Lisa Charleyboy is a very talented twenty something First Nations girl of the Tsilhqot’in (Dene) Raven Clan. Born and raised in the mountain wilderness of Williams Lake British Columbia, Lisa now lives in Toronto Ontario where she’s working hard to complete her Bachelor of Honours Degree in Professional Writing at York University.
Urban Native Girl Stuff echoes the culture shock of her paradox. Slightly more polished than an online diary, Lisa’s personal blog details her existence in downtown Toronto. She writes about clothes, new beauty products, and native cultural events like the Toronto Pow Wows.
Lisa writes about issues and topics that might appeal to girls of any race, but especially Canadian aboriginal teenagers and young adults. Urban Native Girl Stuff is a pastiche of the usual ‘single female topics’ including fashion, beauty, and nightclubs, but this urban girl is different because of her unique origins. Her best posts explore relationship dynamics and dating; here’s where we most often glimpse the girl from Williams Lake BC.
Clever readers might deduce that Lisa Charleyboy attended Ryerson University in Toronto for Fashion Communication, as well as John Casablancas Institute of Applied Arts in Vancouver for Fashion Arts. She reports her new career strategy is to work as a journalist documenting Native Canadian fashion, arts and entertainment, while sculpting her gifts as an actress in film and television. It’s a good plan. She’s a great writer and will certainly be recognized as such in time, and her beauty and ’stage presence’ suggest we’ll be seeing more of her on TV in the future.
As a professional writer, Lisa Charleyboy is off to a great start. Before school she was a contributing fashion & beauty columnist at Williams Lake Tribune (she pitched the editor and was paid). In her first year at York University she was the Contributing Arts Editor at Spirit Magazine and has subsequently written & sold articles to Inside Stunts Magazine, Spirit Magazine, and Redskins Magazine. In second year she was the Fashion & Lifestyle Editor at Excalibur Newspaper. During her first and second years she assisted with creating IndigeNEWS Newsletter for the Aboriginal Services Office at York University.
As an actress Lisa Charleyboy co-starred in the short film ‘Rezolution’ in the 2008 ImagineNATIVE Film Festival. She also has a role in the soon to be released ‘You Are Here’, and she tells readers that she’s excited about filming an new indie feature ‘The Rainbow Farm’ in Toronto this winter.
Now here’s where this Canada Blog Friends profile gets really interesting. I wrote to Lisa and asked her which of her posts that she thinks is her best. This was her reply,
Decade Dating has probably been the post that has been discussed the most to date. It is a reflection on May-December relationships, of which I had recently just ended one such relationship. I think the topic is fairly controversial and also very interesting and intriguing to people as to why girls in their 20s enter these types of relationships. I even walked into a local eatery where the owner, an acquaintance of mine, was involved in a May-December relationship and said that his young wife had read this post. It was a little awkward, since my stance at the end of the blog was that these types of relationships are beneficial to only one party.
My favorite is Red Cred: Joseph (Dega) Lazare . Red Cred is a series of profiles that I will be doing to showcase Native artists. I want to highlight modern, talented, progressive Native/Indigenous artists who are paving the way to be role models for youth and who are otherwise just cool peeps that deserve a little spotlight on them. I really want the non-Native community to see other Native people who are successful, educated and superbly gifted in order to challenge stereotypes that still haunt Native people. I also want other Native people who are not necessarily tapped into the Native arts community to realize the significant contributions we’re making all across Canada and the U.S.
Well done Lisa, that’s the perfect synopsis. Welcome to Canada Blog Friends.
On many levels, Lisa Charleyboy is a beacon of hope and a great role model for indigenous women that too often must sacrifice something for education and personal empowerment. Canada Blog Friends has no doubt that Urban Native Girl Stuff will someday help unite the entire Native community all across North America. Everyone can share in her blog’s journey as she continues the Native storytelling tradition learned on the distant shores of Williams Lake, British Columbia.
Packwood writes, “Blogging allows me to express my opinions more constructively than by throwing things at the television. Occasionally, blogging also allows me to feel as though my opinion is being considered in the wider conversations of the day. [It] also reassures me every day that I am not alone in my questions and concerns; there is an enormous comfort and support knowing I am not the only person whose television has been saved by this new medium.”
Over the past eight years, Raymi has become a Canadian web celebrity. Thousands of readers have watched her grow up on the internet and most have followed her work from the moment they discovered her domain. Here archives are indeed expansive. She would need 
Like every artist’s first work, Raymi’s early material seems unrefined by comparison. Backin 2000 she often experimented by altering text sizes and fonts to deliberately defy standard formats. Personally I’m thrilled she outgrew the baby talk slang, and a particularly annoying habit of spelling ‘with’ as ‘wif’. Her evolution is still in progress and now an even more prolific pen has turned to writing novels. Raymi has inventory for sale on her website, and memories enough to fill storage units full to the brim with laughter. Here’s a link to buy 
Not seeking self annihilation, she spends her days making art and taking beautiful photos to add to the twenty thousand images already stored in her 
Sadly, by the time Kristen finally got up to speed and truly personalized her domain, and before she ever made a dime, the initial job offer fell through, and the company that seduced her into the blogosphere was no longer in business. Other companies and media buyers contacted her but unfortunately they wanted to compromise truth, and censor her language. Since her readership had begun to grow, Kristen declined. “There was no way that I was going to endorse products I’d never used, or tone down the sarcasm. I didn’t want my personal blog to sound like anyone else.” She relates. Yet in many ways, Shambled Ramblings has a lot to do with Kristen searching for, and finding different identities.
Kristen is a cool chick that likes to party on occasion. It’s a fact she knows the lyrics to hundreds of obscure early 1980’s heavy metal songs. She likes live music, and plays a mean game of pool. Her posts are personal and range from 
Samantha is a 27 year old married mother-of-two that works in the construction industry. During the day she (sometimes) wears a hard hat, coveralls and steel toed boots on downtown Toronto construction sites. But at home, in the evenings, she gently constructs beautiful social nets – she blogs and builds pretty web buttons that bind together a potent roster of rookie moms.
Sam is ahead of the curve in social networking, and her techniques are worth studying - her Tempting Mama Twitter account now has 380 followers, due in part to the brilliant avatar. One thing I noticed right away is how her blog incorporates lots of popular social networking buttons. Her Stumble Page is focused on motherhood, but assembled from lots of diverse source material.
Okay now the real reason why I love Samantha – she puts it on the line. She is genuine and open and writes from the heart. I remember reading the post she wrote back in January under her blog’s Marriage tag where she opened up about her own marital problems. I marveled at the honesty and the bravery of her self documentation – she had the courage to step out from behind the façade and face reality in confessional writing that becomes the ultimate public self exploration. The next day she started dismantling the facade and her readership helped.
Michael Cayley is a web entrepreneur that studies culture and communication and prognosticates on the future of social networks. Those of us who read the scraps of wisdom he leaves lying around in his posts hope to profit by actualizing his ideas.
Michael Cayley met Rob Campbell (that’s me) on Sept 4th 2008 at Timothys coffee shop in the Carrot Common on Danforth Avenue in Toronto. We spoke for two hours. After the meeting I walked away with a profound new understanding of social media, and a bold new vision of the charitable future of Canada Blog Friends.
Michael announced the publication of his SCVA work in a quirky piece of writing entitled 
Ted understands that he’s playing a role as 
Here it is, a 1950 AEC Regent III double-decker bus in a 1999 photograph. Complete with London Transport fleet names and lots of other cool authenticities, the vehicle looks to be in reasonable condition - only the radiator and most of the engine cooling system is missing. The story goes that this vehicle was imported into the United States from England and came to be owned by two women from Oregon. It was sold in Santa Rosa California when it broke down on the highway and was deemed too expensive to repair. Now if it could be properly fixed and completely refurbished, it would certainly be a novelty on the streets of Toronto. Mathew was consumed checking 
In keeping with the same spiritual idea of raising the dead, this blogger is also active in the 
In Cambridge Ontario, an hour west of Toronto along hwy 401, there lives a modern superstar, a skilled web designer in his early twenties, a music enthusiast and a gadget geek with a good sense of humour named jamEs. This guy is a great writer with a special gift; he has the ability to make something from nothing. 
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