Sticker shock
The flock of geese, majestic and noisy, flew over the southern farms and started heading north. Then suddenly, they headed back south before flying north again. What is going on?
Voices
ᐋ ᐄᔮᔨᐧᒫᓂᐧᐃᒡ
Slush roads
Extreme cold weather is part of life every winter on the James Bay coast. The cold was normal for my parents who were both born during a time when people didn’t have very much. My late father Marius Kataquapit was a trapper and hunter who learned to live and thrive on the land from the time he was a child.
The repairman in me
For several months, my overworked dryer was cranking out a sloppy thumping sound. I wondered if I should get a new one or fix it myself. I decided to try repairing it, so I went on YouTube to find help. Sure enough, within minutes of browsing I came across a Canadian site that seemed to be trustworthy. It was quite informative, and I was able to deduce my needs by the thumping sounds alone and quickly ordered a repair kit. As its delivery by post took several weeks, I did some online studying.
Don’t forget Leonard Peltier
Leonard Peltier is the longest imprisoned Indigenous person in the United States. Even after almost 47 years behind bars he is considered a political prisoner by Amnesty International, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, National Congress of American Indians, the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Rev. Jesse Jackson, among many others who believe he should be immediately released.
Valentine’s Day and the power of love
We celebrate Valentine’s Day with wishes for those we are romantically interested in or in general for good greetings to family and friends. However, the history of this day that is celebrated on February 14 is very different.
El Niño
Now that the world’s attention seems to be more focussed on global warming, let’s see how that theory works in the North. Here warmth is something that happens once or twice during the summer and not in the middle of winter like this year.
Climate change
The expression, “when Hell freezes over,” means something will never happen. While this doesn’t apply to a recent Supreme Court of Canada decision, Hell must have gotten a little chilly.
We might need a miracle
It was good to see recent developments by northern Indigenous political leadership to deal with the epidemic of drug and alcohol abuse and the dire situation of suicide primarily by young Native people in northern Ontario. I know we are all fed up with watching so many of our family members and friends becoming helpless with addictions and the resulting violence in our Northern First Nations. We are also feeling helpless with so many of our people dealing with mental health issues.
The daily domino effect
I liked the mist of hoar frost air as it touched my windshield and immediately turned into a beautiful mosaic of ice crystals, making me smile instead of frown on this cold winter morning. The icy windshield made me think of times when this type of weather didn’t bother anyone. But today, the cold is either an enemy or a friend depending on if you must stay home from work or not. I like to call days like this the domino effect times.
A new principle?
Jordan’s Principle came about after people became outraged by the inequality of public services afforded Indigenous children compared to all other children in Canada. As a result, programs were created to address the inequities and to try to ensure that they are not the norm anymore. Perhaps the system created is not perfect, but it was a step in the right direction.