Media.Knet.Ca

On June 16, Stephane Giguere and Mike Collins from Telesat Canada in Ottawa travelled to Thunder Bay for meetings with Carl Seibel from FedNor along with K-Net staff (Brian and Dan). Discussions around K-Net's plans for supporting community networks and the future satellite bandwidth requirements highlighted the meeting. Strategies to ensure there is sufficient public benefit transponder space available to meet the immediate and long term needs for broadband applications were shared with the partners.

Sol Mamakwa and Sonny Mamakwa are hosting an internet webcast for this year's graduation ceremonies being held at Mary Anne Aganash Memorial School in Kingfisher Lake.

The ceremony features the Grade 8 and Senior Kindergarten Classes. Everyone is invited to join the students, parents and staff at this event by visiting the Mary Ann Aganash Memorial School web portal and clicking on the streaming webcast link in the news item.

Sol and Sonny learned about the webcast capabilities during the NAN TECH 2003 conference and worked with K-Net staff to make this live on-line event possible.

Meegwetch to Cal, Brian and Cal @ knet for your help.

Keewaytinook Okimakanak (K-Net Services) has been invited to partner with CRACIN as a case study in their application to the Initiative on the New Economy (INE) Research Alliances program of the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

CRACIN, Canadian Research Alliance for Community Innovation and Networking, is proposing to "bring together leading Community Informatics researchers from across Canada, as well as internationally, to investigate the main Canadian government programs promoting the development and public accessibility of internet services." For more information visit the CRACIN web site.

K-Net staff participated in the initial meeting of this group on June 20 and 21 via video conference.

See pictures below from outside Keewaytinook Okimakanak office.

From the June 23 issue of the Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal newspaper:

"Meanwhile, MNR firefighters were battling a “stubborn” fire about 10 kilometres north of the Sioux Lookout airport yesterday. The blaze was about 22,000 hectares in size yesterday evening, but was burning away from Sioux Lookout itself, McLean said.

The entire area is under an Emergency Area Order, she said, and people were being evacuated from cottages and tourist establishments. Some roads were also being closed.

Waterbombers couldn’t attack the fire directly because of intense flames. The waterbombers were forced to work on the flanks, McLean said.

The MNR was looking at back-burning strategies yesterday, she said. That involves burning an area before the fire gets to it so there’s no fuel when the fire gets there, thereby slowing the blaze down.

Another concern is a number of vehicles in the Deception Bay area. They’ve been parked there by tourists visiting the area for a few days, who are camping or fishing far away from the blaze itself.

Yesterday, the MNR was working on a strategy to defend that area, McLean said.

No official cause for the fires has been identified, but it is thought that lightning could be responsible."

The June 12 issue of Wawatay News contains two more news stories about the work being completed within the Kuh-ke-nah Network of Smart First Nations demonstration project.

This week's Kuh-ke-nah page in Wawatay News include the following articles:

• Learning "Post Nuke" to better school websites - Solomon Mamakwa of Shibogama Education partnered with Angie Morris, Ontario's SchoolNet Administrator and K-Net's Multi-media team (Jesse Fiddler, Cal Kenny) to deliver a training workshop in the use of postnuke to create web portals for a number of First Nation schools across the district.
• New and old photographs posted online everyday - Keewaytinook Okimakanak First Nation Multi-media Producers share their stories about posting photographs and creating photo galleries for community members on their community's portals.
• K-Net Showcase - contains photos from the Deer Lake First Nation portal (http://deerlake.firstnation.ca)

Rick Garrick is researching additional stories for future articles. If you have a story that you want to share about this project and the work that is happening in your community to get connected, please send us an e-mail.

Various newspaper articles are being scanned and stored for reference purposes in this photo gallery.

The morning of June 21st, a fire started mysteriously nearby the community. Fire fighters were busy with another fire 5 kilometers to the south of the community. The fire has been going most of the day and at times, it approached the Senior's Complex but was redirected by wind and vigilant local fire fighters. It still poses a tremendous danger as evacuation has been imminent since last night with the other fire being only 5 kilometers to the south. With temperatures rising to over 30 today, it looks very hopeless in dousing the flames as of now. Hopefully, the fire will continue on towards the north but if it turns south, I have to evacuate as the fire is in my backyard.

Nishnawbe Aski Nation

News Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 20, 2003

Nishnawbe Aski Nation Responds to Ontario Manitoba Joint Hydro Announcement

(THUNDER BAY, ON) Ontario and Manitoba Premiers Eves and Doer, today announced intentions to move forward hydro generation plans between the provinces of Ontario and Manitoba. In response, Grand Chief Stan Beardy of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation, provided his own preliminary comments so as to ensure that First Nations interests are appropriately represented and the proposed project does not reach a future impasse due to a lack of consultation. He states, "Ontario is precisely aware of NAN's consultation process with its First Nations and hopes that be included in future plans and discussions with Manitoba.

He adds that, "First Nations are not opposed to such discussions but need to know where they fit in." He cautions that in these discussions, Aboriginal rights and the energy needs of NAN's First Nations should also be playing an important role, stating that, "when regulatory regimes related to land and water use come into play, there will be significant impact to Aboriginal and Treaty rights, and that this has been affirmed time and time again through federal Supreme Court of Canada rulings."

He adds that not only are First Nations interested in these issues, but they are also poising to take on a different role. Rather than solely responding to hydro development proposals, First Nations are seeking opportunities for economic development in the energy sector. "They want to be involved right from the start," states Grand Chief Beardy.

Thus far, NAN is disappointed with the lack of consultation that has tainted this process, and would like to see this change. Grand Chief Beardy states that it is instances such as this where First Nations are left out of the process and are forced later to take actions such as legal challenges, such as that of the Ruperts Land case recently filed by the Mushkegowuk Chiefs of James Bay in NAN.

-30-

Media inquiries: Grand Chief Beardy (807) 623-8228 or by Cell: (807) 626-6745

DEER LAKE PENTECOSTAL HARVEST CHURCH CAMP MEETING JULY 23, 24, 25, 26, & 27, 2003

GUEST SPEAKER: ARNOLD OUSKAN FROM WINNIPEG

MUSICIANS: BAND FROM NORWAY HOUSE: DONALD BRADBURN, DWIGHT BEWORK & DANNY ROBERTSON

SINGERS: BERT AND HILDA COOK FROM COLLINS, ONTARIO

CAMPMEETING 2003 Attawapsikat First Nation, July 18, 19 & 20 .
Preacher well be  John T. Wood from Winnipeg, Manitoba
Music by AFN GOSPEL Attawapiskat Warrior's.

Information call:

Pastor Micheal Shisheesh
705-997-2178
or
Elder Gabe Spence
705-997-2385

In a lead-up to our annual FragFest gaming bash...

The Sioux Gamerz Computer Gaming Group would like to invite you to our July 5th gaming open house. The action will start Saturday, July 5th at the Sunset Inn starting at 10am. The cost is $25 for players, free for spectators.  Don't be shy, all skill levels!  For more info, go to www.siouxgamerz.ca

See you there,

Fernando morpheus@sioux-online.com
dOgSnOt

Thanks Knet!