Hatters look on as Blood Tribe member Theron Black performs a Grass Dance Sunday afternoon at a demonstration powwow at Kin Park. The event was held to celebrate National Indigenous Peoples Day. -- NEWS FILE PHOTO MO CRANKER
Local organizers of National Indigenous Peoples Day say calls to physically isolate during the COVID-19 pandemic will see observance altered, but also expanded with a photo contest and engagement at eight sites of significance in Medicine Hat.
The annual day is typically celebrated with programming and a high-profile village and pow wow in the North Flats area near Allowance Avenue.
However, with social distancing calls in place and the specific date, June 21, coinciding with Father’s Day, organizers expanded the day to include the whole week starting June 15. On now are remote, drop-by programming and information boards throughout the city that highlight local Indigenous history and current issues.
Brenda Mercer, the program co-ordinator for the Miywasin Friendship Centre, said the goal of the week is educational.
“I think more people are starting to listen and more people are finding their voice and starting to tell their story,” she told the News, citing current issues surrounding inclusion as creating new dialogue as well as the City of Medicine Hat’s decision designate First Nations and Metis settlement Saratoga Park as an historic resource.
Anyone attending the sites is asked to take a picture or selfie with a sandwich board on site that contains information. All photos that are posted to the internet using the hashtag (#nipmedhat) or emailed to organizers by June 21 will be entered in a prize draw.
The locations are the Saamis Tepee, Strathcona Park, Saratoga Park (at the north end of South Railway Street), the Saamis Employment Centre (Tractor Ave.), the Miywasin Centre’s Third St. offices, Riverside Veterans Memorial Park, the youth mural at the First Street Railway underpass and Police Point Park.
If not posted to social media, photo entries can be emailed to Mercer directly at brendamercer64@gmail.com.
