THUNDER BAY - An annual powwow has been celebrating indigenous culture in Thunder Bay for nearly 30 years is about bringing the entire community together for song, dance, and healing.
Hundreds of people attended the 29th annual Lakehead University Native Student Association Powwow on Saturday and Sunday.
“I think it’s pretty exciting,” said Brianna Decontie, president of LUNSA. “It’s the beginning of March Break for our Lakehead students and it’s a time a time to come together and also for the whole community of Thunder Bay. It’s nice to get out and sing and enjoy your family.”
The powwow is an opportunity for students to celebrate and share their culture with the rest of the community, according to Decontie.
“I think it’s a great opportunity for students to come together at LU and show what we can put on for the community and showcase other students around the area and Lakehead,” she said.
The powwow included drum circles from communities across the region, as well as traditional dance by people of all ages.
For Decontie, participating in the many dances is a very spiritual experience.
“It’s a great feeling,” she said. “When you put on your regalia, your bead work, your dress, you just feel at peace. And you do a lot of praying and healing as well. Everyone has their own style of dancing. No two dancers are the same.”
Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux, chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission at Lakehead University, said the powwow is an opportunity to express language, culture, laughter, and pain.
“What it means is it is an opportunity for people to have an expression of their culture and their experience,” she said. “It’s a community event. It’s kind of like an explosion of community.”
It is especially important for students, many of whom are away from their homes, to have an opportunity to celebrate their culture.
“It means everything,” Wesley Esquimaux said. “It shows off their songs, their dances, their music, their drums, their languages. It means everything to them because they don’t get that all the time.”
But Wesley-Esquimaux added the powwow is about much more than providing an opportunity for students or members of the indigenous community to celebrate their culture. It’s about sharing, which for her, is a big part of truth and reconciliation.
“How it relates to truth and reconciliation is that the entire community of Thunder Bay is invited,” she said. “All of the people, not just indigenous. If you just look around there are lots of people from other cultures here and it’s about introducing them to the culture and sharing it with them.”
And while the entire community was sharing the many different cultures and experiences, it was the children, dancing and singing, who will gain the most from this celebration.
“It‘s great to see the young ones,” Decontie said. “They are the next generation and they are the ones who are going to be putting on this powwow one day and they are leaning the language and the dancing and the songs.”
