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Montreal Lake engages youth in first-ever culture camp

Jul 8, 2016 | 7:07 AM

Bringing youth back to their roots has become a method in First Nation communities across Canada to recover what has been lost or stolen in the past.

The first ever Montreal Lake Cree Nation Youth Culture Camp took place during a sunny, early-morning summer day. Set on a traditional heritage site, youth learned the history of the buffalo who used to roam those exact grounds, listened to old stories from their Elders and ate traditional fare cooked by community members.

The Youth Culture Camp was designed to engage the younger residents of Montreal Lake with their heritage, according to Chief Edward Henderson.

“Culture is slowly coming back. About 20 years ago one of our veterans came back, Late Isaiah was his name, he brought the sweat with him; that’s where it really started,” Chief Henderson said. “A lot of us, at our age have started making lifestyle changes and we’re going back to our cultural roots and that’s what we’re trying to teach our kids.”

Chief Henderson said a lot of Montreal Lake’s youth are lost, and don’t feel comfortable in their own world or the non-First Nations world.

“We want to bring them back to being proud of who they are. Everybody else, no matter what nationality they are, they’re proud of their culture, it’s part of who they are. That’s something a lot of our kids are lacking,” Henderson said.

Allen Glen Halkett, or Misty as he is known around Montreal Lake, is the National Child Benefits program coordinator, and was in charge of putting the culture camp together.

“We noticed in our reserve that our youth have no sense of hope. They have no direction; they’re lost. We want to give them a sense of hope and belonging,” he said.

Halkett said Elders stepped forward in a big way to help with the event from telling stories in the teepees to sharing legends.

Over the course of the camp, Dwight King of the Los Angeles Kings, and the Meadow Lake area, Savana Walkingbear, a Thunderchild First Nation volleyball player, and Justin Rain of Twilight and Blackstone fame, spoke to the youth.

Halkett said he feels as though their messages were all well received by the youth of Montreal Lake.

“They gave them a message of hope, that they are just normal people who grew up on the reserve and had the struggles that everyone does, and they were able to succeed,” Halkett said.

This was the first event of its kind for the First Nation. Moving forward they will look into keeping this event alive.

“I think we’ll look (for funding) within first, and then we’ll look into grants. We’d like to partner with social services. Social services has lots of kids in care, and lots of those kids in care are First Nations kids,” Halkett said, “We had a few of the homes bring out some busses this week… we want to work with social services and grow this into something big.”

 

Bryan.Eneas@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @BryanEneas