As I Step into the Circle of the Drum by Skyler Cyr

As I step into the circle of the drum, I feel a real homely feeling as right away Gordie Waste’ste busts out a wicked joke. I sit at the drum waiting to sing and the announcer with his loud voice yells for our drum group. “Elks Whistle bring in our grand entry boys!”

We start singing and I can feel the excitement of all of us boys sitting around the drum together and singing. I come to realize I am singing with a legend, Angelo Waste’ste. Feels good to sing with this guy, but during the grand entry song they pass me the second lead and my stomach fills with adrenaline as I take the lead.

After the grand entry the drum beside us sings for the Girls Fancy Shawl. As they are singing we are thinking of what song to sing for the Girls Jingle. So Gordie comes up with one of my favourite songs from the Young Bear singers, and did we sing the heck out of that song.

So as our drum and the other drum go through the categories of dance we get to the Boys Chicken and this is my category of dance. I start to sing one of my favourite tunes from Blackfoot Confederacy to Gordie and he says, “yep that’s the one.” He teaches the rest of the boys the song and the chicken dancers come out, and we give them that song. It was a great experience for me because I never really get to sing chicken songs because I’m always dancing to them, but this time it was very worth it.

My Name is Truth by Truth Halcrow

My Name is Truth
by Truth Halcrow

 

My name is Truth. I’m holding the microphone, and my friend JJ is leaning over and we are taking part in the blanket exercise. I am the narrator and JJ is one of the Europeans. The kids standing on the blankets are the aboriginal people of Canada or what we know as “Turtle Island”.  About 15 people stand on the blankets to represent how it used to look before the Europeans came over and “found” North America.

Taking part in this blanket exercise as the narrator feels really amazing. When I read through the story, as I read a terrible event it makes me think for a quick second about how life used to be. It really drains me out to think about things like that – residential schools, loss of land, and the amount of people who died from diseases –  but people need to know what really happened and how the Europeans came across North America. 

I’ve done this exercise before in class, and I’ve learned some other knowledge about my heritage. I remember this one time my mushum, Tim, was lecturing me about how life should be treated with respect, because of what we’re doing to the earth. He always mentioned this world is bound to blow up or collapse. I knew this already before he told me, but this world is all we have and there’s not another kind like it.

Just like my mushum Tim, the blanket exercise really gets on point; it’s a good learning experience for everyone. For example, some people asked what was happening at the blanket exercise. I explained, but then they said they already know about that, but really, if you were there, then you’d understand, and you’d feel everything that those children had to go through, just to get there basic education at residential schools. Picture yourself as an aboriginal mother who has a child and police come out of nowhere and take your child to put them in a residential school and there’s nothing you can do about it. This is what the blanket exercise is trying to do, help people visualize what people went through.

My name is Truth. I’m holding the microphone, I’m reading the last part for the narrator and it says, “The violence of colonization has left a lot of pain. All across Canada, the relationship between indigenous people and newcomers is often broken. We don’t need more broken promises. We need to repair the relationship and to do this, we need real change” and that’s the Truth.   

Batter Fried Walleye by Michael Cardinal

Batter Fried Walleye by Michael Cardinal

 

 

Veterans lower flags at Treaty 4 Gathering while the

Kawacatoose Boys drum group sing a flag song.

The wind flowed peacefully through the flags as the five men started drumming and singing the flag song while the other five men brought down the four flags. What was only a couple of minutes felt like much more as Mrs. Koops and I stood by and watched. As they sang the second song, a victory song, I observed the five men drum and sing while the other five walked in rhythm to the drum around the flag poles. Some of the men stepped with bursts of energy, some only a little, but that didn’t matter because you could see the passion in the way the men danced and the way the men drummed and sang.

As the song came to an end and the five men returned to stand by each of the flag poles, the five men who drummed and sang began to walk and shake each of the men’s hands. As they did Mrs. Koops signaled me to walk with her to shake their hands, so I followed.

The feeling of serenity and peace was in my heart as it all came to be done; the ten men continued on their day at the treaty four grounds as we did the same. Little did we know that one of the men who sang and drummed would come into our lives one more time to give us a treat as if witnessing the flag raising ceremonies wasn’t a treat enough.

He was standing by our orange shirt day awareness tipi because he parked his truck a couple meters away behind it. He was wearing black boots, blue jeans, a nice plaid shirt with a silver bolo tie and a hat that had the worn-out look to it. I saw him dig in the back seat and he pulled out a tray full of batter-fried walleye, and he offered all of us a piece of the golden-brown fish. As he came around giving each of us this treat my mouth watered while I waited for a piece of the walleye cooked to a golden brown. When I took the first, little bite all I could think about was savouring the moment, the flavour, and the great fullness I had in my stomach and soul. 

Hungry, But Still Enjoyed the Day

By Nigel Dubois

I enjoyed the day I went to treaty four even though the day I went to treaty four was short. I was able to see what was new and old or wasn’t there. Like the archery wasn’t there and bannock on a stick was old but still there. This time there was a Parkland College tent there and that was cool, I guess. In the mean time I was bored, so we bought a volleyball there so that was fun for a while; then the fox came to play with us for a while. Then we went back to school for the day.

Now we have returned back to the grounds. There were a lot of people there, and I saw a lot of old friends and birds. I was smelling bannock burgers and coffee. The burgers were making me hungry but I didn’t have any money and I forgot to pack a lunch. So I was walking around the ground hungry just waiting to go home. I had a lot of fun doing nothing but taking to elders and other people and walking around, then I went for a long lunch break doing nothing, just hungry, so I went back to the school to see if my brother had anything to eat. And then I didn’t know what time it was, then the bell rang, so I got on the bus and went home.

I Was Too Scared

By Kai-La Petit

The day started off at the school; I really didn’t want to go since I knew it was going to be cold outside. When we got to the grounds I just wanted to go home and sleep, but I just went to my grandma’s office instead since I was cold after being outside for 15 minutes.

When I finally decided to go back outside she was going there anyways, so I just went back with her. When we got there she was nagging me to do my interview, but I was really nervous to do it since I don’t really like talking to people I don’t know very much. That whole time I felt really pressured to do it since she was really excited that I finally got to do this.

I was too scared to do it so I just tried to push it off for as long as I could but I ended up just not doing it since I was too scared. I feel kinda bad since I wanted to do it, but I just felt too pressured, and having my grandma, and grandpa listening to the questions I had down was just too much pressure for me.

For the rest of the day all I did was just watch what other people were doing and at lunch watching the dancers. I liked watching some of the kids there trying to dance because they just looked so cute, and when that was done I was hanging out with the “fox”. It was cute having to see all the little kids so excited to see the fox and seeing them run it just to get a hug.

Food and Friends

 

By Jordan Pinay

There was really good food at Treaty4 like the bannock burger, hot chocolate, and fries. It was lots of fun to see lots of people I knew. I saw my uncle’s friends. The second day we went was really cold . Lots of other schools were there. The lines for the food booths were really long and the food was really expensive. I’m waiting in line for my food and I almost miss my bus because the food took too long.

 

Our Story Tellers, Our Guidance and Our Knowledge

By Reighlene Peigan

The veterans tent, a big white tent, to me it really stood out because it wasn’t a tipi and it also had two flags on it, a Canadian and a British flag. Seeing our veterans sitting there waiting for the youth to come so they could tell their amazing stories was really beautiful to see.

During my time at Treay 4 I got to meet and interview elders to talk about the gathering; I learned that a lot has changed, according to elder Thomas Desnomie from the Peepeekisis First Nations. He’s been coming to the gatherings for 20 plus years and he says the powwows got shorter, and to him Treaty 4 means the singing of treaty in 1874 and that his grandfather was there when they signed it!

I also interviewed elder Tony Lerat from the Cowessess First Nation; he’s been coming to the gathering for eight years. He said the things that changed were the kids are more open with the questions about First Nations people, unlike the first years he said they were a little afraid to ask. He said the parents held the kids back. I then ask Tony Lerat what treaty meant to him. He said treaty is about people, “You couldn’t have signed a treaty with only one person, you need two, an Indian and a white man.”

As a First Nation personI was always taught you respect elders because they play a very important role in our lives; they’re our story tellers, our guidance and our knowledge. If we need someone to talk to they’re always there. To me elders and veterans are important because of all the things they’ve done for us; they fought for us and they have been through the worst times but are still here with a smile on their face and as gentle as can be!