Paul Band
[2] Paul Band's Wabamun 133A and 133B lands are located along Lake Wabumun, approximately 70 km (43 mi) west of Edmonton.
The lake is a popular destination for Alberta to spend weekends and holidays, and the band operates the Ironhead Golf and Country Club to appeal to this market.
[3] The Paul Band signed a treaty in 1876 and settled on the eastern edge of Lake Wabamun.
In her thesis Ruby Bird, daughter of then Chief Bird, summarized Andersen's three possibilities[7]: 54 regarding the Paul and Alexis' Bands in pre-treaty times,[5]: 25 "There are several possible explanations as to their location and cultural position in pre-treaty the.
Andersen offers several tentative explanations: (1) The Stoney located roughly between the Athabasca and North Saskatchewan Rivers west of Edmonton may have followed a westward migration route along the forested edge of the northern Plains; (2) the area occupied by the immediate pre-1877 predecessors of the Alexis and Paul's Bands of Stoney was within mach and perhaps regularly exploited by largely pedestrian Stoney by about 1795 or even earlier; (3) they may have entered this area prior to getting horses;
(4) the Grand River Assiniboine first distinguished in 1775 may be the immediate predecessors of the modem Alexis and Paul's band.
There is Wabamun Lake Provincial Park at Moonlight Bay and a golf course managed by the Paul Band First Nation Reserve.
[9]: 9 The vast majority of the coal burning in Alberta occurs approximately 70 km west of Edmonton, in the Wabumun Lake area.
[11][12][13][14] According to CASA[15] and cited in David Schindler's 2003 report commissioned by Alberta Environment[4] the combined emissions of the coal-fired plants in the Wabumun Lake area, emitted, ...65% of airborne mercury from industrial sources in the province, as well as several other trace metals, sulfate, particulates, water vapour, nitrogen oxides and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
"Although mercury levels in fish for consumption meet guidelines for occasional use, Schindler cautioned that for the Paul Band subsistence consumers some concern remains in the consumption of large pike that exceed mercury levels in Lake Wabamun.
[5]: 2 In an interview with elder Alexie Simon,[5]: 92 published in the 1998 Bird thesis, Simon claimed that Paul Band changed dramatically for the worse after the right to have alcohol on the reserve was granted by the Government of Alberta in 1966.
"In 2011, the band faced a $3 million deficit which shut down many social services such as school buses and transportation to medical appointments.
"Budgets, set at the band level but approved in Ottawa, are formed based on prior year revenues; in years when oil and gas revenues from the band’s Buck Lake property fluctuate, that can affect the flow of funds back to the band from AANDC... Other stressors include a demand for housing and for road repairs, as well as a recent evacuation from wildfires.
