Day: October 8, 2008

Website: http://www.kitsumkalum.bc.ca/index.html

This is a very impressive website about the Kitsumkalum Tribe, a member of the Tsimshian Nation in British Columbia.

The site contains information about the history of the tribe, a timeline of their history, information about the Tsimshian language, the Kitsumkalum Treaty and the Band Council.

The site offers useful links to members of their community as well as news, a calendar and a link to the tribes “Facebook” group.

This is an example (I believe) of a community using the internet to keep community members in contact and to give some information to curious outsiders. It is a very well done and informative site.

Website: http://www.johnco.com/nativel/

This website offers links to sites about British Columbia First Nations Communities, as well as links to pages concerning First Nations Organizations, Government, Treaties, Law and Land Claims, Royal Commissions on Aboriginal Peoples, Education and Culture, Training, Health and Healing, Publications, Economic Development and Tourism, Adult Education Resources, etc.

There is an immense amount of information accessible via this website, all on Canadian content.

This is a great page to bookmark as an information source for research on Canadian First Nations communities.

Website: http://www.u.arizona.edu/~ecubbins/webcrit.html

This site is a list of questions that one should consider when confronted with a website of aboriginal content. The questions are designed to help you determine not only whether the site is written from a Native point of view, but also whether the information is trustworthy and if any stereotypes are being propagated.

The site was last updated July 25, 2000 by it’s creator, Elaine M.Cubbins. It may be slightly out of date, however the questions it addresses are very relevant and useful today, and this is an important site to visit before embarking on any research on the internet, and particularly if your content includes aboriginal culture.

Website: http://www.nativeculturelinks.com/nations.html

This website has been compiled by Lisa Mitten, a “mixed-blood Mohawk urban Indian” who worked for a number of years as a librarian. The site contains links to websites on numerous Native Nations, all arranged alphabetically by tribal name. The links contain brief descriptions of the sites, as well as information debunking common misconceptions such as the fact that Algonquian is a type of language while Algonquin is a Native tribe.

Not all of the links are for sites created by Native American authors, but those that are have been indicated by a drum icon.

A second author, Dick Shovel, has links on this page to a compilation of general histories and cultural overviews of a number of tribes.

This site is a great starting point for research on particular tribes, and will save you some time in determining which sites are written from a Native American viewpoint and which are written about Native Americans.

Website: http://www.hanksville.org/sand/

This is a website cooperatively created by 5 active members in the online world of Native American culture. It was created in response to an attempt by a wealthy corporation to use their work to create a CDrom project about Native American culture, without compensating them for their work. The website includes links to information about sovereignty issues, cultural property, legal issues, stereotypes (and reading lists to help de-bunk them), responses from Native Peoples on a plethora of subjects, and contact information for people wishing to use Native American materials from any websites.

The site includes an immense amount of useful information and is a great resource when traversing the slippery slope on copyright issues in cyberspace.