Rick Garrick — Wawatay News

Multiple North American Indigenous Games-medal winner Elsie Derouin has been busy over the past three years introducing track and field to thousands of students in 55 northwestern Ontario First Nation communities.
The winner of silver medals in shot put and the 4x100 relay and a bronze medal in discus at NAIG 2008 visited the students along with partner Scott Haines as part of a three-year Sport for More project - Keeping First Nations First, which was funded by Ministry of Health Promotion through Athletics Ontario.

Nishnawbe Aski Nation Elder Josias Fiddler has moved on to a better place.
“He passed with great dignity,” said Teri Fiddler, Josias’s wife. “He would smile and be really happy when he mentioned people who had passed on ahead of him. He died with great dignity as the great man he was.”
Teri offered thanks to all the people who helped while Josias was sick over the past two months. He was suffering from diabetes complications, including heart problems, pneumonia and water in the lungs.

Grand Chief Stan Beardy reminded Prince Charles about the treaty relationship between the Crown and Treaties 9 and 5 during a May 22 meeting in Toronto.
“It remains crucial that we maintain strong relations with the Crown,” Beardy said, noting that recent immigrants to Canada are starting to outnumber the original signatories to the treaties. “When you look at the constitution, the UN Declaration (on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples), we have legal status as First Nations people only through the treaty making.”

Cat Lake’s Ellen Wesley-Oombash remembers fighting over roasted muskrat with her brother when they were young.
“My brother and I used to fight over the muskrat,” Wesley-Oombash said, “because it was so good when you roasted it over a fire.”
Wesley-Oombash’s father would often roast different kinds of meat over an outdoor fire, including rabbits, fish, partridge and muskrat.
Wesley-Oombash also remembers eating rabbit brain back then.

Do not move firewood into or out of your area.
That is the main recommendation to stop the introduction of the invasive Emerald Ash Borer, which has destroyed more than 20 million ash trees in southern Ontario since 2002.
“Emerald Ash Borer is an invasive beetle that attacks and kills healthy ash trees,” said Brad Wesley, forestry information officer with Grand Council Treaty #3. “Although it has not been detected in northwestern Ontario, the Emerald Ash Borer is as close as Sault Ste. Marie and St. Paul, Minnesota, and spreading.”