About Turtle Island News

Turtle Island News

Turtle Island News is a weekly Indigenous newspaper published in Ohsweken, Ontario, on the Grand River Territory of the Six Nations — Canada's only national Native weekly newspaper, in its own description: a politically independent paper, wholly owned and operated by Indigenous people, founded in 1994 by publisher Lynda Powless. Published every Wednesday from Turtle Island News Plaza at 2208 Chiefswood Road, it covers the Six Nations community and First Nations and Aboriginal issues across North America, alongside a publishing program that includes an Aboriginal business magazine, an Indigenous golf magazine, and one of Ontario's notable Earth Day festivals.

Overview

Turtle Island News is a weekly community newspaper headquartered at 2208 Chiefswood Road, Ohsweken, Ontario (mailing address PO Box 329, Ohsweken, ON N0A 1M0), on the Six Nations of the Grand River — the most populated First Nation community in Canada. The paper was founded in 1994 by Lynda Powless, who remains its publisher. Its name is a reference to Turtle Island, the Indigenous name for the continent of North America.

The paper describes itself as Canada's only national Native weekly newspaper: published every week at the Grand River Territory of the Six Nations in southern Ontario, politically independent, and wholly owned and operated by Aboriginal people. While rooted in the Six Nations community, its editorial scope extends to First Nations and Aboriginal issues across North America — a national Indigenous paper published from a reserve community.

The paper publishes in English, with some Mohawk-language content, and serves Brant County, Brantford, Haldimand County, the Mississaugas of the Credit (New Credit), Norfolk County, and the Six Nations of the Grand River. Its website is theturtleislandnews.com.

History

Turtle Island News was founded in 1994 by Lynda Powless, a Six Nations journalist and publisher who built the paper into a national Indigenous voice from its Ohsweken base. The founding reflected a gap in Canadian media: while mainstream outlets covered Indigenous issues sporadically and often from outside, there were few Indigenous-owned papers with national scope. Powless's paper set out to be politically independent — not an organ of any band council, tribal organization, or government — and owned and operated by Indigenous people.

The paper grew from its Six Nations roots into a publishing enterprise. Alongside the weekly newspaper, Powless's operation publishes the Aboriginal Business Magazine (at indigenousbusinessmagazine.com), covering daily Indigenous news, press releases, and notices for the business community; Aboriginal Tourism, published in spring and summer; and Fore, described as the only Indigenous golf magazine in Canada, published each spring and distributed throughout Ontario. The company also holds an Earth Day Festival every Earth Day at its Chiefswood Road plaza, providing free booth space to businesses and organizations promoting green energy and green living — an event that has become a fixture of the regional calendar.

Through three decades, Turtle Island News has maintained its Wednesday publication and its independence, covering the Six Nations community through periods of intense national attention — including the land-rights disputes and the broader reckoning with residential schools and reconciliation — as well as the everyday governance, culture, and community life of the Grand River Territory.

Content and Coverage

Turtle Island News covers the Six Nations of the Grand River community — the elected council and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy Council, community services, education, health, economic development, sports (notably lacrosse, the Creator's game, in which Six Nations teams compete at the highest levels), and cultural events — alongside First Nations and Aboriginal issues across North America: treaty rights, land claims, resource development, missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, language revitalization, and the national politics of reconciliation.

The paper's national scope distinguishes it from community papers that cover a single reserve or region. Its reporting on Aboriginal issues across the continent — drawing on wire, correspondence, and its own journalism — makes it a paper that Indigenous readers far from Six Nations consult for a Native perspective on national news.

The Six Nations of the Grand River, the paper's home community, is itself a story the paper has covered from the inside for three decades. The most populated First Nation in Canada, the territory is home to the elected Six Nations of the Grand River Elected Council and to the Haudenosaunee Confederacy Chiefs Council — the traditional government — whose coexistence and occasional contention shape the community's politics. The territory has been at the centre of some of the country's most closely watched Indigenous land disputes, and Turtle Island News has reported them as the community's paper: with the relationships, the history, and the accountability that come from living where the news happens. The paper's competitors in its home market have included the Tekawennake — the discontinued Six Nations paper — and the Two Row Times, the Ohsweken weekly publishing in English, Mohawk, Cayuga, and Onondaga; Turtle Island News has outlasted and outsized them as the territory's national voice. The name itself — Turtle Island, the Indigenous name for North America — declares the paper's ambition: not a reserve newsletter but a Native newspaper for the continent.

The publishing program extends the paper's reach into specialized audiences. The Aboriginal Business Magazine covers Indigenous economic development, procurement, and business news. Fore serves the Indigenous golf community — a distinctive niche publication. The Earth Day Festival brings the paper's green-living coverage to life as a public event, with free booth space for exhibitors promoting environmental causes.

Coverage and Audience

Turtle Island News serves the Six Nations of the Grand River — Canada's most populated First Nation — and the surrounding counties of Brant, Haldimand, and Norfolk, plus the Mississaugas of the Credit. Its national distribution as "Canada's only national Native weekly" extends its audience to Indigenous readers, band offices, friendship centres, schools, and organizations across the country.

The paper's readers are Indigenous people seeking news reported from an Indigenous perspective — coverage that treats First Nations as political actors and communities rather than as subjects of outside reporting. For non-Indigenous readers in the surrounding counties, the paper offers a window into the Six Nations community and its issues.

The paper's political independence is central to its relationship with its audience: as a paper owned and operated by Indigenous people but independent of any government or council, it can report critically on the institutions — Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike — that shape its readers' lives.

Ownership

Turtle Island News is owned and operated by Indigenous people, founded and published by Lynda Powless. The paper's independence — political and corporate — is its defining institutional characteristic: it is not owned by a band council, tribal council, or government agency, and it describes itself as politically independent.

The publishing operation, based at Turtle Island News Plaza on Chiefswood Road in Ohsweken, encompasses the weekly newspaper, the Aboriginal Business Magazine, Aboriginal Tourism, and Fore magazine, along with the annual Earth Day Festival — a diversified Indigenous media business built around the weekly paper.

Digital Presence

Turtle Island News publishes online at theturtleislandnews.com, where the weekly print edition is extended with digital news and archives. The website serves the paper's national Indigenous readership — readers across North America who follow Six Nations and Aboriginal news online — and carries the advertising and notices that support the print edition.

The Aboriginal Business Magazine maintains its own digital presence at indigenousbusinessmagazine.com, covering daily Indigenous business news, press releases, and notices. Together, the paper's digital properties extend an Ohsweken-published weekly into a national Indigenous media voice — the realization, in the digital age, of the founding ambition: a Native newspaper, owned by Native people, speaking to Turtle Island.