Pays Plat pow wow and cultural week highlight for youth
By Rick Garrick
THUNDER BAY—The sweat lodge ceremony at Pays Plat’s annual Pawgwasheeng Pow Wow and Cultural Week was a highlight for a group of Regional Multicultural Youth Council (RMYC) representatives from Thunder Bay.
“I’m claustrophobic, so it was very scary for me,” says Lux Gagne-Koroscil, RMYC representative and Long Point First Nation citizen. “But I stayed in all four times. After the first time, it was really good because someone prayed for me and it was okay after that. It was very spiritual.”
Gagne-Koroscil enjoyed participating in the cultural week activities from July 9-13. The RMYC representatives camped at Pays Plat for all five days and helped with cleaning up after events in the community hall as well as participating in a variety of activities such as social drumming, Indigenous parenting, the Seven Grand Father Teachings and a health fair.
“I got to know all my [RMYC] crew better and I met some people from Pays Plat,” Gagne-Koroscil says. “I kind of explored around too so that was nice.”
Pays Plat Councillor Raymond Goodchild says the sweat lodge ceremony was conducted by Francis Goodchild.
“They really enjoyed that,” Raymond says. “They had a great time, they said their prayers in the sweat lodge, they asked for a healing in the sweat lodge and they shared stories about how they are planning to experience life and reaching their goals.”
Jadyn Bellavance, RMYC representative, says the cultural week was interesting and eye opening.
“When you think about all the stereotypes a lot of people have in Thunder Bay, this totally wipes out all those stereotypes,” Bellavance says. “It’s truly amazing and I get to go back and share that with all the people that I know.”
Beverly Bannon, a chaperone with the RMYC and Fort William citizen, says some of the RMYC representatives helped her to pick cedar for the sweat lodge and Pow Wow grounds.
“They were very helpful and we went to a sweat lodge last night,” Bannon says. “It was an amazing experience for the youth. You should have seen the glow that came off them — they were so happy.”
Bannon says it is important to share the traditional teachings with youth so they can connect with who they are.
“Some of them are not Indigenous, they are from other parts of the medicine wheel,” Bannon says. “It’s important to remember that we are all part of that medicine wheel, so they came and they felt like they belonged.”
Gary Bouchard, traditional values technician with Pays Plat, says the RMYC representatives enjoyed the traditional activities.
“You hear it all too often that it’s being lost,” Bouchard says. “Even newer generations aren’t seemingly interested in taking up and learning such things any more, but it seems really nice that a lot of the young people here know how important it is to keep it up.”
Raymond says the community held a Memorial Pow Wow in honour of the late Jackie Goodchild on July 14-15.
“The Pow Wow was very emotional, very spiritual, very teaching,” Raymond says. “It was a very special event, very emotional, very wonderful to see all the drummers and all the dancers going through the grieving process for the family that put on the special for the late Jackie Goodchild.”
Raymond says the Pawgwasheeng Pow Wow and Cultural Week brought the whole community together.
“Even the little kids were participating,” Raymond says. “They will remember this when they get older, they will remember how the community worked together and came together in putting this event on.”