It’s the end of an era.
Fred Starblanket, the long-time speaker of the FSIN assembly is calling it quits.
Starblanket thanked the chiefs for their years of kindness and says he loved his job.
“I’ve tried to show respect to the chiefs and by giving that respect to the position I occupied,” he says.
Chief Wallace Fox of the Onion Lake Cree Nation says Starblanket’s guidance at the assemblies was very important.
He presented him with a Treaty 6 flag as a show of thanks at the FSIN winter assembly in Saskatoon on Thursday.
An honour song was played for Starblanket before everyone got up to shake his hand.
He cites declining health as the main reason why he’s retiring.
The FSIN Veterans Association also made a couple of announcements at the FSIN assembly.
The Chief of the organization says his group has gotten the money it needs to continue with its grave-marker program.
Ray Sanderson took time out on Thursday at the FSIN winter assembly to thank the chiefs for giving money towards the cause.
Sanderson says they have marked 10 graves so far and have another 190 to go.
“We are now out in the field, doing work, gathering information and documentation,” he says. “Looking for graves of lost veterans making sure we have the right documentation and application to have these graves properly marked.”
He says many of their costs are eaten up traveling to each location.
The FSIN Veterans Association has embarked on another ambitious project as well.
The group has started writing an account of veterans’ war histories in the province.
They are asking First Nations for accounts of their soldiers in World Wars One, Two and the Korean War.
Chief Sanderson says the accounts are intended to educate younger people about what some of the vets went through.
He adds his own grandfather made just a dollar a day fighting in World War One and says he got ten cents extra for each day he saw combat.