The federal minister of Indigenous Services says even though the number of COVID-19 cases on reserves remains low, no one should be complacent. Marc Miller told reporters during a news conference on Friday that borders and checkpoints are good for identifying people with COVID-19 entering a community, as well as making people aware of the disease,…

Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction — but Waubgeshig Rice was not prepared for a fictitious storyline he wrote to become reality. When news broke that a Quebec couple travelled thousands of kilometres west to the fly-in community of Old Crow, Yukon, in an apparent attempt to avoid COVID-19, many people on Twitter linked it…

Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Canada’s Inuit were already grappling with a much deadlier respiratory disease: tuberculosis.  The TB rate of infection for Inuit is roughly 300 times higher than for non-Indigenous people in Canada. That figure has barely changed, despite a pledge the federal government made two years ago to eliminate TB in Inuit Nunangat —…

A Manitoba researcher is using part of his $500,000 federal grant to not only study how COVID-19 is affecting Indigenous communities but also to help them survive it. One of the first projects Steph McLachlan commissioned is a public health video delivered in Cree by a raven puppet. “We’ve kind of hit a sweet spot, which…

A group of Métis jiggers from Manitoba are keeping connected by putting their own spin on a new social media trend. The trend, which is often found in videos on the app TikTok, involves users covering their phone camera with a makeup brush and then pulling it away, revealing their new outfit, makeup styles or in some cases…

The Aamjiwnaang Band Council has taken steps to ensure community safety during the COVID-19 pandemic.  The council has decided to slow the flow of traffic to Aamjiwnaang First Nation, ordering the closure of St. Clair Parkway with the exception of local residents and emergency services only until further notice. The road will be closed from Marlborough Avenue to…