Awakening drums and campers at the Silver Lake Pow Wow

Aug 30, 2012

Photo: Logan and Cameron Walters of Alderville with head veteran Willy Bruce and Sharpe Dopler at the 18th Annual Silver Lake Pow Wow.

Along with special teachings, ceremonial dancing and other celebrations, the 18th annual Silver Lake Pow Wow again offered up food for all the senses, as it usually does.

Everyone is welcome to attend the event and while there I met one Ottawa camper, Sarah Somner, who was delighted that she and her family happened upon it. “This is the first Pow Wow we have ever attended and we loved it“, she said. “We were all mesmerized by the dancing, my young daughter so much so that she asked if we could come back today to dance.”

Each year it seems there is something new to learn at the Silver Lake Pow Wow. I had a chance to watch a special drum awakening ceremony. Drum carrier and dancer Sharpe Dolpler of Ottawa, whose people are Cherokee and Sauk/Fox and who also acts as helper to the event’s head veteran Willy Bruce, performed a drum awakening ceremony for Nicole Soucy of Ottawa. Sharpe explained the significance of the ceremony, which she said she was honored to be asked to perform. “For some a drum is a musical instrument, but for us the drum and particularly this kind of hand drum is a spirit and is made of things that are spirit and that come from spirit. We perform this ceremony to wake up the spirit of this new thing that has been created from other things and also to begin a relationship. When you carry a drum in the traditional way, it gives you an opportunity to learn from the drum. One’s responsibility as a drum carrier is to take care of the drum, keep it safe, to use it regularly through ceremony and to learn the songs, understand where they came from and to keep with our teaching of generosity by singing when you are asked to by the community.”

Nicole Soucy, whose drum was awakened, further explained the ceremony. “A pebble is placed on my drum and it vibrates as a result from the other drum. Where it vibrates on the drum determines what the purpose of the drum will be,” she said.

Soucy said that prior to the ceremony she felt she had an idea what the drum would be used for and that the ceremony confirmed it since the pebble jumped all over the drum’s surface rather than in one specific spot. “That means that this drum can be used for all teachings.”

Danka Brewer, who is one of the coordinators of the Pow Wow and the arena manager, also happened to be celebrating her birthday on Saturday and said that every year the event is special. “The event brings people in our community together who don’t normally have the chance to meet at other times of the year. Many of the people here, the volunteers, coordinators and helpers, are able to be here through a common resource, the Katarokwi Native Friendship Centre in Kingston, which serves a vast area from the south end of Algonquin Park to Lake Ontario and east/ west from Ottawa to Peterborough.”

Danka’s birthday wish is for friends to make a donation to the Katarokwi Centre to support the volunteers who help out at the Pow Wow and also to help support the building of a new alternative Aboriginal school there, which will be used for Aboriginal teachings. “The school will be a valuable and important resource that will serve a lot of people in this community.”

The Katarokwi Native Friendship Centre is located at 50 Hickson Ave. in Kingston. Anyone wanting to make a donation can call the centre at 613-548-1500 or Pow Wow coordinator Trudy Knapp at 613-375-6356. Danka also spoke of the difficulty the Silver Lake Pow Wow organizers have in obtaining government funding for the annual event, because most of the members of the Pow Wow committee live in Central Frontenac but the event takes place at Silver Lake, which is located in Lanark County.

“This is the land that our ancestors have been gathering at for a millennium and it’s unfortunate that an invisible government boundary line forbids us from receiving any of the government funding available to help support the event,” she said.