Indigenous Alberta

NEMASKA, QUE. — As Freddy Jolly’s pickup truck travels the dusty roads through the spruce forests outside Nemaska, Que., the one radio station fades in and out, and Jolly fills the gaps between country ballads with conversation.

EDMONTON — As Alberta's Law Society seeks to defend rules that require members to take a course on Indigenous issues, experts say such measures are common elsewhere in Canada and are well-grounded in legal rationale.

VANCOUVER — The federal and British Columbia governments, alongside 15 coastal First Nations, have officially endorsed the blueprint for a vast network of marine protected areas along Canada's west coast.

Cultural awareness, education, history will be shared at Sept. 30 event

St. Paul Diocese assistance proves critical in formal inquiry into the children who died and or went missing while attending residential school, according to research lead Leah Redcrow of Saddle Lake.

YELLOWKNIFE — The Northwest Territories has begun piloting a new northern studies course for Grade 12 students with an emphasis on reconciliation. The elective course was created in the N.W.T. through engagement with Indigenous governments, education bodies, curriculum consultants and working groups.

VANCOUVER — In the 138 years since an Indigenous house post was chopped down and ordered burned by missionaries, it was sold under duress, damaged and displayed as a historic oddity, donated to a museum, then packed away in storage for decades.

MASKWACIS — An Alberta First Nation has signed a two-year agreement with Ottawa giving it the autonomy to administer its child welfare. Louis Bull Tribe at Maskwacis, Alta., south of Edmonton, is the first in the province to sign onto an agreement.

VICTORIA — Indigenous people, especially women, are dying from toxic drugs at disproportionately high rates in British Columbia as the overdose crisis continues "unabated," nearly seven years after the province first declared a public health emergency, said the top doctor for the First Nations Health Authority.

WILLIAMS LAKE, B.C. — The chief of the Williams Lake First Nation says he would support excavating possible unmarked graves at the site of the former St. Joseph's Mission residential school if that's what elders and the community decide is best.