“Trailblazer” Susan Aglukark Honoured In Pre-Junos Event
By Alex Murray Writer With the 2026 Juno Awards coming up in nearby Hamilton on March 29, the Indigenous Performing Arts Alliance (IPAA) decided it was the perfect time to honor an Indigenous music icon: Inuk singer-songwriter Susan Aglukark. The luncheon was hosted at Yogi’s Barn in the Six Nations town of Ohsweken on March 25. The event brought together members of the Six Nations community with Indigenous musicians and attendees from across Canada. Aglukark said that being recognized was an honor, but what made it even more special was the fact that it was an Indigenous event organized by Indigenous people on unceded Indigenous land. “It’s a privilege to be honored. This has been an absolutely beautiful experience,” Aglukark told Turtle Island News. “And to be on Indigenous land...
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Six Nations business man tells Vegas conference, it’s a once in lifetime opportunity
By Sam Laskaris Writer Whenever Isaiah Kicknosway gets a chance to educate others about cannabis he jumps at the opportunity. That’s why Kicknosway, a Six Nations resident, travelled to Las Vegas this week to participate in the Resolution Economic Summit. The four-day event, which concludes on Thursday, is the largest Native American economic development summit in North America. It is held annually in Las Vegas. This year’s event attracted more than 5,000 delegates from across the United States and Canada. Kicknosway was one of the speakers of a Wednesday session title Growing an International Cannabis Brand. He is the vice-president of Kemosabi, a local cannabis company and licensed cultivation and manufacturing operator under the Six Nations Cannabis Commission. Kicknosway has been Kemosabi’s vice-president since the company’s inception in 2022. “For...
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Six Nations Tourism Welcome Centre near completion
Six Nations Elected Council (SNEC) has approved over $350,000 to finish construction of its controversial tourism welcome centre. The centre is being built at Chiefswood Park adjacent to the Pauline Johnson mansion a national historic site. Construction began last September without SNEC knowledge or approval. Controversy began to erupt when a sign depicting the new tourism centre was under construction went up and councillors began hearing from community members questioning construction on the historic site. Councillor Greg Frazer, who sits on the tourism committee, did not explain how the project went forward without SNEC approval or knowledge. Instead, he told SNEC in September 2025 Six Nations has a growing tourism market. In September 2025, SNEC approved $1,174,832 in funding to complete the building project. However, a $1.2 million grant received...
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SNEC allocating another $1 million to hook up homes to water
By Alex Murray Writer Six Nations Elected Council (SNEC), saying clean water is a basic human right, is spending $1 million in funding from its Indigenous Health Equity Funds to hook up more homes to the community’s new watermain extensions. The funds are on top of the $1 million in Canadian Human Rights Tribunal Prevention funds already earmarked for the project. During SNEC’s March 24 meeting, Councillor Helen Miller moved a multi-million-dollar recommendation from the Built Environment, Climate Adaptation, Lands and Membership Committee to improve the community’s access to clean water. The recommendation looked at both the quality and quantity of water accessible to community members. Previous studies showed wells within Six Nations and ground water had been contaminated. The construction of a water treatment plant and the extension of...
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Six Nations Elected Council gets $40,000 toward water lab
Six Nations Mobile Water lab will be getting a $40,000 boost from Sleeman Brewery. The Mobile Water Lab conducts proactive testing of household wells and cisterns. The company made the donation on World Water Day.’ The company is providing the $40,000 donation to the One Drop Foundation through the Sleeman Better Water Fund who brought the proposal forward. A large number of Six Nations households rely on wells or cisterns for their water. Systems that can be vulnerable to contamination. That contamination can be identified only after community members notice a problem. The Mobile Water Lab engages in proactive testing of household wells and cisterns advising on the health of the water and helps ensure clean water for drinking and cooking. . “We were excited to see One Drop Foundation’s...
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AFN National Chief and American counterpart sign declaration in Las Vegas
By Sam Laskaris Writer Assembly of First Nations (AFN) National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak travelled to Las Vegas this week in part to sign an important declaration. The AFN and the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) renewed their commitment to unity, co-operation and mutual support by signing the Declaration of Kinship and Cooperation among the Indigenous Peoples and Nations of North America. Woodhouse Nepinak was joined for the signing ceremony by NCAI president Mark Macarro. The event was held at Caesars Palace on Tuesday and was part of the Reservation Economic Summit. The four-day Summit, which concludes on Thursday, is the largest Native American economic development event on the continent, held annually in Las Vegas. More than 5,000 delegates attended this year’s event. The AFN and NCAI had first...
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Human rights tribunal approves massive child welfare deal for Ontario First Nations
By The Canadian Press The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has approved a landmark First Nations child welfare deal between the federal government and First Nations in Ontario, partially ending a decades-long discrimination case. Monday’s decision comes after chiefs across the country twice voted down a national $47.8 billion deal proposed by the federal government to reform the child welfare system in 2024. The decision marks a step toward resolving a dispute that began in 2007 when the Assembly of First Nations and the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society filed a joint human rights complaint about federal child welfare funding. In a ruling on that complaint in 2016, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal concluded the federal government had discriminated against First Nations children by underfunding the on-reserve child welfare...
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Editorial: Just waiting for the audit…
It’s audit time. That arduous time of the year when governments at all levels start the challenge of wading through how public dollars were spent and explaining why. Indigenous governments across the country will put pen to paper to account for millions of dollars in federal and provincial funds and what they did with their community’s own source revenues. It hasn’t come without issues over the years. In March 2026 a forensic audit by KPMG of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations spending found almost $29 million in ineligible or unsupported funding. At the community level bands are required, under the First Nations Financial Transparent Act, to publish audited financial statements within 120 days of the financial year end. And when they do what they find isn’t surprising. Bands are...
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Today in History
March 29 In 2016, nine members of one family, including three children under five, died in a house fire on Pikangikum First Nation, a remote northern community near the Manitoba-Ontario border. In 2019, Jody Wilson-Raybould said she took the “extraordinary and otherwise inappropriate step’’ of secretly recording a phone call with the country’s top public servant just before Christmas because she feared the conversation would cross ethical lines and she wanted an exact account of what transpired. An audio recording and transcript of the call with Michael Wernick, then-clerk of the Privy Council, were released publicly in a package of material Wilson-Raybould submitted to the House of Commons justice committee, which was studying whether there was any political interference in a prosecution of Montreal engineering firm SNC-Lavalin. March 30 In...
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UNDER THE NORTHERN SKY: Every Step Towards The Future Counts
By Xavier Kataquapit I’m happy to see the ongoing support and assistance in our northern remote communities to help our people cope with so many lifelong and generational issues, trauma and pain that our people carry. It took me many years to understand that these programs or services are not a one-stop service or a single program that will provide instant resolutions or cures for the issues that plague our people. Much of the trauma that our people deal with are issues that affect our communities across generations. These are issues that stem from generations of systemic racism in our northern communities, where being Indigenous was considered something negative to be looked down upon. That culture of looking down on a people is what led to the Residential School system,...
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Haudenosaunee Nationals lacrosse program hopeful of Olympic inclusion
By Sam Laskaris Writer Claudia Jimerson is involved in plenty of behind-the-scenes work trying to get the Haudenosaunee Nationals women’s and men’s lacrosse teams to the Los Angeles Olympics. Jimerson, who is the Haudenosaunee Nationals’ director of lacrosse operations, was a featured speaker at a session at this year’s Reservation Economic Summit, which began Monday and continues until Thursday at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. More than 5,000 delegates, primarily from Canada and the United States, have converged for the conference, the largest Native American economic development event, which is annually held in Las Vegas. Jimerson spoke at a Monday session called The Haudenosaunee Journey to the 2028 Olympics. “This is about building something bigger than the moment,” Jimerson said. “It’s about building trust between nations, strengthening relationship and showing...
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Hill earns MVP accolade after backstopping Snipers to league championship
By Sam Laskaris Writer The Six Nations Snipers managed to win games when they mattered most. And as a result, members of the local Arena Lacrosse League (ALL) squad are now celebrating their second championship season. The Snipers captured their latest title in convincing fashion, with a lopsided 14-4 victory over the Toronto Monarchs on Sunday. That match was held at the Toronto Rock Athletic Centre in Oakville. The Six Nations club had earned a berth into the championship final thanks to a 19-8 semi-final win over the Whitby Steelhawks one day earlier. The Snipers had only managed to win two of their first seven regular season outings this season. But the club got hot down the stretch and managed to finish the regular season with a .500 record (7-7)....
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Ironmen and Killer Bees deadlocked in conference championship series
By Sam Laskaris Writer The Six Nations Ironmen are hoping they’ll be the ones celebrating a conference championship this weekend. The local Senior A men’s club is in the midst of its Northern Premier Hockey League (NPHL) best-of-five Metropolitan Conference championship versus the Alvinston Killer Bees. The host Killer Bees downed the Six Nations squad 4-2 in the series opener on Saturday. But the Ironmen evened up the series thanks to a 4-3 victory in Game 2 on Sunday, in a match staged at the Six Nations Sports & Cultural Memorial Centre. The series will resume on Thursday in Alvinston and the two teams will then square off in Six Nations on Saturday. If necessary, the fifth and deciding match will be in Alvinston on Sunday. Ironmen goaltender Chris Hrabec,...
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First Nation leader Robert Phillips says proposed DRIPA changes would gut legislation
By Wolfgang Depner A First Nations leader said proposed amendments to British Columbia’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act would take a “sledgehammer” to the landmark legislation. Robert Phillips of the First Nations Summit said the amendments would “gut” DRIPA and turn back the clock on relations between the provincial government and First Nations by decades. Phillips’ warning came before Thursday’s meeting between First Nations leaders and Premier David Eby, who has said the changes are necessary to put MLAs, not the courts, in charge of reconciliation. The Canadian Press has obtained a copy of the proposed changes, and while Phillips said a non-disclosure agreement prevented him from commenting on specific amendments, he said First Nations were considering litigation and streets protests if the changes went ahead. DRIPA,...
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‘Be in that moment’: Astronaut Jeremy Hansen’s wife prepares for his lunar mission
By Kelly Geraldine Malone As Jeremy Hansen prepares to begin a historic mission to the moon aboard the Artemis II, his wife says his family will be trying to take in every single moment. If everything goes as planned, Catherine Hansen will be on the roof of the launch control centre at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center Wednesday evening to watch her husband begin a 10-day lunar fly-around. “I’m really trying to encourage everyone — and very, very specifically myself — to be in that moment and to allow whatever emotions may come,” she told The Canadian Press on Tuesday. “There will be excitement, there will be exhilaration, there will be terror and fear.” Jeremy Hansen, 50, of London, Ont., will serve as the mission specialist for Artemis II and become...
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Construction work officially begins on $3-billion wind farm northeast of Quebec City
By Patrice Bergeron Construction on a major wind farm northeast of Quebec City has been officially launched, with an investment of $3 billion. The first two phases of the Des Neiges wind farm — the southern sector and the Charlevoix sector — will comprise a total of 114 turbines and generate 800 Megawatts of wind energy, enough to power 140,000 homes. The project by Quebec’s hydro utility, Boralex, and Énergir — the largest natural gas distributor in the province — is to be located on the grounds of the Séminaire de Québec in the Charlevoix region. The third phase, if completed, will bring the farm’s output to 1,200 Megawatts and contribute Hydro-Québec’s goal of adding 10,000 MW of wind power to its current portfolio of 4,000 MW by 2035. When...
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Education director among region’s highest-paid public employees
By Mike Stimpson, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, SNnewswatch.com MARATHON — Superior-Greenstone District School Board’s director of education was paid a salary of $267,703 in 2025, according to the province’s Sunshine List of salaries in the public sector. That makes William Goodman one of the highest-paid public employees in the Superior North region east of Thunder Bay. The Superior-Greenstone board operates public schools in Marathon, Greenstone, Nipigon, Red Rock, Manitouwadge, Dorion, Schreiber and Terrace Bay. Superior-Greenstone’s superintendent of business, Alex Marton, also made the Sunshine List with 2025 pay reported at $198,971. The Superior North Catholic District School Board, which has schools in Greenstone, Schreiber, Marathon, Manitouwadge, Nipigon and Red Rock, paid its director of education $236,985. Maria Vasanelli also received more than $1,400 in taxable benefits, according to the government....
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Former Vancouver mayor laments ‘normalcy’ of Downtown Eastside ‘despair’
By Darryl Greer Former senator and Vancouver mayor Larry Campbell says it was a “depressing and traumatic experience” when he began his work as a provincial adviser in the Downtown Eastside last year, but his initial despair then changed to hope. He said he noticed the number of new buildings and housing going up in the neighbourhood and a “vibrancy,” but he was still shocked at the beleaguered state of people in the troubled Vancouver neighbourhood. His appointment by the provincial government in September was for a six-month term, but Housing Minister Christine Boyle said Tuesday that his contract would be extended to allow him to continue working to “address systemic challenges” in the Downtown Eastside. Campbell said at a news conference Tuesday that he was shocked at the “normalcy”...
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The Latest: Trump says it’s on other nations to open the Strait of Hormuz
WASHINGTON, USA-U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters Tuesday that the responsibility for keeping the Strait of Hormuz open should belong with countries that rely on it, rather than the U.S. He said there’s “no reason for us to do this.” Trump expressed frustration earlier Tuesday with allies who have been unwilling to do more to support the U.S. war effort, telling them to “go get your own oil.” Trump recently has vacillated between insisting there is progress in diplomatic talks with Iran and threatening to widen the war. U.S. gas prices jumped past an average of $4 a gallon for the first time since 2022 on Tuesday, as the Iran war continues to push fuel prices higher worldwide. Analysts say those high fuel costs will trickle into groceries as businesses’...
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Trump officials exempt oil and gas drilling in the Gulf from endangered species rules
By Matthew Brown The Trump administration on Tuesday exempted oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico from the Endangered Species Act after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said environmentalists’ lawsuits threatened to hobble domestic energy supplies as the U.S. wages war against Iran. Critics said the move by the government’s Endangered Species Committee could doom a rare whale species and harm other marine life. Nicknamed the “God Squad” by groups who say it can decide a species’ fate, the committee comprises several Trump administration officials and is chaired by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. It met Tuesday for the first time in more than three decades amid global oil shocks and soaring energy prices brought on by the Iran war. The U.S. pumps more oil than any other nation, but...
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