Lenny Carpenter — Wawatay News

Chiefs across northern Ontario are expressing their support for Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence after she embarked on a hunger strike in Ottawa.
Spence said she will not stop her hunger strike until the prime minister and a representative of Queen Elizabeth II agree to meet with First Nations leaders to involve them in the legislative process that affects First Nations across Canada. She said she is “willing to die” unless her demands are met. She began the hunger strike on Dec. 11.

A high-profile Canadian rock band putting on a show in a James Bay community to help dispel the negative press First Nations received in the wake of the Attawapiskat housing crisis is the arts and entertainment story of the year.
More than 500 people descended upon Fort Albany First Nation to see the iconic Canadian band The Tragically Hip perform on Feb. 16 during Mushkegowuk’s annual Great Moon Gathering.

After receiving six Aboriginal Peoples Choice Music Awards (APCMA) for her latest album, Interwooven Roots, Shy-Anne Hovorka is the entertainer of the year.
The Matachewan First Nation member recorded half of the album in Nashville at County Q Studios, and the other half at Dining Room Studios in Thunder Bay.
Hovorka said recording in Nashville was “obviously the dream, the impossible dream.”
The album title, Interwooven Roots, was inspired by a cedar and spruce tree growing in Hovorka’s backyard, which appeared to be growing out of the same stump.

Chelsea Edwards’ fight for equitable funding for First Nations education makes her runner up for Wawatay’s female newsmaker of the year.
After the 16-year-old from Attawapiskat First Nation was named the Shannen’s Dream spokesperson in the fall of 2011, Edwards was asked to be one of six First Nations youth ambassadors to travel overseas to Geneva, Switzerland, to give a presentation to the United Nations (UN) about the inequalities facing Aboriginal youth in Canada.