This story aired on Kootenay Morning on Friday, September 25:
By Jaime Frederick, Local Journalism Initiative
Next Wednesday, September 30, is the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. For the third year running, Taghum Hall will be hosting an event that aims to provide children and their families with a fun opportunity to learn together about Indigenous culture and the history of residential schools in Canada.
Cultural educator Lance Ledger will again facilitate the event. He says it aims to strike a balance between connection and education, without too much heaviness.
“It’s welcoming, it’s an open space, there’s education,” said Ledger. “There’s enough learning there, but there’s also a gentleness… because they’re kids learning…. There’s not a huge emphasis on the heaviness, but there still [are] lessons involved while connecting with one another. And moving forward in a better direction together as a nation.”
Ledger hails from the Cadotte Lake reservation in northern Alberta and is a member of the Woodland Cree First Nation #474. He says his ancestry is Woodland Cree, Ojibwe, Mohawk, Irish, and Scandinavian. The event at Taghum Hall will give participants an opportunity to cross cultural boundaries and connect with each other while engaging in traditional activities of Indigenous peoples.
“We smudge, we drum, we play games, [for] kids just to build relationship with the land and the other nations, like swimmers and crawlers, the slitherers, the flyers, the four-legged, the two-legged and the plant being, and we just build relationship through games like that with the little ones,” said Ledger.
He says there will also be a craft activity that acts as both a relationship building exercise and an opportunity for kids to learn about residential schools.
“Just understanding how… the kids were separated from their parents, and just reminding of the relationships that we have and how hard that must have been not to have your kid with you, taken away, and not to be able to practice your identity, your culture,” said Ledger. “So my craft is gracing the hands, and writing on the hands of what makes you you. And then putting it on a big paper of the land–the river, the mountains, the sun, the moon, the stars–and having those up there, but also with our own relationship that we have with each other.”
The free program, aimed at eight- to 12-year-olds and their parents (but open to anyone of any age), will take place on September 30 from 9 to 11 a.m. Parents and guardians are meant to learn alongside their kids — it’s not a drop-off event. Pre-registration is requested at www.taghumhall.ca/youth.
Photo of Lance Ledger: Amy Makortoff
