Latest news with #Dene
CBC
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- CBC
Dene country musician Harry Rusk remembered for 'paving a path' for other Indigenous musicians
From living on a trapline, to being regarded as the first Dene musician to perform at the Grand Ole Opry, Harry Rusk is remembered as an important figure in Canadian country music. Rusk died in March at age 87 at his Rainbow Ranch in Carrot Creek, Alta., east of Edson. The musician grew up in Kahntah, a small reserve in northern B.C., and his early years were marked with family tragedy and illness. By the age of six, he had already lost his brother and father to tuberculosis. "The summer my dad died in 1944, it was a very lonely time for my mother and I," Rusk told CBC in an interview in 1994. That same illness would strike Rusk at age 12, but from it came a chance encounter with a Canadian country star that would change the course of his life. "Hank Snow came to visit us patients at the Charles Camsell hospital, where I was confined for four years with tuberculosis, way back [on] June 13, 1952, and that really inspired me," Rusk told CBC. Rusk's mother bought him his first guitar with money she made from selling moccasins, and he taught himself how to play by listening to Snow records. By 1965, Rusk would move to Edmonton, and his career took off. He appeared on TV on Don Messer's Jubilee, a Canadian folk musical variety show broadcast from Halifax. Snow watched Rusk's performance. "Hank phoned me and said, 'Come to Nashville, I got you on the Grand Ole Opry,'" Rusk remembered. In 1972, Rusk became the first Dene person to perform on the historic Grand Ole Opry stage in Nashville, Tenn. Rusk was always a religious person, and it was through his faith that he met his wife Gladys. In a recent interview, Gladys recalled meeting Rusk at a church in Edmonton in 1981, where she was asked to perform. "I came in that evening, and … this guy was on the guitar, I didn't know who he was, but it was Harry Rusk," Gladys said. "I said to [the band], 'I'm singing tonight, it's in the key of C, just hit the key and I'll follow you." Gladys said, years later, her husband would say, "Boy, we sure came a long way from the key of C." Despite not initially being interested in country music, Gladys says she learned to love it, and remembers going to see Snow perform in Edmonton. "I remember Hank Snow saying, 'My friend Harry Rusk is in the front row. Harry, don't listen too carefully, you might hear a mistake from me,'" said Gladys. "After we'd seen Hank and his group in Edmonton, we decided to go to Nashville in … February '91, and we recorded with Hank Snow's band." She and Rusk went on to record several albums and tour around the world. In 2014, he played guitar on the song 'Harry Rusk Plays Guitar' with Hank Snow's Rainbow Ranch Boys. Influential Indigenous voice Harry Rusk might not be a household name, but Gladys said he "paved a road" for other Indigenous musicians. David McLeod, CEO of NCI FM, a radio network in Manitoba, collects records by Indigenous artists. Years ago, he came across Rusk's albums. "He had like six songs on the charts, in the Top 20 … and a lot of people don't know his name. And, in terms of being an Indigenous artist, he's a groundbreaking artist," said McLeod, who is from Pine Creek First Nation, in central Manitoba. Weeks before Rusk died, McLeod visited him at his Rainbow Ranch. "He talked about the good old days and being in Nashville … meeting the musicians, and sitting in the late night coffee shops, having those discussions of life on the road, the challenges, the obstacles, the creativity around making music," said McLeod. "Harry's eyes sparkled when he talked about that, and he carried that energy right until the end." Rusk might have been the first, but he wasn't the last Indigenous country musician to perform in Nashville. In 2023, Manitoba musician William Prince, from Peguis First Nation, performed at the Grand Ole Opry. Before heading to Tennessee, McLeod chatted with Prince. "It was a beautiful moment because he recognized Harry Rusk having opened the doors for artists like himself," said McLeod. "That's the beauty of the Indigenous community … it's about making room for recognizing those before, and making room and space for those after."
Globe and Mail
7 days ago
- Globe and Mail
Wildfires are devastating northern Saskatchewan – a place too often ignored by the rest of the country
Bill Waiser is the author of A World We Have Lost: Saskatchewan Before 1905, which won the Governor General's Literary Award for Non-Fiction. The out-of-control wildfires raging across northern Saskatchewan have introduced Canadians to a part of the country they may have believed was largely empty. In fact, even people living in the southern part of Saskatchewan view it as the great unknown – or, as provincial cabinet minister Joe Phelps once called it, 'another country altogether.' But northern Saskatchewan matters. It could even be argued that the history of the province has northern beginnings. When the province was carved out of the North-West Territories in 1905, the northern boundary was set at the 60th parallel. That meant that more than half of the new province featured a heavy, mixed-wood forest and thousands of bodies of water, including several large lakes. Saskatchewan's geographical centre at Molanosa, an acronym for 'Montreal Lake, Northern Saskatchewan,' was about 160 kilometres north of the city of Prince Albert, well into the boreal forest. Half of Saskatchewan residents who were forced to flee wildfires can return home this week What's the difference between an evacuation alert and an evacuation order in Canada? The Cree and Dene, who had lived in the region for millennia, were a resourceful, resilient people who adjusted to the arrival of the European fur trade in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. The first contact between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples happened in northern Saskatchewan. All major settlements in Saskatchewan were once in the north. Cumberland House, Reindeer Lake (Southend), Lac La Ronge, Pelican Narrows, Green Lake, Île-à-la-Crosse, Buffalo Narrows, La Loche, and Fond du Lac all began as fur-trade communities. Many Saskatchewan residents today would be hard-pressed to locate them on a map. By the mid-19th century, a distinct society – one based on hunting and trapping and centred around water-based communities with a trading post and sometimes a mission – had taken shape in northern Saskatchewan. It was largely Indigenous in makeup. It was also separated from the prairie south. The major trade route ran east to west from Cumberland House up along the Churchill River through Île-à-la-Crosse and Portage La Loche to Fort Chipewyan and the Mackenzie River. The region's isolation would become more pronounced in the early 1880s, when the Canadian Pacific Railway was built west from Winnipeg through Regina and Calgary. Settlement and development were largely restricted to the wheat farming on the southern prairies. Northern First Nation and Métis peoples, as vestiges of the old fur trade west, had no part in Saskatchewan's future. That certainly appeared to be the case according to the 1906 western census: less than one per cent of Saskatchewan's population lived in the north. The Saskatchewan government's gaze consequently rarely extended to the north, where it gladly abdicated any meaningful presence in favour of the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Hudson's Bay Company. It wasn't until after the Second World War that northern Saskatchewan and its rich and diverse natural resources came to be part of provincial post-war development plans. The Great Depression had staggered Saskatchewan because of its overdependence on agriculture, and after the war, the government began to look for ways to diversify the economy to try to make it less vulnerable. Northern forestry and mining were part of the new Saskatchewan in the latter half of the 20th century, but northern Indigenous peoples initially played little to no role in these resource industries. In effect, there were two northern societies: one that was white and well-off, and another that was Indigenous and poor. This colonialism extended to the provincial government. Saskatchewan may complain about a distant, insensitive Ottawa, but Regina acted much like an imperial government in the province's north. Today, Indigenous peoples are playing an increasingly larger role in new economic development. At the same time, many continue to pursue a traditional lifestyle and practise their cultural traditions as best they can. Theirs is a unique way of life with its own rhythm, centred on the land and water. Indeed, some have never left their home community – at least, up until now, when wildfires have turned them into refugees. People have complained about the wildfire smoke that has drifted southward and made outside activity difficult, if not dangerous. But spare a thought to the thousands who fled on short notice, forced to leave behind a world that has meant so much to them for generations. Thousands have begun to return, but others may not be back for some time, not knowing what the fires will have destroyed. And it will take longer to rebuild what they have lost. That's why the largely Indigenous firefighting crews have battled so hard to save what they can. For Canadians, especially those living in Saskatchewan, this may be 'another country altogether' – but for so many displaced people, it's home.
Hamilton Spectator
06-06-2025
- Business
- Hamilton Spectator
Ground broken on $16.5-million cultural centre near Tulita
A new office and cultural centre at Naats'ihch'oh National Park Reserve near Tulita is a shovel closer to reality after Parks Canada announced $16.5 million to construct the building. Crown Indigenous Relations Minister Rebecca Alty made the announcement on behalf of the agency during Tulita's annual 'Fire Day' — a community gathering remembering the 1995 wildfires but also how the community came together in response to the crisis. Representatives from both Tulita and Norman Wells were on hand for the event. 'The government is committed to supporting Northern communities across Canada, including the Sahtu region,' said Alty. 'Today's groundbreaking is an important next step for the Naats'ihch'oh National Park Reserve. The project will serve as a permanent space for community members to gather and provide a landmark destination to welcome visitors exploring this incredible region. 'This space will also enhance Parks Canada's operational capacity to protect and present the natural and cultural heritage of this special place with the Naats'ihch'oh National Park Reserve Management Committee.' Once completed, the new facility will serve as both Parks Canada's base of operations for the park and as a living museum showcasing Metis and Dene culture. It will serve as a welcoming station for paddlers coming down the Mackenzie River. Ground has been broken and the tender to build the new facility has been awarded to Northern Industrial Construction out of Yellowknife. The building will be constructed to energy efficient standards and is predicted to reduce Parks Canada's greenhouse gas emissions by 89 per cent compared to the status quo. Parks Canada hopes to begin working out of the building by fall of 2026, and the full building is expected to be ready for a spring 2027 grand opening. It is hoped the structure will help expand tourism and help drive job creation in the Sahtu region. Situated around Mount Naats'ihch'oh, the park was established in 2014 and protects 86 per cent of the Tehjeh Dee (South Nahanni River) watershed in conjunction with the Nahanni National Park Reserve. It is a vital habitat for grizzly bear, Dall sheep, mountain goats, woodland caribou and trumpeter swans. It is also an important hunting ground for harvesters in the region. 'This is good for the people,' said Tulita Mayor Douglas Yallee. 'Parks Canada has listened to the Elders and the community about what is important. It took time, but this new building shows how we can work together. This is a good day for our community.' Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
Business of Fashion
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Business of Fashion
Indigenous Designers Are Driving Brands to Collaborate, Not Appropriate
When Valentino debuted its pre-fall 2025 collection at the end of last year, the Indigenous community quickly took note. The collection included a black bag featuring beaded flowers and fringe, details commenters soon identified as closely resembling a 19th-century design by Métis beadworkers. The conversation escalated when actress Lily Gladstone called out the brand directly on Instagram, writing that the decision to recreate such a piece without Indigenous input 'baffled' her. 'Métis and Dene beadwork is stunning and deserves to be highlighted in a major way,' she wrote. 'But this isn't how to achieve that. Where other houses have taken meaningful steps forward, this is a major step back.' It wasn't an isolated incident. Just weeks after Gladstone's post, the Indigenous pop-culture news Instagram account spotlighted Fear of God's moccasin line, noting its similarity to contemporary Native styles. The brand's founder Jerry Lorenzo had recently worked with Alaska Native model Quannah Chasinghorse, a move critics described as confusing visibility with consent. (Fear of God declined to comment.) These moments reignited a long-running conversation around fashion's use of Native design language without credit, compensation, or collaboration. For decades, luxury brands have profited from a romanticised, decontextualised vision of Native aesthetics — often flattening centuries of innovation into vague bohemian motifs. Native designers, meanwhile, face a patchwork of protections ill-equipped to safeguard their intellectual and cultural property. 'Current legal protections for tribal designs remain inadequate,' said Susan Scafidi, fashion law professor at Fordham University. 'It's a patchwork of coverage that leaves many Indigenous creators vulnerable to exploitation.' Native design isn't merely visual — it's spatial, relational and symbolic. Diné weavers encode cosmology into pattern; Haudenosaunee beadworkers map lineage and ceremony into form. When these aesthetics are copied without context, they're stripped of meaning and collapsed into a generic, pan-Indian look. What's lost isn't just credit — it's cultural memory. Still, there are signs of positive change happening within the industry: Big-name brands like Ralph Lauren and Arc'tyrex have forged partnerships with Native creators, and Native designers themselves are seeing more attention. To chart a better course in the future, legacy brands should support Indigenous designers and find ways to collaborate with Native artists, and pay as much attention to process as they do the final result. 'The problem with most brand 'frameworks' is they focus on the end product rather than the relationship,' said cultural and ESG Consultant Matthew Yazzie. 'They want to know how to 'use' Native art correctly without doing the actual work of building genuine connections and relationships with Native artists and their communities.' A Demand for Accountability Increasingly, Indigenous designers are asserting their agency — and consumers are responding, drawn to the storytelling inherent to Native aesthetics. From direct-to-consumer models to limited-edition collaborations and intentional product drops, now Indigenous designers are shaping a dynamic fashion landscape — on their own terms. Notably, a flourishing Indigenous streetwear movement, including brands like Urban Native Era, 4Kinship and Here's To You, is capturing international attention, generating not only cultural capital but critical economic opportunities for artists, designers and entrepreneurs. There's also a new class of rising Native-owned fashion brands, including B. YellowTail, Navajo Spirit and Orlando Dugi, which have experienced recent sales spikes; Dugi is turning his focus from custom couture to ready-to-wear to meet demand. This fall, too, marks an upcoming milestone: Indigenous Fashion Week New York will debut in September. Contemporary Native designers are leveraging digital platforms to bypass traditional gatekeepers. Kwakwaka'wakw moccasin designer Jamie Gentry, for instance, uses Instagram to reach a broad customer base through direct-to-consumer sales, circumventing the geographic and institutional barriers that have historically marginalised Native artists. 'It's given artists a wider audience than they could reach from just a brick-and-mortar store in small communities where they don't have that opportunity to share their work broadly,' said Gentry. Plus, some Native designers are subverting traditional dynamics, putting their own spin on mainstream designs. Jamie Okuma (Luiseño and Shoshone-Bannock), known for her intricate beadwork, famously hand-beaded a pair of Christian Louboutin heels — a volte-face from the familiar pattern of luxury brands borrowing from Indigenous cultures without acknowledgment. Celebrity visibility has further bolstered this momentum. 'Real Housewives of Beverly Hills' star Jennifer Tilly, along with actors Wes Studi publicly supported Native-made designs at the 2024 Santa Fe Indian Market — an influential and high-end market among the many vibrant bazaars across Indian Country. Meanwhile, mainstream publications have been taking notice, too: New York magazine's Winter 2024 issue featured Jessica Metcalfe's Beyond Buckskin adornments in a holiday gift guide, while Vogue writer Christian Allaire wrote a piece last month about wearing Indigenous designers on his book tour. Still, significant barriers persist. Native brands remain underrepresented across major retailers, and viral social media moments rarely translate into long-term change. In the absence of sustained, industry-wide commitment to platforming Indigenous creators have expanded awareness of cultural appropriation, but its deeper systemic roots — and the artists from hundreds of tribes affected — remain largely overlooked. From Tokenism to Provenance While the industry still sees instances of appropriation, more legacy brands are taking steps to chart a new course, spotlighting Native designers and educating consumers on ethical collaboration. Amazon's Buy with Prime blog, for instance, has published guides to help shoppers identify authentic Native American fashion, while Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom have begun providing more detailed provenance information for Indigenous designed pieces. Outdoor companies, in particular, have emerged as natural allies. Already positioned at the intersection of humans and the environment, these brands deepen that connection by amplifying Indigenous designers and environmental stewards. Last July, REI piloted a partnership with Urban Native Era, initially placing products — including sweats, T-shirts and hats featuring the message 'You're On Native Land' — in just eight stores. The launch weekend exceeded sales expectations, prompting REI to rapidly expand UNE inventory to all 181 locations nationwide by the following month. 'Wanting something with such a strong statement shows they want to put Indigenous visibility on their shelves,' said UNE founder Joey Montoya. A shirt from Arc'tyrex's Walk Gently collection (Courtesy) That same month, Vancouver-based outdoor brand Arc'teryx, headquartered on Musqueam territory, launched 'Walk Gently', a platform to support Indigenous presence in the outdoor industry. It included a collection of T-shirts and shorts designed in collaboration with Cole Sparrow-Crawford, a Musqueam creative director. 'As a company in Canada, if you want to honour Truth and Reconciliation, represent that,' said Sparrow-Crawford. 'We aren't asking people occupying our territory to leave but to walk gently.' For some brands, the goal is to reconcile a problematic legacy. Ralph Lauren, long criticised for appropriating Native aesthetics, took a new approach in 2022, launching its Artist-in-Residence program. The inaugural designer was Gen-Z Diné weaver and skateboarder Naiomi Glasses, who received both financial and creative freedom to design a collection aligned with traditional Diné wearing practices. The program also featured a Native-led ad campaign. 'Because it was a pilot program, they told me we'd both be learning together,' said Glasses. Her ability to dictate material and design specifications faithful to intergenerational techniques shaped a collection that, in her words, 'looked like a naturally hand-woven piece — not like a design thrown on a sweater." The Artist-in-Residence initiative will continue this year with queer Diné weave Zefren-M, further expanding the program's commitment to community-led storytelling. According to Sasha Kelly, Ralph Lauren's head of design with intent, the brand is learning to work at a different pace. She advocates for a slower process, one outside the traditional fashion calendar, focused on 'learning to unlearn, platforming the creator, manufacturing with the community, and providing a design fee and royalties returned to benefit the community at large.' Such practices not only mitigate the risk of cultural appropriation— they often result in more authentic, resonant and innovative designs.
Canada Standard
21-05-2025
- General
- Canada Standard
Commission releases the final set of decommissioned Beaverlodge properties from licensing and revokes Cameco Corporation's Beaverlodge waste facility operating licence
May 21, 2025 - Ottawa Today, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) announced the Commission's decision to release the final set of 27 decommissioned Beaverlodge properties from licensing under the Nuclear Safety and Control Act (NSCA), and to revoke the waste facility operating licence held by Cameco Corporation (Cameco) for the decommissioned Beaverlodge mine and mill site. The Beaverlodge mine and mill site is located near Uranium City in northern Saskatchewan, situated within historic Treaty 8 (1899) and the Homeland of the Metis, and within the traditional territories of the Dene, Cree, and Metis peoples. The Commission concluded that the properties meet appropriate performance objectives and performance indicators to enable them to be transferred to Saskatchewan's Institutional Control Program. As part of its decision in this matter, the Commission exempted the Province of Saskatchewan from CNSC licensing for the properties. The Commission further concluded that it had fulfilled its constitutional responsibility to consult and, where appropriate, accommodate Indigenous rights in respect of its decision on this matter. In making its decision, the Commission carefully considered all submissions and perspectives received during a public hearing held in person in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan on January 30, 2025. The record of decision, which contains the Commission's rationale for its decision, is available upon request from the Commission Registry by contacting interventions@ Once available in both official languages, the record of decision will be published on the CNSC website. The submissions considered by the Commission during the hearing are available on the CNSC website. As a lifecycle regulator, the CNSC focuses on continuous engagement and consultation with Indigenous Nations and communities, as well as other interested groups before, during and after Commission proceedings in respect of licensed activities. Related links Contact Media Relations Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission Tel: 613-996-6860 Email: media@
