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CTV News
5 days ago
- General
- CTV News
‘Brings people together': Yorkton school hosts Métis Day
WATCH: Dr. Brass School in Yorkton held its second ever Culture and History Day on Wednesday, focusing on Métis culture. Fruzsina De Cloedt has more. Dr. Brass School in Yorkton held its second ever Culture and History Day on Wednesday, focusing on Métis culture. The smell of bannock cooking on open fire filled the air, music was blasting from speakers, and kids were cheering each other on during a friendly game of tug-of-war. 'I love it. I honestly appreciate everybody that puts together the events in our city, brings people together, and this is just a fantastic event in all the children at the different stations doing different activities. It's really great,' Yorkton Mayor Aaron Kienle said, while overlooking the lush green courtyard of Dr. Brass School, filled with children. 'Thanks to the volunteers that make it happen,' he added. The idea of the event came from Darcy Lepowick, a teacher at Dr. Brass School. Lepowick told CTV News that he recently got his teaching degree when he was 50-years-old. 'I just started here, and the First Nations had a powwow and a round dance, but there was no Métis culture in the school division, so we started a Métis day last year,' Lepowick explained. He said the event was so successful last year that this time, the organizers had to limit the number of students. As he was talking, school buses were circulating around the school. Some kids were leaving, others arriving. Upon arrival, students received a map of the activities. Métis Day There were about 17 stations set up at Dr. Brass School in Yorkton for Métis Day. (Fruzsina De Cloedt / CTV News) 'We have some elders, Métis elders, baking bannock over the fire. We have super hot soup and bannock as well for sample meals and blueberry pudding. And the games include everything from nail pounding to axe throwing, log sawing, and wrestling,' said Lepowick as he guided CTV around campus. At the back of the school, protected by the winds in the cool shade, were the food tasting stations. A Métis woman behind the table explained that she learned the recipe of the lii boulette soup from her grandmother. The soup was of light colour and had some meat in it. The delicious smell brought people to form a line. Some students were helping by giving out bannock to go with the soup. As she poured another cup of boulette for someone, the woman explained that they cut the bannock into thinner pieces - making dunking easier. From another corner of the courtyard was the smell of wood burning. An elder who was manning the bannock station carefully kneaded and flipped the dough, while eager students waited to try a piece. Not far from the fire was the workstation of the Saskatchewan Trappers Association. They had furs laid out on a table, and students were given the task of guessing which animal it belonged to. Those who were looking for a more graphic experience were not disappointed, as someone from the association skinned a mink. Métis Day Someone from the Saskatchewan Trappers Association skins a mink during Métis Day at Dr. Brass School in Yorkton. (Fruzsina De Cloedt / CTV News) According to Lepowick, there were about 17 stations set up at the event, with about 900 students able to try out the activities important to the Métis people. 'They're all having fun,' Lepowick said. 'I guess if you talk to kids, there are lots of laughter and lots of fun, and the aim of the event is to learn and to have fun.' Dr Brass School is proud of their Métis event and hope to bring it back for many more years to come.
CBC
14-05-2025
- General
- CBC
Ammo, greenhouses, food pantries: What Sahtu residents in N.W.T. say will help them put food on the table
Beatrice Kosh needs a bag of flour to make bannock. The 65-year-old Tulı́t'a, N.W.T., resident is waiting on a pension check to come at the end of the month and until then, she doesn't have the money to buy that flour for herself. "My neighbour … she's an elder next door too, she gave me a bowl of flour. So me and my common law [partner], we made bannock yesterday." But, said Kosh, she can't always ask her neighbour for help. "I only got about 20 cents to my name. But it's OK, I'll figure out something." Kosh was one of about 20 people who came out for a community meeting in Tulı́t'a last Thursday with Sahtu MLA Danny McNeely, and representatives from Food Banks Canada and Nutrition North. McNeely and both organizations visited the five Sahtu communities to talk about food security, and McNeely's idea to set up a food bank in each place. He sees those efforts as a way to help his constituents manage how expensive it is to live in the Sahtu, a problem made worse by barge cancellations in 2023 and 2024. Speaking to CBC News on Thursday, Kosh said a food bank in Tulı́t'a would help a lot of people, including herself, become more food secure. Helen Squirrel, another resident who attended the meeting last week, agreed. She said money being touted by Food Banks Canada and Nutrition North for tools to get out on the land to harvest traditional food, like fuel, ammunition and snowmobiles, would help too. "We can't just rely on store-bought groceries and that. We need to eat our traditional food because that's what keeps us going, keeps us strong," she said. Aron Ellton, who has lived in Fort Good Hope, N.W.T., his whole life, hunts caribou and moose. He said getting communities equipment to get out on the land will "open up a lot of other doors with the traditional foods." He'd like to see funding being used to teach people how to make dry fish. There's already a food pantry run by volunteers at the Our Lady of Good Hope Roman Catholic church. Ellton says growing that food bank could make a big difference because "there's a lot of people struggling here in town." In Délı̨nę, meanwhile, many people at a community meeting there talked about the need for healthy produce. Caroline Yukon, for example, said that people have diabetes because of poor diets of processed food. "When we get produce and vegetables in, it's bought right away or some of [it] is already bad," she said. When that happens, it means waiting on the next freight flight to bring in more fresh food. A solution she'd like to explore is setting up a community greenhouse. It's been tried before, she said, but it wasn't maintained by the volunteers who started it up. She thinks it's an idea worth revisiting. The touring delegation didn't sit down with members of the public in Colville Lake, but there was a meeting there with community leaders who expressed some reservations about what Food Banks Canada and McNeely were pitching. Joseph Kochon, the band manager for Behdzi Ahda First Nation, told the group that 90 per cent of his community's diet was traditional food. "The emphasis [is] on independence," said David Codzi who, along with Kochon, has many leadership roles in the community. "We don't want to pay for other people to do stuff for other people, you know like go hunting … we make sure that we provide things so that they can do all the things for themselves." Codzi said having more than one flight into the community each week would help, and also bringing in material goods for people to get out on the land and to hunt. "Those cost lots," he said. "Tents, stoves, fuel, ammunition, all that sort of thing has to come from somewhere. So when you think about [how] to keep that going, that's security for us." Shauna Spilchak of Norman Wells, meanwhile, said her town gets meat from outfitters after they take clients out hunting, and she said a community kitchen where that meat could be processed would be an asset to her community. "Somewhere to properly wrap, cut it, clean it, and then we could dole it out to the communities and ourselves better," she said. The Town of Norman Wells has operated a food pantry for four years. Its co-ordinator, Jaime Kearsey, said she currently organizes monthly food hampers for 28 families. Spilchak's daughter, Tiana, works with young families and said she wanted to see more high-fibre options in those hampers – like lentils and blueberries. They're expensive and sometimes of poor quality in the grocery store, she said. Food Banks Canada and Nutrition North Canada told residents in various communities that funding from their respective grants and programs could be used for many of the things residents expressed interest in, including traditional harvesting activities, greenhouses, and shelving for existing food pantries. The purpose of last week's trip was not only for both organizations to meet with people in the region and learn about their needs, but also to get a feel for whether there was support for McNeely's idea of establishing a food distribution hub in the region and organizing deliveries of donated food to each community.
CBC
11-05-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Residents in Mark Carney's N.W.T. hometown send care package of local goods to the new PM
A care package with goods from the prime minister's hometown in the N.W.T. is on its way to Ottawa — and the woman who put it together just hopes it'll make him smile. "It was not a political gesture," said Patti-Kay Hamilton, of Fort Smith, N.W.T., but rather a way "to say thanks for making me happy." Prime Minister Mark Carney was born in Fort Smith and lived in the southern N.W.T. town until his family moved south when he was about six years old. Hamilton said that when Carney mentions his birthplace in speeches and in interviews, he seems proud. Hamilton recalled watching a broadcast of Carney's visit to Iqaluit in March when she noticed he was shivering. "He just looked so cold and I yelled at the television, 'give the man a hat!'" she said. That's when it struck her that sending a fur hat is something she and others from Carney's hometown could do. Once others in Fort Smith got word, Hamilton said people were dropping all kinds of things by her house for the new prime minister. There's no fur hat in the care package that's now in the mail, but residents sent a recipe for bannock, a loppet toque, CDs from Fort Smith musicians, a broach carved from buffalo horn, a tiny boat to commemorate Fort Smith's history as the largest shipyard in the territory, and a book about the historic 1968 landslide in Fort Smith that would have affected some of the children Carney went to kindergarten with in Fort Smith. The federal government's website includes a section on gifts and items sent to the prime minister, and it says some items can't be accepted for security reasons, like perishable goods. That's why Hamilton couldn't send the jam or honey or spruce salve that some residents dropped off. The bannock recipe in the care package is from Barb Mercredi and she had important advice to make sure the prime minister gets it right. "One important thing when making bannock is, don't over knead. Only knead 10 times [and] make sure the oven rack is in the middle," she said in a Facebook message. The package also includes a beaded infinity symbol from the Fort Smith Métis, a stained glass hanging, and a small tumble stone — a unique kind of rock that gets shaped by the swirling river, also called concretion rocks. Hamilton said she now has a good collection of tumble stone. "Little kids in the neighborhood found out and they started dropping them off at my back door," Hamilton said. "Finally we found a little small tumble stone that might be something he might remember from his childhood when he was here." Also included in the care package is a book Hamilton wrote, chronicling the life of trapper and bush man Pi Kennedy. Hamilton said it was Kennedy's idea to send it, suggesting Carney might benefit from some of the book's lessons. "A trapper with a dog team is a lot like a prime minister ...you have to keep trying even if you fall off the dog sleigh," Hamilton said Kennedy told her. "[Carney] should remember that if he ever gets cornered by a pack of wolves, stand your ground, don't back down, and never turn your back on a hungry bear — those were [Kennedy's] messages."
