Lenny Carpenter — Wawatay News

Charlotte Rae of North Spirit Lake First Nation sits in her living room, surrounded by family and community members.
It’s Jan. 18, more than a week after a Keystone Airways flight crashed about one kilometer from the North Spirit Lake airport. Four people died in the crash, including Charlotte’s daughter, Martha Campbell.
On the morning of Jan. 10, Martha was scheduled to fly in to work within the community. She planned to stay a week.
“She phoned me at 6:30 that morning before she left,” Charlotte recalls. “She said…”

A group of lawyers in the Kenora District is petitioning against the Conservative government’s new tough-on-crime legislation, saying it will cause more Aboriginal people to enter the prison system.
Kenora lawyer Peter Kirby is part of the Kenora Lawyers Sentencing Group and hopes to bring at least 500 signatures to Ottawa where he has a provisional invitation to speak to the Senate on Feb. 8 about Bill C-100.

Sixteen-year-old Chelsea Edwards of Attawapiskat First Nation updated her Facebook from halfway around the world on Feb. 6.
“History is made,” she wrote from Geneva, Switzerland. “Watch out Harper and Duncan, you’re both out of excuses now that they’ve heard our voices.”
Edwards was among six First Nations youth ambassadors who traveled overseas to speak to the United Nations (UN) Committee on the Rights of the Child about the inequalities facing Aboriginal youth in Canada.

Over 500 people from the James Bay coast turned up to see the Tragically Hip perform in Fort Albany First Nation on Feb. 16.
The Canadian rock band and award-winning author Joseph Boyden were in Fort Albany First Nation to take part in the Great Moon Gathering that focuses on both traditional and contemporary Aboriginal education.
Like most northern communities, teachers who are contracted to teach in the Mushkegowuk communities are often non-Aboriginal, straight from university or college, with little knowledge of the local traditions and culture.