Tipis reach for the sky at Eagles Nest Ranch during The Hills Are Alive Music and Dance Cultural Fest, June 8-11.--PHOTO BY JOLYNN PARENTEAU
How can a memory become everlasting? There are moments, when shared, that grow in the retelling and become family lore.
June 8-11, the 13th gathering of The Hills Are Alive Music and Dance Cultural Fest drew two hundred visitors to Eagles Nest Ranch in the Cypress Hills. Four generations of musicians and crafters, family and friends, new and returning guests of all ages arrived to strengthen kinship and friendship ties and be immersed in Metis and folk music culture.
Many of the hosting Miywasin Friendship Centre staff are new to the team this year, and along with members of the Canadian Forces Base and British Army Training Unit from Suffield on hand to assist, learned to raise tipis and replica trappers’ tents in the meadow before the venue’s rustic fort town hall backdrop. Tipi raising is traditionally accompanied by teachings related to cultural values, and senior staff shared their knowledge with those keen to learn, especially the BATUS members from overseas who were curious about Indigenous practices.
The tipis painted with images of bison, elk, fiddle, Red River cart, and stars tell their own stories, and served as classrooms for lessons in banjo, fiddle, guitar, mandolin and ukulele. In the hall and courtyard, the sounds of keyboard and wooden spoons echoed with singing and laughter.
Camper Maureen Safinuk came from Prince Albert, Sask. to The Hills for fiddle lessons.
“I’m a relative beginner but it’s been a wild ride, just awesome. The traditional old-time fiddle is so much fun,” said the second-year camper. “It’s been a great opportunity for meeting people.”
In the evenings, the music instructors took their rightful places onstage. With many accolades and records among them, notable names such as Alex and Patti Kusturok, Brianna Lizotte, Don Sawchuk, Cathy Sproule, Donna Turk, Lucas Welsh, Twin Fiddles duo JJ Guy and Gordon Stobbe and others shared many tales through story and songs such as “Maligne Canyon,” “Reel Buffalo,” “Whiskey Before Breakfast,” and “The Log Driver’s Waltz.” Guests revisited old memories and made new ones as Stobbe called out square dance steps to a packed dance floor.
The four-day cultural fest celebrates the everyday traditions of the Metis people that make the blended heritage so unique. Campers cooked la galette (bannock bread) over the open fire, learned to bead and sew moccasins, paint dancing wooden dolls known as jiggerdolls, and built hand-held drums from raw materials. Elder Doreen Bergum and daughter Carla gave sewing lessons for capotes: popular during the fur trade era, a greatcoat traditionally made from heavy wool blankets, most iconically the striped Hudson’s Bay Point Blanket dating back to 1779. Makers modelled their projects in a fashion show Sunday to great applause.
New Dawn Metis Women’s Society member Lorelei Lanz of Calgary was on hand to teach the art of caribou hair tufting, a traditional practice out of northern Alberta and the Northwest Territories, taught to Lanz by her maternal aunt Yvonne Jobin. Lanz dyes the caribou hair in vivid colours, which is then sewn onto a hide backing and carefully trimmed into a desired shape, such as florals, and finished with a beaded edge. Participants made pendants and keychains, a project that can take four hours for an experienced crafter like Lanz, or more for beginners. Participants – men, women and teens – spent the time sharing family stories as they learned.
Aaron Andersen of Vancouver, along with his Metis wife and daughters, took a family road trip to meet relatives at camp for music lessons. Anderson took time between guitar lessons to try something new and joined his extended family in following Lanz’s instruction in caribou hair tufting.
“I have endless respect for the time the women in our lives put into the little things,” praised Andersen.
Liberty Emkeit joined the Miywasin Friendship Centre staff team in December after attending The Hills’ sister event, the Miiyaashin Michif language camp, last October. Emkeit is following in her late father’s footsteps and keeping his memory alive by teaching traditional finger sash weaving, a skill she’s recently learned from Miywasin Elder Pat Maxwell.
“It’s a reconnection to identity and to Dad,” explained Emkeit, who is teaching her young son, connecting three generations through a traditional craft that is largely ceremonial now, but had practical uses for the Voyageurs (fur trade guides) in their time.
Respected historian and genealogist Darcy McRae returned to The Hills to assist attendees in tracing their Metis family trees, possible for many as far back as the 1700s. Joseph Desjarlais spoke with McRae about his ancestors’ legacy of a shared moniker over hundreds of years, and how fiddle music was introduced to the Metis by a Desjarlais, yet this Joseph Desjarlais is the first in his immediate family to be musical; indeed, the talented young fiddler joined the ensemble entertainment onstage in the evenings.
Elder Marie Schoenthal, 86, shared childhood stories of speaking only Michif at home, the language of the Metis people. Mother-tongue Michif speakers like Koohkum (grandmother) Marie are integral to Michif language revitalization efforts, such as the Miiyaashin Michif language camp which will return to Eagles Nest Ranch this fall.
Eagles Nest Ranch will welcome all those interested when The Hills Are Alive returns June 6-9, 2024. Registration details are available through Miywasin Friendship Centre.
June is National Indigenous History Month in Canada, and today, National Indigenous Peoples Day. Maarsii (Michif, thank you) for taking time to explore stories of Indigenous heritage in this column.
Storytelling over generations births legends. Through our music, shared culture and stories, we’ll collectively revisit and remember The Hills Are Alive.
JoLynn Parenteau is a Metis writer out of Miywasin Friendship Centre. Column feedback can be sent to jolynn.parenteau@gmail.com.
