November 5 to 16, 2012

Page 1 –akis“nuk First Nation Community News

–akis“nuk First Nation events of interest Wednesday, November 7:

Aboriginal Affairs wills and estates workshop, 1:30 p.m.

Thursday, November 8:

Dr. Page at the Health Centre, 2 to 4 p.m.

Sunday, November 11:

Remembrance Day. Re-member the veterans and those who perished in war

Monday, November 12:

Remembrance day ob-served, Band office closed

Thursday, November 22:

Dr. Page at the Health Centre, 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Invermere Gym Passes:

Are available for the Valley Fitness Centre. Contact the Band Office for more infor-mation

Yoga at Akisqnuk:

The popular and healthy lunchtime activity is back at Akisqnuk. Mondays and Thursdays at noon until De-cember 13

Nelson Phillip:

Is willing to help people split their firewood if they would like a bit of help. Call him at (250) 270-0169

On the evenings of No-vember 20 to 22 the Non-Restricted Canadi-an Firearms Safety Course will be offered at the Akisqnuk Band Hall. The course is of-fered by the College of

the Rockies and will run from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on evenings that week.

Cost is $70.38 for Akisqnuk First Nation Band members. This cost includes a 50%

Happy Remembrance Day, Novem-ber 11. Pictured clockwise from top left are Akisqnuk and Ktunaxa war veterans: Tony Fisher; Isadore Michel; Willie Stevens; and Toby Nicholas.

K•a‰úk ƒupqa

least eight students are required to host this. Twelve students is the course limit.

This course is for peo-ple wishing to own or use hunting riffles, etc.

Firearms training coming to Akisqnuk in November

Calling ranchers: Ktunaxa Nation Lands Stewardship Assistant Nevada Nicholas is ad-vertising a cattle grazing opportunity in the For-ster-Horsethief area around Radium. An an-nual fee of $150 applies.

For more information on this opportunity, interest-ed people can contact Nevada Nicholas at (250) 342-6301, ext. 3815

subsidy for the program by the First Nation.

Please register at the front counter of the Band Office ASAP. Deadline to register is Friday, November 9. At

Upcoming at David Thompson Secondary School:

Friday, November 9, Re-membrance Day Assembly, everyone welcome (Aboriginal Youth do a won-derful presentation every year!); Monday, November 12, Remembrance Day, no school; Tuesday, November 13, term two begins; Wednesday, November 14, early dismissal; Thursday, November 22, report cards go home

Invitation to bid on snow removal contract: Snow removal services are required for the upcoming winter months. Contractors interested in sup-plying this service on the Akisqnuk First Nation are asked to contact Band Administrator Wendy Rocka-fellow. Deadline is November 13, 2012.

Page 2 –akis“nuk First Nation Community News

It was the last weekend with the Southern Hemi-sphere students because they leave at the begin-ning of December and our next weekend isn't

until January. It's sad to think that they're going to be leaving so soon, especially because It feels like we're finally just getting close with them. It's been so great get-ting to know every-

one though and I'm thankful I still have eight months with all the oth-ers! I change host families in just under two weeks and begin the second chapter of my exchange. Its hard to think about, seeing as I'm finally comfortable and pretty much completely settled with this family, but I think it'll be great to have another experience with another family. I will change to my third family in January, then return with my second family in March, then come back to the family I'm with now for my last month here. It's a bit confusing but I'm glad I'll get to come back here at the end. So there you have it! It's definitely very different than my life in Canada, but I love it. Although I miss my friends and fam-

ily back home, especially my little brother, I've made great friends here and have another awe-some family that I'm so happy I'm getting to live with. I hope everyone is well back in Invy, and thank you again to Rotary for giving me this amazing opportunity. I've never felt luckier than I do now as I continue to make memories during my life here in France that will last forever. ~Skyla P.S., I do have a blog set up that you can check out, it's not com-pletely up to date, but there are some posts. www.sky-la.tumblr.com - Skyla Sam is in France on the Rotary Club Stu-dent Exchange program This letter was originally sent to a friend of Skyla’s back home who suggest-ed it go in the newsletter. It was reprinted with the permission of Skyla’s mom, Stephanie. All the best to Skyla on her voyage and for the remaining months she will spend in Europe.

Here's an idea of what my last couple months have looked like! I've been living with my first host family now for two months and I continue to feel quite at home with them. I get along great with my two host siblings, Bastien and Manon, who are both around my age. My host parents are very cool and are great when it comes to letting me take the train to visit different places on weekends and holidays. I love having the train here as it makes it so much easier for me to visit others and travel, which is something I've been doing lots on week-ends and during the two week holiday which we're on now. School is good, but a bit boring for me due to the fact that aside from Eng-lish, I understand very little during class. I've made friends though and it's been great practice for me to try to speak with them everyday. My French continues to im-prove and I can under-stand and speak so much more after only two months of being here. I look forward, however, to when I can finally under-stand the jokes people make without having to be explained them in Eng-lish. The worst is when a teacher makes a joke to

me in class and every-one laughs but I just sit staring blankly. Some-times I just pretend to understand and give a little laugh. We've so far had two Rotary week-ends, and they've both been so much fun. The first was in Northern Lorraine and Luxembourg. We visited a cas-tle, had a winery tour [Ed.: this is cultural-ly acceptable for young people in France], rode bike-cart type things (Called Velo-Rail which basically means bike rail) down a train track, and did a variety of group activities like ar-chery, photo scavenger hunt, and a French ver-sion of bocce. The se-cond weekend took place in the province just to the left of Lorraine called Champagne. We visited the Charles de Gaulle Museum and a giant bridge which was lit up with colour chang-ing lights (so cool at night), and had a big walkabout tour of a town called Langres. The ar-chitecture here is amaz-ing and I'm constantly amazed at all the build-ings, especially the churches!

Update from Skyla Sam on her voyage to France

–Akisqnuknik Mission Statement:

Through sound, responsible, leadership we will promote the well-being and economic self-reliance of our people by encouraging and fostering education and sustainable employment.

Skyla Sam

Page 3 K•a‰úk ƒupqa

Central Area Water System to be extended The Akisqnuk First Na-tion’s new Central Area Water System, built in 2009, will be extended to cover the homes of a number of the First Nation ‘s members that live on the western side of highway 93/95.

Beginning Monday, workers will be at the site. It is expected that the

work will take about one week to complete.

The work is being done to secure safe drinking water for specific homes on the western side of Highway 93/95 that were not immediately served after the water system was built.

The company that will

perform the work is called Columbia Valley H20 Well and Pump Ser-vice. They submitted the most competitive bid among four companies that were invited to bid on the job.

The water system was initially built with the ability to be extended as needed. The system was

a good capital invest-ment for the band as it delivers an asset the band controls — good water — to the homes of band members living in the middle portion of the reserve.

It will continue to do so now and into the future.

Fire safety workshop given at Akisqnuk Recently Bill Gowans, Fire Services Officer, with the First Nations Emer-gency Services Society, presented a workshop at the Akisqnuk First Nation.

Bill gave an informative presentation that was de-signed for an Aboriginal audience.

For example, Bill told the audience that accord-ing to a study done by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, homes on reserves in Canada are twice as like-ly as homes off reserve to experience a fire. Further, Bill explained that the fire-related death rate of people living on reserve was ten times higher than the population at large.

Combine this with the fact that Aboriginal peo-ple — like most Canadi-ans — don’t believe a fire will ever happen in their homes and you can see there is a real need for fire safety information on reserve.

With that in mind, Bill set out to give the people in attendance some in-formation they can use to keep them and their fam-ilies safe.

Bill suggested that a key strategy to keeping you and your family safe is the development of a fire safety plan, especial-ly for children.

Children (and adults) should be trained to know where the nearest escape is and that they should get to it as soon as possible in the event of a fire. Remember peo-ple may not be able to see because of all of the smoke.

In some cases, children might freeze up and wait for an adult to come and help them, which might not be possible when a fire happens.

Also often children can be afraid of firemen — large strangers in unusu-al clothing — and may try to hide from them in-

stead of letting them help. Children should be trained that firemen are there to help and should be trusted.

Bill said that it has been statistically proven that most fires happen at night and added that the smoke does not wake up sleeping people.

Further it is usually the smoke, toxic gas, and heat — not the flames themselves — that kills people in fires. The first three minutes after the fire starts are the most crucial to ensure your safety. It is therefore re-ally important to make sure that you have work-ing smoke detectors.

He explained that smoke detectors must have working batteries. Also they should be quickly vacuumed once a year (just the shell, you don’t have to take them apart) as dust can accumulate and make them less effective.

Fire detectors have a lifespan of ten years and any fire detector older than that should be re-placed with a new one.

When a fire does hap-pen there is no time to think so the more plan-ning you can do in ad-vance the better off you’ll be.

Another important thing to remember is to call emergency services, 911, and stay on the line until the operator tells you to hang up. They are trained professionals who are taught to get all relevant information from callers. If they keep you on the line it is because they haven’t gotten all the info they need from you.

For more information about fire safety, on and off reserve, visit the First Nations’ Emergency Ser-vices Society on the web at: www.fness.bc.ca/fire

Page 4 –akis“nuk First Nation Community News

–akis“nuk First Nation

3050 Highway 93/95, Windermere, B.C. V0B 2L2

(250) 342-6301

Your thoughts are welcome. If you have a story you’d like to put in the newsletter or anything to add, email Communications Coordinator Adrian Bergles at: abergles@akisqnuk.org

Get your news online at: www.akisqnuk.org

that treaties must ex-press that, that we will be motivated to bring all our tools and efforts to the table and build the patterns of reconciled relationships for the fu-ture.”

“Further, Canada and British Columbia must abandon and renounce their colonial policies to seek certainty through the extinguishment or surrender of Aboriginal title and rights. As Chief Joe Mathias said 20 years ago; “the negotia-tions, in our view, will not be based on that tired old notion of extin-guishment. We will not tolerate the extinguish-ment of our collective aboriginal rights! Let us be clear about that to-day”, added Chief White.

First Nations engaged in treaty negotiations re-main committed and still believe that treaties are the best way to resolve the long standing land question in B.C. and to achieve reconciliation of the Crown's assertion of sovereignty with our pre-

existing sovereignty. We must all work towards concluding treaties that recognize and respect First Nations’ ability to make the decisions that affect our lives, lands, re-sources and territories.

One generation has passed since the treaty negotiations process be-gan in B.C. It is urgent that all parties take delib-erate and immediate ac-tion to overcome the diffi-cult barriers that lie be-fore us so that all First Nations in B.C. that wish to, can achieve reconcili-ation through the mean-ingful implementation of their Aboriginal title and rights through treaties.

The First Nations Sum-mit speaks on behalf of First Nations involved in treaty negotiations in Brit-ish Columbia. Further background information on the Summit may be found at www.fns.bc.ca.

- Information courtesy First Nations Summit

This fall marks 20 year anniversary of treaty negotiation in B.C. unresolved. In the early 1990s, B.C. and Canada finally decided to work with First Nations to ad-dress this critical issue and established a mod-ern, made in B.C., treaty process to achieve the reconciliation required by law and justice.

“While treaty negotia-tions have resulted in some success stories, we would have clearly hoped there would have been many more by now. Unfortunately, some 20 years after the start, many First Nations re-main frustrated by the growing debt and slow pace of the current treaty negotiation process,” said Grand Chief Edward John of the First Nations Summit political execu-tive.

Added Chief Doug White: “History has led us to a point where the destinies of First Nations and the Crown are inter-twined and interrelated in all ways. It is from that vantage point of recog-nizing our future is inevi-tably a shared one, and

Coast Salish Territory (Vancouver, B.C.) – The signing of the B.C. Trea-ty Commission Agree-ment, 20 years ago this September, marked a significant moment in the history of the relationship between the Crown and First Nations in B.C. This agreement, signed by the Prime Minister of Cana-da, the Premier of B.C. and the leaders of the First Nations Summit, was celebrated by a sa-cred Coast Salish cultur-al ceremony, which hon-ored the parties' commit-ments to move beyond their difficult past and build a new relationship based on mutual trust, respect and understand-ing. Unfortunately, nego-tiations have been far too slow, far too costly and have not met these com-mitments.

The failure of the Crown to recognize the reality of Aboriginal title in the early years of the history of British Columbia cre-ated the outstanding In-dian land question that largely remains