More than 115 cases of eye damage reported in Ontario after solar eclipse
More than 115 people who viewed the solar eclipse in Ontario earlier this month experienced eye damage after the event, according to eye doctors in the province.
Myron Dewey, a filmmaker and journalist who helped draw worldwide attention to the concerns of Native Americans fighting an oil pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, has died.
Dewey, a citizen of the Walker River Paiute Tribe, passed away Sunday when his car crashed in rural Nevada, the Nye County sheriff said. The 49-year-old had posted footage on Twitter a day earlier from a central Nevada military installation where he and other members of local tribes have long protested the proposed expansion of a U.S. Navy bombing range.
Dewey won acclaim for his live footage of the 2016 demonstrations over the Dakota Access Pipeline near the Standing Rock Reservation, which straddles the North Dakota-South Dakota border. His visuals of Native Americans being sprayed with water cannons in freezing weather were viewed by hundreds of thousands after appearing online and in the news.
He later co-directed the documentary "Awake: A Dream from Standing Rock," which outlined the demonstrators' motivations -- to preserve the environment and fight for clean water.
Friends and relatives said they will remember Dewey for his commitment to advocating for Native Americans, for being a devoted friend and family member and for the authenticity of his work.
"He was able to show a perspective and viewpoint that was simply being ignored because of the systemic oppression our people have encountered as long as we've been here," said Dewey's cousin Lance West. "It was his story to tell, and only someone like him could share it in a manner that really spoke to us."
Dewey was among a group of Native journalists arrested during the Dakota Access Pipeline protests when he filmed employees of the company constructing the pipeline. The Morton County sheriff accused him of stalking private security workers using a drone video recorder, but prosecutors ultimately dropped the charges.
His footage from the fight's front lines was one episode in a long career of chronicling Indigenous and environmental issues throughout North America.
Dewey founded the media production company Digital Smoke Signals, which produced work about schools on reservation land in Nevada and about tribal land management practices in the Pacific Northwest.
In recent months, he participated in demonstrations against a proposed lithium mine near the Nevada-Oregon border and the Fort McDermitt Indian Reservation. Environmentalists and local Native Americans oppose the project, saying it would desecrate land the Northern Paiute and Western Shoshone consider sacred and have adverse environmental impacts on the region's residents.
Dewey, who primarily resided in Schurz, Nevada, on the Walker River Paiute Reservation, started his career as a wildland firefighter in Nevada. He also worked as a professor, teaching courses on film at Duke University's Center for Documentary Studies and on digital media at Northwest Indian College in Washington state. He leaves behind a wife, Deborah Parker, five children and a nephew whom he considered a son.
"His every breath was a fight for his people," Parker told Indian Country Today, noting Dewey also was passionate about sharing his experiences as a Native American boarding school survivor. "He didn't want to be silent when others wanted him to be. He didn't want the atrocities to go unnoticed or unrecognized."
------
Sam Metz is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
More than 115 people who viewed the solar eclipse in Ontario earlier this month experienced eye damage after the event, according to eye doctors in the province.
A Sherwood Park family says their new house is uninhabitable. The McNaughton's say they were forced to leave the house after living there for only a week because contaminants inside made it difficult to breathe.
A man has been handed a lengthy hunting ban and fined thousands of dollars for illegally killing a grizzly bear, B.C. conservation officers say.
The B.C. NDP has asked the federal government to recriminalize public drug use, marking a major shift in the province's approach to addressing the deadly overdose crisis.
The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) says it's investigating an interaction between a uniformed officer and anti-Trudeau government protestors after a video circulated on social media.
An emergency slide fell off a Delta Air Lines jetliner shortly after takeoff Friday from New York, and pilots who felt a vibration in the plane circled back to land safely at JFK Airport.
Sophie Gregoire Trudeau says there is 'still so much love' between her and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as they navigate their post-separation relationship co-parenting their three children.
George Mallory is renowned for being one of the first British mountaineers to attempt to scale the dizzying heights of Mount Everest during the 1920s. Nearly a century later, newly digitized letters shed light on Mallory’s hopes and fears about ascending Everest.
A loud explosion was heard across Hamilton on Friday after a propane tank was accidentally destroyed and detonated at a local scrap metal yard, police say.
As if a 4-0 Edmonton Oilers lead in Game 1 of their playoff series with the Los Angeles Kings wasn't good enough, what was announced at Rogers Place during the next TV timeout nearly blew the roof off the downtown arena.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”