Waneek Horn-Miller, whose picture was seen on newspaper front pages during the 1990 Oka standoff, is now one of the top water polo players in the world.

WINNIPEG - The first image Canadians had of Waneek Horn-Miller was a haunting picture splashed across newspaper front pages in 1990: Wounded in a scuffle with a Canadian Forces soldier at Oka, Que., the 14-year-old had fallen to the ground clutching a child to her chest.

That photograph was a symbol of the summer-long standoff at the Kanesatake reserve in Oka, west of Montreal, between Mohawks and Canadian authorities over a proposed golf course expansion on land the Mohawks claimed as their own.

Nearly a decade later, Horn-Miller, 23, is in the public eye again, this time as one of the world's best women's water polo players and a plucky leader on a Canadian team that has designs on a gold medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

The two images of Horn-Miller are in stark contrast but one thing remains the same - her immense pride in her identity as a Mohawk.

"I want to be one of the ones who succeeds," Horn-Miller said after the Canadian women's team humbled Cuba 11-2 yesterday to up their record to 5-0 at the Pan Am Games. "I want to show young native athletes that it's possible, especially native female athletes, that they can achieve. That's what drives me a lot."

Horn-Miller's courage and resilience were forged in places like Kanesatake, where her famous mother brought her during the heated confrontation.

Kahn-Tineta Horn, a model and prominent native activist since the '60s, was one of 52 Mohawks charged with participating in a riot and obstructing the Canadian army and the Quebec provincial police at Oka.

The then-14-year-old Waneek was part of the struggle, too. She remembers being struck in the chest with a bayonet during a scuffle with a soldier while holding her 4-year-old sister, Kanieti:io.

During an interview in the media tent here yesterday, Horn-Miller pulled the top of her bathing suit down to reveal the thick scar just above her heart. A millimetre either way, she fears, and she could have died.

What didn't kill her has made her stronger.

"It's a reminder to me of how precious life is, how really precious it is," Horn-Miller said. "I really value my life and the people around me. I was never raised to be a racist child or a racist person. I was raised to be open-minded by my mother.

"After Oka, I went back to being that way, except with a little bit more fine-tuning as a native person. I took that as pride in seeing my people proud, strong warriors really standing up for themselves. I'll always remember and I'll have that with me."

Horn-Miller did not become embittered by her experience at Oka. While it has been suggested to her that there's a contradiction in her proudly representing Canada as a member of the Pan Am Games, considering what happened at Oka and the country's legacy of poor treatment of native people, she doesn't see it that way.

"I look at being on the national team as being one of the best in my sport in the country," she said. "For me, that's a great honour to be recognized. People take that and make it a political issue, but there's nothing political about it."

"I think after that whole experience (at Oka), I started to see my life as something that I have to use in a positive way. People can go either way. I think my mom raised me to be a strong person and never go backwards."

In the pool, Horn-Miller can be a bruising player, a physical force who also has a deft touch around the net and, as a team co-captain, is a vocal leader compared to captain Cora Campbell's quieter leadership.

Away from the water, she is an impressive young woman as well - articulate, bright and striking looking.

Horn-Miller, however, is at her most captivating when talking about how much her Mohawk heritage means to her and the "personal power" she draws from it.

"The native concept of power is how much you can empower people around you," Horn-Miller said. "You bring them up to your level, you make them feel good, you make them feel strong, you make them feel confident, whereas the non-native concept of power is how many people you can control.

"My finding strength being a Mohawk, finding strength through my culture and my tradition and my past - we have a legacy of being great warriors and great leaders and great politicians and orators - I get that from my mother. I saw it all the time I was growing up."

Kahn-Tineta Horn was a flamboyant and controversial figure in the 1960s. The Star's Judy Steed described her in a feature article in November, 1990 as "the famous, outrageous Mohawk princess. In fringed buckskin, false eyelashes and back-combed hair, with lots of makeup on her gorgeous face, she travelled the continent selling aboriginal assertiveness - and Mary Kay cosmetics on the side."

Kahn-Tineta is working as a blackjack dealer at the Akwesasne Reserve to raise money to go to the Sydney Olympics to watch her daughter compete.

She travels often to watch her daughter play in tournaments, though she didn't make the trip here. She's a familiar figure to all the players, who have noted a distinct resemblance between mother and daughter.

"She's very proud and very outspoken and she doesn't take any crap from anybody," Campbell said of Horn-Miller.

"Waneek and her mom are very much the same, very outspoken."

Horn-Miller sees her mother as having paved the way for her as a strong native woman.

"She rubbed people in different ways because at that time (the '60s) they couldn't handle seeing a beautiful woman having something intelligent to say,'' Horn-Miller said. ``She did a lot for native people. She did a lot for me."

Horn-Miller's older sisters are also very accomplished. Ojistoh, 28, is an epidemiologist trying to get into medical school. Kahente, 27, is doing her masters in anthropology.

Kanieti:io, now 14, is a high-school student who looks up to her athletic sister.

"That's been a great thing for me," said Horn-Miller, who doesn't drink or smoke. "It helps me keep myself in perspective. Knowing that she's watching me kind of checks the things that I do."

Horn-Miller said the life of a native athlete can be lonely at times. She brings with her some little reminders of home, including a stuffed moose given to her by her boyfriend, Victor Linklater, a Cree from Moose Factory. Linklater, 34, is a TV producer, carpenter and English teacher.

"He's been my best friend, my biggest support," she said.

"He's a non-drinker and a non-smoker. He never, ever did in his life. In that sense, we get along really well, too. He's from a small community. He gets how I feel about things and he knows what to say. He makes me feel not so alone because sometimes as a native athlete you do feel alone."

Horn-Miller lives on the reserve in Kahnawake, Que., which is also the home of Olympic kayaking gold medalist Alwyn Morris.

Morris has been a great source of support to Horn-Miller.

"He's been the one person I could talk to when it came to high level sports,'' she said. ``He would drop everything and talk to me. He's been a great, great role model for me.''

Horn-Miller has dreams that transcend sport.

"I've got the craziest dreams," she said. "I always say crazy stuff. I'll say like `when I win my Academy Award,' or `when I'm the first athletic-looking model to get paid a million bucks.'

"I was thinking of going back to school and becoming a midwife. I was thinking of television broadcasting, maybe acting. I was thinking of even doing greenhouses up in the north in James Bay and supplying fresh fruit.

"I think once you make a dream, you have to do what it takes to achieve it. Even if you don't make it, you have to try. I think the sky's the limit for me.''