Close to 10,000 people from across North America will be coming to Poundmaker’s Lodge this August for the treatment centre’s annual powwow.
Poundmaker’s Lodge Treatment Centres is hosting its annual competition powwow this Aug. 2 to 4. The event typically draws up to 10,000 people to the lodge’s powwow grounds for a celebration of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit culture.
Guests at the powwow, which is free to attend, should expect amazing performances by Indigenous drummers and dancers from across the continent, many of whom will be competing for cash prizes, said Poundmaker’s community engagement officer Carla Jamison. There will also be food trucks, vendors, and information booths run by addictions recovery groups.
The powwow should be a great cultural experience for everyone, Jamison said.
“Culture is cure,” she said, and culture is a key part of the centre’s addictions treatment plans.
“When you bring people in and teach them about their culture and how to connect with it, it creates a wholeness so they can start to heal.”
Not just a dance
Edmonton’s Adrian LaChance and the rest of the Running Thunder Dancers will be among the hundreds of dancers competing at the powwow.
“Powwow dancing has saved my life from a path of self-destruction,” said the 52-year-old, and helped him stay drug-and-alcohol free for 29 years.
LaChance was one of North America’s many professional powwow dancers and was reached by the Gazette while en route to a powwow in Onion Lake, Sask. Some dancers can make a living off competitive dancing, he noted, and will spend all summer going from powwow to powwow.
“It gives us a lot of good feelings, good energy, healing, and laughter,” LaChance said of powwows — sort of like what rodeos do for their competitors, with less getting bucked off of angry bulls.
LaChance said guests at the Poundmaker’s powwow will see competitors perform many dances, each of which has roots in First Nations tradition. The grass dance sees performers sway like blades of grass, for example, and reflects how people used to flatten grass to prepare a site for ceremonies. Chicken dance performers emulate the mating mannerisms of the prairie chicken, while fancy dancers take traditional dances and spice them up with modern day flips and whirls.
“I’ve been told some stories that it represents the tornado,” LaChance said of the fancy dance.
LaChance himself planned to perform the men’s traditional dance at the powwow. According to LaChance and the Canadian Encyclopedia, this dance was one of the oldest First Nations dances, and was once performed by warriors who would re-enact hunts or battles for the rest of a village. Expect performers to stay low to the ground, as if looking for tracks or moving like a four-legged animal, and to wear full face-paint and eagle-feather bustles.
LaChance said he hopes his dances will help others to find healing and honour those who can no longer dance themselves.
“We all have some type of greatness within us. Some of us just have to dig a little deeper.”
The Poundmaker powwow opens Aug. 2 with a grand entry ceremony at 7 p.m. Guests can drive to the Poundmaker’s Lodge grounds on Poundmaker Road or take the shuttle bus from the Nakî Transit Centre.
Questions on the powwow should go to Jamison at 780-458-1884 ext. 105.
