Turning Point was founded by Al Hunter, Barbara Date, Cuyler Cotton, Brian Rice, Dorothy Christian, Ann Pohl, Mary Alice Smith, Brian Beaton, Jesse Fiddler, and Victoria Freeman. We were Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal activists, artists, facilitators, academics and others who had forged working relationships among ourselves and had personal experience that constructive collaboration was possible. The web site was launched in May 2001.
Turning Point is run by volunteers. Your current hosts are:
Mary Alice Smith, Metis, is justice coordinator for the Grand Council of Treaty Three First Nations and a facilitator for community development and conflict resolution in the Kenora area.
Victoria Freeman, a Canadian of English, Irish and Scottish heritage, had the initial idea for Turning Point and ended up with a responsibility (and education) she hadn’t anticipated. The author of Distant Relations: How My Ancestors Colonized North America (2000), she is currently researching the historical memory of Toronto’s Indigenous and colonial past for a PhD in history at the University of Toronto.
Dorothy Christian, Okanagan-Secwepemc, is an independent video artist and video instructor and is now doing a master’s degree in communications at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, B.C.
Jesse Fiddler, Sandy Lake First Nation, is our webmaster and site designer and we could not do this without him. He enjoys walks on the beach and sunsets. jk.
Derek Kenny is co-webmaster of Turning Point.
Ann Pohl, a Canadian of Russian-Jewish heritage, is a long-standing indigenous rights activist, was a founding member of the Coalition for an Inquiry in the Death of Dudley George and is now working with Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal youth at the Breaking Barriers Resource Centre in Bass River, New Brunswick.
Brian Beaton, is the director of K-Net Services, Keewaytinook Okimakanak, our service provider, and lives in Thunder Bay.
Steve Lawson, (Ojibwa), member of the White Pelican Clan, and Susanne Hare, are long-time environmental activists who were co-founders of Friends of Clayoquot Sound, served on the Steering Committee of the Canadian Environmental Network for three years until 2002, and have been coordinators of the First Nations Environmental Network for several years.
Brian Rice, Mohawk, is a professor of religious studies at the University of Manitoba
Cuyler Cotton’s roots extend from the red earth of PEI to the white clays of Cornwall. They are deeply fed by the waters of Lake Superior and Gaa-ministigwayaa. He moved to Treaty#3 territory in the ’70s, intending to change the world. Now he’s called ‘local amateur historian’ and speaks at Rotary. He currently hopes he can change himself. ,