February, 2015
Preventing Aboriginal women from falling through the cracks
When Mistissini teenager Lynn Iserhoff went missing in Montreal in early January, only to turn up a few days later at a west-end police station, she managed to evade a fate that continues to befall thousands of Aboriginal women across […]
One shovel at a time
Long ago, one of my favourite escapes during cold February days was to the outdoor ice rink next to our old school in Attawapiskat. After winter blizzards, the ice surface would be covered in drifting snow three to four feet […]
Sub-zero ecstasy
In case you haven’t noticed, it’s winter in the land of the wandering polar bear, with the biting and burning winds in this sub-zero climate we like to call home. Taking note of this, the wind chill hovering around minus-50 […]
Secret police and smart TVs
The Twitterverse exploded recently over the revelation that Samsung’s new SmartTV models might be watching the watchers. It was an odd admission for an electronics manufacturer to make. Samsung promotes the new product by saying viewers need only “speak into […]
Grand Chief Coon Come addresses pressing issues at public meeting
Grand Chief Matthew Coon Come addressed a town hall meeting in Mistissini February 3 to talk about a variety of issues, including education credits for residential school survivors, the Baril-Moses Agreement and the evolution of the Cree Development Corporation (CDC). […]
Programs and ideas for improving your health during the cold months
With the light and warmth of summer months away, the natural inclination is to bundle up in front of the TV as much as possible. However, this is the worst plan for your health as human beings need to be […]
Iqaluit is the centre of a growing protest against the high cost of northern food
Like a lot of recent social movements, Feeding My Family started as a Facebook group, set up by Iqaluit’s Leesee Papatsie in 2012 to raise awareness about the absurdly high cost of food in the North. But it wasn’t until […]
Jordin Tootoo recounts how he went all the way
Jordin Tootoo, the first and still only Inuk to play in the National Hockey League, is enjoying something of a rebirth this year with the New Jersey Devils. It’s another in a long series of second and third chances for […]
The Grand Chief responds to Quebec Bar Association report on Northern justice
At the end of January, the Quebec Bar Association released a report that detailed how above the 49th parallel the justice system was “failing” in just about every way because of a serious lack of infrastructure and resources. The report […]