Aboriginal writings

“My Entry into Aboriginal Understanding” booklet

A collection of articles on Indigenous self-determination and sovereignty, rights, resistance, language and culture — all put together in a booklet form for better reading, and also in order to share in the physical world. In two PDF versions (for either front-to-back reading, or formatted to print doublesided and fold into booklet form).

 
Other articles:

• Inuit leaders talk about the lack of support to address epidemic of suicides
  

  Inuit and non-Inuit alike marked World Suicide Prevention Day on Parliament Hill on Sept. 9 with an urgent message to government to take action against the crisis facing Inuit communities, where the suicide rate is 11 times higher than that in the rest of Canada.

• Efforts to protect the Beaver Pond Forest (also: shorter version)
  

  Since January 31, 2011, 100-year-old trees have been cut, animals have died, and the living legacy of a potentially 10,000-year-old cultural site is being destroyed.All this is occurring despite broad-based opposition from a coalition of local residents and community associations throughout the city, Algonquin First Nations communities, and several high-profile national organizations like the Sierra Club Canada and the David Suzuki Foundation.

• Local activists to face Quebec judge over Barriere Lake Algonquin highway blockades (co-written)
  

  On March 18th, an Ottawa resident along with a co-defendant from the Algonquin community of Barriere Lake will go to trial in a Maniwaki court on charges of obstruction of justice, mischief, and assaulting a police officer. On March 31st, three other local residents will be sentenced after pleading guilty to mischeif and obstruction of justice. Their crime? Bringing attention to the fact that the governments of Quebec and Canada have not honoured their word.

  Both cases stem from a series of peaceful highway blockades mounted in late 2008 by the Mitchikanibikok Inik (Algonquins of Barriere Lake, or ABL), a small First Nation community located 130 km north of Maniwaki, Quebec. Solidarity activists from Ontario and Quebec joined the Mitchikanibikok Inik in two successive blockades of Highway 117, which were staged to protest the provincial and federal governments’ ongoing violation of an agreement signed with ABL over a decade ago.

• Indigenous Sovereignty Week builds community-based resistance
  

  In November of 2008, Indigenous activists and allies from across Canada came together in Winnipeg to form Defenders of the Land, a network of Indigenous communities and activists in land struggle across Canada.

  Out of this network came a call for a pan-Canadian event, Indigenous Sovereignty Week, which is now upon us. Close to 30 cities and communities across Canada (and even a few in the United States) will be holding public events from Oct. 24 to Nov. 1.

  The purpose of this week is to build local relationships between groups and individuals, disseminate ideas and generally contribute to building a cross-Canada movement for Indigenous rights, self-determination, and justice that is led by Indigenous communities but with a broad base of informed support.

 
Video:

• Algonquins of Barriere Lake – Fight for Self-Determination and Environmental Protection