Concerns about the coronavirus cancelled traditional competitions, but that isn’t going to stop dancers from sharing their culture.  Online jigging competitions have started on Facebook in multiple Saskatchewan communities.  “It’s amazing. It just lifts up the spirit,” Elizabeth Michel said. “We needed positivity because we all missed out on our winter festival activities.” Michel is…

The provincial government wants people to know that there are places to go and people to call in case they are having anxiety or need mental health assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Here is a list of the places you can call:  “Living through this uncertain and distressing time has caused some level of worry for…

Be safe. Stay strong. Be happy. These are some of the messages 11-year-old Eli MacInnis Polson is spreading across Winneway, Que., an Algonquin community in western Quebec where the majority of members of Long Point First Nation live. Since Tuesday, he’s been painting rocks with positive messages and images and leaving them across Winneway on his…

Calgary police say they have charged a man over a social media post threatening to deliberately spread COVID-19 among Indigenous communities. The charge centres around a message posted to an “Indigenous social media group threatening to try to intentionally spread COVID-19 to Indigenous people,” police said in a release. The post was reported to Calgary police…

A drumming group in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, has found a new way to host its weekly drum dance, which has been going on for more than a decade. The group is called Huqqullaaqatigiit, which means people who sing and dance together — and they aren’t letting physical distancing get in the way of them doing…

As the number of cases of COVID-19 increases in New Brunswick, concern within the Indigenous communities across the province grows too. With overcrowding caused by housing shortages, and a population with more medical vulnerabilities, the prospect of a coronavirus outbreak in First Nations communities worries leaders. “It can take a great strain on us here…