First Nation communities ponder education future

by Michael Erskine

AUNDECK OMNI KANING (AOK)---The meeting hall in the Aundeck Omni Kaning First Nation community centre was full last week, as the community gathered to discuss options for educating their children.

The transfer of a popular principal from the Little Current Public School, after what Native leaders described as great steps forward in addressing cross-cultural concerns, brought the current crisis to a head.

Between them, the First Nation communities of AOK and Sheguiandah make up approximately 40 percent of the student body of Little Current Public School, with those two communities pumping $4.4 million into the Rainbow District School Board over the last five years.

"We are looking at between seven and eight different options right now," said AOK Chief Patrick Madahbee. "The community only got through about half of those options at the meeting. We have set up focus groups and they will be coming back to another meeting in a couple of weeks."

The meeting itself was closed to the press in order to facilitate open discussion, said Chief Madahbee. He said that he himself had refrained from interacting in the discussion groups in order to not unduly influence the direction of the debate.

"Any proposal will come from the community itself," he said. "This is not going to be dictated by chief and council. It is going to be entirely community driven."

A number of Sheguiandah and AOK community members have said that much of their own experiences going to school at Little Current Public School in years past had its negative moments, but that things have been improving.

One of the options being examined is to bus half of the community's children to a junior primary school at the Whitefish River First Nation and the other half to the elementary school in M'Chigeeng First Nation.

Most participants described the atmosphere of the private meeting as generally positive, but all were very guarded about the actual content of the meetings.

"Talk to the chief," was the almost universal response of community members.

But even Chief Madahbee said that he did not yet have a full sense of what direction the community's decision would take.

"There have been a lot of changes, even in my lifetime," said Chief Madahbee. "There has been quite a bit of improvement (at the school). It is only a few that still think in those negative ways, it may take another generation or so before we are all free from those ways of thinking."

Attitudes are passed down, through the family, he said, and because of that attitude change sometimes takes too long to come about.

As to how the First Nation communities whose children make up 40 percent of the 400 students of Little Current Public School will chose to deal with the matter....

"It's really too early to tell," he said. "I can't really talk about it any more than that, I have a sense of a couple of options that are not even being given consideration by the community, but I don't want to get into that right now."

Cambrian College provides many lifelines

by Michael Erskine

MANITOULIN---The road to success is paved with education, and for Manitoulin Islanders from every community, Cambrian College has often provided the lifeline they needed to pull themselves up into a better life. A number of the people who have grasped that lifeline contacted the Expositor to share their stories.

People like Stephanie Eadie, a Cambrian alumni from the class of '95.

"I took the Automated Office Skills program," she said. "It is a combination of absolutely everything you need to work in an office. I can honestly say I have used everything I learned at Cambrian in my current job."

Ms. Eadie works as an administrative assistant at a nursing home, the Manitoulin Lodge in Gore Bay.

Asked if she would have been able to pursue her education had it not been offered on Manitoulin Island, Ms. Eadie returns an emphatic: "Absolutely not!"

"I went as a mature student," she said. "With a small child in daycare, traveling off-Island to take the course would have been completely out of the question."

Ms. Eadie's employer, the Manitoulin Lodge, heavily subscribes to graduates of Cambrian College's Personal Support Worker program.

"We hire a lot of the personal support workers," she said. "We also give them the hours they (the students) need to cover the course's practical requirements."

Dayle Eveleigh left school early, very early, but Cambrian College's upgrading program gave her an attainable second chance.

"It took me 20 years to get back to school," she said. "Without this it might have taken another 10."

Ms. Eveleigh pointed out that it is difficult to find the time to go back to school as an adult, particularly when you have to scramble to keep things together on the kind of work available to those without academic credentials.

Currently working her way through Cambrian's highly successful apprentice cook program, Ms. Eveleigh said that route would have been closed to her without the upgrading program.

"I am having a great time in the course, I am learning a lot and for the first time school is making sense," she said. "But it wouldn't be possible without upgrading. I had to have the credits in order to get in the program."

If she had to travel to Espanola to get that upgrading, Ms. Eveleigh said she doubted it would have ever happened. The impending closure of the Little Current upgrading program will be devastating to those who want to upgrade their employment skills.

"It would be a shame for people in my situation," she said.

The staff at the Little Current upgrading program have been particularly helpful to her, said Ms. Eveleigh.

"Lee (Baxter) is a wonderful teacher," she said. "She was patient, and took the time to get me through any part I was having difficulty with."

Ms. Eveleigh said she was confident that she would be working soon after she graduates from the chef's course, but with the upgrading program gone, the door would close on those who want to follow the same path.

"If they want to create more jobless people," she said, "closing the upgrading program is sure the right way to go about it."

Alison Aguonie, of Sheguiandah First Nation tackled a certificate in Business Administration, which she described as an excellent program.

"I really enjoyed that I didn't have to re-locate to the main campus to take the course," she said. "It was a lot easier on me, and my family."

Ms. Aguonie is currently employed as a researcher for the Michael's Bay Historical Society, a job she has found to be very rewarding.

"I have been up since 5 am this morning working on it," she laughed. "I wanted to get an early start."

Ms. Aguonie is considering taking a course in marketing to further add to her skill set, but the way things look right now, she believes she will have to travel to the main campus in order to get the required courses.

"I know tons of people who have taken upgrading, and transportation has always been difficult for them just to Little Current," she said. "If people have to travel all the way to Espanola it will be almost impossible. For many people, going all the way to the main campus will be impossible."

Melinda Peltier is currently studying at Canadore in North Bay, but in order to get into the course she needed to upgrade her education.

"I had my Ontario High School way back," she said. "I was always interested in nursing, but I was short my chemistry and Grade 12 math."

By entering the upgrading program full time, Ms. Peltier was able to pick up most of the courses she needed.

"In my last month at upgrading I acquired a job, part-time," she said. "I was still able to drive down from Wikwemikong Mondays to Thursdays to finish getting the credits I needed."

The general perception held in non-Native communities is that all First Nation community members education is paid for by the band, but that is not true. The rules are somewhat tighter than that.

"I was in college before," said Ms. Peltier. "I had taken college exploration."

But Ms. Peltier's first run at educational improvement was interrupted by the birth of her first child, and although she entered the workforce for a while as her child grew older, her options were severely limited by her level of education.

When she made the decision to return to school, her family was very supportive, but the cost was a big factor.

"If I had to travel all the way from Wikwemikong to Espanola, I don't think I could have managed it," she said.

Janet Moore is the administrative assistant at the Town of Northeastern Manitoulin and the Islands, and she too is an alumni of the upgrading program.

"I took upgrading when it was in Sucker Creek, back in 1989-1990," she said. "I upgraded to my Grade 12 then I went on to Cambrian College."

Ms. Moore took the Office Administrator program and went on to work for what was then the Town of Howland. But it was a not a straight line trip.

"I started out only able to go part-time," she said. "I was working at a seasonal job during the summer. I did that for four years and then I finished off the program full time."

She graduated from her program in the spring, and returned to a seasonal job, but by the following October a job came open in the Howland municipal office. It is a job she has held now for 14 years, first at Howland and now with the Town of Northeastern Manitoulin and the Islands.

"They made us, as adult students, feel very comfortable," said Ms. Moore. "They took us on a tour of the facility, made us feel right at home."

Mature students, noted Ms. Moore, often feel ill at ease at the thought of returning to school with a group of much younger students.

If the program leaves Manitoulin, she said, it will be very unfortunate for anyone who wanted to follow the route she took to a better job.

"I feel really bad for them," she said. "I know if I had to travel to Sudbury or even Espanola it would have been almost impossible. The distances we have to travel to do anything on Manitoulin are bad enough. Having the upgrading program close to home is very important."

Sally Assinewai, who now works as a customer service representative at TD Canada Trust, was working part-time at the hospital when her hip gave out.

"At that time, the waiting list for surgery in Sudbury was five to 10 years," she said. "I couldn't go on working with the long shifts on my feet."

Losing her job at the hospital, also meant losing her vehicle, and that would have made travelling outside of her community impossible.

"Besides," she said, "I couldn't have taken the long ride sitting down."

After upgrading, Ms. Assinewai took a series of computer courses and eventually finished a certificate program.

"If I hadn't taken the upgrading," she said. "I would never have had the confidence to apply at the bank. I had always worked in restaurants, or as a cook. I wanted to work in an office environment."

Thanks to the skills and confidence she gained through Cambrian Collge, Ms. Assinewai reached her dream.

Kim Harris, of Gore Bay, also never finished Grade 12, but she managed to go back to complete it a couple of years later.

"If I had not had access to the program in Little Current," she said. "Well, with two small kids I could not have accomplished it if I had to go off-Island."

Many of the people Ms. Harris went back to school with have gone on to undergraduate programs and professions.

"A lot of the girls I went to school with went on to become nurses," she said. "I feel really sorry for people if the upgrading program doesn't stay on the Island. Travelling from here to Little Current, it is hard enough to do now. Could you imagine trying to go from Silverwater to Espanola every day? It just isn't possible with young children."

The impact of Cambrian College programs, upgrading along with the many diploma programs tell the story of people bettering themselves, moving onward and upward from pre-Health programs in Wikwemikong, Business Administration Certificates in M'Chigeeng, Personal Support Worker in Little Current, Basic, Intermediate and Advanced Carpentry in Providence Bay, all across the Island Cambrian College programs have touched upon and improved the lives of those whom it has touched.

"I know a lot of people who have taken the upgrading program and not finished it, for whatever reasons," said Ms. Aguonie. "Usually it is transportation. It is hard for some people to understand that there is no public transportation here. You can't just walk out to the end of the street in Sheguiandah and catch a bus into town, and it is a long walk."

Ms. Aguonie said that as people get a chance to secure a steady source of transportation, they will likely go back some time.

"At least with the upgrading program here, where you can have a chance to get to it, people have a choice to make things better," she said. "If they take that away, they are taking away people's hope."

Proponents give up on biosphere initiative

by Neil Zacharjewicz

MANITOULIN -  The proponents behind the World Biosphere Reserve proposal for Manitoulin are giving up on the proposal.

"There is just no way that it is going to happen," stated Lynda MacDonald, speaking on behalf of the group. "It would not matter what we did now."

In light of the "smear and fear" campaign undertaken by the Friends of Manitoulin Past, Present and Possible (MP3 Philes), she said there is too much misinformation and too many misconceptions in the community for the proposal to proceed any further. She indicated that the proponents for the World Biosphere Reserve met last week to discuss the issue, and decided they would not carry forward with the initiative.

Ms. MacDonald said the concept of the World Biosphere Reserve program, as created by the United Nations Education, Science and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), is all about creating consensus and cooperation, not about creating conflict and manipulating people.

"It is a program to help empower people at the local level to plan for a healthy, sustainable environment for our children and grandchildren. Obviously, the people of Manitoulin Island are not ready for this kind of thing," Ms. MacDonald said. "If the people on Manitoulin are buying into the MP3's campaign of fear, then they are not ready for a program that promotes public discussion, education and research, a co-operative spirit, and a democratic process. The biosphere group is disappointed and saddened by how polarized the MP3 group has become and the negative repercussions that have occurred as a result of their smear and fear campaign."

The proponents for the initiative met and decided that the pressure and anxiety in the community created by the MP3 Philes campaign was simply too much to deal with.

"The people in our group are good people and are interested in the biosphere concern and research," she said. "They are people who want to build a better world."

Unfortunately, as a result of the World Biosphere Reserve initiative, Ms. MacDonald said some good people who had been doing some good things have received a bad rap, such as Dave Edwards and Jean Bentley. She noted the couple had little to do with the Biosphere Reserve proposal, but still they have been affected by what has been happening.

Mr. Edwards and Ms. Bentley are active in the Manitoulin Trailblazers, the group that hosted the first meeting for the World Biosphere Reserve initiative. After that, Ms. MacDonald noted, the group took a step back from the proposal because they had felt it was too time consuming. The only members of the Trailblazers actually involved in the World Biosphere Reserve proposal, Ms. MacDonald noted, was herself and Craig Maxwell.

"I hope we can rebuild some of the bad image the MP3 Philes have created for the Escarpment Biosphere Conservancy and the Manitoulin Trailblazers," she said. "We have done a lot of good things."

With the end of the biosphere initiative, Ms. MacDonald said she hoped people would take the opportunity to calm down and realize that the proponents were not out to hurt anyone or create conflict.

"We wish to thank all of the good people who volunteered their time, energy and expertise to help initiate this program and congratulate all of those forward thinking people who supported it," Ms. MacDonald said.

One person relieved to hear that the proponents of the World Biosphere Reserve initiative have decided to drop the issue is Blaine Armstrong, co-chair of the MP3 Philes.

"I think they are wise in listening to the majority of Islanders," he said. "I think it is all anybody wanted to see happen."

Cruise ship expert has nothing but praise for Little Current

by Neil Zacharjewicz

NORTHEASTERN MANITOULIN and the ISLANDS - When Stephen Burnett, the executive director of the Great Lakes Cruising Coalition, visits the annual SeaTrade convention in Florida each year, one of his favourite selling points is to use a little known fact about cruise ships on the Great Lakes.

The questions he poses, after showing people a map of the various ports cruise ships visit in the Great Lakes, is whether they can guess what the most visited port is. The popular answers, he noted, are Toronto, Chicago, and Milwaukee. He said he really enjoys seeing the looks on their face when he tells them it's Little Current.

"It is a lot of fun to be able to get in their minds," Mr. Burnett stated.

This is particularly shocking for most people, he explained, because many of the smaller ports on the Great Lakes only see two to three cruise ships per year. Little Current, on the other hand, is on the verge of experiencing a unique challenge this summer: the potential for the first cruise ship traffic jam. Mr. Burnett indicated that two ships were vying for dock space for the same time this summer, so to accommodate them both, one ship was asked to arrive an hour or two early, discharge its passengers, and then move out into the channel to drop anchor. The other ship has been asked to delay its arrival by an hour or two, in order that the community can accommodate both ships.

"You can manage that," Mr. Burnett said.

So why is it that Little Current has become such a popular destination for cruise ships? Mr. Burnett attributes the community's popularity to a variety of factors, among them the fact that Little Current is the victim of some interesting geography. Being located on the north shore of Georgian Bay, he said, the Island is along the route from Lake Erie to Lake Superior, and with only a slight detour, the cruise ships come streaming past the town's "doorstep."

"Geographically, (Little Current) is well placed," he said.

As well, the community is a good example of the variety of experiences that cruising the Great Lakes offers, a combination of the urban experience, the beautiful wildlife and scenery, and growing cultural tourism market.

"Certainly, the Great Lakes is a good bed of cultural tourism," Mr. Burnett said.

But even with a great location and a variety of experiences for visitors, all of these things would be for naught if the cruise ship industry did not know Little Current existed. Credit for getting the community front and centre to the cruise ship industry, Mr. Burnett suggested, goes to Little Current businessman Bruce O'Hare.

"We applaud the sophisticated approach he takes (to marketing Manitoulin)," Mr. Burnett stated. "I don't think he over-promises. He calls a spade, a spade. We don't get that everywhere. You are blessed with a good operator."

In addition to his hard work, Mr. Burnett said, Mr. O'Hare provides cruise ships considering Little Current as a possible destination with thought provoking and articulate presentations that illustrate why they should include Little Current on their itinerary, and noted he has spent some of his own money to attend key functions to ensure Little Current's presence on the cruise ship stage.

"We hear plenty of good things about the experiences of people participating in excursions," Mr. Burnett said. "(Little Current's) formula is good. We think it is extraordinary that (Little Current) has managed to do this (become the most visited port)."

One of the major perks about Little Current's involvement in the cruise ship industry, he indicated, is that when one ship visits the community, the company responsible for another ship begins snooping around to see what it is that drew their competition to visit it.

While there is little risk of the Great Lakes becoming over-saturated with cruise ships, as Mr. Burnett estimated it could absorb as many as 40 vessels, that risk does exist for Little Current because it has become such a popular destination.

"You folks get repeat business, and what I call competitive business," Mr. Burnett said. "The challenge of the future is nurturing it, sustaining it and growing it."

Not only is Little Current a popular port, but in some ways, it is ahead of the competition in ensuring its status as being on the cutting edge of Great Lakes cruising. For instance, on the issue of port security, Little Current is taking care of business. He commended Northeastern Manitoulin and the Islands (NEMI) Clerk-Treasurer Ned Martin for being on the ball in ensuring that the required assessment reports are filled in and submitted to Transport Canada, the authority overseeing port security in Canada.

"He was ahead of the requirements," Mr. Burnett said. "(Little Current) is far ahead of the game."

In his opinion, Mr. Burnett suggested, Little Current seems to have the security issue well in hand.

"I was impressed," he said.

Little Current can expect 21 cruise ship visits in 2004. Lelevant will visit Little Current on June 24th and 30th, September 15th, 21st and 29th, and October 5th and 13th. The Orion is scheduled to dock in town on June 30th, July 6th, 14th and 20th, and September 7th, 13th, and 21st. The Nantucket Clipper will be in port on July 7th, 14th and 20th, as well as August 17th and 19th. The MS Columbus will visit Little Current on September 18th and October 4th.