It was a beautiful day Friday with blue skies overhead for the flag raising commemoration ceremony at Fort Battleford. (Martin Martinson/battlefordsNOW Staff)

By Martin Martinson

A memorable day

The Battlefords celebrates National Indigenous Peoples Day

Jun 21, 2019 | 6:23 PM

From a pancake breakfast to a historic signing and flag raising, there was plenty of celebration to be had for National Indigenous People’s Day in the Battlefords.

The Battle River Treaty 6 Health Care Centre hosted the breakfast and Manager of the Homecare Service Program Laurie Ironstand said with sunshine throughout the morning, they couldn’t have asked for a better day to host the event.

“The day was wonderful,” she said. “It’s wonderful when we have everyone out to share the values we have in our organization, and in our culture. It’s good to see the general public come out to share this day with us because it’s an important awareness day for our people and it’s really nice to see when North Battleford comes together for an event like this.”

With several schools taking part in the day’s events, youth of all ages were seen making the most of their day out of the classroom: playing hopscotch, blowing bubbles, and enjoying the complimentary breakfast.

Hundreds of people came out, and hundreds of pancakes were served, at the annual pancake breakfast hosted by Battle River Treaty 6 Health Centre Friday. (Martin Martinson/battlefordsNOW Staff)

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Executive Director Patty Whitecalf Ironstand said seeing the young kids running around and having a good time was a highlight of her morning.

“It’s special,” she said. “Kids are our future. It’s important to give them something that they can be proud of, and even though they may not know the significance of today, when they’re older they can talk about the celebration or the agreement signing, and remember being here. It’s an important part of history for them as well.”

Following the morning of celebration in North Battleford was a flag raising ceremony at Fort Battleford to commemorate the 12 First Nation communities in the area. Plans are to in place to have new interpretive panels installed reflecting the history of the site dating back to 1885, and to recognize the Indigenous lives that were lost.

Adrianna Bacheschi, who helped organize the flag raising, said she was pleased with how the ceremony went.

“It was nice to see everyone here and it was actually quite emotional to see the flags being raised to the sound of the drums. I think it’s a long time coming,” she said. “This is a special place for all the First Nations in the region. It has a very complicated, tragic, but important, history so to see a place dedicated to them is very exciting.”

Bacheschi said events like the flag raising are important because of what the ceremony signifies.

“What we’re trying to do is talk about the history with all the voices,” she said. “Bringing that perspective is something we sometimes didn’t do very well [historically]. Bringing the voices of the First Nations groups and their own history to this place [is important] so generations can learn about it, but learn in the proper voices with people telling their own stories.”

With both young and old on hand for the flag raising, Bacheschi said it’s nice to see people of all ages coming together to commemorate the history of Fort Battleford.

“[Inter]generational peace is important,” she said. “Especially since this is about telling history. In a place like Fort Battleford we have a very difficult history to tell because very tragic events happened here, but it’s also a very important history; import in the formation of the region, and even the formation of Canada.”

Eric Tootoosis, who spoke at the ceremony, said the event marks an important step forward in the intercultural healing process.

“There has to be a point where we have to have a beginning of forgiveness and be able to move onward,” he said. “That era was declared, an era of reconciliation, and this is ours. This is Battleford’s this is The Fort’s; the beginning of reconciliation.”

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Martin.Martinson@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: MartyMartyPxP1