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The First Peoples’ Performing Arts Pageant returned to the Royal Theatre in Gananoque from September 23-25. An annual occasion working towards reconciliation, it permits folks not solely to recollect however to be taught extra in regards to the First Nations peoples, their historical past and the place issues are actually, opening up prospects for the long run.

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This 12 months’s theme was, We’re Nonetheless Right here. The occasion opened on Friday, Sept. 23 with a welcoming by Shannon Olivier and Brittany Leborgne and the exhibiting of the movie, Night time Raiders, a dystopian science fiction drama.

Leborgne hosted the occasion and adopted the movie with a question-and-answer session.

“I’m an actor finest identified for my work on the comedy sequence on CBC referred to as Mohawk Ladies,” stated Leborgne. “The movie is a narrative a few lady who joins a resistance motion in opposition to the army authorities so as to save her daughter. It serves as an allegory for the Indian Residential College system.”

An indigenous crafts present and sale was featured on the Saturday, which began at 11 a.m. and ran all through the day.

Two tales and storytellers additionally carried out. Mohawk man Kevin John Saylor introduced the story, The Two Daughters, and Meti lady Clarice Gervais shared the Meti story of The Giving Tree, which is significantly totally different from the story by writer Shel Silverstein.

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Different options of the day included the Mom/Daughter Connection – Passing Down Traditions and Whispering Winds, that includes Roderick Gabriel and Laurie Younger. An hour efficiency of Shimmering Waters supplied conventional music to the afternoon. Within the night, the viewers was handled to a live performance by Twin Flames, finest identified for Human, UNESCO’s official track to have fun the Worldwide 12 months of Indigenous Languages, and the album Omen. They do appreciable work with kids and younger folks throughout the nation conducting workshops that blend puppetry and music to show Canadian historical past by the angle of the First Nations. As a result of pandemic, they broadened their instructing by conducting digital periods.

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Sunday, Sept. 25 concluded the pageant with drumming, singing and dancing by the Olin Drum circle, adopted by a gathering on the Little Footwear Memorial in town corridor steps and a Stroll of Fact and Reconciliation down Stone Road and stopping on the totally different church buildings previous to stopping on the First Peoples Park of the Thousand Islands.

“The First Peoples are very a lot nonetheless right here, and The First Peoples’ Performing Arts Pageant of the Thousand Islands helps to remind everybody of how far they’ve come and the way a lot farther we’ve to go,” stated Frayne McCarthy of the Royal Theatre.

Laid out on the steps of City Corridor had been the little sneakers that remind everybody of the patter of little toes – little toes belonging to kids who had been torn from the loving arms of their households, put into residential faculties, and who by no means lived to develop up. Though there have been no particular companies this 12 months for the Nationwide Day for Fact and Reconciliation, the City of Gananoque introduced an inventory of concepts to assist acknowledge the occasion. These included listening to among the twelve hours of broadcasting dedicated to Amplifying Indigenous Voices, visiting the memorial on the City Corridor steps, contributing to the Orange Shirt Society Fund and taking the time to be taught extra about what it’s all about and what we are able to do now. Gananoque poet laureate Gretchen Huntley wrote a particular poem for the occasion. It begins with:

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“Take each pair of sneakers
Then multiply by ten
Then take that very ten
And multiply once more

Each time you do that
Multiply the ache
Of every one in all these kids
Who won’t ever be seen once more…”

There is no such thing as a excuse for what occurred, no method to actually perceive the why behind it, no method to wash away the blood or restore these treasured lives misplaced. All that may be completed now could be to pay attention, be taught, and attain out to verify it by no means occurs once more.

To be taught extra, go to www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/national-day-truth-reconciliation.html.

To donate to the Orange Shirt Society Fund, go to www.orangeshirtday.org/.