Quebec’s Cream of the Crop

Not only was the Val d’Or Friendship Centre’s Executive Director, Édith Cloutier, honoured with a 2010 National Aboriginal Achievement Award, there are three other winners from Quebec this year.

Considering that only 14 National Aboriginal Achievement Awards are handed out each year, Quebec came out on top with Kenneth Atsenhaienton Deer being honoured with the journalism prize, Skawenniio Barnes winning the youth prize and Elder William Commanda receiving the honour for lifetime achievement.

While all the winners feel extremely honoured by the recognition, what the award has meant to each of them is unique to the individual and his/her achievements.

Kenneth Atsenhaienton Deer

For Kananawake Mohawk Kenneth Atsenhaienton Deer, the prize for journalism came as a surprise. Though he was well aware that his sister had nominated him to the NAAA, he was shocked that he was picked out of such a large pool of applicants.

Deer’s journey began 16 years ago when he started Kahawake’s first independent community newspaper in the wake of the 1990 Oka Crisis.

“Most of the information that people were getting was from the mainstream press where it was always twisted and distorted. We needed a platform that our community could depend on so I started The Eastern Door, where the content would be truthful and factual,” said Deer.

Without a penny in his pocket for the publication, Deer, along with a handful of volunteers, published the first issue of the Eastern Door on January 31, 1992, out of Deer’s living room.

The paper began as a biweekly  and at the time Deer wasn’t even certain that his people would embrace it. He knew however that if he were able to sell over 1000 copies to the then 1500-domiciled community, that he had achieved acceptance. Deer did so within a year. Not only that within a year, the paper went weekly and has never published an issue under 28 pages during the 16 years he ran the publication.

“Besides its success, the paper is independent media which is important to note. Many communities can’t support an independent press, but in Kahnawake we could. We had the economy to do just that. I think an independent press is important for democracy in a community,” said Deer.

While the Mohawk communities of southern Quebec were quite politically charged in the early ’90s, Deer was not looking to create a “political rag.” He wanted a publication that would work as an all-around community newspaper with arts, sports, community news and Mohawk culture.

Over the years the paper has featured Mohawk language lessons and stories in Mohawk which Deer said was quite the feat as Mohawk culture does not have a journalistic tradition and is therefore a very difficult language to write in.

As Deer explained, even the newspaper’s moniker reflects Mohawk tradition. “When you look at the Mohawk lettering underneath its name on the masthead, you will see Kanien’keha:ka Na’kon:ke Rontehnohohahnha. Kanien’keha:ka means the people of the flint, Na’kon:ke means east and Rontehnohohahnha means gatekeepers or doorkeepers.”

Deer said he called the paper The Eastern Door because Kahnawake is the Mohawk community that is the furthest to the east, and he felt that the name was appropriate.

In winning the prize for journalism, Deer said the award was also in recognition of his international human rights work as he has traveled to Geneva for the past 23 years to contribute to the development of the United Nations’ Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Through his writing, Deer has kept his community informed on the Declaration’s developmental stages. This has given him the opportunity to connect his journalism work with his international human-rights advocacy work.

Deer retired from The Eastern Door in the summer of 2008 after selling the publication to former Nation news editor Steve Bonspiel and filmmaker Tracey Deer.

Skawenniio Barnes

For Kahnawake native Skawenniio Barnes, winner of the 2010 youth prize, the award is a symbol of cultural pride because it is something that comes from her own people.

Only 21, Barnes has managed to garner international attention for her many accomplishments when she won the Cosmo Girl magazine Girl of the Year award in 2002.

At 13, Barnes began a movement in her community to create the first library in Kahnawake. The passion of one teenaged girl began a media storm that saw the community receive donations of over 30,000 books from Canada, the U.S., Australia and other nations. Because of her tireless efforts the library was named after her upon its opening in 2004.

This, however, has not been Barnes’ only achievement. After high school, Barnes was awarded the Governor General’s Medal and offered the Canadian Scholarship Foundation National Award, which would have given her a full scholarship to any Canadian university of her choosing. This award is given to 30 students across Canada annually.

However, Barnes gracefully declined the Canadian scholarship because she had already applied to four Ivy League schools in the States – Yale, Harvard, Princeton and Dartmouth. Offered full scholarships at all four prestigious institutions, Barnes chose Yale where she is doing a double major in political science and international studies.

Barnes will graduate in 2010 and is currently in the process of applying to law schools and various schools of government.

At Yale, Barns has served as an advocate for Indigenous peoples with the All Ivy Native Council, which connects all of the Native American students across the Ivy League. She chaired Yale’s first conference on behalf of the Council and brought together Native students from across the U.S. for the event. She is also currently serving on the board of directors for the National Indian Education Association.

While Barnes is not sure what she wants to do after her university career, she does know serving Indigenous communities will play a factor in her career choice.

“The thing that I am most interested in is looking for different ways to empower Indigenous communities to be able to self-determine and to be able to build sustainable communities whether it is through education or public policy. I am just looking at different ways of doing that, but it is my end goal. It will be about Indigenous people being empowered to get the tools they need to be able to make sure that they have a good future,” said Barnes.

Barnes said she is humbled and honoured by the NAAA because she gets to stand beside the other 13 winners who have accomplished so much in their lifetimes. In her mind this award is what sets the bar for Canada’s Aboriginal people and shows them just how far they can go in life.

William Commanda

Receiving the 2010 National Aboriginal Award for lifetime achievement is Algonquin Elder William Commanda, one of Canada’s most accomplished and famous activists, environment spokesmen and spiritual leaders.

The 96-year-old Commanda was born in Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg (Maniwaki) in 1913. He is the great grandson of Pakinawatik, the hereditary Anishnabe chief who led his people to settle in their traditional hunting and trapping grounds in the Ottawa River area in the mid-1800s.

Commanda is also the keeper of three wampum belts of sacred and historic importance: the Seven Fires Prophecy Belt about choice, the 1700s Belt about sharing, and the 1793 Jay Treaty Border Crossing Belt about borderlessness.

“I don’t do much. You need to try to annoy the people,” said Commanda about his most recent award, making a joke about his lifetime in activism and how he has often been misunderstood.

In November, Commanda not only received the NAAA, he was also granted the Order of Canada and performed a welcome address at the state dinner held for Prince Charles in Ottawa.

According to his assistant, Romola, who aided Commanda in conducting this interview, he was very proud to have traveled to Ottawa to meet the other winners and be among a group of Aboriginal people who were being celebrated for their contributions to their land.

Commanda was Chief of the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg community for 19 years. He also worked as a guide, trapper and woodsman for much of his life.

Having promoted environmental stewardship of the land for decades, Commanda conducted pipe ceremonies for the Pre-Rio Earth Summit Conference in 1991. He participated in the UN’s first Indigenous Cry of the Earth conference. He also served as spiritual guide to the 1995 seven and a half month Sunbow Five Walk from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific, to raise awareness of the growing environmental crisis.

The National Aboriginal Achievement Awards will be presented to all 14 winners in a gala ceremony in Regina on March 28, 2010.