Ardoch Algonquin Manoomin Festival

Sep 09, 2010

Pow Wow dancers l-r: Cory Holtz, Jordon Bilow, Josh Beaver, Jaida Ponce and Asia Reid

On September 4 & 5, visitors gathered for the 7th annual Ardoch Algonquin First Nation’s Pow Wow. Paula Sherman, Ardoch’s Co-chief, explained that the festival has been named the Manoomin (rice) festival since the Ardoch community is closely associated both physically and spiritually with rice. It was the second year that the festival has included Manoomin workshops and on Sunday a large group gathered in the Clar-Mill Hall to listen to Bob Lovelace's teaching about the Rice Wars that occurred in 1979-1980 in Ardoch, in which he and AAFNA’s Honourary Chief Harold Perry played an instrumental part.

Mitchell Shewell of Sharbot Lake emceed the festival, which included drummers and dancers from as far away as Peterborough, Alderville and Toronto. Mitch's 15-year-old daughter Cory was the female head dancer at this year’s festival.

Danka Brewer and Alison Ferrant led a number of women in hand drumming songs, including a welcoming song called Hui Quando Dey, and another called Endayan, which translates in English to “home” and celebrates the idea of the home within the self, within the community and within the Ardoch First Nation. The song originated in a women's shelter for battered and abused women. Lastly, they sang Anishinaabe Kwe, a song celebrating native women.

Non-Aboriginal visitors to the festival can always trust that they will come away having learned something new about Aboriginal culture. For me this time it was Bob Lovelace's teaching that when it comes to hunting, planting and really any undertaking that one is involved with, it is perhaps equally if not more important to consider what one leaves behind as well as what one takes away.