Media.Knet.Ca

Wasaya Group Inc. and Bearskin Airlines Ltd are pleased to announce the completion of a transaction under which Wasaya Airways Leasing Ltd has purchased Bearskin Airline's northern assets.

Under the agreement, Wasaya Airways will take over the provision of scheduled passenger services to 21 First Nation Communities located north of Sioux Lookout and Red Lake, Ontario.  These new services to be phased in starting July 2, 2003 with expected completion by July 31, 2003.

Wasaya proposes to use Beech 1900D and PC12 aircraft to service the routes, providing enhanced passenger comfort.  The services will be operated from Bearskin's former hangar and office facilities at the Sioux Lookout airport.

Wasaya Airways is 100% owned by eight First Nation Communities in Northwestern Ontario.  Wasaya Airways is ranked among the largest airlines in Canada and one of the larger Aboriginal owned airlines.

A traditional signing ceremony is taking place on July 9, 2003 at Bearskin Lake First Nation.  In attendance will be many dignitaries, including The Honourable Robert Nault, Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs (Canada).  Bearskin Lake, one of the Wasaya Airways ownership communities, was the birthplace of the original Bearskin Lake Air Service in the late 1950's.

For further information, contact either :

Tom Morris, President and CEO
Wasaya Airways LP
Thunder Bay, ON
Tel 807.473.1200

or

Harvey Friesen, President and CEO
Bearskin Airlines
Sioux Lookout, ON
Tel 807.737.3474

Another house and the wawatay radio tower burns to the ground in Fort Severn.

I'm going to miss my Booshoo corner says, John Chapman.

For more details and photos go www.fortsevernfirstnation.com

PIKANGIKUM FIRST NATION 1st ANNUAL MEN'S INVITATIONAL VOLLEYBALL TOURNAMENT 2003

JULY 31-AUGUST 2, 2003

FIRST 4 TEAMS TO CONFIRM AND SUBMIT $500.00 ENTRY FEE

A SIDE CHAMPIONS  $1500.00 RUNNERS UP $500.00B SIDE CHAMPIONS $600.00 RUNNERS UP $400.00(PRIZES MAY INCREASE AFTER FUNDRAISING)

INDIVIDUAL AWARDS / TEAM STAR AWARDS / TROPHIES

VOLLEYBALL RULES WILL APPLY

CONTACT COMMITTEE GARY QUILL (WORK 773-9948 OR 773-9947)RANDY HILL (WORK 773-5098 HOME 773-1143)ROSS KEEPER (HOME 773-1182)

NAN TECH 2003, held on June 18 to 20 in Thunder Bay, proved to be a great success. Thanks to the Nishnawbe Aski Nation IT Department team (especially Gordon Kakegamic) and the Ad/venture Group for hosting such a successful event. It was a lot a work for everyone involved!

The KO Smart Team were able to participate throughout the event with presentations, display booth, demonstrations, networking and learning from all the other participants. GREAT JOB everyone!!

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.