Rick Garrick — Wawatay News

A Sandy Lake resident has been ordered by chief and council to leave the community for inciting negative remarks and public commentary.
“I feel like they tore my heart apart,” said Angela Kamalatisit, a Fort Albany band member who had been living in Sandy Lake for about 10 years with common-law partner and Sandy Lake band member Ringo Fiddler. “My son and Ringo are my family. What they (chief and council) did was wrong.”

Shooniyaa Wa-Biitong has received a Bell Let’s Talk mental health initiative grant to provide training for more than 400 Treaty #3 frontline staff.
The $50,000 Bell Let’s Talk Community Fund grant will “fund mental health first aid training for frontline staff,” said April Medwechuk, project manager with Shooniyaa Wa-Biitong. “Anyone that is dealing directly one-to-one with a client.”

A solar energy power development tour was one of the highlights of this year’s Northern Ontario First Nations Environment Conference.
“A few members from other communities have approached me about our project,” said Edwin Collins, economic development manager with Fort William First Nation. “SkyPower graciously allowed us to enter inside the solar site. They shut some of the power down so we could walk in safely and we were able to get almost a couple of inches away from the solar panels.”

An Australian delegate at the Rendez-Vous 2012 health gathering in Thunder Bay found Canada’s residential school issue to be similar to his country’s stolen generations issue.
“I’ve recently been to some cultural awareness programs back home and the same issues have come through,” said Peter Keppel. “It’s good that it’s being talked about and recognized.”
Keppel was one of a busload of delegates from around the world who visited the Waabi-ma’iingan (Grey Wolf) Traditional Teaching Lodge near Pass Lake, east of Thunder Bay, on Oct. 12.

Brunswick House’s Doris Mitchell is bringing positive changes to her home community since establishing her family medicine practice in the area this summer.
“We’ve had great acceptance in the Aboriginal communities,” said the 2010 Northern Ontario School of Medicine graduate who now practices at the Chapleau General Hospital. “Because I’m from there, it makes it a little more easier to open doorways that have never been opened before. It is in its infancy, but it is only going to blossom from there.”