Aboriginal Achievement Awards include several local notables

One 2010 National Aboriginal Achievement Award winner will be a woman that many from Eeyou Istchee know well: Édith Cloutier, the Executive Director of the Val d’Or Native Friendship Centre was named a recipient of the prestigious prize November 17.

Cloutier was honoured in the Public Service category. She and 13 other NAAA winners will be fêted at the 17th Annual National Aboriginal Achievement Awards gala on March 26, 2010. Actors Tinsel Korey (Twilight, The Guard) and Raoul Trujillo (True Blood, Apocalypto) will host the ceremony. Performers include Buffy Sainte-Marie, Crystal Shawanda, Elisapie Isaac, Lorne Cardinal, Michael Greyeyes and Leemai Lafontaine.

As the National Association of Friendship Centres noted in a release last week, it’s the third year in a row that a friendship centre figure has won the award. “Edith Cloutier is an extraordinary leader from the Friendship Centre Movement,” said NAFC President Vera Pawis Tabobondung. “We rely upon her expertise, dedication and strength of spirit to help guide us as a movement.”

A notable recipient (in the Media and Communications category) is Kenneth Deer, the Mohawk founder of the Kahnawake-based newspaper The Eastern Door, which is now owned and operated by former Nation journalist Steve Bonspiel.

Another Kahnawake honoree is Skawenniio Barnes, the young founder of the Kahnawake Library and an Advisory Board Coordinator at Native American Cultural Center at Yale University; she will receive the Special Youth Award.

Finally, the 2010 Lifetime Achievement Award will be bestowed on Algonquin elder and former chief William Commanda. He served as Band Chief of the Kitigàn-zìbì Anishinàbeg First Nation from 1951 to 1970, and has become known as an guardian of knowledge of Native traditions, especially as regards wampum belts. In 1998, the same year Commanda presented Nelson Mandela with an eagle feather on behalf of First Nations people during a visit to Canada by the revered former president of South Africa, he also organized Elders Without Borders, a gathering of Aboriginal Elders and spiritual leaders the Americas.