Shawn Bell - Wawatay News

Raven Courtney hopes she can help unify people across the country to support environmental protection.
To do it, the Aroland First Nation member is letting her feet do the talking.
Courtney is walking across Canada, bringing her message of eradicating ecocide to communities and gatherings in every region of the country.
“The walk itself is not a campaign, but the direction of the walk is a campaign,” Courtney said during a break from walking in Thunder Bay. “Too much damage has been done from dangerous industrial activity.

Like any 14-year-old, Shayna Cheechoo was excited and a little nervous for the beginning of high school.
But Shayna’s school year was cut short just a few days into her Grade 9 year. She was called to the principal’s office at lunch on the third day of school, told that her “tuition” had not been paid, and was sent home.

CBC reporter and former Wawatay editor Jody Porter spent much of the month of August researching and preparing a documentary on the death of Charlie Wenjack, who was 12 years old when he died in 1967 while attempting to walk home to Marten Falls from the residential school in Kenora he had been taken to.
The story of Charlie Wenjack’s death and subsequent inquiry has some striking similarities to the recent deaths of young people in Thunder Bay who have died while attending school in the city.

The people of Neskantaga have been telling Ring of Fire companies for years that the place where industry wants to build a bridge over the Attawapiskat River is an important cultural location containing sacred burial sites.
Now an archeologist has backed up the First Nation’s assertion that the river crossing has been a crucial gathering place and site of an old village.
Scott Hamilton, a professor in Lakehead University’s department of anthropology, visited the location in September to conduct a surface examination.

The people of Neskantaga have been telling Ring of Fire companies for years that the place where industry wants to build a bridge over the Attawapiskat River is an important cultural location containing sacred burial sites.
Now an archeologist has backed up the First Nation’s assertion that the river crossing has been a crucial gathering place and site of an old village.
Scott Hamilton, a professor in Lakehead University’s department of anthropology, visited the location in September to conduct a surface examination.