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The Kateri Memorial Hospital Centre (KMHC) has completely closed Inpatient Care Services (ICS) to visitors for the second time in 10 days. The new closure went into effect yesterday (Thursday) for the first and second floors. In a news release the KMHC stated: “This sudden closure to visitors comes secondary to the COVID-19 outbreak reported earlier.”

There are five active cases of COVID-19 in Kahnawake as of Friday morning according to the public health team.

One of those who is afflicted is Lynn Beauvais. She has been battling COVID-19 for the last week. She is double-vaccinated.

“I knew there was a chance,” Beauvais said. “I was surprised, not that I caught it, I’m surprised that it’s, I can’t say that it’s bad, but that the symptoms are difficult.”

She says her breathing is difficult at times. At 66 years old Beauvais is concerned because she lives with heart disease, an underlying health issue that makes her more vulnerable. She says she’s just glad that she is vaccinated.

“I hate to say I would have been hospitalized at least, and I would have been on a ventilator, I know. I don’t even want to say what else. But I would have had a hard time. Thank God I did it (Get vaccinated),” she said.

Beauvais says she is most comfortable sleeping mostly upright in a chair, which helps keep her lungs clear. She also has been doing specific breathing exercises that she found on the John’s Hopkins medical site on-line.

“People, take care of yourselves because the double-vaxxed doesn’t stop you from getting it, it stops you from being hospitalized. So I could just imagine what would have happened.”

Yesterday afternoon at approximately 2pm, The Kahnawà:ke Peacekeepers received a call concerning a suspicious person that had entered the grounds of the Kahnawà:ke Survival School. The call that came in identified that a non-local male had approached students asking them some questions then leaving the school grounds, proceeding to a store across the street. The caller reporting the incident to the Peacekeepers 30 minutes after it occurred. Upon speaking to a student and worker, The Peacekeepers were able to provide a description of the individual and the vehicle. The suspect did not make a purchase at the store and simply left.

The suspect is 6ft tall with a slender build, White, English-speaking male, approximately 60 years of age, with grey hair and he wore glasses. The man was sporting a Native pride ball cap, a face mask with Warrior symbol and a beige jacket with tassels. The individual was driving a gold/beige coloured 2000 Nissan Ultima 4 door car.

If you have any information on the vehicle or individual, you are asked to immediately contact the Peacekeepers at: 450-632-6505.

The Awards are piling up for a Kahnawà:ke filmmaker. Courtney Montour is the writer and director of Mary Two-Axe Early: I Am Indian Again. It’s a documentary on the work of the Kahnawa’kehró:non to eliminate sex based discrimination in the Indian Act in the 1970’s and 80’s.

The doc won the Best Documentary Short award from the American Indian Film Institute festival in San Francisco last weekend. A week after capturing the documentary short award at Imaginative in Toronto:

“It’s really incredible, it’s, you know for me, this movie: Mary Two-Axe Early: I Am Indian Again, was made for First Nation’s audiences, for Indigenous People to know this part of our history. So, to see it being recognized in this way from my peers and from Indigenous festivals, it’s just I think, the most incredible honouring of her legacy.”

Montour says she is quite honoured that her film has touched a nerve:

“It’s been very emotional for a lot of people, I’ve had the chance to attend a few festivals in Edmonton and Vancouver. People have talked to me afterwards to share their personal experiences of being impacted by sex-discrimination in the Indian Act and then being able to regain their status through the work from Mary and other women. I think there’s a lot of personal stories that are coming out, even on social media and yeah, this makes me realize how much this is an on-going issue and people are living this today.”

In-person community screenings are scheduled to begin next month, including in Kahnawà:ke.

Approximately 40-50 community members turned out last night at the Moose Lodge to speak with elected members of the Mohawk Council of Kahnàwake on the Father Lajoie issue. Tonya Perron was one of the elected officials taking part. She says there was a variety of opinions and thoughts expressed during the dialogue with the council. There is a survey to fill out on the premises which takes approximately 5 minutes to fill out. It will be made available on-line.  Perron says it will be at a month before any decision is made:

“It’s a very sensitive issue, so it’s not something that can be rushed. I know that maybe some people prefer that the decision be made right here right now or even months before, but as a Council Table we feel that it is important to enter into that dialogue, engagement with the community and have some feedback in order to guide us.”

A second session will be held this coming Saturday between the hours of 11am and 2pm at the Moose Lodge.

An historic meeting held at Rideau Hall in Ottawa yesterday as four Onkwehon:we women leaders gathered at the Governor General’s residence. Governor General Mary Simon welcomed, Mandy Gull Masty, the Grand Chief of the Grand Council of the Crees, Roseanne Archibald, the Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, and Kahsennenhawe Sky-Deer, the Grand Chief of the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake. Sky-Deer first proposed the meeting after all four attained their posts in July.

“Elated for sure and inspiring and motivational,” is how Sky-Deer described the meeting. “Of course it was just an introductory meeting but in the time that she allotted us, I believe that we were there for an hour and 15 minutes, it was at her home in Rideau Hall. A number of topics came up, obviously reconciliation, healing, identity, language, culture and relationships.”

Sky-Deer told K1037 News that she presented Simon with a Two Row Wampum in order to make her feel more at home at Rideau Hall.

“For the Governor General to be involved in this and kind of leading the charge and being that inspiration and beacon of light for other Indigenous women about the potential and the possibilities, being at the post that she’s in, so when we left there feeling motivated and inspired.”

Sky-Deer says she and AFN National Chief Archibald went for lunch afterwards and continued the dialogue.

An update to the COVID-19 Outbreak in Inpatient Care Services has been released by The Kateri Memorial Hospital Centre (KMHC) where, as of Monday, November 8^th, the IPC Unit 2 (second floor) has reopened to visitors. There had been an outbreak at the In-patient Care (IPC) Services department, and even with the visitors returning to the 2^nd floor, the IPC Unit 1 (first floor) will remain under isolation until November 15^th, as planned, providing there are no new cases.

The current outbreak situation has been deemed under control.

The Kahnawà:ke Economic Summit that was held last week virtually, has been deemed a big success by organizers at Tewa. Kimberly Cross-Zacharie is the event coordinator:

“The summit was fantastic, the results that came out of it were beyond what was expected, I think what everybody expected, we had so much feedback from businesses. We had so many business people who came out to attend, which was virtual, which was fantastic.”

73 businesspeople participated in the event that was presented last Friday, with a major portion being dedicated to economic recovery. AFNQL Regional Chief Ghislain Picard was in attendance and he invited the business-people to the Grand Economic Circle set for the end of the month.

A vandal struck overnight on the grounds of Karonhianonhnha School in Kahnawà:ke. Iakoiahwahnehhass Fallen Jacobs is the school’s interim Principal:

“Overnight, there was some damage done to our property. We found ATV tracks in our grass and in our nursery/kindergarten playground area as well as we had some vandalism done to our gazebo, our screened-in gazebo was ripped.”

Jacobs says it’s disheartening to show up in the morning to discover the damage:

“Very sad to come to work and discover something like this, these areas, the gazebo and our backyard are used daily by our children, even some of the students were disappointed to see that their yard, that they/we work so hard to take care of and that we encourage our students to respect and take care of, was unfortunately damaged.”

The Mayor elect of Chateauguay says that he’s looking forward to building on an improving relationship between his community and Kahnawake. Eric Allard won Sunday’s Mayoralty and will be sworn into office this Sunday, November 14th.

“It’s extremely important that we keep a good relationship with our neighbours, all our neighbours actually. We started to reconnect with Kahnawake and I have the strong intention to continue in that direction.”

Allard, who works as an IT specialist, served the most recent term as a municipal councilor before deciding to run for and ultimately win the Mayor’s job.

Allard says he’s open to any discussion at any time with Kahnawake. He says he sent a note of congratulations to Grand Chief Kahsennenhawe Sky-Deer after she was elected in Kahnawake this past summer.

The United States land border from Canada reopened at midnight this morning (Monday) and already the delays are incredibly long. As of 9 am the wait to cross into New York state via the Lacolle – Champlain, NY crossing to Highway 87 is three hours long.

Zander McComber of Kahnawake is an Ironworker with Local 40. He and two others were booming out at midnight for their week of work in NY City.

“I picked up two of my friends on our way to work,” McComber said. “We leave at midnight every week for work. As I got closer to the border I noticed the red lights from the back of cars and as I got closer I thought, this is not traffic is it? This was just before the overpass where the traffic started. If you’ve ever been to the border before that’s like another half a mile. So we decided check the smaller borders at Hemingford and the other one and they were both closed. We didn’t want to wait in that traffic so we came back home.”

He says they plan on trying again at around noon today. While being fully vaccinated to enter the United States is a must, a negative COVID test to go along with it, is not. However, Canadian travelers are wary due to the high cost of returning home. A Negative PCR test, that costs at least $200,  is still a requirement to cross into Canada either by air, sea or land.