M’CHIGEENG—Pupils at Lakeview School in M’Chigeeng celebrated Heritage Day on May 5 with great displays, awesome prizes and pizza. As Evan Farquhar, the data management and logistics coordinator at the Kenjgewin Teg Educational Institute (KTEI) and a judge for the competition, said, the event is organized through the Ontario Heritage Fair Association (OHFA), which sent 11 awards for participants.
The OHFA seeks to increase public awareness and interest in Canadian history.
The children were proud to show their displays and the topics varied from ‘Things to Know about Maple Syrup’ to ‘Midwifery’ to ‘Albert Einstein’ and ‘Justin Bieber.’ Logan Sampson was happy to show many pictures of his beautiful sister Mekayla Diehl, who was recently crowned Miss Indiana USA and will soon enter the Miss USA 2014 competition. Logan also talked about the good times he had with Ms. Diehl, especially going smelt fishing.
Kingsley Roy’s booth was the story of Stu Hart, a famous Canadian wrestler. “He is a really famous wrestler,” Kingsley said, “and he was the father of the Hart wrestlers. He had 12 children and about six were wrestlers. And he wrestled a tiger and a grizzly bear at one time.”
Luke Wabegijik had a demonstration titled ‘Fancy Dancing’ and he talked about how much he liked it. “It has a cool story about how it started,” Luke said. “It’s fast and even the Golden Age people do it.”
Next to Luke was Leanne McGregor, who lives on Birch Island and has a lot of respect for Chief Tecumseh. “I decided to do Chief Tecumseh because he sounded like a great person to do and I like the way he fought in the War of 1812 against the British.”
One of the displays at this Heritage Fair had three youngsters, all dressed in regalia. Avery Sutherland, Ava Owl and Carter McGregor from Birch Island all have experience in dancing at powwows and Ava talked about wearing the jingle dress. “The jingle dress is a healing dress,” Ava declared, “and I like to dance the healing dance. I go to Rama and Keewadin and Sudbury to dance.”
“We’ve all had experience with dancing at the powwows,” Avery explained, “and we all listen to our history and teachings. I go to the Gathering of Nations in New Mexico to start off the new year of dancing.” When asked about her regalia, Avery said that her cousin does really good beadwork and does her dresses or sometimes her mother’s friend Holly will also do the regalia.
Carter has also been to several powwows and has danced at Birch Island and in M’Chigeeng. “I dance for my grandparents who passed on,” he explained.
Sammie Beboning also had a dance display and this was the women’s fancy shawl dancing. “I used to do the fancy shawl dancing in Wiky and M’Chigeeng at the powwows,” she said. “The women braid their hair and wear beaded hair clips to match their regalia.”
There were several awards handed out at the Heritage Fair with the Best Overall Exhibit went to Tara Hoppe of Lakeview School. Other Lakeview School winners were the Archives of Ontario Award going to Oha Cada and Niihge McLeod, the Genealogical Society Award which was won by Trinity Simon and Josephine Sagon, the Multicultural History Society Award which saw Caiylee Ense and Sarah Migwans-Bayer taking that honour, Nathan Bush and Joel Trudeau winning the Reading and Remembrance Award and Caleb Blackbird and Dallas Corbiere winning one of three Founders Awards.
Other awards went to Julian Trudeau of Biidaaban School for the Ontario Women’s History Network, while the Shawanosowe School saw Leanne McGregor win for Historical Thinking, Jenna Visitor for the Library Association, Sterling McGregor for the Historical Society and Tori Toulouse, Ava Owl, Avery Sutherland and Carter McGregor taking home the Founders Awards.
