Chris Kornacki - Special to Wawatay News

The newly announced federal budget has made drastic funding cuts to organizations that promote the well-being of Aboriginal peoples health in Canada.
Two organizations affected are the National Aboriginal Health Organization (NAHO) and the Native Women’s Association of Canada’s (NWAC) women’s health programing. NAHO will lose all of its funding and will cease all operations by June 30, 2012, while NWAC will lose it’s funding for health programing aimed at bettering the health of Aboriginal women across Canada.

For the past year and a half Duck Bay First Nation band member Bossy Ducharme has been on a traditional diet. He ate only Native foods, pre-European contact. No McDonalds, no pizza, just mostly wild rice, berries, nuts and wild game.
“I wanted to prove that there’s a connection to what we eat and our quality of life,” Ducharme said.
Ducharme started his diet on September 21, 2010 and continued through January 31, 2012.
“It wasn’t easy,” Ducharme said. “Probably one of the hardest things I’ve done in my life.”
“But it’s the best thing I’ve ever done for myself.”

Award winning Aboriginal singer/songwriter Shy-Anne Hovorka is set to launch her third studio album, Interwoven Roots, at the end of June.
Half of the album was recorded 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.”