INDIGENOUS WEEK IN MUSKOKA BEGINS MONDAY DAWN TO DUSK
Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com
BRACEBRIDGE — Too bad you can’t give an Indigenous person a hug.
Social distancing being what it is — maybe a thumbs up is the best you can do under pandemic circumstances.
Not to be trite, but from sun up to sun down tomorrow may be your opportunity to acknowledge Canada’s First Nations in your own way.
The start of aboriginal awareness week begins at 5:30 a.m. on the first day of summer when as a sign of recognition and remembrance for Indian Residential School residents — and those whose unmarked graves were found in Kamloops — they are commemorated with an “awareness-raising” of signs that will be placed here Memorial Park where the display will remain until dusk.
At 1 p.m. a public ceremony will take place at the park, which will include First Nations drummers, words from Indian Residential School survivor Elder Lila Tobobondung and from Traditional Elder Doug Pawis.
Trisha Cowie says it’s small, but powerful gesture in which everyone can show their support.
She and Parry Sound-Muskoka MP Scott Aichison co-organized the event, which will see the signs moved around Muskoka the following four days to parks in Port Carling, Gravenhurst, Port Severn and Huntsville.
“Any Indigenous person in Canada knows the story,” she said, but Canadians as a whole “are lacking in education of with regard to the truth of Canada’s past, for sure.”
Cowie knows the story well. As a First Nations person she is a student of her people’s history and culture.
And she wants to share that knowledge through events like this.
“I hope so. I hope it will bring awareness, educate and hopefully motivate the people to act.
“Because testament only goes so far.”
She said the Truth and Reconciliation Committee report was released in 2015 “and there have been probably 50 other reports since then,” including one on murdered and missing Indigenous women report with another 124 calls to action.”
Cowie said: “The time for talking about it and the sentiment of grief and sorrow is over. We need to start taking those steps more quickly toward action and getting things accomplished.”
So what can all Canadians do?
It’s about “individual responsibility,” she said.
“Self educate” — get to know the history, “which is really important.”
She urges people to join a book club like one she’s part of and read aboriginal authors.
“There are things we can continue to do on a local level.
“One of the easiest things that every single person can do is write to their elected officials and say ‘Get to work. We want this accomplished.”
Including commemorations sites, she said.
That’s why this week is so important as another first step toward reconciliation on a she hopes will be shorter.
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