Kingston author at Silver Lake Pow Wow fundraiser

May 08, 2014

This year’s Silver Lake Pow Wow, a traditional, non-competitive pow wow that will take place on Sat. & Sun. August 23 & 24 at Silver Lake Provincial Park, will mark the 20-year anniversary of the event.

Trudi Knapp, one of the organizers, said that this year’s event will include as usual the grand entries at noon on both days, plus traditional dancing, drumming and singing that celebrate native rituals of the past and present. The event attracts Aboriginal dancers from all over the province and last year Aztec dancers from Mexico also attended and performed at the event. Non-Aboriginals are welcome and many tourists have attended the event, which in the past has attracted over 1200 visitors. The gorgeous lakeside site includes a traditional cedar arbor where the drummers and singers gather and a covered canteen area where meals are provided to participants and guests over the weekend. It is expected that over 20 vendors will be set up on site this year, offering up a wide variety of Aboriginal food, arts and crafts, instruments, and clothing. Many local residents will be heading up this year’s Pow Wow. Head dancers are Mitchell Shewell and Christine Kennedy; Danka Brewer will be the emcee and James Sayeau will be the fire keeper, with Larry McDermott as elder. Once again Willie Bruce will be this year’s head veteran.

On May 3 organizers held a fundraiser at St. James Major Catholic Church hall for the Pow Wow, which relies totally on fundraising dollars and donations. Vendors sold jewelry and other crafts. Kingston author, Robert P. Wells, also attended with written and audio recorded copies of his book “Wawahte”, which were for sale, with some of the proceeds being donated to the event. The book, whose title is the Cree name for the Northern Lights, tells the stories of three survivors of Canadian residential schools: Ester Love, Stanley Stephens and Bunnie Gavin, all long-time friends of Wells. In his words, “Their childhood was much the same as those of more than 150,000 First Nations children who, between 1883 and 1996, were forced to attend one of 130 residential schools and equally demeaning day schools in Canada.”

Written in two parts, Wawahte also “mines the history of how the opinion of a handful of people became widely accepted by a nation, giving rise to official programs that were publicly touted as beneficial, but which actually discriminated against entire ethnic groups.” Wells' audio book was made into a 15-part radio series by Queen's University CFRC campus radio and is currently being broadcast on 40 campus radio stations across Canada. The book took Wells 14 months to research and complete and Wells said he was inspired to write after a childhood friend, Moochum-Joe, recognized Wells’ special spirit at that young age and asked him to “draw words on paper to tell your kind how bad Indian people are treated.” Wells said that it was through the personal experiences of these three life-long friends of his that he was entrusted with their stories about their experiences in residential schools.

Wells grew up in an Aboriginal environment west of Thunder Bay and strongly believes that the only hope for natives and non-natives to come to an understanding of their past and make peace with it is to shine a light on the personal experiences of those who experienced residential schools first hand. Wells donated 1000 copies of his book to Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which have been given out to the many attendees of the conferences that have taken place across the country.

Those who missed the fundraising event for the Silver Lake Pow Wow can still make donations by contacting Trudi Knapp at 613-375-6356. For more information about “Wawahte” visit http://ncra.ca/resonating/documentaries/wawahte